GLEANINGS IN THE PSALMS

(Psalm 55)

Subject. It would be idle to fix a time, and find an occasion for the Psalm with dogmatism. It reads like a song from the time of Absalom and Ahithophel. Altogether, it seems to us to relate to that mournful era when David was betrayed by his own trusted counsellor. The spiritual eye, however, sees the Great Son of David and Judas, and the chief priests appearing and disappearing upon the glowing canvas of the Psalm.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

Verse 1. “Give ear to my prayers, O God.” From the Great Elder Brother down to the very least of the Divine family, all of them delight in prayer. They run as naturally to the Mercy-Seat as the little chickens to the hen in the hour of danger. But note well that it is never the bare act of prayer which satisfies the godly; they crave an audience with heaven, and answer from the throne, and nothing less will content them. “And hide not thyself from my supplications,” says David. When a man saw his neighbour in distress, and deliberately passes him by, he was said to hide himself from him; and the psalmist begs that the Lord would not so treat him. In that dread hour when Jesus bore our sins upon the tree, his Father did hide Himself, and this was the most dreadful part of all the Son of David's agony.

C. H. S.

Verse 6. “And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! For then would I fly away and be at rest.” When the Gauls had tasted the wine of Italy, they asked where the grapes grew, and would never be quiet till they came there. Thus may you cry, “Oh that I had wings like a dove! For then would I fly away and be at rest.” A believer is willing to lose the world for the enjoyment of grace; and he is willing to leave the world for the fruition of glory.

William Secker

Verse 9. “Destroy, O Lord, and divide their tongues …” After our Lord was betrayed, His accusers' tongues were truly destroyed and they themselves divided, for the testimony of the two false witnesses agreed not together, and the soldiers who had kept the sepulchre contradicted one another about what had taken place at the time of the resurrection.

J. M. Neale

Verse 12. “For it was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it.” It is remarkable that the Lord, who endured the other unspeakable sorrows and agonies of His passion in perfect and marvellous silence, allowed His grief at this one sorrow to escape Him, bewailing Himself to His disciples that one of them should betray Him.

Fra Thome de Jesu

Verse 16. “As for me, I will call upon God, and the Lord shall save me.” For my own part, since first my unbelief was felt, I have been praying fifteen years for faith, and yet am not possessed of more than half a grain. You smile, sir, I perceive, at the smallness of the quantity; but you would not if you knew its efficacy. Jesus, who knew it well, assures you that a single grain, and a grain as small as a mustard seed, would remove a mountain. So, half a grain may remove a mountain-load of guilt from the conscience, a mountain-load of trouble from the mind, a mountain-load of care from the heart.

John Berridge

Verse 17. “Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray …” A thousand prayers! Who ever offered so many? You have during the last year, if you have kept the resolution of the psalmist: “Evening, and morning, and noon, will I pray …” There are more than a thousand prayers.

Anon.

Verse 19. “… Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God.” Because they find all things going on in the old ways of providence, therefore, they go on in the old ways of sinfulness, and “they fear not God.” Intimating that … if the Lord would but change, and toss, and tumble them about, by various troublesome dispensations, surely they would fear him.

Joseph Caryl

Verse 22. “Cast thy burden upon the Lord …” Men do not avail themselves of the riches of God's grace, they love to nurse their cares and seem as uneasy without some fret as an old friar would be without his hair shirt. They are commanded to cast their cares upon the Lord … but think it meritorious to walk burdened. They take God's ticket to heaven, and then put on their baggage on their shoulders, and tramp the whole way there on foot.

H.W. Beecher