Verse 38. “But thou hast cast off and abhorred, thou hast been wroth with thine anointed.” This 89th Psalm consists of as many verses as year does of weeks, and has, like the year, its summer and winter. The summer part is the former; wherein the church, having reaped a most rich crop (the best blessings of heaven and earth) the psalmist breaks forth into the praises of their gracious Benefactor, “I will sing of the mercies of the Lord for ever.” So he begins, and so he continues for a great way. And who now would expect anything but mercies, and singing and summer all the way? But summer ceases and winter commences at this verse 38; “But thou hast cast off and abhorred, thou hast been wroth with thine anointed.” Mercies and singing are now turned into troubles and mourning. Nothing shall you hear now but bitter queries and expostulations – until you come to the last verse; and there, the good man has come to himself again. Though God be angry with His people, the psalmist cannot part with Him in discontent. Though God had laden them with crosses, he lifts up his head and precents God with blessing – “Blessed be the Lord for ever more. Amen, and Amen.” He blesses Him for winter as well as for summer, for troubles as well as for mercies. And so, if we circle the psalm, and bring both ends together, we find a fit resemblance between the year and it. For the last verse of the psalm has as much affinity with the first, as far as content goes, as the last day of the year has with the first in its season.
Verse 41. “All that pass by the way spoil him: he is a reproach to his neighbours.” Idle passers-by, who have nothing else to do, must needs have a pluck at this vine, and they do it without difficulty, seeing the hedges are gone; (verse 40 – “Thou hast broken down all his hedges.”) Woe is the day when every pretty reasoner has an argument against religion, and men are fluent in their objections against the gospel of Jesus. Although Jesus on the cross is nothing to them, and they pass Him by without inquiring into what He has done for them, yet they can loiter as long as you will, if there be but the hope of driving another nail into His hands and helping to crucify the Lord afresh. They will not touch Him with the finger of faith, but they pluck at Him with the hand of malice.
Verse 48. “What man is he that liveth and shall not see death? Shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave?” When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies within me. When I read the dates of the tombs – of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I think of that great day when we shall all of us be contemporaries and make our appearance together.
Verse 51. “Wherewith thine enemies have reproached, O Lord; wherewith they have reproached the footsteps of thine anointed.” One old version of the Bible renders it, “They have scoffed at the tardiness of Thy Messiah’s footsteps.” How true that was. All of Christ’s ways and actions – His manner of birth and place of upbringing – were a constant source of reproach and scoffing for the unbelieving Jews of His day on earth. The whole path that His footsteps trod was a scandal to those people because they failed to see the necessity of such a “walk” for Messiah as the fulfilment of the very heart and centre of all prophecy concerning Him. “Thou shalt bruise his heel.” His “footsteps” at His first coming had to be of such a lowly manner as would feel and show that bruising of His heel predicted. But because men failed to see this, then they scoffed at the “tardiness,” and made His gracious lowliness a stumbling block to their hearts. It is the same with regards to the imagined “slowness” of His footsteps, concerning His second coming. “Where is the promise of his coming?” they scoffed in Peter’s Day, and do so yet, if they give any thought to that coming again at all. But as surely as He appeared in exactly the way predicted and spoken of for His first coming, so He will also in His second:
“Our God shall come, and not be slow,
His footsteps cannot err.”
Verse 52. “Blessed be the Lord for ever more. Amen, and Amen.” He ends where he began; he has sailed round the world and reached port again. Let us praise God before we pray, while we pray, and when we have done praying, for he always deserves it of us. If we cannot understand him, we will not distrust him.