“As when one plows and breaks up the earth, our bones are scattered at the mouth of Sheol.”
Parallel Translations
-
“As when one plows and breaks up the earth, our bones are scattered at the mouth of Sheol.”
-
Our bones are scattered at the grave’s mouth, as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth.
-
As when one cleaveth and breaketh up the earth, our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth.
Cross-references (7)
Passages linked to Psalms 141:7 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Psalms 53:5 There they were in great fear, where no fear was, for God has scattered the bones of him who encamps against you. You have put them to shame, because God has rejected them.
- Romans 8:36 Even as it is written, “For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”
- Psalms 44:22 Yes, for your sake we are killed all day long. We are regarded as sheep for the slaughter.
- Revelation 11:8-9 Their dead bodies will be in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. From among the peoples, tribes, languages, and nations, people will look at their dead bodies for three and a half days, and will not allow their dead bodies to be laid in a tomb.
- 1 Samuel 22:18-19 The king said to Doeg, “Turn and attack the priests!” Doeg the Edomite turned, and he attacked the priests, and he killed on that day eighty-five people who wore a linen ephod. He struck Nob, the city of the priests, with the edge of the sword, both men and women, children and nursing babies, and cattle and donkeys and sheep, with the edge of the sword.
- 2 Corinthians 1:9 Yes, we ourselves have had the sentence of death within ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead,
- Hebrews 11:37 They were stoned. They were sawn apart. They were tempted. They were slain with the sword. They went around in sheep skins and in goat skins; being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated—
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (14 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Private notes
Saved on this device only — never synced or sent anywhere.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 7. As one who breaketh, etc. Here David complains…
7. As one who breaketh, etc. Here David complains that his enemies were not satisfied with inflicting upon him one death — death of a common description — but must first mangle him, and those associated with him, and then cast them into the grave. The common robber on the highway throws the body of his murdered victim whole into the ditch; David tells us, that he and those with him were treated more barbarously, their Bones being dispersed, as one cleaves wood or stones into fragments, or digs the earth. From this it appears, that David, like Paul, (2 Corinthians 1:9,) was delivered from deaths oft; If David here refers to the treatment he and his followers met with at the hands of Saul, this exhibits in dark colors the extreme inhumanity of that monarch. “We are not sufficiently informed,” says Walford, “respecting the cruelties which were perpetrated against David and those who adhered to him, to enable us to point out the instances to which he here alludes; but the murder of Abimelech, and of the priests who were with him, furnishes a pregnant proof of the atrocities which Saul and his agents were capable of perpetrating. (See 1 Samuel 22.) It appears from the language of this verse that such enormities were not confined to a few cases, but must have been numerous, to give occasion to the image which is employed to describe them.” How striking the contrast between David’s treatment of Saul, and that which Saul adopted towards him! Mr. Peters in his Dissertations on Job, gives an exposition of this 7th verse which is ingenious, and which Archbishop Secker calls “admirable, though not quite unexceptionable.” Understanding the verse as referring to the slaughter of the priests at Nob, just now adverted to, he renders the words שאול לפי, (which Calvin translates, at the grave’s mouth,) at the mouth, that is, at the command of Saul. In support of this translation he produces similar expressions, על פי פרעה, at the command of Pharaoh, (Genesis 45:21,) and על פיך, at thy command. (Job 39:17.) To this rendering there is, however, this strong objection, that we do not find David ever mentioning Saul by name in any of the Psalms. Peters, indeed, states that this objection was offered to him against his view, and he endeavors to remove it, though, as we think, with indifferent success.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Here appeareth that David was miraculously delivered out of…
Here appeareth that David was miraculously delivered out of many deaths, as 2 Cor. 1:9, 10.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Psa 141:7 Our bones are scattered at the grave’s…
Psa 141:7 Our bones are scattered at the grave’s mouth, as when one cutteth and cleaveth [wood] upon the earth.
Ver. 7. Our bones are scattered at the grave’s mouth] i.e. I and my company are in a dying condition, free among the dead; yea, if taken we should be put to most cruel deaths, hewn in pieces, or pulled limb from limb, and left unburied; and our dead bodies mangled by a barbarous inhumanity, as wood cleavers make the shivers fly hither and thither. This is the perilous case of me, and my partisans, Non una et simplici morte contenti sunt.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Our bones; my bones, and the bones of my…
Our bones; my bones, and the bones of my friends and followers. Our skin and flesh is in a manner consumed, and there is nothing left of us but a company of dead and dry belles; whereby he intimates that their condition was desperate. Compare Eze 37:11.
Are scattered at the grave’s mouth; either,
Read full note →
1. Literally and properly. So barbarously cruel were our enemies, that they not only killed us, but left our carcasses unburied, by which means our flesh and sinews, &c. were consumed or torn in pieces by wild beasts, and our bones dispersed ripen the time of the earth, our common grave; or if any of my followers were dead and buried, they pulled their bones out of the grave, and scattered them about. Or rather,
2. Metaphorically. So the sense is, Our case is almost as hopeless as of those who are dead, and whose bones are scattered in several places.
As when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth; as much neglected and despised by them as the chips which a carpenter makes when he is cutting wood, which he will not stoop to take up. Or rather, as the LXX., and Chaldee, and Syriac understand it, and as it is in the Hebrew, as when one (to wit, the husbandman) cutteth and cleaveth the earth, or in the earth, which he teareth without any mercy.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth,.... Into…
Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth,.... Into which they were not suffered to be put, but lay unburied; or from whence they were dug up, and lay scattered about; which is to be understood of such of David's friends as fell into the hands of Saul and his men, and were slain: perhaps it may refer to the fourscore and five priests, and the inhabitants of Nob, slain by the order of Saul, Sa1 22:18. Though the phrase may be only proverbial, and be expressive of the danger David and his men were in, and their sense of it, who looked upon themselves like dry bones, hopeless and helpless, and had the sentence of death in themselves, and were as it were at the mouth of the grave, on the brink of ruin;
as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth: and the chips fly here and there, and are disregarded; such was their case: or as men cut and cleave the earth with the plough, and it is tore up by it, and falls on each side of it, so are we persecuted, afflicted, and distressed by our enemies, and have no mercy shown us; so the Targum,
Read full note →
"as a man that cuts and cleaves with ploughshares in the earth, so our members are scattered at the grave's mouth.''
The Syriac and Arabic versions understand it of the ploughshare cutting the earth.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Our bones - Our case is almost as hopeless…
Our bones - Our case is almost as hopeless as of those who are dead, and whose bones are scattered in several places.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Psa 141:7. Our bones are scattered, &c. — So…
Psa 141:7. Our bones are scattered, &c. — So barbarously cruel were our enemies that they not only killed many of our friends, but left their carcasses unburied, by which means their flesh, and sinews, &c., were consumed, or torn in pieces by wild beasts, and their bones dispersed upon the face of the earth, our common grave. The words are thought to refer to Saul’s barbarity and cruelty to David’s friends, in the horrid massacre of Ahimelech and the priests, by the hand of Doeg; perpetrated in such a savage manner that he compares it to the chopping and cleaving of wood, as if he had said, “How unlike, how barbarous, has their treatment been of me! My best friends slaughtered in great numbers, at the command of Saul, (so some render לפי שׁאול, instead of, at the grave’s mouth,) and hewn to pieces in his presence, as one would cut or chop a piece of wood:” see Peters.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Our bones are scattered at the grave’s mouth -…
Our bones are scattered at the grave’s mouth - We are, indeed, now like bones scattered in the places of graves; we seem to be weak, feeble, disorganized. We are in a condition which of itself seems to be hopeless: as hopeless as it would be for dry bones scattered when they were buried to rise up and attack an enemy. The reference is to the condition of David and his followers as pursued by a mighty foe. His hope was not in his own forces, but in the power and interposition of God Psa 141:8.
As when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth - Like chips, blocks, splinters, that have no strength; as when these lie scattered around - a fit emblem of our feeble and scattered forces.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 7. Our bones are scattered at the grave’s mouth—Hebrew,…
7. Our bones are scattered at the grave’s mouth—Hebrew, At the mouth of sheol. A figure denoting wanton and indiscriminate destruction: See Psa_53:5; Eze_6:5
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 7. As when one splitteth and cleaveth (wood) upon…
7. As when one splitteth and cleaveth (wood) upon the earth,
Our bones are scattered at the mouth of Sheol.
Read full note →
Precipitation from a rock was a common method of execution in ancient times (cp. 2Ch_25:12; Luk_4:29), and the meaning would seem to be that when the judges or leaders of the “workers of iniquity” mentioned in Psa_141:4 (for it is to them that the pronoun their must refer) have met with the fate they deserve, their followers (or people in general) will welcome the Psalmist’s advice and exhortation. ‘Judges’ however, though it may mean ‘rulers’ (Mic_5:1; Dan_9:12), is not a natural word to use for the leaders of a class or party. Must not the reference be rather to the corrupt judges by whose help the rich and powerful procured the condemnation and even the judicial murder of the poor and defenceless? Cp. Mic_7:2-3.
Taken by itself the next verse would seem to describe a national disaster, some defeat after which the bodies of the slain lay unburied on the field of battle. Cp. Psa_53:5. But there is no hint of such a disaster in the rest of the Psalm, and we can only suppose that the Psalmist, when he uses the first person, ‘our bones,’ is speaking on behalf of those with whom he is in sympathy, the godly who are the victims of persecution and oppression. While the wicked and their judges are still in power they are murdered, and their dead bodies call for vengeance; or, if the expression be taken as hyperbolical (cp. Mic_3:2-3), they are deprived of all that makes life worth living, and are no better than bleaching skeletons, ready to be swallowed up by the greedy jaws of Sheol. Some MSS of the LXX, and the Syriac, read their bones, i.e. the bones of the judges who have been executed, but this is probably only a conjectural correction to get rid of the difficulty.
The meaning of the last line is uncertain. Most of the Ancient Versions (Aq. Symm. Jer. Targ. Syr.), and most modern commentators, render as R.V., as when one ploweth and cleaveth the earth, on the ground that this rendering is required by the usage of the language. In Aramaic and in cognate languages the first verb means to plow, cultivate: it comes from the same root as the modern Arabic fellah. But neither it nor the second verb is used in the O.T. in this sense, and the comparison of the bodies or bones of the slain to the clods or stones turned up by the plough is not an obvious one. On the other hand the second verb may certainly mean to cleave wood (Ecc_10:9), and the first is used in 2Ki_4:39 of slicing up gourds; and the comparison of the scattered and bleaching bones of the slain to the splinters and chips made by the woodcutter at his work and left scattered and uncared for is forcible and graphic.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (7) Our bones.—The literal rendering of this verse is…
(7) Our bones.—The literal rendering of this verse is As when one cutteth and cleaveth in the earth our bones are scattered at the mouth of Sheôl.
The reading “our bones” necessarily makes this an abrupt transition from the fate of the unjust judges in the last verse to that of the afflicted people, but in a correction by a second hand in the Codex Alex. of the LXX. we find the much easier and more satisfactory “their bones”—a reading confirmed by the Syriac, Ethiopic, and Arabic versions; as also by the fact that the word here rendered “cleave” is that employed in 2Ch_25:12 (see reference above, Psa_141:6) of the Edomites thrown from the cliff. But the abrupt transition is not unlikely in Hebrew poetry, and the more difficult reading is according to rule to be preserved.
Read full note →
The figure is mistaken in the Authorised Version. The reference is not to the ground strewn with the logs left by a woodcutter, but to the clods of earth left by the plough. Keeping the present text, and making the figure refer to the righteous, we should naturally compare Psa_129:3, where ploughing is used as an image of affliction and torture, as “harrewing” is with us. The verse might be paraphrased: “We have been so harrowed and torn that we are brought to the brink of the grave,” the image being, however, heightened by the recollection of some actual massacre.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Our bones are scattered at the grave"s mouth. The…
Our bones are scattered at the grave"s mouth. The calamity is not confined to the "judges." The bones of the people generally lie scattered at hews mouth unburied, i.e., but ready to go down to Hades. As when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth; rather, as when one cleaves and breaks up the earth. "The bones of God"s servants were strewn as thickly ever the ground as stones over a newly ploughed piece of soil, so that the Holy Land looked as if it had become an antechamber of Hades" (Kay).
Vers. 7, 8. The victory of faith.
Read full note →
In these verses two contrasted scenes are set before us. We are shown
I AN UTTERLY HOPELESS CONDITION.
1. The psalmist seems to be contemplating the mournful state of the people of God, of whom he rejoices to be one. He represents them as being not merely a defeated company, but large numbers of them destroyed, and their bodies in long furrow-like heaps left in dishonored and horrible neglect to be the prey of the vultures and the wolves. Overwhelming destruction has come upon them; they seem fallen, to rise no more. It is a piteous sight for the survivor to contemplate; for they are his own people, he identifies himself with them. "Our bones," he says, "are scattered," etc. He might well cast himself down in despair.
2. And how often in the history of the Church of God, and in the lives of individual men, such seemingly sad and hopeless conditions are met with! The Bible gives us instances not a few. See Abraham when called on to offer Isaac as a burnt offering; how dark the prospect seemed then! Moses, when sent to deliver Israel from Egypt. Gideon, when the Midianites were ravaging the land. David before Goliath. How reasonable it had been if despair had fastened upon them and upon many other such tried souls! And many a child of God is today brought into like circumstances, his soul smitten down to the gates of death, even as our Lord in Gethsemane.
II A VIRTUOUS FAITH NOTWITHSTANDING. (Ver. 8) True, there lay his hopes, scattered, overwhelmed, destroyed, like the bones of a defeated, destroyed, dead but unburied army. Nevertheless, the soul of the psalmist is up unto God. "Mine eyes are unto thee, O God the Lord." The more hopeless the state of things seemed, the more steadfastly was his gaze fixed on God, the more emphatically was his confession given. "In thee is my trust;" and the more confidently ascended his prayer. It is a beautiful spectacle, the soul holding on to God in spite of all the buffetings of disastrous circumstances, and all "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," in spite, too, of the apparent abandonment of his career by God. O glorious faith, what hast thou not done? what canst thou not and wilt thou not do?
III SOME REASONS WHEREFORE THESE THINGS ARE SO.
1. As to the sad and seemingly hopeless conditions in which God"s people often find themselves. They are terrible trials to a man"s faith; often men have utterly broken down under them, and fallen into the depths of atheism and irreligion. Faith is not universally victorious, sometimes far otherwise. Wherefore, then, are such trials sent? Well, sometimes to give opportunity for bearing the most emphatic testimony for God that a human soul can give. One chief reason of the cross of Christ was that he might there, as, blessed be his Name! he did, give such mighty testimony to the all-sustaining power of the love of God. Those whom he came to save had fearful sorrows to bear, and on the cross he showed them that God was the great Burden-bearer, the never-failing Solace and Stay of the soul. And for like reason his people now are often called upon to bear burdens heavy indeed. Then another reason is that there is no other way whereby the innate and inveterate earthliness of the human heart can be overcome. God has to let men see that this world will not satisfy them, no, not even when its pleasures are of the fairest and most innocent kind. We are so apt, so certain, to think they will, that God has not seldom to "scatter our bones at the grave"s mouth," ere we will see our mistake. The earthly cords that hold the soul down have to be cut. And also to compel men to take refuge in God, to drive them to the shelter and shadow of his wings. And God deals thus with individual souls, that others through them may learn that this is not our rest, but that God is.
2. Then as to the blessed victorious faith, its explanation is:
(1) The grace of God. Bunyan tells of the picture seen by Christian of the fire which would burn on in spite of water perpetually and profusely poured upon it, and when he wondered how this could be, he says that he saw a man, unseen by others, continually pouring oil on the fire, and so it burnt on in spite of the water. That is ever the explanation of victorious faith the grace of God secretly keeps it alive.
(2) The power of prayer. "Mine eyes," etc. His soul looked to God continually.
(3) The habit of trust. "In thee is my trust." The will more than the reason is needed. "I will trust, and not be afraid." This blessed habit can and should be zealously cultivated.
IV WHAT ENSUES.
1. God is glorified by such faith. How could it be otherwise?
2. Our suffering brethren are greatly helped by the testimony we give.
3. The peace of God fills our own soul. S.C.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain Ver. 7. David's case seemed hopeless: the cause of…
Ver. 7. David's case seemed hopeless: the cause of God in Israel was as a dead thing, even as a skeleton broken, and rotten, and shovelled out of the grave, to return as dust to its dust. Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth. There seemed to be no life, no cohesion, no form, order, or headship among the godly party in Israel: Saul had demolished it, and scattered all its parts, so that it did not exist as an organized whole. David himself was like one of these dried bones, and the rest of the godly were in much the same condition. There seemed to be no vitality or union among the holy seed; but their cause lay at death's door. As when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth. They were like wood divided and thrown apart: not as one piece of timber, nor even as a bundle, but all cut to pieces, and thoroughly divided. Leaving out the word "wood", which is supplied by the translators, the figure relates to cleaving upon the earth, which probably means ploughing, but may signify any other form of chopping and splitting, such as felling a forest, tearing up bushes, or otherwise causing confusion and division. How often have good men thought thus of the cause of God! Wherever they have looked, death, division, and destruction have stared them in the face. Cut and cloven, hopelessly sundered! Scattered, yea, scattered at the grave's mouth! Split up and split for the fire! Such the cause of God and truth has seemed to be. "Upon the earth" the prospect was wretched; the field of the church was ploughed, burrowed, and scarified: it had become like a wood chopper's yard, where everything was doomed to be broken up. We have seen churches in such a state, and have been heart broken. What a mercy that there is always a place above the earth to which we can look! There lives One who will give a resurrection to his cause, and a reunion to his divided people. He will bring up the dead bones from the grave's mouth, and make the dried faggots live again. Let us imitate the Psalmist in the next verse, and look up to the living God.
Ver. 7. Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth, etc. The primary reference may be to the slaughter of the priests by the command of Saul, 1Sa 22:16-19. The language, however, may be illustrative of the many massacres like that on the eve of St. Bartholomew, so numerous as to be scattered on the face of the earth, marking the passage of pious martyrs from this world to a better, and testifying where the blood of the slain shall be disclosed for the judgment of their murderers. W. Wilson.
Read full note →
Ver. 7. Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth, etc. Assuming the very extreme, it is a look of hope into the future: should his bones and the bones of his followers be even scattered about the mouth of Sheol (cf. the Syrian picture of Sheol: "the dust upon its threshold, `al-escufteh", Deutsche Morgenland. Zeit-schrift, 20. 513), their soul below, their bones aboveit would nevertheless be only as when one in ploughing cleaves the earth; i.e., they do not lie there in order that they may continue lying, but that they may rise up anew, as the seed that is sown sprouts up out of the upturned earth. Franz Delitzsch.
Ver. 7. Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth. That is to say, I and my company are in a dying condition, free among the dead; yea, if taken we should be put to most cruel deaths, hewn in pieces, or pulled limbmeal, and left unburied; and our dead bodies mangled by a barbarous inhumanity, as wood cleavers make the shivers fly hither and thither. This is the perilous case of me and my partisans. John Trapp.
Ver. 7. Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth. This seems to be strong eastern painting, and almost figurative language; but that it may be strictly true, the following extract demonstrates: "At five o'clock we left Garigana, our journey being still to the eastward of north; and, at a quarter past six in the evening, arrived at the village of that name, whose inhabitants had all perished with hunger the year before; their wretched bones being all unburied, and scattered upon the surface of the ground, where the village formerly stood. We encamped among the bones of the dead, as no space could be found free from them; and on the 23rd, at six in the morning, full of horror at this miserable spectacle, we set out for Teawa." (James Bruce's Travels.) To the Jews such a spectacle must have been very dreadful, as the want of burial was esteemed one of the greatest calamities which could befall them. Burder's "Oriental Customs."
Ver. 7. Like one ploughing and cleaving in the earth. This clause may be explained not of cleaving wood but ploughing, to which the first verb is applied in Arabic. Like (one) ploughing and cleaving (making furrows) in the earth, not for the sake of mangling its surface, but to make it fruitful and productive, (so) our bones are scattered at the mouth of hell as the necessary means of a glorious resurrection. Joseph Addison Alexander.
Ver. 7. Who can attend the digging of a grave, and view the ruins then disclosed, without exclaiming, Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth, as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth? George Horne.
Ver. 7-8. A cemetery scene.
1. Dry bones of the dead about the grave.
2. Weary bones of the aged and sick around the grave.
3. All bones being from day to day made ready for the grave.
4. Bones finding rest in God: "mine eyes are unto thee, O God", etc.
Psalms 141:8*
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Our bones are scattered at the graves mouth.
Psa_141:7-8
Our bones are scattered at the graves mouth.
Read full note →
The scattered bones and the uplifted look
The text presents in a very vivid way an aspect of death most familiar, but most striking, and it also expresses the thoughts and the earnest prayer that rise in a soul at such a sight. You have walked in an old graveyard and seen the bones scattered at the graves mouth. There are few whom this sight does not make to think. You remember Hamlet in the graveyard with the skull of Yorick, the kings jester. What a pathos and tenderness are there. With that text in his hand, how touchingly he discourses on our poor fleeting human life. The flashes of merriment that set the table in a roar--the infinite jest--all come to this. The bones that were so carefully nurtured, that cost so much, are knocked and tossed about and thrown into a heap. Every man who contemplates such a spectacle--bones strewn about as if they were but chips and sticks where men had been chopping wood, must either go away with a dangerous sense of the vanity and worthlessness of human life, or with a spirit made intense, and raised in prayer to the infinite God.
I. Our union wits past generations and the intense reality of our present life. Observe the use of the word our. He looks at the bones and speaks as if they were partly his own, as if they belonged partly to living men. He identifies himself with those past generations. This human life that we are living now is not a new thing. It is old, very old. I understand all the struggles and wide experience of the past, for it is all in me. That history is mine. It seems as if I had lived then and been a part of all this. It is good for us go look back over the past and feel our identity with our race. It makes us humble. It makes us tender and kindly. It fills us with compassion for the human family. We are ashamed at times and vexed and grieved; but we are also elevated and enlarged as we look back over the generations that are gone. They are gone, and how fleeting they have all been. It is like a dream to think of all these past generations of men. Their existence seems a shadow. But let us not think our present life shadowy. No; that is not the lesson which the writer of the psalm learnt from the scattered bones. He learnt intensity. But mine eyes are toward Thee, O God the Lord. In Thee is my trust. Leave not my soul destitute. Life is new and momentous to us. It is as momentous as if it had never been lived before and would never be lived again. When you think steadily of God, it seems as if there were none but God and you standing over against each other. The man who keeps his eyes directed toward God feels life new and fresh, although the bones of many generations are scattered around him.
II. In the text we see the littleness and the greatness of man.
1. The scattered bones proclaim the littleness of man. These are the remains of thinkers, poets, kings, lovers of men, great inventors, famous disputers.
2. Yet, when I think of man in his weakness turning his eyes to the infinite God; when I reflect that man can think of a boundless and perfect One, that man looks to Him, that he has an eye that sees the invisible God: that he claims the society of the Maker of all worlds, and is restless till he finds it; when I reflect on man as putting his trust in the living God amidst all the mysteries of time; when I think of man standing over the grave where his dearest ones lie, where the ruins of his hopes are, and saying there, I believe in God; I trust in God; He will not leave my soul destitute; then I see the greatness of man.
III. A melancholy prospect and a rising above it.
1. The prospect before us all is this: by and by our bones will be scattered about the graves mouth. By and by you are forgotten, and the white relics that are thrown up by the shovel of the grave-digger are quite unknown. They have no name. Does it not seem like a horrid dream that we should be all coming to this? Surely it cannot be true. We all know too well that it is true and no dream.
2. There is just one remedy, one antidote, one means of conquering all thoughts of this kind; and the text presents it. Mine eyes are unto Thee, O God the Lord. I see a glorious Being, infinite, eternal, everywhere present, absolute love and truth and holiness. The fact that I can think of this Being of itself inspires hope and courage. It cannot be that the eyes that look to Him can moulder into dust. Eyes that cannot but look to Him are not doomed to grow dim. He Himself has invited me to look to Him, and the sight of His face gives me joy. (J. Leckie, D. D.)
Mine eyes are unto Thee, O God.--
Eyes steadfastly fixed on God
The determination to do a certain thing involves the possibility and sometimes the probability of not doing it. The regal faculty of will controls the use of other faculties, which may be exercised in different ways and in different degrees according to its resolve. The desires and aspirations of the soul, like the organs of the body, may be employed in this direction or in that, and of all created beings on earth man has most freedom. Some creatures have eyes adapted for a use which is special and limited. The beast or bird of prey, for example, has for the pupil of its eye a vertical slit, in order that it may look up and down for its victims. The ruminants--oxen, horses, and the like--have a horizontal slit, in order that without special effort they may look for the succulent grass which spreads on each side of them in a fertile meadow. But we have circular pupils--in other words, we have no bias in one direction more than in another, and thus even in these lower capacities God gives us a hint of our responsibility for choice and of our power of will which makes our life a moral probation. Hence you may resolve as the psalmist did, I will look up, or you may not so resolve. (A. Rowland, B. A.)
.
Psa_142:1-7
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.