As for me, I shall see your face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with seeing your form.
Parallel Translations
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As for me, I shall see your face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with seeing your form.
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As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.
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As for me, I shall behold Thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness.
Cross-references (22)
Passages linked to Psalms 17:15 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- 2 Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with unveiled face seeing the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit.
- Psalms 11:7 For Yahweh is righteous. He loves righteousness. The upright shall see his face.
- Psalms 16:11 You will show me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy. In your right hand there are pleasures forever more.
- Matthew 5:6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.
- Psalms 4:6-7 Many say, “Who will show us any good?” Yahweh, let the light of your face shine on us. You have put gladness in my heart, more than when their grain and their new wine are increased.
- 1 John 3:2-3 Beloved, now we are children of God. It is not yet revealed what we will be; but we know that when he is revealed, we will be like him; for we will see him just as he is. Everyone who has this hope set on him purifies himself, even as he is pure.
- Psalms 65:4 Blessed is the one whom you choose and cause to come near, that he may live in your courts. We will be filled with the goodness of your house, your holy temple.
- Isaiah 26:19 Your dead shall live. My dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust; for your dew is like the dew of herbs, and the earth will cast out the departed spirits.
- Philippians 3:21 who will change the body of our humiliation to be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working by which he is able even to subject all things to himself.
- Revelation 21:23 The city has no need for the sun or moon to shine, for the very glory of God illuminated it, and its lamp is the Lamb.
- Numbers 12:8 With him, I will speak mouth to mouth, even plainly, and not in riddles; and he shall see Yahweh’s form. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant, against Moses?”
- Joshua 24:15 If it seems evil to you to serve Yahweh, choose today whom you will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve Yahweh.”
- Job 19:26-27 After my skin is destroyed, then I will see God in my flesh, whom I, even I, will see on my side. My eyes will see, and not as a stranger. “My heart is consumed within me.
- Psalms 36:8-9 They shall be abundantly satisfied with the abundance of your house. You will make them drink of the river of your pleasures. For with you is the spring of life. In your light we will see light.
- Psalms 119:111 I have taken your testimonies as a heritage forever, for they are the joy of my heart.
- Matthew 27:52-53 The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection, they entered into the holy city and appeared to many.
- Revelation 21:3-4 I heard a loud voice out of heaven saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with people, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more. The first things have passed away.”
- Psalms 5:7 But as for me, in the abundance of your loving kindness I will come into your house. I will bow toward your holy temple in reverence of you.
- Genesis 1:26-27 God said, “Let’s make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them.
- Psalms 49:14 They are appointed as a flock for Sheol. Death shall be their shepherd. The upright shall have dominion over them in the morning. Their beauty shall decay in Sheol, far from their mansion.
- Revelation 7:16-17 They will never be hungry or thirsty any more. The sun won’t beat on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb who is in the middle of the throne shepherds them and leads them to springs of life-giving waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
- Job 14:12 so man lies down and doesn’t rise. Until the heavens are no more, they will not awake, nor be roused out of their sleep.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (18 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain Having with anguish of heart declared before God the…
Having with anguish of heart declared before God the troubles which afflicted and tormented him, that he might not be overwhelmed with the load of temptations which pressed upon him, he now takes, as it were, the wings of faith and rises up to a region of undisturbed tranquillity, where he may behold all things arranged and directed in due order. In the first place, there is here a tacit comparison between the well regulated state of things which will be seen when God by his judgment shall restore to order those things which are now embroiled and confused, and the deep and distressing darkness which is in the world, when God keeps silence, and hides his face. In the midst of those afflictions which he has recounted, the Psalmist might seem to be plunged in darkness from which he would never obtain deliverance. “Desquelles il n’y oust issue aucune.” — Fr.
“Comme s’ils s’abusoyent et perdoyent leurs peines en s’adonnant a purete et innocence.” — Fr.
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“Il lui fait tousjours derechet contempler finalment son clair visage et son oeil debonnaire.” — Fr.
I shall be satisfied. Some interpreters, with more subtility than propriety, restrict this to the resurrection at the last day, as if David did not expect to experience in his heart a blessed joy “Comme si David remettoit a la vie a venir l’esperance de sentir en son coeur une joye heureuse.” — Fr.
“C’est a dire de choses terriennes, sans gouster les choses spirituelles esquelles il y a fermete.” — Fr.
“Qui nous puisse donner contentement.” — Fr.
“Lesquelles ne font qu’affamer et augmenter tousjours tout plus l’appetit.” — Fr.
The Chaldee version applies it to David, and reads, “When I shall awake, I shall be satisfied with the glory of thy countenance.” But the Septuagint, the Vulgate, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions apply the verb, awake to thy glory. “Εν τῳ ὀφθηναι την δοξαν σου,” “At the appearing of thy glory,” says the Septuagint. “Cum apparuerit gloria tua,” “When thy glory shall appear,” says the Vulgate.
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 And am delivered out of my great troubles.
And am delivered out of my great troubles.
This is the full felicity, comforting against all assaults, to have the face of God and favorable countenance opened unto us.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Psa 17:15 As for me, I will behold thy…
Psa 17:15 As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.
Ver. 15. As for me] I neither envy nor covet these men’s happiness, but partly have and partly hope for a far better.
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I will behold thy face in righteousness] Which none can do but the pure in heart, Mat 5:8, and those that keep close to God in a constant communion, being justified and sanctified persons.
I shall be satisfied] Better than those muckworms and their children are.
When I awake] sc. Out of the dust of death, at the resurrection.
With thy likeness] With the visible sign of thy glory in heaven, 1Jn 3:2.
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 I do not envy this their felicity, but my…
I do not envy this their felicity, but my hopes and happiness are of another nature. I do not place my portion in earthly and temporal treasures, as they do, but in beholding God’s face, i.e. in the enjoyment of God’s presence and favour; which is indeed enjoyed in part in this life, but not fully and to satisfaction, or which David here speaks, as appears from the last clause of this verse; the sight of God and of his face being frequently spoken of, both the Old and New Testament, as a privilege denied even to the saints in this life, and peculiar to the next life, as is manifest from Exo 33:20; Jdg 13:22; Mat 5:8; 1Co 13:12; 2Co 3:18; 1Jo 3:2.
In righteousness; with the comfort of a good conscience, bearing me witness that, notwithstanding all the calumnies and censures of mine enemies, I have been and am upright and righteous in the course of my life, both towards thee and towards all men; which testimony will enable me to look God in the face with boldness, when mine enemies, being conscious to themselves of gross and manifold unrighteousness towards thee, and me, and others, will be afraid to appear in thy presence.
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I shall be satisfied: I am now greatly distressed and dissatisfied, and mine enemies are filled and satisfied with good things; but my turn will come, the time is coming wherein I shall be abundantly satisfied, to wit, with beholding thy face, which is to me more comfortable and satisfactory than all the possessions of this world.
When I awake; either,
1. When I shall be delivered from my present distresses and calamities. But these never are in Scripture, nor indeed can fitly be, called by the name of sleep, which is every where spoken of as a state of rest and quietness; as Psa 127:2; Joh 11:12,13; and consequently deliverance from them cannot be compared to awaking. Or rather,
2. When I shall arise from the dead; for death is very frequently called sleep, both in Scripture, as 1Ki 1:21; Isa 26:19; Jer 51:39,57; Da 12:2; Joh 11:11,13, and in other authors; and consequently resurrection from the dead is justly and fitly called an awaking, as it is Job 14:12; Dan 12:2; Joh 11:11. And since the doctrine of the resurrection of the just to a blessed and endless life was not unknown to the holy men of God in the Old Testament, as it were very easy to prove, nor to David in particular, as appears from Psa 16:10,11, and from divers other passages, it cannot be imagined but David would support and comfort himself in his greatest agonies with the consideration thereof, this being incomparably the most weighty and effectual argument and ground of comfort which he could possibly use. And this also bests suits with the context; for David is here opposing his hopes and portion to that of his enemies; and having noted, not without a secret reflection and reproach upon them for it, that their portion was in this life, Psa 17:14, it was most consonant to the place and to the thing itself, that he should seek and have his happiness in the future life.
With thy likeness, or image; by which may be understood either,
1. Christ, the Son of God, who was known to David and other prophets, as is evident, and that under the name of the Son of God, Psa 2:7,12; Pr 30:4; Hos 11:1, compared with Mat 2:15, who being exactly like to his Father, might most fitly be called his likeness or image, as he is, Heb 1:3. Or,
2. The image of God stamped upon his glorified soul; which must needs afford him infinite delight and satisfaction. Or,
3. God himself, or the face of God mentioned in the former clause, and explained, here by another phrase, as is very usual in these writings. And this interpretation may receive strength from Num 12:8, where beholding the similitude of the Lord is evidently the same thing which is elsewhere called seeing his face; and from Heb 10:1, where the image doth not note the likeness or representation, but the truth and existence of the thing.
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 As for me,.... I do not desire to be…
As for me,.... I do not desire to be in their place and stead, with all their plenty and prosperity; I am content with my present condition and situation: for
I will, or "shall"
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behold thy face in righteousness; that is, appear before God in public worship, where was the ark, the symbol of the face of God; enjoy his gracious presence, have the discoveries of his love, and see his face and favour; than which nothing was more desirable by him and delightful to him. Or God himself may be meant by "his face"; and especially God as he is to be beheld in the face of Christ, the Angel of his presence; and who is to be beheld by faith in the present state of things, though as through a glass, darkly; and in the future state perfectly, and as he is, both with the eyes of the understanding, and, after the resurrection, with the eyes of the body; see Job 19:26; and to this state the psalmist seems more especially to have respect, as Jarchi interprets it: and the beatific vision of God in Christ will be very glorious and exceeding delightful; it will be assimilating and appropriating; it will be free from all darkness and interruption, and will continue for ever. And this shall be seen "in righteousness"; the psalmist believing that he should then appear as an innocent person clear of all the false charges brought against him; and so this may be understood of the righteousness of his cause, in which he should stand before God, and enjoy communion with him:, or this may design that perfect holiness and purity of heart, without which no man shall see the Lord; and which, though now imperfect, shall in the other state be without spot or blemish: or rather, the righteousness of Christ, which fits believers for, and in which they are brought into and stand in, the King's presence;
I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness; which will be in the resurrection morn: or, as Jarchi expresses it, when the dead shall awake from their sleep; for this is not to be understood of awaking from natural sleep in the morning; when it is a satisfaction to a believer to be with God, and to have God with him, Psa 139:18; nor of awaking from a sleepy drowsy frame of spirit, which sometimes attends the saints; but of rising from the dead: for as death is oftentimes expressed by sleep in Scripture, so the resurrection by an awaking out of it, Isa 26:19; at which time the saints will arise with the image of the heavenly One upon them: they will be like to Christ both in soul and body; in soul, in perfect knowledge and complete holiness: in body, in incorruption and immortality, in power, glory, and spirituality; in this will lie their happiness and satisfaction. Or the meaning is, that he should be satisfied with the likeness of God, with Christ the image of God, when he should arise from the dead; seeing he should then appear with him in glory, see him as he is, and be like him, and be for ever in his presence; which will yield endless pleasure and unspeakable satisfaction. For the words may be interpreted, not of David's awaking, but of the glory of God awaking or appearing; which would afford an infinitely greater satisfaction than worldly men have in worldly things (p), to which this is opposed, Psa 17:10; so the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions read, I shall be satisfied when thy glory appears, or is seen; and so the Ethiopic and Arabic versions.
(p) Vid. Castel. Lexic. Heptaglott. col. 2014.
Next: Psalms Chapter 18
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 I will - I do not place my portion…
I will - I do not place my portion in earthly treasures, but in beholding God's face, in the enjoyment of God's presence and favour; which is enjoyed in part in this life, but not fully. Satisfied - The time is coming, wherein I shall be abundantly satisfied with beholding thy face. Awake - When I arise from he dead. Likeness - With the image of God stamped upon my glorified soul.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 15. As for me] I cannot be satisfied…
Verse 15. As for me] I cannot be satisfied with such a portion.
I will behold thy face] Nothing but an evidence of thy approbation can content my soul.
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In righteousness] I cannot have thy approbation unless I am conformed to thy will. I must be righteous in order that my heart and life may please thee.
I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.] Nothing but God can satisfy the wishes of an immortal spirit. He made it with infinite capacities and desires; and he alone, the infinite Good, can meet and gratify these desires, and fill this all-capacious mind. No soul was ever satisfied but by God; and he satisfies the soul only by restoring it to his image, which, by the fall, it has lost.
I think there is an allusion here to the creation of Adam. When God breathed into him the breath of lives, and he became a living soul, he would appear as one suddenly awaked from sleep. The first object that met his eyes was his glorious Creator, and being made in his image and in his likeness, he could converse with him face to face - was capable of the most intimate union with him, because he was filled with holiness and moral perfection. Thus was he satisfied, the God of infinite perfection and purity filling all the powers and faculties of his soul. David sees this in the light of the Divine Spirit, and knows that his happiness depends on being restored to this image and likeness; and he longs for the time when he shall completely arise out of the sleep and death of sin, and be created anew after the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness. I do not think that he refers to the resurrection of the body, but to the resurrection of the soul in this life; to the regaining the image which Adam lost.
The paraphrase in my old Psalter understands the whole of this Psalm as referring to the persecution, passion, death, and resurrection of Christ; and so did several of the primitive fathers, particularly St. Jerome and St. Augustine. I shall give a specimen from Ps 17:11: -
Projicientes me, nunc circumdederunt me: oculos suos statuerunt declinare in terram.
Trans. Forth castand me now, thai haf umgyfen me: thair egheu thai sette to heelde in the erde.
Par. - Forth kasten me out of the cite, als the stede had bene fyled of me: now thai haf umgyfen me in the cros hyngand, als folk that gedyrs til a somer gamen: for thai sett thair eghen, that es the entent of thaire hert to heeld in the erde; that es, in erdly thynges to covayte tham, and haf tham. And thai wende qwen thai slew Crist that he had suffird al the ill, and thai nane.
Perhaps some of my readers may think that this needs translating, so far does our present differ from our ancient tongue.
Text. - They have now cast me forth; they have surrounded me: their eyes they set down to the earth.
Par. - They have cast me out of the city, as if the state were to be defiled by me: now they have surrounded me hanging on the cross, as people gathered together at summer games. For they set their eyes, that is, the intent of their heart, down to the earth; that is, earthly things, to covet them and to have them: and they thought, when they slew Christ, that he had suffered all the ill, and they none.
BY the slot or track of the hart on the ground, referred to in Ps 17:11, experienced huntsmen can discern whether there have been a hart there, whether he has been there lately, whether the slot they see be the track of a hart or a hind, and whether the animal be young or old. All these can be discerned by the slot. And if the reader have that scarce book at hand, Tuberville on Hunting, 4to, 1575 or 1611, he will find all this information in chap. xxii., p. 63, entitled, The Judgment and Knowledge by the Slot of a Hart; and on the same page; a wood-cut, representing a huntsman with his eyes set, bowing down to the earth, examining three slots which he had just found. The cut is a fine illustration of this clause. Saul and his men were hunting David, and curiously searching every place to find out any track, mark, or footstep, by which they might learn whether he had been in such a place, and whether he had been there lately. Nothing can more fully display the accuracy and intensity of this search than the metaphor contained in the above clause. He who has been his late Majesty's huntsmen looking for the slot in Windsor Forest will see the strength and propriety of the figure used by the psalmist.
Ver. 12. Like as a lion that is greedy of his prey.] This is the picture of Saul. While his huntsmen were beating every bush, prying into every cave and crevice, and examining every foot of ground to find out a track, Saul is ready, whenever the game is started, to spring upon, seize, and destroy it. The metaphors are well connected, well sustained, and strongly expressive of the whole process of this persecution.
In the ninth verse the huntsmen beat the forest to raise and drive in the game. In the tenth they set their nets, and speak confidently of the expected success. In the eleventh, they felicitate themselves on having found the slot, the certain indication of the prey being at hand. And in the twelfth, the king of the sport is represented as just ready to spring upon the prey; or, as having his bow bent, and his arrow on the string, ready to let fly the moment the prey appears. It is worthy of remark, that kings and queens were frequently present, and were the chiefs of the sport; and it was they who, when he had been killed, broke up the deer: 1. Slitting down the brisket with their knife or sword; and, 2. Cutting off the head. And, as Tuberville published the first edition of his book in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, he gives a large wood-cut, p. 133, representing this princess just alighted from her horse-the stag stretched upon the ground - the huntsman kneeling, holding the fore foot of the animal with his left hand, and with his right presenting a knife to the queen for the purpose of the breaking up. As the second edition was published in the reign of James the First, the image of the queen is taken out and a whole length of James introduced in the place.
The same appears in Tuberville's Book of Falconrie, connected with the above. In p. 81, edition 1575, where the flight of the hawk at the heron is represented, the queen is seated on her charger: but in the edition of 1611 King James is placed on the same charger, the queen being removed.
The lion is the monarch of the forest; and is used successfully here to represent Saul, king of Israel, endeavouring to hunt down David; hemming him in on every side; searching for his footsteps; and ready to spring upon him, shoot him with his bow, or pierce him with his javelin, as soon as he should be obliged to flee from his last cover. The whole is finely imagined, and beautifully described.
ANALYSIS OF THE SEVENTEENTH PSALM
David's appeal to God in justification of himself; and his petition for defence against his enemies.
There are THREE parts in this Psalm: -
I. A petition. 1. For audience, Ps 17:1; Ps 17:6. 2. For perseverance in good, Ps 17:5. 3. For special favour, Ps 17:7-8. 4. For immediate deliverance, Ps 17:13-14.
II. A narration; in which we meet with, 1. His appeal to God, and his own justification, Ps 17:2-4. 2. The reasons of it; his enemies and their character, Ps 17:9-14.
III. A conclusion; which has two parts. 1. One belonging to this life; and, 2. One belonging to the life to come, Ps 17:15.
I. 1. He begins with petition for audience. And he urges it for two reasons: 1. The justness of his cause: "Hear the right, O Lord." 2. The sincerity of his heart: "That goeth not out of feigned lips."
2. Again, there were other reasons why he desired to be heard: 1. He felt himself prone to slip, and fall from God: "Hold up my goings," c. 2. He was in great danger, and nothing but a miracle could save him: "Show thy marvellous lovingkindness." 3. His enemies were insolent and mighty, and God's sword only could prevail against them: "Arise, O Lord," Ps 17:13-14.
II. A narration: His appeal to God. Since a verdict must pass upon him, he desired that God should pronounce it: "Let my sentence come forth from thy presence." I know that thou art a righteous Judge, and canst not be swayed by prejudice: "Let thine eyes behold the thing that is equal," and then I know it must go well with me: "Thou hast proved my heart. Thou hast tried me before on this business, and hast found nothing.
1. Nothing in my HEART: "Thou hast proved my heart."
2. Nothing in my TONGUE: "For I am purposed that my mouth shall not offend."
3. Nothing in my HAND: "For, concerning the works of men," which are mischievous by the words of thy lips, I have had so great a regard to thy commandments that "I have kept myself from the paths of the wicked;" of him who, to satisfy his own desires, breaks all laws.
4. He confesses that he was poor and weak, and liable to fall, unless sustained by the grace of God: "Hold up my goings in thy paths."
And this first petition he renews, and takes courage from the assurance that he shall be heard: "I will call upon thee, for thou wilt hear me." And he puts in a special petition, which has two parts:-
1. "Show thy marvellous lovingkindness;" let me have more than ordinary help. And this he urges from the consideration that God saves them who trust in him from those who rise up against them.
2. That he would save him with the greatest care and vigilance, as a man would preserve the apple of his eye, or as a hen would guard her young: "Keep me as the apple of the eye; hide me," c.
And to prevail in this special petition, he brings his arguments from his present necessity. He was encompassed with enemies, whom he describes:-
1. They were capital enemies they hemmed him in on every side.
2. They were powerful, proud, and rich: "Men enclosed in their own fat, speaking proudly with their tongues," Ps 17:10.
3. Their counsels were fixed, and bent to ruin him: "They set their eyes, bowing down to the earth," Ps 17:11.
4. They were such enemies as prospered in their designs, Ps 17:14. 1. Men of the world. 2. They had their portion in this life, and sought for none other. 3. They fed themselves without fear: "Their bellies were full." 4. They had a numerous offspring, and therefore more to be dreaded because of their family connections. 5. They left much substance behind them, so that their plans might be all continued and brought to effect.
III. The conclusion, containing the expectation of David, opposed to his enemies' felicity.
1. In this life: "As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness."
2. In the life to come: "When I awake," rise from the dead, "after thy likeness, I shall be satisfied with it."
On each of these divisions the reader is referred to the notes.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Psa 17:15. As for me — I do not…
Psa 17:15. As for me — I do not envy their felicity, but my hopes and happiness are of another nature. I will (or, shall) behold thy face — I do not place my portion in earthly and temporal pleasures, as they do, but in beholding God’s face: that is, in the enjoyment of God’s presence and favour; which is, indeed, enjoyed in part in this life, but not fully, and to entire satisfaction, of which David here speaks, as appears from the last clause of this verse; the sight of God, and of his face, being frequently spoken of, both in the Old and the New Testament, as a privilege denied even to the saints in this life, and peculiar to the next life: in righteousness — In holiness, internal as well as external, without which no man shall see the Lord, Hebrews 12.; only the pure in heart being admitted to this high honour and unspeakable happiness, Mat 5:8. He therefore that has this hope in him, must purify himself as he is pure, 1Jn 3:3. But the meaning probably is rather, through righteousness, for, grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life. That Isaiah , 1 st, Through righteousness imputed, or justification, Rom 4:2-8. This was experienced by David, as he testifies, Psa 32:5; Psa 103:3; and he sets forth the blessedness of it in the beginning of the former of these Psalms, as well as in many other places. Hereby he was entitled to this happiness, for, being justified by grace, and acquitted from condemnation, he was made an heir of it, Tit 3:7. 2d, Through righteousness implanted in him, or through the regeneration and sanctification of his nature, or the Spirit of God, and his various graces dwelling in his soul, and especially shedding abroad in his heart the love of God and all mankind. Hereby he had a meetness for the enjoyment of this felicity, Col 1:12. And 3d, Through practical righteousness, flowing from both the former, Tit 3:8; Eph 2:10; Luk 1:6. To the absolute necessity of which, our Lord, St. John, and all the apostles bear continual testimony. See Mat 7:21; 1Jn 3:4-8; 1Co 6:9-10. In this way he was led to that vision of God to which he had a title, through his justification, and for which he was prepared by his sanctification. Remember, reader, it is only by faith in him who is the Lord our righteousness that thou canst be made a partaker of righteousness in these three absolutely necessary and closely connected branches of it. O seek this without delay, and with thy whole heart! I shall be satisfied — However distressed and exercised with trials and troubles I may be now, the time is coming when I shall be abundantly satisfied, namely, with beholding God’s face and enjoying his glorious presence, which to me is more desirable, and will be infinitely more satisfactory, and full of consolation, than all the possessions of this world. When I awake with thy likeness — When I arise from the dead, receive a body conformed to Christ’s glorious body; and as I have borne the image of the earthly Adam, shall also bear that of the heavenly; when the image of God shall be completely and indelibly stamped on my glorified soul; and I shall be made fully like him, and therefore shall see him as he is, Php 3:21; 1Co 15:49; Rev 22:4; 1Jn 3:2.
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 As for me - In strong contrast with the…
As for me - In strong contrast with the aims, the desires, and the condition of worldly individuals. “They” seek their portion in this life, and are satisfied; “I” cherish no such desires, and have no such prosperity. I look to another world as my home, and shall be satisfied only in the everlasting favor and friendship of God.
I will behold thy face - I shall see thee. Compare Mat 5:8; 1Co 13:12; 1Jo 3:2. This refers naturally, as the closing part of the verse more fully shows, to the future world, and is such language as would be employed by those who believe in a future state, and by no others. This is the highest object before the mind of a truly religious man. The bliss of heaven consists mainly, in his apprehension, in the privilege of seeing God his Saviour; and the hope of being permitted to do this is of infinitely more value to him than would be all the wealth of this world.
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In righteousness - Being myself righteous; being delivered from the power, the pollution, the dominion of sin. It is this which makes heavyen so desirable; without this, in the apprehension of a truly good man, no place would be heaven.
I shall be satisfied - While they are satisfied with this world, I shall be satisfied only when I awake in the likeness of my God. Nothing can meet the wants of my nature; nothing can satisfy the aspirings of my soul, until that occurs.
When I awake - This is language which would be employed only by one who believed in the resurrection of the dead, and who was accustomed to speak of death as a “sleep” - a calm repose in the hope of awaking to a new life. Compare the notes at Psa 16:9-11. Some have understood this as meaning “when I awake tomorrow;” and they thence infer that this was an evening song (compare Psa 4:8); others have supposed that it had a more general sense - meaning “whenever I awake;” that is, while men of the world rejoice in their worldly possessions, and while this is the first thought which they have on awaking in the morning, my joy when I awake is in God; in the evidence of his favor and friendship; in the consciousness that I resemble him. I am surprised to find that Prof. Alexander favors this view. Even DeWette admits that it refers to the resurrection of the dead, and that the psalm can be interpreted only on the supposition that it has this reference, and hence, he argues that it could not have been composed by David, but that it must have been written in the time of the exile, when that doctrine had obtained currency among the Hebrews. The interpretation above suggested seems to me to be altogether too low a view to be taken of the sense of the passage.
It does not meet the state of mind described in the psalm. It does not correspond with the deep anxieties which the psalmist expressed as springing from the troubles which surrounded him. He sought repose from those troubles; he looked for consolation when surrounded by bitter and unrelenting enemies. He was oppressed and crushed with these many sorrows. Now it would do little to meet that state of mind, and to impart to him the consolation which he needed, to reflect that he could lie down in the night and awake in the morning with the consciousness that he enjoyed the friendship of God, for he had that already; and besides this, so far as this source of consolation was concerned, he would awake to a renewal of the same troubles tomorrow which he had met on the previous day. He needed some higher, some more enduring and efficient consolation; something which would meet “all” the circumstances of the case; some source of peace, composure, and rest, which was beyond all this; something which would have an existence where there was no trouble or anxiety; and this could be found only in a future world. The obvious interpretation of the passage, therefore, so far as its sense can be determined from the connection, is to refer it to the awaking in the morning of the resurrection; and there is nothing in the language itself, or in the known sentiments of the psalmist, to forbid this interpretation. The word rendered “awake” - קוץ qûts - used only in Hiphil, “means to awake;” to awake from sleep, Psa 3:5; Psa 139:18; or from death, 2Ki 4:31; Jer 51:39; Isa 26:19; Job 14:12; Dan 12:2.
With thy likeness - Or, in thy likeness; that is, resembling thee. The resemblance doubtless is in the moral character, for the highest hope of a good man is that he may be, and will be, like God. Compare the notes at 1Jo 3:2. I regard this passage, therefore, as one of the incidental proofs scattered through the Old Testament which show that the sacred writers under that dispensation believed in the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead; that their language was often based on the knowledge and the belief of that doctrine, even when they did not expressly affirm it; and that in times of trouble, and under the consciousness of sin, they sought their highest consolation, as the people of God do now, from the hope and the expectation that the righteous dead will rise again, and that in a world free from trouble, from sin, and from death, they would live forever in the presence of God, and find their supreme happiness in being made wholly like him.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 15. As for me—The pronoun is emphatic, and marks…
15. As for me—The pronoun is emphatic, and marks the contrast between the psalmist and the “men of the world,” just mentioned. So Psa_73:28 : “But, [as to me,] it is good for me to draw near to God,” etc.
I will behold thy face in righteousness—An expression like Job_19:26, and Psa_11:7, on which last see note, and compare 1Jn_3:2.Clearly this hope is to be realized only in the life to come.
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When I awake—To apply this to awaking from natural sleep, or, figuratively, to coming forth in new vigor from the night of affliction, completely destroys the sense. He is contrasting the temporal with the eternal, this world with the next. To “awake” from the sleep of death was not an uncommon figure in Old Testament times. See 2Ki_4:31; Job_14:12; Isa_26:19; Dan_12:2. A resurrection from the grave is here anticipated as an object of faith in language as full and literal as any in which Messianic prophecy has foretold the Messiah. See on Psa_16:9-11.
Likeness— The word means form, shape, similitude, and in Num_12:8, it would seem to denote a symbolic form of God, as the shekinah. Resemblance to God was the highest idea of perfection to the Hebrew, grounded on Gen_1:26. It also is the point of the temptation, (Gen_3:5,) where, instead of “ye shall be as gods,” read “ye shall be as God.” If the objective idea of form is at all involved in the word, we do not dissent, for the New Testament statements imply as much of the glorified state: (see 1Co_15:49; Php_3:21; 1Jn_3:2;) but the connexion of the text requires specially the subjective or moral sense—the similitude of character—just as “I will behold thy face in righteousness” is not to be understood of objective vision, but of subjective experience—perception joined with communion—and exactly accords with 1Jn_3:2 : “We shall see him as he is.” So, also, I shall… awake with thy likeness, is parallel to the apostle’s statement, “We shall be (ομοιοι αυτω) like him.” The same Hebrew word in Exo_20:4, is rendered by the Septuagint ομοιωμα, (likeness,) a word of the same family as that used by the apostle above. Indeed, 1Jn_3:2 is a complete parallel of the text, and they together bear a cognate testimony to the glorious doctrine of the resurrection of the body after a divine model.
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 15. As for me, in righteousness let me behold…
15. As for me, in righteousness let me behold thy face:
Let me be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.
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With the low desires of worldly men the Psalmist contrasts his own spiritual aspirations. He does not complain of their prosperity; it does not present itself to him as a trial of patience and a moral enigma, as it does to the authors of Psalms 37, 73. Their blessings are not for an instant to be compared with his. ‘To behold Jehovah’s face’ is to enjoy communion with Him and all the blessings that flow from it; it is the inward reality which corresponds to ‘appearing before Him’ in the sanctuary. Cp. Psa_16:11. ‘Righteousness’ is the condition of that ‘beholding’; for it is sin that separates from God. Cp. Psa_11:7 note; Psa_15:1 ff.; Mat_5:8; Heb_12:14.
He concludes with a yet bolder prayer, that he may be admitted to that highest degree of privilege which Moses enjoyed, and be satisfied with the likeness or form of Jehovah. See Num_12:6-8. Worldly men are satisfied if they see themselves reflected in their sons: nothing less than the sight of the form of God will satisfy the Psalmist. Cp. Psa_16:11. See Driver on Deu_4:12.
But what is meant by when I awake? Not ‘when the night of calamity is at an end’; a sense which the word will not bear. What he desires is (1) the daily renewal of this communion (cp. Psa_139:18; Pro_6:22); and (2) as the passage in Numbers suggests, a waking sight of God, as distinguished from a dream or vision.
The words are commonly explained of awaking from the sleep of death to behold the face of God in the world beyond, and to be transfigured into His likeness. Death is no doubt spoken of as sleep (Psa_13:3), and resurrection as awakening (Isa_26:19; Dan_12:2). But elsewhere the context makes the meaning unambiguous. Here, however, this reference is excluded by the context. The Psalmist does not anticipate death, but prays to be delivered from it (Psa_17:8 ff.). The contrast present to his mind is not between ‘this world’ and ‘another world,’ the ‘present life’ and the ‘future life,’ but between the false life and the true life in this present world, between ‘the flesh’ and ‘the spirit,’ between the ‘natural man’ with his sensuous desires, and the ‘spiritual man’ with his God ward desires. Here, as in Psa_16:9-11, death fades from the Psalmist’s view. He is absorbed with the thought of the blessedness of fellowship with God[9].
[9] Comp. Delitzsch: “The contrast is not so much here and hereafter, as world (life) and God. We see here into the inmost nature of the O.T. belief. All the blessedness and glory of the future life which the N.T. unfolds is for the O.T. faith contained in Jehovah. Jehovah is its highest good; in the possession of Him it is raised above heaven and earth, life and death; to surrender itself blindly to Him, without any explicit knowledge of a future life of blessedness, to be satisfied with Him, to rest in Him, to take refuge in Him in view of death, is characteristic of the O.T. faith.” The Psalms, p. 181.
But the doctrine of life eternal is implicitly contained in the words. For it is inconceivable that communion with God thus begun and daily renewed should be abruptly terminated by death. It is possible that the Psalmist and those for whom he sung may have had some glimmering of this larger hope, though how or when it was to be realised was not yet revealed. But whether they drew the inference must remain doubtful. In the economy of revelation “heaven is first a temper and then a place.”
It is indeed impossible for us to read the words now without thinking of their ‘fulfilment’ in the light of the Gospel: of the more profound revelation of righteousness (Rom_1:17); of the sight of the Father in the Incarnate Son (Joh_14:9); of the hope of transfiguration into His likeness here and hereafter, and of the Beatific Vision (2Co_3:18; Php_3:21; 1Jn_3:2; Rev_22:4).
It may be remarked that none of the ancient versions render as though they definitely referred the passage to the Resurrection. Targ., Aq., Symm., Jer., all give a literal version. The LXX, I shall be satisfied when Thy glory appears: Syr., when Thy faithfulness appears: Theod., when Thy right hand appears: seem to have had a different text. Thy glory is substituted for thy form in LXX as in Num. 12:18.
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 (15) I—emphatic. The satisfaction of worldly men is in…
(15) I—emphatic. The satisfaction of worldly men is in their wealth and family honours, that of the poet in the sun of God’s presence and the vision of His righteousness. (Comp. Note, Psa_11:7.)
Instead of “likeness,” render image, or appearance. But what does the poet mean by the hope of seeking God when he wakes? Some think of rising to peace after a perplexing trouble; others of health after suffering; others of the sunlight of the Divine grace breaking on the soul. But the literal reference to night in Psa_17:3 seems to ask for the same reference here. Instead of waking to a worldling’s hope of a day of feasting and pleasure, the psalmist wakes to the higher and nobler thought that God—who in sleep (so like death, when nothing is visible), has been, as it were, absent—is now again, when he sees once more (LXX.), found at his right hand (comp. end of Psalms 16), a conscious presence to him, assuring him of justice and protection. But as in Psalms 16, so here, we feel that in spite of his subjection to the common notions about death the psalmist may have felt the stirrings of a better hope. Such “cries from the dark,” even if they do not prove the possession of a belief in immortality, show how the human heart was already groping its way, however blindly, towards it.
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 As for me, I will behold thy face in…
As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness; i.e. "As for me, I do not envy the wicked man"s prosperity. I set against it the blessedness of which I am quite sure. I in my righteousness shall behold the face of God, have the light of his countenance shine upon me, and thus be raised to a condition of perfect happiness." Moreover, I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness. David had already spoken of death as a "sleep". (Psa_13:3) Now he speaks of "awaking." What awaking can this be but an awaking from the sleep of death? When he so awakes, he says, he will he "satisfied with God"s likeness. " The word used is the same as that employed in Num_12:8, of the manifestation of the Divine glory to Moses viz. temunah. David therefore expects to see, on awaking, a similar manifestation, he will have the enjoyment of the "beatific vision," if not in the Christian sense, at any rate in a true and real sense, and one that will wholly "satisfy" him.
True satisfaction.
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"As for me... thy likeness." "I shall be satisfied." This is a great and bold thing to say. It implies one of two things either a low standard of satisfaction, a poor measure of what it takes to satisfy a human soul; or else a prospect beyond this world. If only a question of lower wants shall I eat... drink? wherewithal be clothed? what wages shall I earn? what holidays and amusements secure? then if your desires be temperate, you may easily say," I shall be satisfied." But if it be a question of your soul, life, whole being, with all high, deep, partially developed capacities for happiness and blessedness, then it is not in this world that satisfaction is possible. Earth might be bankrupt, and yet leave your soul, your inner immortal self, starving. (Mat_16:26)
I THE SATISFACTION DESIRED AND EXPECTED ardently desired and confidently expected (the Hebrew implies both; in the margin of the Revised Version, "Let me"). To behold God"s face in righteousness; to awake from the dream of life, from the sleep of death, to the reality of his presence, the sight of his unveiled glory. We are met here by one of those apparent contradictions in Scripture, which are always rich in deep meaning and instruction. On one hand, it is declared that to see God is impossible. He is "the King immortal, invisible". (1Ti_1:17 1Ti_6:16) "God is a Spirit," the Infinite Spirit; and how can spirit become visible to sense? On the other hand, our Saviour promises that "the pure in heart shall see God." Of Moses it was said, "The similitude or "form," "image, the same word as in the text of the Lord shall he behold". (Num_12:8) Isaiah tells us how, in vision, he beheld the Lord on his throne. (Isa 6) Ezekiel, Daniel, and St. John had similar visions. Visions, it is true; but visions that stood for that infinitely glorious reality of which the Lord said to Moses, "There shall be no man see me, and live". (Exo_33:20) The explanation of this seeming contradiction is found in Joh_1:18. All those glorious manifestations, as well as the occasions on which a Divine angel appeared, as to Abraham, Jacob, Joshua, etc., who is identified with the Lord, we understand to have been manifestations of the Son of God, the everlasting Word, crowned and completed by the Incarnation. (Joh_1:14) He is "the Image of the invisible God". (Col_1:15 Heb_1:3) Thus this desire and expectation have for us as Christians a clearness and force they could not have for the holiest of the ancient believers. Even in the days of his flesh, the Lord could say, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." How much more in his glory! The Lord God and the Lamb are the light of the heavenly city. This does not exclude other manifestations of God as Spirit to our spirits; like that of which Christ speaks. (Joh_14:23) Some have thought there is a dead faculty in our nature, by which we should have direct intuition of God; be naturally conscious of his presence, as we are of space and time. If so, this dead or sleeping sense, partially quickened by faith, shall awake; we shall know, consciously, what now we believe, that "in him we live, and move, and have our being." Meantime, this is enough for faith to lay hold on, to rest in we shall see Jesus our Lord in his glory. "To depart," is, for the Christian, "to be with Christ;" "Absent from the body, at home with the Lord." We shall "see him as he is;" "the Fulness of the Godhead bodily" dwelling in the immortal temple of glorified humanity. And in him we shall see the Father, and come to the Father. Our fellowship will be "with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ." Ambition cannot rise higher than this. Thought cannot soar beyond this. Faith, hope, love, cannot desire more than this. "Then shall I see and hear and know All I desired or wish"d below.
Divines have been wont to call this "the beatific vision," q.d. the happy-making sight of God. But note that whatever be the forms of inconceivable glory in which God reveals himself to his children, the true satisfaction is in the knowledge of God himself. (1Co_13:12) As we look into the face and eyes of a friend to read his soul thought, feeling, inner self so the knowledge of God of which Christ says, "This is life eternal", (Joh_17:3) is of his character, holiness, truth, wisdom, infinite love to us.
II THE GLORIOUS FULNESS AND PERFECTION OF THIS SATISFACTION.
1. The end of the conflict between faith and doubt. How many a soul has echoed Job"s cry! (Job_23:3, Job_23:8-10) The life of faith is a wholesome discipline. (Joh_20:29 1Pe_1:8) But who could bear to think that it would last for ever?
2. The consciousness of perfect reconciliation to God. No shadow of fear, any more than of doubt.
3. The experience of complete likeness to our Saviour. (Col_3:10) This is the point of 1Jn_3:2.
4. The perfect rest of the soul. Hope is compared to the "anchor of the soul". (Heb_6:19) But the ship is still tossed on the surges. (Heb_4:9)
5. The elevation of our being and life to the highest pitch of love, knowledge, and joy.
CONCLUSION. Turn this expectation and desire into a question, a heart-trying testShall I be thus satisfied? Is my keenest desire tuned to this note? Will this satisfy me? this and nothing else? The presence of Christ, perfect likeness to him, and eternal fellowship with him; to behold, without a veil, the glory of God in the face of Jesus; to know God? Believe it, no other heaven is promised or possible. If you-life be not tending this way, you are misdirecting, misspending it.
Three awakings.
The Bible is a book of contrasts. Here we have a contrast between the man of God and "the men of the world." We may bring out something of its force and significance by considering the three awakings here suggested.
I THE AWAKING FROM SLEEP. The psalmist says (ver. 3), "Thou hast visited me in the night." The sense of God"s presence abides. When he awakes, it is not, like the worldling, to a life of selfish pleasure, but to a life of holy service. His first thought is not of self, but of God. His highest joy is in fellowship with God and in doing his work. His prayer is"Guard my first springs of thought and will, And with thyself my spirit fill.
II THE AWAKING FROM THE NIGHT OF TROUBLE. Darkness is the image of gloom; light, of joy. "The men of the world" have few troubles, but they have fewer comforts. Their hope is in the things that perish. The godly man may be sorely tried (vers. 7-9), but he has "strong consolation." And even if gloom settles down upon him, it is but for a little, and when he awakes, thoughts that troubled him pass away as the visions of the night, and he rejoices in God"s favour as in the light. Joy comes with the morning.
III THE AWAKING FROM THE SLEEP OF DEATH. "Here we see right into the heart of the Old Testament faith." In life and death, God is all. Thus the soul rises to the hope of immortality. "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
1. This awaking holds good of the whole being. The spirit is first, but the body next.
2. This awaking opens up a glorious vision. There will be many and wondrous sights, but the first and chief of all will be God. "Thy face." So Moses; (Num_12:8) so believers. (2Co_3:18) But here in a far higher way.
3. This awaking will bring complete satisfaction. Here we are never satisfied. This awaking into glory will first of all, and in the fullest sense of the word, bring satisfaction. "Thy likeness." Nothing less will satisfy. This is the hope of all our hoping. The joy of joys. "The rest that remaineth for the people of God." How grand must that possession be that will satisfy the soul, awakened to the highest life and the noblest aspirings! Not only will the redeemed be satisfied, but the Redeemer also. "He shall see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied." Study the awful contrast. W.F. (Dan_12:2 Luk_16:25 Joh_5:28, Joh_5:29)
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. 15. As for me. "I neither envy nor…
Ver. 15. As for me. "I neither envy nor covet these men's happiness, but partly have and partly hope for a far better." To behold God's face and to be changed by that vision into his image, so as to partake in his righteousness, this is my noble ambition; and in the prospect of this I cheerfully waive all my present enjoyments. My satisfaction is to come; I do not look for it as yet. I shall sleep awhile, but I shall wake at the sound of the trumpet; wake to everlasting joy, because I arise in thy likeness, O my God and King! Glimpses of glory good men have here below to stay their sacred hunger, but the full feast awaits them in the upper skies. Compared with this deep, ineffable, eternal fulness of delight, the joys of the worldlings are as a glowworm to the sun, or the drop of a bucket to the ocean.
Ver. 15. I will behold thy face. I look upon the face of a stranger and it moves me not; but upon a friend and his face presently transforms mine into a lively, cheerful aspect. "As iron sharpeneth iron, so doth the face of a man his friend" (Pr 27:17), puts a sharpness and a quickness into his looks. The soul that loves God, opens itself to him, admits his influence and impressions, is easily moulded and wrought to his will, yields to the transforming power of his appearing glory. There is no resistant principle remaining when the love of God is perfected in it; and so overcoming is the first sight of his glory upon the awaking soul, that it perfects it, and so his likeness, both at once. John Howe.
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Ver. 15. I will behold, etc. In the words we have, 1. The time of his complete and consummate happinessWhen I awake. 2. The matter of his happiness, and the manner of enjoying it; the matter and objectGod's face, or likeness; the manner of enjoyingI will behold thy face. 3. His perfect disposition and condition in the state of happinessI shall behold in righteousness, having my heart perfectly conformed to the will of God, the perfect and adequate rule of righteousness. 4. The measure of his happinessI shall be satisfied; my happiness will be full in the measure, without want of anything that can make me happy; all my desires shall be satisfied, and my happiness in respect of duration shall be eternal, without a shadow or fear of a change. William Colvill.
Ver. 15. He doth profess his resolution, yet notwithstanding all the danger he was in, to go on in the ways of God, and expect a gracious issue; but I, saith he, will behold thy face in righteousness; indeed, I cannot behold the face of the king without danger to me; there are a great many that run to kill me, and they desire his face; but though I cannot see his face, yet, Lord, I shall behold thy face; I will behold thy face, and it shall be in righteousness; I will still keep on in the ways of righteousness, and when I awake for I believe that these troubles will not hold longI shall not sleep in perpetual sleep, but I shall awake and be delivered, and then I shall be satisfied with thy likeness: there shall be the manifestation of thy glory to me, that shall satisfy me for all the trouble that I have endured for thy name's sake, that my soul shall say, I have enough. Jeremiah Burroughs.
Ver. 15. I shall be satisfied, etc. The fulness of the felicity of heaven may appear if we compare it with the joys and comforts of the Holy Spirit. Such they are, as that the Scripture styles them strong consolations (Heb 6:17); full joys (Joh 15:11); joy unspeakable and full of glory (1Pe 1:8); abounding consolations. 2Co 1:5. And yet all the joy and peace that believers are partakers of in this life is but as a drop to the ocean, as a single cluster to the whole vintage, as the thyme or honey upon the thigh of a bee to the whole hive fully fraught with it, or as the break and peep of day to the bright noontide. But yet these tastes of the water, wine, and honey of this celestial Canaan, with which the Holy Spirit makes glad the hearts of believers, are both far more desirable and satisfactory than the overflowing streams of all earthly felicities. And there are none who have once tasted of them, but say as the Samaritan woman did, "Lord, give me that water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw." Joh 4:15. So also the first and early dawnings of the heavenly light fill the soul with more serenity, and ravish it with more pure joy, than the brightest sunshine of all worldly splendour can ever do. I have read of a devout person who but dreaming of heaven, the signatures and impressions it made upon his fancy were so strong, as that when he awaked he knew not his cell, could not distinguish the night from the day, nor difference by his taste, oil from wine; still he was calling for his vision and saying, Redde mihi campos floridos, columnam auream, comitem Hieronymum, assistentes angelos: give me my fresh and fragrant fields again, my golden pillar of light, Jerome my companion, angels my assistants. If heaven in a dream produce such ecstasies as drown and overwhelm the exercises of the senses to inferior objects, what trances and complacencies must the fruition of it work in those who have their whole rational appetite filled, and their body beautified with its endless glory? William Spurstow, 1656.
Ver. 15. I shall be satisfied. Have you never seen how when they were finishing the interior of buildings they kept the scaffolding up? The old Pope, when he had Michael Angelo employed in decorating the interior of that magnificent structure, the Sistine Chapel, demanded that the scaffolding should be taken down so that he could see the glowing colours that with matchless skill were being laid on. Patiently and assiduously did that noble artist labour, toiling by day, and almost by night, bringing out his prophets and sibyls and pictures wondrous for their beauty and significance, until the work was done. The day before it was done, if you had gone into that chapel and looked up, what would you have seen? Posts, planks, ropes, lime, mortar, slop, dirt. But when all was finished, the workmen came, and the scaffolding was removed. And then, although the floor was yet covered with rubbish and litter, when you looked up, it was as if heaven itself had been opened, and you looked into the courts of God and angels. Now, the scaffolding is kept around men long after the fresco is commenced to be painted; and wondrous disclosures will be made when God shall take down this scaffolding body, and reveal what you have been doing. By sorrow and by joy; by joys which are but bright colours, and by sorrows which are but shadows of bright colours; by prayer; by the influences of the sanctuary; by your pleasures; by your business; by reverses; by successes and by failures; by what strengthened your confidence, and by what broke it down; by the things that you rejoiced in, and by the things that you mourned overby all that God is working in you. And you are to be perfected, not according to the things that you plan, but according to the divine pattern. Your portrait and mine are being painted, and God by wondrous strokes and influences is working us up to his own ideal. Over and above what you are doing for yourself, God is working to make you like him. And the wondrous declaration is, that when you stand before God, and see what has been done for you, you shall be "satisfied." Oh, word that has been wandering solitary and without a habitation ever since the world began, and the morning stars sang together for joy! Has there ever been a human creature that could stand on earth while clothed in the flesh, and say, "I am satisfied?" What is the meaning of the word? Sufficiently filled; filled full; filled up in every part. And when God's work is complete, we shall stand before him, and, with the bright ideal and glorified conception of heavenly aspiration upon us, looking up to God, and back on ourselves, we shall say, "I am satisfied:" for we shall be like him. Amen. Why should we not be satisfied? Henry Ward Beecher, in "Royal Truths, "1862.
Ver. 15. When I awake, I shall be satisfied with thy likeness. He speaks here of the resurrection; he calls it an awaking, for you know death is called a sleep. "Those that are asleep in the Lord shall rise first." He had spoken before of those that had put their happiness in the comforts of this life, suitable to their bodies, to the animal state of their bodies; that is clear by the fourteenth verse, "Deliver me from the men that are thine hand, O Lord, who have their portion in this life, whose belly thou fillest with thy treasure: they are full of children, and leave to them outward things, "bodily things. "But as for me, "saith he, "I will behold thy face in thy righteousness" (there is the vision of God which is his happiness in his soul): "and I shall be satisfied when I awake" (when I rise again), "with thine image." It is not the image of God only upon himself that he means here. Why? Because that doth not satisfy a holy heart, but it is that image of the invisible God which the human nature of Jesus Christ is, who, in opposition to all these outward pleasures, will be all in all to us; he is a spiritual creature, his human nature is spiritualised, made glorious, and our bodies shall be made spiritual likewise. "The body is made for the Lord, and the Lord for the body, "and this when they are both raised up; Christ is raised up already, and because he hath ordained the one to be serviceable to the other, he will also raise up our bodies; and when he doth raise me up, saith David, though other men have their bellies full here, and have animal pleasures they delight in; yet when I shall awake at latter day, and shall see this image of thine, shall see thy Son, I shall be satisfied: "When I awake, I shall be satisfied with thine image." Thomas Goodwin.
Ver. 15. I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness. In this Psalm holy David's afflictions are neither few nor small; his innocency that is wounded by malicious slanderers, his life that is in jeopardy by deadly enemies that compass him about; his present condition that is embittered unto him by the pressing wants of a barren wilderness, while his foes live deliciously in Saul's court. And yet under the weight and combination of so many sore evils, David carries himself as one that is neither hopeless nor forsaken, yea, lays his estate in the balance against theirs, and in this low ebb of his, vies with them for happiness; and at last shutting up the Psalm with a triumphant epiphonema, concludes himself to be by far the better man. "As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied, when I awake with thy likeness." They, it is true, enjoy the face of their king, whose favour is as a cloud of latter rain promising a fruitful harvest of many blessings, "but I, "saith he, "shall behold the face of God in righteousness, "whose lovingkindness is better than life, clothed with all its royalties. They have their bellies filled with hidden treasure, having more than a common hand of bounty opened unto them; but I have more gladness put into my heart, more than in the time that their corn and wine increased. They have their portion in hand, and as being men of this world; but I have mine laid up in the other: "I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness." In these words we have his and every believer's eternal happiness in the other life, set forth in three particulars as a most effectual antidote against present troubles and temptations that arise from the malice of wicked men against them. William Spurstow.
Ver. 15. I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness. The saints in heaven have not yet awaked in God's likeness. The bodies of the righteous still sleep, but they are to be satisfied on the resurrection morn, when they awake. When a Roman conqueror had been at war, and won great victories, he would return to Rome with his soldiers, enter privately into his house, and enjoy himself till the next day, when he would go out of the city to reenter it publicly in triumph. Now, the saints, as it were, enter privately into heaven without their bodies; but on the last day, when their bodies wake up, they will enter into their triumphal chariots. I think I see that grand procession, when Jesus Christ first of all, with many crowns on his head, with his bright, glorious, immortal body, shall lead the way. Behind him come the saints, each of them clapping their hands, or pouring sweet melody from their golden harps; all entering in triumph. And when they come to heaven's gates, and the doors are opened wide to let the King of glory in, how will the angels crowd at the windows and on the housetops, like the inhabitants in the Roman triumphs, to watch the pompous procession, and scatter heaven's roses and lilies upon them, crying, "Hallelujah! hallelujah! hallelujah! the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth." "I shall be satisfied" in that glorious day when all the angels of God shall come to see the triumphs of Jesus, and when his people shall be victorious with him. Spurgeon's Sermons.
Ver. 15. I shall be satisfied... with thy likeness. Let a man who is thirsty be brought to an ocean of pure water, and he has enough. If there be enough in God to satisfy the angels, then sure there is enough to satisfy us. The soul is but finite, but God is infinite. Though God be a good that satisfies, yet he does not surfeit. Fresh joys spring continually from his face; and he is as much to be desired after millions of years by glorified souls as at the first moment. There is a fulness in God that satisfies, and yet so much sweetness that the soul still desires. God is a delicious good. That which is the chief good must ravish the soul with pleasure; there must be in it rapturous delight and quintessence of joy. In Deo quadam dulcedine delectatur anima immo rapitur: the love of God drops such infinite suavity into the soul as is unspeakable and full of glory. If there be so much delight in God, when we see him only by faith (1Pe 1:8), what will the joy of vision be, when we shall see him face to face! If the saints have found so much delight in God while they were suffering, oh, what joy and delight will they have when they are being crowned! If flames are beds of roses, what will it be to lean on the bosom of Jesus! What a bed of roses that will be! God is a superlative good. He is better than anything you can put in competition with him; he is better than health, riches, honour. Other things maintain life, he gives life. Who would put anything in balance with the Deity? Who would weigh a feather against a mountain of gold? God excels all other things more infinitely than the sun the light of a taper. God is an eternal good. He is the Ancient of days, yet never decays, nor waxes old. Da 7:9. The joy he gives is eternal, the crown fadeth not away. 1Pe 5:4. The glorified soul shall be ever solacing itself in God, feasting on his love, and sunning itself in the light of his countenance. We read of the river of pleasure at God's right hand; but will not this in time be dried up? No. There is a fountain at the bottom which feeds it. Ps 36:9. "With the Lord is a fountain of life." Thus God is the chief good, and the enjoyment of God for ever is the highest felicity of which the soul is capable. Thomas Watson.
Ver. 15. When I awake, etc. The sincere Christian is progressive, never at his journey's end till he gets to heaven; this keeps him always in motion, advancing in his desires and endeavours forward: he is thankful for little grace, but not content with great measures of grace. "When I awake, "saith David, I shall be satisfied with thy likeness. He had many a sweet entertainment at the house of God in his ordinances. The Spirit of God was the messenger that brought him many a covered dish from God's table, inward consolations which the world knew not of. Yet David has not enough, it is heaven alone that can give him his full draught. They say the Gauls, when they first tasted of the wines of Italy, were so taken with their lusciousness and sweetness, that they could not be content to trade thither for this wine, but resolved they would conquer the land where they grew. Thus the sincere soul thinks it not enough to receive a little now and then of grace and comfort from heaven, by trading and holding commerce at a distance with God in his ordinances here below, but projects and meditates of that holy land and blessed place from which such rich commodities come, that he may drink the wine of that kingdom in that kingdom. William Gurnall.
Ver. 15. When I awake. How apt and obvious is the analogy between our awakening out of natural sleep, and the holy soul's rising up out of the darkness and torpor of its present state into the enlivening light of God's presence? It is truly said so to awake at its first quitting these darksome regions, when it lays aside its cumbersome night veil. It doth so more perfectly in the joyful morning of the resurrection day when mortality is swallowed up in life, and all the yet hovering shadows of it are vanished and fled away. And how known and usual an application this is of the metamorphic terms of sleeping and awaking in Holy Writ, I need not tell them who have read the Bible. Nor doth this interpretation less fitly accord to the other contents of this verse; for to what state do the sight of God's face, and satisfaction with his likeness, so fully agree, as to that of future blessedness in the other world? But then the contexture of discourse in this and the foregoing verse together, seems plainly to determine us to this sense: for what can be more conspicuous in them, than a purposed comparison, an opposition of two states of felicity mutually to each other? That if the wicked whom he calls men of time (as the words rlxm Mytmm are rendered by PagninusHomines de tempore and do literally signify) and whose portion, he tells us, is in this life: and the righteous man's, his own; which he expected not to be till he should awake, that is, not till after this life. John Howe.
Ver. 15. There is a sleep of deadness of spirit, out of which the shining of God's loving countenance doth awake a believer and revive the spirit of the contrite ones; and there is a sleep of death bodily, out of which the lovingkindness of the Lord shall awake all his own in the day of the resurrection, when he shall so change them into the similitude of his own holiness and glorious felicity that they shall be fully contented for ever: and this first and second delivery out of all trouble may every believer expect and premise to himself. "I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness." David Dickson.
Ver. 15. There is a threefold meaning in this verse, inasmuch as it is in Christ alone, the firstborn from the dead, the express image of Jehovah's glory, that the saints will rise immortal, incorruptible, and be like the angels in heaven. 1. They will greatly delight in the glorious state in which they will rise. 2. They will greatly delight in Jesus, in whom, and by whom, resurrection and immortality are brought to light; and 3. They will delight greatly in beholding the blessed and reconciled countenance of Jehovah, the Father, whom no eye of flesh can see. This is the difference between the appearance of God to Israel on Mount Sinai, and the happy state in which the saints will behold him in the resurrection. Glorious as the scene on Sinai was, yet the Lord said to Israel, "You have seen no (hnwmt) (Temunah), no manner of similitude, "or likeness, or countenance; but David speaks of the spiritual glory of the triumphant saints in the resurrection, when they shall see Jehovah as he is, and rejoice in his beatific presence for ever and ever. Benjamin Weiss, in loc, 1858.
Ver. 15. Everlasting life and salvation in heaven, is not a truth revealed only by the gospel, but was well known, clearly revealed, and firmly believed, by the saints of old. They had assurance of this, that they should live with God for ever in glory. When I awake, with thy likeness. Ps 17:15. "Thou wilt receive me to glory." Ps 73:24. "In thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore." Ps 16:11. They looked for another country, whereof Canaan was but a type and shadow, as the apostle shows in the epistle to the Heb 11:16. They knew there was an eternal state of happiness for the saints, as well as an eternal state of misery for the wicked; they did believe this in those days. Samuel Mather on the "Types, "1705.
Ver. 15. This is the language
(1). Of a man whose mind is made up; who has decided for
himself; who does not suspend his conduct upon the
resolution of others. (2). Of a man rising in life, and with great prospects before
him. (3). It is the language of a Jew.
Ver. 15. The beholding of God's face signifies two things.
1. The enjoyment of his favour.
2. Intimate communions with him.
William Jay.
Ver. 15. See "Spurgeon's Sermons, "No. 25. Title, "The Hope of Future Bliss." Divisions.
1. The Spirit of this utterance.
2. The matter of it.
3. The contrast implied in it.
Ver. 15. To see God and to be like him, the believer's desire. J. Fawcett.
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 I will behold Thy face in righteousness.
Psa_17:15
I will behold Thy face in righteousness.
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The vision of the face
I. The vision of the face of God.
1. The object of this vision: Thy face.
(1) A sensible glory: such a glory was seen by Moses at Sinai, afterwards in the tabernacle, and at the transfiguration.
(2) An intellectual glory: glory is resplendent excellency, real worth made conspicuous. This glory is the conspicuous lustre of Divine perfections.
2. The act of beholding: glory has a peculiar respect to the power of seeing. Sight is the most perfect sense: noble, comprehensive, quick and sprightly. The act of the mind is called seeing. The blessed shall have the glory of God so presented as to know as they are known.
II. The souls participation of His likeness. How strange an errand hath the Gospel in the world, to transform men and make them like God.
1. There is a sense in which we cannot be like God. God will endure no such imitation of Him as to be rivalled in the point of His Godhead (Eze_28:6-10).
2. There is a just and laudable imitation of God: we are to be imitators of God (Eph_5:1).
3. Man has already a likeness to God: the material world represents Him, as a house the builder; spiritual beings, as a child the father: others carry His footsteps, these His image.
4. There is a natural image of God in the soul of man, inseparable from it, its spiritual immortal nature, its intellectual and elective powers are the image of the same powers in God. There is also a moral likeness, wisdom, mercy, truth, righteousness, holiness.
5. Assimilation to God in moral perfections conduces to the souls satisfaction and blessedness: We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. How great a hope is this! Were the dust of the earth turned into stars in the firmament, what could equal the greatness and wonder of this mighty change.
III. The resulting satisfaction: the souls rest in God, its perfect enjoyment of the most perfect good, the perfecting of its desires in delight or joy. Desire is love in motion, delight love in rest. It is a rational, voluntary, pleasant, active rest: action about the end shall be perpetuated, though action towards it ceases. It is the rest of hope perfected in fruition. (John Howe.)
Who has the best of it
This Psalm is called a prayer, and how appropriately. It is such as comes only out of a sufferers heart. We owe our whole salvation to Christ, but, secondarily, we recoil much through the sufferings of men. The world will never know, till its whole history is reviewed and all its mysteries explained, how much instruction, comfort, incitement have flowed from the trials and sufferings of this one man. In this respect David and Paul have done more for the race than perhaps any two men who ever lived. Their great souls were often and heavily pressed by adversities and afflictions, in order that sweet wine of comfort and strength to others might flow from them.
I. This verse is the mount of victory. The dust of the battle plain is passed over, the perplexities of life left, and here we have a clear prevision of a perfect solution, and some realisation of it also. The verse does not refer exclusively to the awaking from the sleep of death at the resurrection; nor to the perfect moral likeness of God and the beatific vision which we shall then enjoy. This is not the first interpretation that suggests itself, and ought not, however true, to be taken as its exclusive meaning.
II. What, then, is the case? The nature of it is sounded out in the very first words of the Psalm. Hear the right, O Lord! It is a ease of conflict as between him and other men. It is the great struggle of this life in which many are engaged; in which, if we judge simply by outward appearances, some gain a very considerable and striking advantage over others. They seem to have the best of it. To David the conflict at this time was hot and searching, with a great deal of personality in it. He speaks of the wicked that oppress, of deadly enemies compassing him about; of men who spoke proudly with their mouth; of men enclosed in their own fat--so well fed, so prosperous, so like prize men were they;--of others lurking like the young lion in secret places, greedy for the prey--ready to grasp advantage ready to spring on him with their teeth. Then he describes their character generally, in the fourteenth verse, in language which applies to one age almost as much as to another. He calls them men of the world, which have their portion in this life: whose belly is filled with hid treasure--with the things they gather, and hoard, and store away. Men, too, who keep and bequeath to their children what they have gathered. These were the men against whom David felt himself striving; he felt that if they were right and happy, he must be wrong and miserable, and vice versa. But he was quite sure that he was right and not they, and that their misery was coming. Hence he says, As for me, I shall be satisfied, etc. He would awake day by day, when the present sorrow had passed, as he knew it would, to see Gods beautiful likeness and to have it in a measure in himself. With this he would be satisfied. This would be victory even now. To be made and kept righteous, to see God in my life, His face in my prayers, and to watch His image forming in my soul: this is to win the battle. I will complain no more! I am satisfied! Now, this is just--
III. The judgment we ought to form in our own case. It is a question always on trial, and always coming to some settlement--How is the best of life to be found? How shall we taste the sweetness, and gather the flower, and wear the crown, and say with joy, self-respect, and full conviction, This it is to be a man? Here, on the one hand, are the men of the world. David tells us, and we know, what they are in their aims, motives, and ways, and in their successes. They get wealth, position, name, influence, and some of them a considerable measure of low happiness and contentment. See, this is the man, coming out of his chamber in the morning after sound sleep, radiant and healthy. And these are his children, to not one of whom he has ever named seriously the name of God, but to each of whom he will probably leave a good deal of money. And these are his gardens and parks, fair to the eye, and fruitful in their season. And this is his chariot, with the swift horses to bear him to the city. And in the city, when he comes, see how he is received, and what a power he is! How with his pen he can remove ships to the far ocean, and open railways on the land! And he can speak, and make the worse appear the better reason; and, as with magicians wand, raise success out of failure itself. Now take a simple Christian man, who just has enough and little over, who has no name in the public, who is known but to a small circle, who can cheer a fellow pilgrim here and there, and offer a prayer at a sick bed. How small he seems in the common estimation beside this great man of the world. The simple man is very well in his own place and way, and it is a good thing for him that he has the consolations of religion and the hopes of the future life to cheer him amid the struggles and hardships of his lot. But it cannot he said that his lot, even with these consolations, is at all to be compared with that of the other man in this life. After this life is over his lot will be better, but here it is worse. No, says the text; it is better now, and here. He is the great man who is good. He is the happy man who sees the face of God. He is the noble man who strives after righteousness, and who satisfies himself with the Divine likeness in his soul.
IV. It concerns us much to get and keep this judgment of things. It needs an effort. It is an advanced lesson in Christian living. People stop short of it, and many miss it habitually. As when they conjecture that worldly men have a great deal of inward misery which they never tell--fear, guilt, and apprehension of danger haunting them like ghosts. Now, this may be true of some, but certainly not of all, nor most. They are well satisfied, and have no misgivings. But what then? Are they who are thus satisfied better off than the devout, struggling, praying servant of God? How mean of us to think so. In reality there is no comparison between the two. The tried Christian in full view of the prosperous and happy man of the world can say, As for me, I behold Thy thee in righteousness I am satisfied with Thy likeness. Then, again, we say that compensation is coming--that the next life will rectify all. That also is true. But that is not the present truth. The present truth is, that we have the advantage now; that we do not need to wait for the compensation; that godliness is better than ungodliness all the world over; that the face of God shining down upon a man is the supreme felicity and the last ideal; and that to awake morning by morning and realise the growing likeness of God in our spirits is joy like that of heaven. But if a man send his heart hankering after the joys of a life to come because he thinks he has not his due here, and that then and there it will be made up to him, what is this but worldliness after all? But if, on the other hand, any man loves the light of Gods face more than every visible creature and thing, and strives after His righteousness by the aids of His grace, and puts on His likeness as dress and beauty, and awakes in it now and again to his thankful joy and satisfaction, saying, This it is to live! let this blessed experience grow in me until it blooms and brightens into heaven--then he may take a text like tiffs and follow its most spiritual suggestions, and lift it to its last and highest applications, make it speak the resurrection from the dead, the appearance in heaven, the immortal life. (Anon.)
The vision of visions
The mind of man is invisible, yet its workings are often evident in the changes of the countenance. Thus the playful smile indicates pleasure; the clouded brow, wrath. In like manner, though the mind of God is invisible, yet are His attributes variously manifested.
I. The face of God is any expression of His character.
1. The Shekinah, therefore, is styled His face.
(1) Thus Moses is said to have entreated the face of Jehovah when he interceded for Israel amid the storm and flame in which God descended upon Sinai (Exo_32:11, marg; see also 33:11).
(2) So Aaron, after gazing upon those awful involutions of the glory between the cherubim, came forth and blessed the people, invoking for them the spiritual reality of what he had seen in symbol (Num_6:24-26).
(3) The invocations, Lift up Thy countenance, Cause Thy face to shine, and such like, of frequent occurrence, allude to the cloud of glory.
2. Christ is preeminently the face of Jehovah.
(1) Within the cloud there was a radiant human form which is distinguished as the Similitude of the Lord (Num_12:8; Eze_1:26). This adumbrated the taking up of the manhood into the Godhead in the Incarnation.
(2) Christ is anticipated in prophecy as the Glory of the Lord to be revealed, and in the fulfilment He is described as the Face of the Lord (Isa_40:1-3; Luk_1:76).
(3) Christ is preeminently the face or expression of the character of God as His most perfect Revealer (Joh_14:9; 2Co_4:4; Col_1:15; Heb_1:3).
II. Righteousness is our qualification for beholding the face of God.
1. God requires in us this qualification. No wonder, seeing the mire of worldliness clings to us, that we fail to experience as we might the spiritual manifestations of the Son of God (Joh_14:21; Eph_1:17-18). Divine manifestations are terrible to the unrighteous. When God looked out from the cloud upon the Egyptians, that was the signal for their destruction. The ungodly shall not stand in the judgment (Psa_1:4-6; Rev_6:16-17).
2. Righteousness is attainable through faith.
(1) Of this we have a notable illustration in the history of the first filmily. Cain laments his excommunication from the place of the Presence--From Thy face shall I be hid (Gen_3:24; Gen_4:3-14).
(2) The history of Jacob wrestling is an example no less appropriate (Gen_32:24-30). He called the place of his triumph Peniel, or the Face of God.
III. Fruition will be perfected in heaven.
1. The soul cannot be satisfied on earth.
2. Satisfaction is promised in the resurrection. (J. A. Macdonald.)
The vision of the face
The opening phrase of this verse is expressive of a noble singularity. As for me. It is the utterance of moral manhood. The Psalmist has been speaking of those who have their portion in this life, and he says, Be the animals that you are! As for me, I will seek higher things. As a being made in the image of God, I will find my satisfactions in contemplation of and assimilation to that image. As for me is the language of true soul nobility. And there are times when we too must dare to utter it, if we would be true to our higher nature and count for anything in the world. The men of the period when this Psalm was written had very dim and vague notions of immortality. With them a life beyond the grave was but a fitful hope or a sublime peradventure, and expressions such as this are to be interpreted of the present life and experience, and not of the heavenly state. The vision of the Divine face here anticipated is not the beatific vision after death, or that only ill a very secondary and shadowy sense, but the daily experience of the earthly life. The Psalm is poetry, couched in poetical imagery. Life to the Psalmist would be worth living just in the proportion ill which he could have the sight of God. What, then, did he mean by the Divine face? The more enlightened prophets and lawgivers of old had a profound sense of the danger of thinking of God otherwise than in His spiritual relations to men. Hence the prohibition to make any pictorial image or statuesque representation of Deity. Yet there is a very real meaning in this expression, the face of God, and it may be a very real vision to us all. In the face, character is preeminently revealed. The face is the man. Look into the face and you read the soul. The play of all the affections is there. There are faces that are the rendezvous of all the virtues. The face of God then stands for the nature of God; and the Psalmists anticipation of beholding that face meant the prospect of his happy realisation of the Divine gentleness, strength, and righteousness. It is mens faces that are the face of God. As His spiritual qualities are bodied forth in mens lives, so may we see Divine lineaments in the features of men. We are taught to behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The true glory of God is in His moral attributes, and Christ incarnated those Divine qualities in His nature. Whoso looked up into His face saw there the glory and the beauty of the Ineffable; and so many a human countenance, if not the face, is a face of God: for the radiance of a Divine love, the lustre of a Divine purity, the patience of a Divine charity, the tenderness of a Divine sympathy is there. Each of these is a lineament of Deity. The dying Bunsen, as he looked up into the eyes of his wife bending over him, said, In thy face have I seen the Eternal. Few artists have dared to essay the Divine form and features. But I once saw in the gallery at Florence a picture which very much struck me, and the memory of it has been with me ever since. It was by Carlo Dolci, and entitled LEterno Padre,--the Eternal Father. It was a bold and unconventional conception. There was no attempt to deify the figure. It was just a mans form and face, and not only that, but the face was full of human grief and misery. An aspect of ineffable sadness was in the eyes, and the whole countenance wore an expression of infinite sorrow and solicitude. And surely there must be an unutterable sorrow at the heart of the world! This vision of the face, then--when are we to see it? Tomorrow. I shall be satisfied when I awake--that is, tomorrow morning, every morning, this morning. Include in the Psalmists expression the conception of the Divine nearness. To see a face, you must be near the person. Near, to faiths apprehension, is the Divine presence. Something more than vicinity is meant. Intimacy of fellowship is implied. Familiar interchange of thought and affection. There is another thought hinted by the figure of the face, namely, propitiousness. When he speaks of beholding the face of God, it is in the confidence that God is his friend and not his enemy. Oriental monarchs only showed the face to those to whom they intended to be element and gracious. The Psalmist was happy in the conviction that, humbly endeavouring to walk in the ways of righteousness, he could look even God in the face, and that His face would not be turned away . . . There are two elements in this satisfaction.
1. The perception of the Divine image.
2. The assimilation to that image. In contemplating that likeness we grow into it. (J. Halsey.)
The Christians prospect
A Christian is the highest style of man, and the noblest work of God. The text tells of his high and exalted state of happiness which he shall obtain in the heavenly world. It consists in--
I. The full vision of the Divine glory. Note--
1. The grandeur of the vision.
2. The manner of it. In righteousness, that is, the righteousness of Christ.
3. The certainty of it. Scripture and experience assure us of it.
II. The complete resemblance to the Divine image.
1. The glorious expectation--to be like our Saviour and our God.
2. The period of accomplishment. When I awake, that is, on the resurrection morn.
3. The satisfaction obtained.
Conclusion: See
1. The value of the soul.
2. The vanity of the world.
3. The excellence of religion. (Ebenezer Temple.)
Beholding Gods face
This is the language--
1. Of a man whose mind is made up, who has decided for himself. As for me--let others do as they will.
2. Of a man rising in life, and with great prospects before him. He had looked beyond this world, though he was to rise therein.
3. Of a Jew. For in Judah was God known; His name was great in Israel. And though their knowledge was dim, it was real; and here is an onlook to the blessed future life.
I. The beholding of Gods face meant the enjoyment of His favour. This its constant meaning. And in heaven They shall see His face. All that means we cannot know now, but this one thing we know--
II. How it will be realised. It will be in and through righteousness. For merit and meetness this is needed. Our title to behold Gods face must be righteousness, and that we have in Christ. Our meetness and preparedness for it is righteousness, and this the Holy Spirit will work in us. No one longs for the Christian heaven but the Christian soul. (William Jay.)
The believers vision
I. What the Psalmist means by in righteousness. Speak of the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. It involves everything in it necessary to deliver and to save man forever and ever. The passive obedience closed the gates of hell; his active obedience opened those of heaven. Connected with this righteousness there must necessarily be another. Rectitude of principle. If ever we behold the face of God, either here or hereafter, in triumph, we must behold it in the image as well as in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
II. The believers vision of deity. God intended we should, even in this life, have very glorious views of His perfections. The face is frequently an index to the bosom. By the face is sometimes meant the loving kindness of the Lord.
III. The believers prospective view. He is now fully satisfied with his God, but dissatisfied with his little knowledge of Him and his little love to Him. The discipline of life is to end in fixing the full face of His child on Himself. Application:
1. We must have righteousness in principle as well as the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ.
2. Are there any who are satisfied with the creature?
3. Are there any who would make the creature their portion forever?
4. Address those who have God for their portion. (W. Howels.)
The hope of future bliss
It would be difficult to say to which the Gospel owes most, to its friends or to its enemies. For when they have persecuted Christs servants they have scattered them abroad, so that they have gone everywhere preaching the Word. Jesus Christ would never have preached many of His discourses had not His foes compelled Him to answer them. So with the Book of Psalms. Had not David been sorely tried, we should have missed very many of these holy songs. This Psalm is one of those which had never been written but for his great trouble. Our text tells of his consolation in the hope of future bliss. We note--
I. The spirit of the text. It breathes the spirit of one who is--
1. Entirely free from envy. The wicked may do as they will, but I envy them not. As for me, I, etc.
2. Looking into the future. I shall be satisfied. It has nothing to do with the present. He looks beyond the grave to another world. He who lives in the present is a fool; but wise men are content to look after future things. When Milton wrote his Paradise Lost he might know, perhaps, that he should have little fame in his lifetime; but he said, I shall be honoured when my head shall sleep in the grave. There are many things that we never hope to be rewarded for here, but we shall be by and by. Christian, live in the future.
3. Full of faith. There is no perhaps about his words. I will behold; I shall be satisfied. And there are many of Gods people who can say the like. But such must expect to have trouble, for God never gives strong faith without fiery trial. He will not make you a mighty warrior if He does not intend to try your skill in battle. Gods swords must be used. The old Toledo blades of heaven must be smitten against the armour of the evil one, and yet they shall not break.
II. The matter of this passage.
1. David expected to behold Gods face. We have seen His hand in both awful and gentle forms. And we have heard Gods voice; but the vision of God, what must that be? It is said of the temple of Diana, that it was so splendidly decorated with gold, and so bright and shining, that a porter at the door always said to everyone that entered, Take heed to your eyes; you will be struck with blindness unless you take heed to your eyes But oh! that view of glory. Who can know what it is to see Gods face?
2. There was a peculiar sweetness mixed with this joy. For he should behold Gods face in righteousness. How our sins have dimmed our sight, that we could not get a clear prospect of Jesus. But yonder we shall, see Him as He is.
3. And there will be satisfaction. I shall be satisfied. Imagination, intellect, memory, hope--all will be satisfied.
4. But when shall this satisfaction be? When I awake in Thy likeness. Not till then. On the resurrection morn, when complete in soul and body, they will awake. Their bodies till then are in their graves. But then they shall be restored. When a Roman conqueror had been at war, and won great victories, he would very likely come back with his soldiers, enter into his house and enjoy himself till the next day, when he would go out of the city and then come in again in triumph. Now the saints, as it were, steal into heaven without their bodies; but on the last day, when their bodies wake up, they will enter in their triumphal chariots; and the body is to be in the likeness of Christ. The spirit already is.
III. Here is a very sad contrast implied. We are all together now, undivided; but the great dividing day will come when Christ, the Judge, shall welcome His own people, but with lifted sword shall sweep the wicked into the bottomless pit. But now, whosoever will may be saved. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
I shall be satisfied.
The satisfaction of the future
I. The satisfaction of the future is often the support of the Christian in the present.
1. This fact explains the anomaly of the Christians earthly experience. The Christian experience is not to be ascertained by outward circumstances and conditions.
2. This fact reveals the secret of the Christians strength.
II. The satisfaction of the future consists in a participation in the Divine likeness.
1. The original type of the soul is to be found in God. Had we retained our pristine glory we should not have had to mourn the misery and emptiness of earth. It is the loss of purity that has reduced us so low, and made us so degraded. The soul can never be satisfied but in the complete restoration of the Divine likeness. The true Christians most exalted desire is, to resemble Christ in moral character here, and to be like Him in heaven.
III. The Divine likeness is communicated to the soul through the vision of Christ. By contemplating the glory of Christs character we become changed rote His image.
1. The Divine vision assimilates to the Divine likeness.
2. When the Divine vision is perfect the Christians happiness will be complete. (Homilist.)
Satisfaction
This Psalm is called simply a prayer, which is the oldest and most comprehensive name of the Psalms. But it is the prayer of one who is in trouble. Men never pray so frequently and so fervently as then. Doubtless it is David who thus prays, and the Psalm agrees, almost line for line, with the circumstances in which he was placed when pursued by Saul in the wilderness of Maon (1Sa_23:25).
I. That there is no satisfaction in the things of this world. Men there were who had their portion in this life; but David did not covet their portion, for he knew that they were not really satisfied. There are such men still, but that they are not satisfied is certain.
1. From the nature of the world itself. For what is it apart from God? It is a vain delusion, an empty show, a shadow that passes quickly away (Ecc_6:1-12). Momentary pleasure it gives, but not satisfaction, not contentment, not repose. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing, and hence men flit about from one object to another, never resting anywhere long, and always desiring something which they do not possess. Bitter disappointment is the lot of all who seek satisfaction in merely temporal things.
2. From the nature of the human mind. God has made us for Himself. Our capacities are large almost to infinity. We aspire after the highest good. How, then, can we be satisfied with things temporal and vain?
II. Satisfaction is realised in the service of God and in the possession of true religion.
1. Religion satisfies the intellect. Man is a creature of mind. He can think, reflect, and reason; and in the exercise of his mental powers he finds some of his richest pleasures. But where will he find subjects for thought so noble and so elevating as in the mysteries of revelation? Nature, science, philosophy will no doubt furnish him with many such subjects; but unless his mind is a strong and vigorous one they will often prove too difficult for him to understand. In Divine revelation, on the other hand, there are shallows in which a child may wade, whilst there are depths in which a philosopher may swim.
2. Religion satisfies the conscience. Man is a moral and responsible being; but he shows that he is a guilty one, and the monitor within condemns him for his violations of the law of God. What can calm it? what can satisfy it? Here the world is utterly powerless.
3. Religion satisfies the heart. Man is an emotional being. He is not a statue, or an automaton, or a curious piece of mechanism. He is not a cold intellectual being incapable of feeling, incapable of love. He is possessed of affections of the noblest kind, and he can only be happy where they are in active play. But on what object can he place them? He may love and ought to love his friends, his kindred, and his fellow me: but any one of these may be torn from his embrace, and then how lonely does his heart become. Divine revelation points to another object of affection--to Christ Jesus our Lord, and when the heart reposes in Him it is satisfied indeed (Son_1:14-16; Eph_3:17-19).
III. But our text goes further, and we observe that full satisfaction will be realised when we awake with Gods likeness! The eye will be satisfied with seeing, for it will see the King in His glory (Isa_33:17; 1Jn_2:2). The ear will be satisfied with hearing, for it will hear the music of the heavenly choir (Rev_5:11-14; Rev_14:2; Rev_15:2-3). The intellect will be satisfied in knowing, for it will comprehend the grandest mysteries of nature, providence, and grace. The soul--the whole being--will be satisfied with what it feels and loves It will love throughout eternity the Triune God. (Thornley Smith.)
Satisfaction
Two kinds of satisfaction are brought to view in this verse.
I. The natural satisfaction. The aim, the current of desires is limited to things of this life. There is danger of mistaking dissatisfaction with our earthly lot for genuine repentance. Looking for a good time in heaven, one may overlook the indispensable preparation.
II. The spiritual satisfaction. Dr. Bushnell says, If your feeling reaches after heaven, and your longings are thitherward; if you love and long for it, because chiefly of its purity; loosened from this world, not by your weariness and disgusts, which all men suffer, but by the positive affinities of your heart for what is best and purest above this also is a powerful token of growing purification. Compare the two satisfactions; how do they look. Compare Byrons canker and the grief with Pauls I have fought a good fight . . . henceforth, etc. This deep satisfaction made it possible for the once timid Peter to take the lead in the warfare in behalf of this spiritual kingdom that now extends to the ends of the earth. It gave him, and all martyrs since, that sublime patience whose persistence no dungeon walls, nor rack, nor faggot could subdue. It is a peace the world cannot give nor take away. (C. M. Jones.)
The Christians completed life
Men often speak and live better than they know. The text is prophetic and far-reaching in significance. It suggests--
I. The power and nature of Christian contentment. Soul rest comes from God alone. Nothing can afford the soul repose save its union with Christ in God. In vain do we look to the world for satisfaction. How transitory and unsatisfying are all worldly pleasures and pursuits. Whoever depends upon them for real happiness will be bitterly disappointed. Enjoy God rather than His creatures.
II. The Christian should not expect perfect satisfaction in this life. Not that the Christian religion does not do all that it promises to do in this world. The work of this life is only preparatory, and therefore incomplete. Imperfection is the just characterisation of this world. The Christian constantly finds himself enveloped in mystery and darkness. Anti his surroundings are unfavourable. Sin is in this world. Here he is contented, though not fully satisfied.
III. In the Christians completed life heaven will afford perfect satisfaction.
1. The Christian will be satisfied with heaven as a place.
2. The Christian will be satisfied with the society of heaven.
3. We shall be satisfied with our own condition.
We shall carry our intellect and our memories with us. Think of the joy that shall fill our souls when we arrive at the eternal home, enter our Fathers house, and behold His face in righteousness, and by the power of His infinite tenderness and love be drawn into such Dearness with Him as to repose on His bosom with infinite satisfaction and delight. (G. M. Mathews.)
Satisfaction
The Lords people are not strangers to satisfaction now. They are satisfied early with His favour, with His goodness, with the fatness of His house. They have found the supreme good But they desire more of it. Hence David speaks of his satisfaction as future. I shall be satisfied when, etc. So, then, see here--
I. The insatiable ambition religion inspires. We have witnessed this grandeur and elevation of soul even in the humblest walks of pious life. How poor the aims of the worldly hero compared With this.
II. The excellency of the soul. It is the prerogative of many only to be capable of such sublime satisfaction. Other creatures have a food suited to their nature, partake of it and are satisfied. But man is not, cannot be, with aught he finds here.
III. What a blessedness that must be that can and will satisfy every longing of the soul. Yes, though it be the soul of a Newton or Bacon. Then make this prospect sure; keep it clear; bring it near. Use it daily, in religion, in trials, when you come to die The old and fictitious idea, that if a man travelled with a myrtle wand in his hand he would feel no fainting or weariness, is realised here in this blessed hope. (William Jay.)
The sailors satisfaction
We may here observe--
I. The genuine temper of a gracious soul as distinguished from the world--to be taken up with God as his chief good. And this is so with him.
1. From a settled conviction of emptiness and insufficiency of any created good to be to them instead of God.
2. There is everything in God that may commend and endear Him to His people.
3. Tis the property of grace to carry His people to Him as their chief good.
4. Gracious souls have all found that rest, and some of them that joy in God, that nothing in the world besides can give, and which they would not exchange for anything it can offer. But--
II. What it is, with reference to God, that sums up His peoples happiness. It is the beholding His lace, and the satisfaction that results. More especially the likeness of God in Jesus Christ. Or the likeness may mean that which is impressed upon the soul, a resemblance of the Divine glory. Oh, happy they who, from seeing Gods back parts, are thus gone to see Him face to face.
III. Whoever is admitted to behold Gods face, it must be in righteousness.
1. Righteousness imputed. Jesus said, I am the way.
2. Righteousness inherent. And this is necessary from the nature of the thing (2Co_6:14). What would sinners do in the presence of God?
IV. However much we may enjoy of heaven here, there is much more reserved above which they shall at last obtain.
1. Gods people do have much of happiness or heaven, begun through God graciously showing Himself unto them.
2. But much more of heaven is yet reserved. And this is in order to wean them from the present world, and that they may have the quicker relish of their final blessedness. And,
3. This is what they are aspiring to, and shall at length obtain.
V. There is a fixed and proper season for the saints satisfaction.
1. The soul awakes when it is set free from the body. It does not descend into the grave with the body, but ascends to behold Gods face. How calmly, then, should we contemplate death.
2. Both soul and body awake at the resurrection. The body is sown in corruption, but it shall be raised in incorruption. (D. Wilcox.)
The believers present standing and assured anticipation
What a contrast do these words felon with what goes before. The men of the world and Himself; their satisfaction and His. This Psalm not to be applied exclusively to Christ. Much tells of Him, but much also of ourselves today. Note--
I. The high attainment of the real child of God. He gets it now; now he beholds Gods face in righteousness. Christs righteousness, not his own, even the best of it. And we behold Gods face thus when we appropriate for ourselves what Christ has done. If we have done this we shall live holily, because under the influence of Christ.
II. The interesting expectation. I shall be satisfied. How much of that likeness have I now? Ask yourselves that. The awaking, it includes both transformation and translation. Holiness and eternal life at the Resurrection.
III. The solemn assurance. I will behold--very bold: I shall be satisfied. I hope and trust--seems kicked out of doors. I will, and I shall. Now, intimacy with God, personal intimacy with God, is the only thing that can warrant such an assurance. Whatever you may know of doctrine, and whatever your walk may be with regard to morality (the more of it the better), I tell you, in the name of the living God, that you cannot--must not--dare not--claim this will and shall unless you know something about intimacy with God. Believe me, beloved, in that which I have often stated to you--this is the vitality of religion. (Joseph Irons.)
The satisfaction of the righteous man
Every man is conscious of desires that find here no befitting object. Nothing here comes up to the full aspirations of the soul. It is, and has been, the design of providence to teach men by example that a finite world is incompetent to fill out the demands of an immortal mind. I can never expect to be satisfied on this earth. Here the stupor of sleep is upon me. But not always shall I sleep. I shall awake. I shall behold the face of God in righteousness. In the future there are two periods when the righteous will have two reasons for exulting in their Maker. The Christian looks forward with the brightest hope to one or other of these two periods. So soon as his soul is released from the body it will rise as on the wings of an eagle to new knowledge and new bliss. Then is the eye of the intellect opened. Then the mental ear is made sensitive to every word of God as no uncertain sound. At death we pass into intimate contact with Him who keepeth all created minds vigilant in their measure like Himself. When the Christian repeats the words of the text he often alludes to the breaking up of his spiritual slumber, and says that the present world is a dream, and the bright world to which he goes is one of wakeful joy. But he often alludes to a richer scene than this. In some aspects he looks to the end of life as the end of trouble, and looks at death as a state of rest, of sleep in Jesus. A devout heart is a prophecy of ultimate enjoyment. We are sure of a holly peace if we have a holy appetence for it.
1. The righteous man will be satisfied with the Divine intellect. It is in compliance with the imperfect language of men that we speak of their Makers intellect. This is His power to perceive all truth--all facts and all possibilities, Heaven is the abode of minds bearing His intellectual image.
2. The righteous man will be satisfied with the Divine sensibilities. He will be satisfied with God as the Spirit all whose involuntary emotions are exactly appropriate to their objects.
3. The righteous man will be satisfied with the holiness of God. He glorifies his intellect and sensibility with perfect benevolence. Moral rectitude is benevolence. Moral rectitude is moral beauty. The Christian also hopes to be satisfied in having a form like that which he adores: in possessing, so far as a creature is able to possess, the likeness of the Creator. It is said, I shall be satisfied. He is to awake suddenly. As the commencement of this joy is sudden, so the date of it is uncertain. And if we are to be in this image, then we must cheerfully submit to all the influences needed for our transformation. (E. A. Park, D. D.)
The three-fold hope of the Christian
I. For the righteous there is a glorious hope. This creed concerning the future has three clauses: I shall awake; I shall be like Christ, when I awake; when I awake like Christ, I shall be satisfied. Simple and deep, as the very purposes of God!
1. I shall awake. Tired eyes fall asleep, tired feet rest; but after Gods beautiful ordinance of sleep is fulfilled we shall awake rested, refreshed, re-invigorated. What was it that David believed would wake up? What was it that David believed went to sleep? There is more than a little obscurity on this point. More than one modern writer speaks as if the soul were asleep. That we cannot think. We must apply sleeping and waking to that part of us to which it belongs. We put the body to sleep; we lay it in its narrow grave. We do not know what the Divine alchemy may do for these bodies of ours.
2. I shall be like Christ when I awake. Our bodies will be like Christs body. The bodies of the saints will be glorified bodies, like the body of the Son of Man. And I feel glad that He lived a little while after the resurrection.
3. I shall be satisfied.
(1) We shall be satisfied with ourselves.
(2) We shall be satisfied with our homes.
(3) We shall be satisfied with Christ.
II. The glorious hope belongs only to the righteous. The first clause indicates those who will certainly enjoy this blessed hope. Those who can say, As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness. You cannot see His face at all, if you do not see it that way. Righteousness as a state we call holiness. He who by faith in Jesus has righteousness as a standing will, also by faith, receive the grace of the Holy Spirit, which shall save him from sin and all uncleanness. We shall never be able to say, with any firmness of tone, I shall be satisfied, until we can also add, Not m my own righteousness, but in the righteousness which is of God in Christ. But that will lead to the other inevitably. (John Bradford.)
The man of the Bible
We have in Scripture a revelation of God, but we have also a revelation of man. This revelation of man, this that we call the human element mingling with the Divine in the Bible, is what makes it come home to our feelings, our conscience, our bosom, in a way that a simple revelation of the Divine thought by itself could never have done. We have much to be thankful for that God has given us the revelation of Himself through men. In this Book of Psalms it is men that speak to us under the influence of the Spirit. Look at this Psalm as representing to us the man of the Bible.
1. This man has a consciousness of a religious, Divine life in Him. It is a humble, thankful, moral, spiritual consciousness that this man, believing in God, loves Him, has communion with Him, and, under the influence of that Divine faith, keeps himself from the path of the destroyer, from the works and the society of the wicked.
2. This Divine faith, this religious consciousness in the man, develops and expands until it culminates in the persuasion of a future life, and an expectation of being with God and beholding Him. Men say there is nothing in the books of the law about a future life. But the Hebrews had a religion before they had the law. There was the patriarchal faith, the faith of Abraham and Jacob, and there was hope of the future in it.
3. This man anticipates a waking up,--that there will be something like an abruptness, something like suddenness in the crisis; that all at once be will come face to face with God, into a fulness of the revelation of the Divine countenance, and a conformity to His image. His words may have been uttered by David without his understanding distinctly what was in them but feeling that there was some great idea suggested to him by that condition of his Divine life under which the Spirit was then influencing him. The idea of a future life among the Hebrew people gradually expanded until it took the form of a resurrection. Our Lord did not bring life and immortality to light as a new thing; He took it as a thing existing in the Hebrew mind, existing imperfectly and indistinctly, and He threw light upon it, brought it out in all fulness and completeness and perfection.
4. This man will be perfectly satisfied. If God has created a species of beings with spiritual and religious faculty; then the infusion into the spirit a participation in the Divine blessedness must be satisfaction; all the faculties regaled, every want met.
5. The man expects all this through righteousness--in righteousness--that is, as the outcome and end of a righteous life, heroic in its contest with evil, grand in its development of obedience and duty. That is the doctrine of the Bible from beginning to end. That is, then, the idea of the man of the Bible; believing in God, he lives near Him and with Him, and has a consciousness of a spiritual and religious life, that expands into the anticipation of a future life; that takes the particular form of rising from the lowest at one step to the highest, face to face with God, with something of suddenness. And with that he expects an ultimate and perfect satisfaction, and he expects it in the way of righteousness. Now, what do you think of that man? We are quite capable of forming a moral judgment.
Take this man, then, weigh him, measure him, judge him, what sort of man is he?
1. The foundation thought of this man must be approved and justified. If there be a God, can anything be more right or justifiable than that an individual with the capacity of religion, the power of faith, should pray to, worship, and trust God, believe in his Fatherhood, and seek to have spiritual, religious communion with Him?
2. Then take the next idea--that this religious faith expands into the anticipation of a future life. There are grounds and reasons on which common sense would say, The man is right, the man is reasonable. He belongs to a system in which what we call nature wastes nothing. Nature is the most thrifty thing you can imagine. There is not a single atom of matter annihilated. It changes its form, it takes another position, but it is there. Are all minds to be wasted? Is she to be extravagant just here? Nature never deceives. All the instincts, all the faculties, which are in any of its creatures, there is always something to meet them. Is nature to play loose with the moral aspirations of man, the spiritual instincts, the irrepressible anticipations of which he is capable?
3. Take the other idea. He anticipates a kind of abrupt, sudden rise. You will say, How can that be justified? Would not gradual successive steps be more reasonable? But the religion of the Bible gives us the idea of a terrible catastrophe that happened to humanity. Humanity is in an unnatural condition, and therefore there comes down the supernatural. There is the supernatural revelation of a Mediator and redemption, therefore the process is altogether changed. It seems to be more consistent under the new circumstances that a man should awake and suddenly find himself at home with God. And there will be a likeness, an awaking in His image. This man anticipates it, and he will be satisfied with it. (Thomas Binney.)
Satisfied
The Psalmist has a morning in his view unspeakably desirable and glorious. How are we to understand his words of mystic devotion, and ecstasy, and hope? Not, surely, of the following, morning in the. Psalmists life. The singer does not merely look forward to a deliverance from his present sorrows and sufferings. That is John Calvins interpretation. It is, however, difficult to find a worthy meaning, unless we think of the sleep of death and the radiant morning of eternity which is to follow. It may seem strange to listen to so definite a statement of the everlasting future at so early a stage in the revelation. But a devout man who is in communion with God, and who knows the delights of that matchless friendship, will reach up now and then to the conclusion that the communion and friendship are destined to survive the present world. Let us single out some of the elements of this blessedness, this satisfaction.
I. There is the beatitude of the senses. We may believe that there is aggrandisement, expansion, growth in store for our senses. Have we not hints of it already? In the Christian life on earth these bodily faculties are sometimes marvellously quickened and sharpened.
II. There is the beatitude of the mind. We think; we study; we seek after truth, and find it. It is one of the highest glories of our manhood that it is so governed by the passion for knowledge, and so resolved to grow in wisdom. Our minds, once we have learned to sit at the feet of Jesus, are admitted to new marvels and delights. We are scholars in the most blessed school. We grow not only in knowledge, but in holiness and trust and love. But much continues to be veiled and covered even from the sanctified intellect. In the hereafter we shall understand. What an awakening it will be for our intellect!
III. There is the beatitude of the memory. Such a weird and tremendous power is our memory. It retains our past, storing up our experience, letting nothing slip out of its tenacious grasp. And it reproduces our past, summoning it all back again when it chooses, to scourge as it did Manasseh, to solace and strengthen us as it did St. Paul. Memory can never be the bringer only of good tidings to Gods people in this life. Memory is too precious a chamber of the soul to be scattered and destroyed. What will make its words only good and comfortable in heaven is, that it will live there in the perpetual presence of Christ.
IV. There is the beatitude of the conscience. We carry about with us a faculty which is at once a mirror of right and wrong, and a law enacting royally the path in which we ought to go, and a tribunal condemning us sternly and terribly for our wandering from the straight road, and a voice of God Himself within our breast. A priceless and momentous possession indeed, but an exceedingly troublesome one to many of us.
V. There is the beatitude of the heart. It is the heart which loves. But what heart has gained its end and arrived at its goal? There is no satisfied heart. In the city of God all hearts are satisfied. Heaven is the hearts harbour made after the weary and stormy sea. (A. Smellie, M. A.)
The Christians future likeness to Christ
David and Paul and John looked for the same blessed consummation of their happiness for eternity, in being like their Lord.
I. The assured hope of satisfaction at a future time. The cause of his satisfaction is the likeness of God. We to whom the New Testament is given know what that likeness is, for to that end is the history of Jesus Christ given us. David could only have had a vague and indistinct idea; but still it had a practical hold on his mind, and influenced his character. Davids was a personal God, a living person, to whom like a child to its parent he could run and take refuge. And therefore, as his hope here was clear and well defined, so was his hope hereafter. They always go together in this.
II. The subject matter of his satisfaction. Satisfied expresses more than joy. It is the fulness of joy. The idea is purposely contrasted with the state of things around him, in which, at the best of times, there was always something wanting. He will be satisfied. There will be nothing left to wish and long for, and it will be all comprised and contained in that one absorbing brilliance of his hope, the likeness of his Lord. Break this up into some of its particulars.
1. There are the real pleasures of life, such as do contribute to mans happiness, and to the well-being of the world. And life has such pleasures, and many of them. But there are cares. There is no satisfying portion in our pleasures. There is, and ever will be, much that is hollow. Not so when we wake up after the Saviours likeness. We shall have attained to the Saviours likeness, and that admits of nothing higher that we can attain.
2. Look for a moment at the body. The body is a wonderful instrument. The body is not a thing to be cried down and despised, as we shall know full well when we have it in the Saviours likeness.
3. It is the same with the mind or intelligence. The mind presents the same absence of a satisfying fulness, that its lower companion, the body, does.
4. Paul hints that it is thus with what even now is really good.
5. Look at that which is beyond yourself. It is the same with the society you must mingle with.
III. The time specified. When I awake. On the morning of the resurrection. David, under all the cares of government, in all the discomforts and troubles of his family and his position, turned for consolation to that bright hope which gilds the horizon of the waiting Christian. (G. Deans, M. A.)
When I awake.--
The dream and its awakening
How does our life show itself, to the devout and reflective mind, as little better than a vision of the night! Think what dreams are in themselves, taking them generally, and then think what any devout mans life, or any mans life, appears when he comes to look back upon it from old age, and you will have no great difficulty in answering this question. There is an absence of method in dreams. They are incongruous, incoherent, disconnected, confused. Our dreams come like shadows, and so depart. In all this the devout mind finds resemblance to its own history. Many thoughts and feelings of a better kind have been stirring within us. But there is no order, no properly connecting link. Perhaps we should find it difficult to put anything like order into our present spiritual state and feeling, to say nothing about the past. There is a lack of any right measurement of time in dreams. In a single moment of sleep we may seem to live through weeks, and even months and years. There is no real time in sleep. All is illusive. We are equally at fault in our attempts to estimate our life. Bliss lessens it, sorrow lengthens it out. The past takes its tinge from our present condition. Surprises are rare in dreams. We may meet our own funeral procession, but we feel no surprise. Here the likeness holds good of other things. There is enough of the wonderful in our lives, and in the lives of those around us, if only we could see it, if only we were awake. There is in dreams an indistinctness and liability to fade. We see, and yet we do not see. There is a blurred image of something. We are like men attempting to catch a shadow. An old feeling is one of the most difficult things to recall, because it was dependent upon much that was temporary; and some thoughts are like feelings. But this fleetingness and indistinctness in our life is brought more vividly before us as all other impressions fade. The memory decays, or seems to decay. We find it hard to recall names. Perhaps also our perception appears to decline, through the failing of the body. Life is slipping away; and life seems then little better than a dream. Now look at the other side. If life is as a dream, death is the awakening from it. Some refer the Psalm to awakening from simple sleep. We regard them as distinctly referring to the resurrection. There is a certainty about this awakening. The evidence of the resurrection is strong and manifold. See that supplied by Christian literature; by religious observances; by Christian character and life. As death is certain, so is the awakening after death. If our life be as a dream, our death will be as the light of morning awakening us from a sleep. Consider the attractions of this awakening. There is the Divine resemblance which will be enjoyed by us in it. Death does not possess any regenerative power; but there is nevertheless the promise of completeness to the believer in the world beyond the grave. There is full contentment in that other world. We never get this out of anything here. However we plan and fore arrange, we are always stumbling upon something which brings disappointment. But there, no bitter disappointment ever comes. In that fair clime there is no tempter, no doubt, no sin. Should not the thought of this better life also check undue expectations as to the present? (J. Jackson Goadby.)
The future of the believer
I. The state to which by implication David intimates that he should be reduced. When I awake. From what? Sleep; but not nightly sleep, rather the sleep of death. In assimilating death to sleep David gives utterance to no fiction. In many respects they differ; yet sleep is an impressive picture of death. David does not mean to assert, that when the body sleeps in death the soul sleeps also. The soul is not inactive in ordinary bodily sleep. The death of the body is no more the death than it is the sleep of the soul, but simply a giving up the ghost,--a passing of the soul from a relationship that is seen to a relationship that is unseen. The analogy of death and sleep holds equally in the ease of good and of bad men.
II. The change which david affirms that he should undergo. He says that from the sleep of death he should awake. When, he did not know, but of the certainty of his awaking, of the nature of his appearance, and of the recognisableness of his personality when awakened he does speak. In the creed of David the awakening of his body from the sleep of death--its living reunion with his soul, was a fact--not a matter of doubt, but a matter of certainty. To this doctrine many cannot subscribe. But because it is beyond the reach of the power that is finite, does this prove that it is beyond the reach of that power that is infinite? Consider the nature of his appearance when awakened. With Thy likeness. The likeness of Christs resurrection body.
III. The felicity of which david declares that he should participate. I shall be satisfied. It was not with David a problematical thing, but a thing of which he was sure. The felicity of the glorified consists in their seeing and resembling Him in whose likeness they shall awake. (A. Jack, D. D.)
The Christians awakening
In the words of the text is an implied contrast between the present and the future condition of Gods people, in three particulars.
1. The present state is figuratively exhibited as one of sleep. He that wakes must have been asleep. David regarded this life as little better than an unquiet sleep. At times we are ready to doubt whether anything about us is real, and to suspect that we are the dupes all along of deceitful impressions. Moreover, the Christian wayfarer is painfully conscious of deficiency in that lively wakefulness which is most important to his spiritual progress. How, then, can he fail to desire earnestly the time of awaking?
2. The unsatisfactory nature of all things here below was another fact that pressed on Davids mind. In saying I shall be satisfied, he as good as says I am not satisfied. What meagre fare to a spiritual man must that be which even a natural man finds deficient.
3. Here, again, the Psalmist encounters one of those great evils, perfect deliverance from which is reserved to another state of being. That evil is the loss of Gods image. That loss is only partially repaired in any renewed soul. It is the heartfelt complaint of every pious person, that his resemblance to God is so faint and obscure. What is the aim, or substance, of religion? It is to know, to love, to imitate God, as He is revealed to us in the face of Immanuel. We are religiously happy, just in proportion as the moral character of God is transfused into our souls. This, then, is the fulness of joy to an immortal and sanctified being--we shall be like Him. (J. N. Pearson, M. A.)
The great awakening
A good mans consolation in a time of severe distress. He contrasts his enemies condition and his own. They had their portion in this life. He looked for his in the life to come.
I. The awakening. According to the ideas commonly entertained with regard to our state now and hereafter, we are awake in this life, and we sleep at death. The text suggests another thought, namely, that in this life we are asleep, and at death we wake out of sleep. Before conversion men may certainly be said to be asleep. Sin acts as a sedative. But that is not the thought here. The Psalmist was a godly man, and yet, comparing his present condition with the future, he regarded himself as asleep. We, too, have felt at tunes that the best known and most active of our powers are comparatively dormant. And it is reasonable to suppose that there are other faculties and powers within us at present slumbering, of whose existence we have no consciousness, and for which we have no name.
II. The sight which he would witness. I shall behold Thy face in righteousness. The face of a familiar friend is welcome. The very sight of him sometimes does good. Gods face is invisible at present. Now we see through a glass darkly. How dim is the outline of His character! Many call God their Father who would be ashamed to exhibit the qualities which they attribute to Him. Sometimes Gods face does seem averted or disguised. Clouds and darkness are round about Him. The sight of Gods face will not afford delight to everyone. In some it will awaken terror; in others shame.
III. The satisfaction which the sight will afford. I shall be satisfied. The worldling is not satisfied, and cannot be. The Christian cannot find satisfaction in anything that the world offers. (F. J. Austin.)
The dream, the awakening, and the transformation
I. Mans life is a dream. In what respect is it like a dream?
1. It is unreal. A dream is a mere phantom of the brain, an airy fiction; what the mind sees and hears is mere semblance, not substance. So is life. Every man walketh in a vain show. We live amongst shadows, not substances.
2. It is disorderly. Dreams seem to have no method, no law of succession; they are a jumble of incoherences and incongruities. How disorderly is our life, our plans and theories are conflicting and shifting.
3. It is fleeting. We can dream a poem, a history in a minute or two; dreams take no note of time. So with life: how fleet and fluctuating. It is forgettable. How soon is a dream forgotten! The grandest vision of the night often dissolves into forgetfulness at the break of day. What a tendency in this life there is to forget our best impressions and holiest resolves. Truly, life is a dream. We are often but the creatures of imagination, uncontrolled either by judgment or conscience.
II. Mans death is an awakening. In that dread moment when the soul quits the body it wakes up to the realities of existence. The markets, governments, trades, professions, pleasures, and pursuits of the world fade as a baseless vision of the night the moment the soul opens its eye in eternity. The man is brought, not only into a life of realities, but into conscious contact with these realities--Law, Spirit, God. Death, instead of being the extinction of being, is the awakening of it out of sleep.
III. Mans satisfaction is Gods likeness. Then shall I be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness. In what respect? Not in the respect of might, or wisdom, or ubiquity. But in the sense of moral character, and the essence of that character is love. God is love. Mans satisfaction is where? In love. God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God. We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the image of God, are changed from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of Christ. (Homilist.)
The destiny of the good
I. The death of the good is an awaking from sleep. The best of men are scarcely awake here. The apostle felt this when he said, It is high time to awake out of sleep. He was speaking to Christians.
1. There is much spiritual torpor even in the best. Where is that earnest activity which we feel is the right thing for us?--the activity which Christ had when He said, I must work, etc. What Paul had, who said, I count not my life dear, etc. I press towards the mark, etc.
2. There is much spiritual dreaming in the best. Our views of Divine things are often only as the incoherent visions of a dream. At death the soul wakes up. It is a morning to it,--a bright, joyous, stirring morning. Do not be afraid of death, then.
II. In this awaking at death there will be the complete assimilation of the soul to God. When I awake, with Thy likeness. What is this likeness? Not a resemblance to His wisdom, power, or sovereignty, but a resemblance to His governing disposition:--love. Moral likeness to a being consists in a likeness to His ruling disposition. Variety in material objects and mental characteristics is the glory of the creation. But similarity in moral disposition is what heaven demands as the essence of virtue and the condition of bliss. All can love, and to love is to be like God. At death this in the good becomes perfect. Our sympathies will then flow entirely with His; our wills will then go entirely within the circle of His.
III. In this assimilation will consist the everlasting satisfaction of our nature, I shall be satisfied. There is no satisfaction without this.
1. The spiritual powers will not work harmoniously under the dominion of any other disposition.
2. The conscience will frown upon any other state of mind.
3. The Great One will not bless with His friendship any other state of mind in His creatures. (Homilist.)
The awakening of man
David therefore expected to live after death,--he should awake, and awake in Gods likeness.
I. At death the soul of the believer thus awakes. The remains of sin are done away, and nothing left but the image of God.
II. Our present state is a kind of night scene. As dreams, and like the vagaries of sleep. Only that is solid and valuable which has been connected with God. How short are waking intervals. Natural men are entirely asleep, but Christians cannot sleep, as do others. Yet they are often drowsy and insensible. Hence Paul says, It is high time to wake out of sleep. And at death they will wake out of sleep.
III. The body likewise shall awake. For the body is an essential part of human nature. But it is lying under the incapacities and dishonours of mortality. Therefore the intermediate state is necessarily an imperfect one. But the purchase of the Saviour will be reclaimed. We wait for the Saviour, who shall change our vile body that, etc. (William Jay.)
The final awakening of the saint
Among the beautiful epitaphs, of which the world is full, the following may be mentioned: Near Marshfield, the famous country home of Daniel Webster, is a lonely little graveyard where the great statesman lies buried. Beside him is the grave of his wife, and traced on the tombstone is this exquisite inscription, Let me go, the day is breaking. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
The time for satisfaction
Who has not misread this verse, by not perceiving the punctuation? How often has the comma after awake been struck out, and thus the whole sense of the passage lost! It has been read, When I awake with Thy likeness; being so read it has been violated. Observe the punctuation, and further comment is needless. We might turn it round thus, I shall be satisfied with Thy likeness when I awake. The man does not awake with the likeness; he is satisfied with the likeness when he awakes. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)
The two awakenings
(with Psa_73:20):--Both these Psalms are occupied with that standing puzzle to Old Testament worthies--the good fortune of bad men, and the bad fortune of good ones. The former tells of the calamities of David; the latter, of the perplexity of Asaph when he saw the prosperity of the wicked. And as the problem is the same, so is the solution. David and Asaph both point on to a period when such perplexities shall not be. David thinks of it in regard to himself; Asaph, in regard to the wicked. And both describe that future period as an awakening: David as his own; Asaph, as that of God. What they meant is not absolutely clear. Some would bring the words well within the limits of the present life; others see in them what tells of the future life that stretches beyond the grave. But inasmuch as David contrasts his awaking with the death of the men of this world, it would seem that he points on, however dimly, to that which is within the veil. And as for Asaph, the awaking he tells of may refer to some act of judgment in this life. But the strong words in which the context describes this awaking as the destruction and the end of the godless tell rather of lifes final close. The doctrine of the future life was never clear to Israel as to us. Hence there are great tracts of the Old Testament where it never appears at all. This very difficulty about the prosperity of the wicked would not have arisen had they known what we do. But in these Psalms We see men being taught of God the clearer hope which alone could sustain them. Regarding, then, the end of life as told of in both these Psalms, we note--
I. That to all men the end of life is an awakening. We call death, sleep, but we use the word as a euphemism to veil the form and deformity of the ugly thing, death. But this name we give to death tells of our weariness of life, and how blessed we think it will be to be still at last with folded hands and shut eyes. But the emblem is but half the truth. For, what dreams may come! And we shall wake too. The spirit shall spring into greater intensity of action. To our true selves and to God we shall awake. Here we are like men asleep in some chamber that looks towards the eastern sky. Morning by morning comes sunrise, with the tender glory of its rosy light and blushing heavens, and the heavy eyes are closed to it all. Here and there some light sleeper, with thinner eyelids or face turned to the sun, is half-conscious of a vague brightness, and feels the light, though he sees not the colour of the sky nor the forms of the filmy clouds. Such souls are our saints and prophets, but most of us sleep on unconscious. But to us all the moment of awaking will come. What shall it be to us?
II. Death is to some men the awaking of God. When Thou awakest, Thou shalt despise their image. The metaphor is a common one. God awakes when He arises to judge a nation. But the word here points on to the future. The present life is the time of Gods forbearance, the field for the manifestation of patient love, not willing that any should perish. Here and now His judgment, for the most part, slumbers. But He will awake. The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, and the wicked will have to confront the terror of the Lord. For sixty times sixty slow, throbbing seconds, the silent hand creeps unnoticed round the dial, and then, with whirr and clang, the bell rings out, and another hour of the worlds secular day is gone. All present judgments--epochs of convulsion and ruin--are but precursors of the day when God awakes.
III. Death is the annihilation of the vain show of worldly life. Things here are non-substantial--shadows--and non-permanent.
IV. Death is to some men such annihilation in order to reveal the great reality. Thy likeness. Form, the word really means. Hence the likeness means, not conformity to the Divine character, but the beholding of His self-manifestation. Seeing God we shall be satisfied. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
With Thy likeness.--
Happiness of saints in heaven
I. There is such a place as heaven. Some imagine that heaven is a state rather than a place; but it is not easy to conceive of this distinction. The idea of locality attends all our ideas of created objects, whether spiritual or corporeal. The idea of place accompanies our idea of angels. Whatever changes pass upon glorified bodies, they must still be material, and have a local existence.
II. God manifests his peculiar presence in heaven. David expected to behold the face of God in some peculiar manner when he should awake in the world of light. In some unusual manner God manifests His presence in heaven.
III. When the saints arrive in heaven they will be completely satisfied and happy there. They will enjoy all that felicity which David anticipated. If there be perfect happiness anywhere in the universe it is to he expected in heaven, where God is, and Christ is, and where all the holy beings are collected, and united in their views and affections. Consider the various species of happiness in heaven--
1. They will enjoy all the happiness which can flow from the free and full exercise of all their intellectual powers and faculties.
2. They will enjoy the pleasures of the heart, as well as those of the understanding. These are the most refined pleasures of the soul.
3. They shall enjoy the pleasures of the heart in the richest variety.
4. They will enjoy the pleasures of society, as well as of devotion.
5. They will have ineffable pleasure from the expressions of the peculiar love and approbation of God.
6. That which will carry celestial blessedness to the highest degree of perfection is the pleasure of anticipation--the prospect of appearing before God, and beholding His face in righteousness. All the redeemed will joyfully anticipate their perpetual felicity, and rising glory to all eternity. (N. Emmons, D. D.)
The likeness perfected
Dr. Lyman Abbott says, The artist stands at his easel painting the portrait of one before him; and I go and look at it, and scowl and shrug my shoulders, and say, It is not like him; I can see the ghost of an appearance looking out through the lustreless eyes and the untrue features, but it is not my friend. And the artist says, Wait! when I have finished the picture, and put the purpose--the soul--into it, then judge, not before. So Christ sits for His portrait, and God takes me as a canvas, and paints, and ever and anon I grow foolish enough to look at myself, and shake my head in despair, amid say, That will never he a portrait. Then I come back to His promise: You shall be satisfied when you awake in His likeness, and I am satisfied beforehand in this hope that He gives me.
Human capacity for God
I was very much impressed some time ago by hearing one of our missionaries from Ceylon tell of the death of a poor Cingalese woman, a convert to Christ, who exclaimed with her last breath, Oh, how beautiful God is! You will remember that those were among the last words of a very different person, the sweet-souled, highly cultured Charles Kingsley, and you will see, I doubt not, in the coincidence of thought at the supreme moment of life between that poor Cingalese woman, who had long looked for God by the dim light of her pagan faith, and that cultured Englishman, who had walked in the broad noonday of truth with all the windows of his being open to the sun, a parable of how God, the great Father of spirits, can bring from very different points, and by very diverse paths, the alien, hungering heart of man to the enjoyment of Himself. In Charles Kingsley and in his Cingalese sister there was the capacity for the same thing, the enjoyment of God; and I believe, and you believe, that wherever a human heart beats under Gods great sky that capacity exists. Christianity does not necessarily create it; Christ finds it, and fathoms it and fills it. (R. Wright Hay.)
The likeness of God
I. What is the nature of this likeness to God? It is a spiritual likeness, an enstamping the Divine image upon the soul a moulding the soul rote the Divine similitude. The likeness of which the Psalmist speaks is a conformity of soul to God. In order to this we must undergo a great change. That likeness to God of which the righteous shall partake will consist in a similarity between the qualities of their souls and the attributes of the Divine nature. But some of the Divine attributes are incommunicable. The likeness will consist--
1. In knowledge. Our knowledge must ever be derived and dependent. The righteous may resemble God in the certainty of their knowledge, and in its clearness and distinctness. The knowledge of glorified saints, compared with what they flow possess, may very properly be said to resemble the Divine knowledge in extent. Doubtless the powers of the soul will greatly expand.
2. The future likeness of the saints to God will consist in holiness. The moral image of God is defaced and destroyed in apostate man. But in Christ Jesus the glory of our nature is restored. The restoration is only partial in this present life. But the whole body of believers shall, ere long, be made perfect in holiness. In the immediate presence of the blessed God, faith and hope shall attain perfection.
3. The righteous shall be like God in blessedness. This necessarily results from the two last. And the blessedness will be, like Gods, eternal.
II. The feelings of the blessed, when they enter upon this portion. They will feel that all their most enlarged desires have been fulfilled. It will satisfy the pious soul by filling up its capacities and wishes. Let afflicted Christians learn patience and find consolation. (W. J. Armstrong, D. D.)
The revelation of God in man
Man is capable of discovering, and has actually discovered, some true knowledge of God. The best answer we can make to the unbeliever in an objective revelation will be to say--
1. The religion which you accept on an external authority had for its origin nothing else in the world than the human consciousness which you now despise. Place all the religions of the world in their chronological order, and yon will find that each one is the revolt of independent thought against the authority of the religion which preceded it.
2. At all events, we cannot any longer abide by your revelation, for we have discovered error in it. To our minds it represents God in an unworthy and even in a degraded aspect.
3. We will tell you how our conceptions of God are determined in the first instance, how they are sustained, and how they can be corrected and improved. We look at man, we examine ourselves. In relation to puzzling problems and analogies in the outer world we feel the necessity for faith and patience towards God, such as our children have to exercise towards, the most loving, parents. The reverence, for goodness as goodness is universal m man, differing only in degree in proportion as different men have higher or lower conceptions of What goodness is. The verdict of humanity has long been passed, that morality, justice, love, righteousness, goodness, call it what you will is the best and highest in man, and the most righteous man, or most loving man is the noblest. From this we rise by one step into a conception of Gods moral attributes. God must be, at least, as good as the noblest of men. We cannot accept as a God one whose moral principles are below those of his own finite creatures. Mankind itself is the ever-expanding bible in which the Divine revelation is being written. Every religion in the days of its youth was the immediate result of some previous progress in human morality. If you want proof that the real origin of religions belief is the reverence of human goodness, take not the mere creed of Christendom, but the cherished belief of its heart. Why do Christians worship Christ as God? Certainly not because it was said that He was God, but because they believed Him to be a perfect man. They first admired and loved Him for His goodness, and then they made Him Divine, and robed Him in all the splendours of heavenly royalty out of gratitude for His human love. To those, then, who are really Christians, and really religious, we come on their own ground, and say, If it is human goodness you really worship, we can show you plenty of that, equal to Christs, and even better still. We can show you at least the same thing free from some of His personal errors. In almost every particular the conceptions which we have of God are more exalted and pure than any which have gone before it. They are attained, as all other conceptions are, namely, by the gradual advance in the moral and intellectual nature of man. Our faith is nobler than yours, because we have allowed ourselves to be taught by the moral progress of our own times, and by the highest instincts of our souls. To our moral instincts and our attainment of the knowledge of goodness we must add our own deep and earnest aspirations, as witnesses of what God really is. No words so well express the possession of soul by the Divine presence and its loftiest aspirations as those of the text, As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness; and I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness. (Charles Voysey.)
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Psa_18:1-50
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain Psa 17:15. - Psa 73:20.
Psalms
THE TWO AWAKINGS
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Psa 17:15. - Psa 73:20.
Both of these Psalms are occupied with that standing puzzle to Old Testament worthies-the good fortune of bad men, and the bad fortune of good ones. The former recounts the personal calamities of David, its author. The latter gives us the picture of the perplexity of Asaph its writer, when he ‘saw the prosperity of the wicked.’
And as the problem in both is substantially the same, the solution also is the same. David and Asaph both point onwards to a period when this confusing distribution of earthly good shall have ceased, though the one regards that period chiefly in its bearing upon himself as the time when he shall see God and be at rest, while the other thinks of it rather with reference to the godless rich as the time of their destruction.
In the details of this common expectation, also, there is a remarkable parallelism. Both describe the future to which they look as an awaking, and both connect with it, though in different ways and using different words, the metaphor of an image or likeness. In the one case, the future is conceived as the Psalmist’s awaking, and losing all the vain show of this dreamland of life, while he is at rest in beholding the appearance, and perhaps in receiving the likeness, of the one enduring Substance, God. In the other, it is thought of as God’s awaking, and putting to shame the fleeting shadow of well-being with which godless men befool themselves.
What this period of twofold awaking may be is a question on which good men and thoughtful students of Scripture differ. Without entering on the wide subject of the Jewish knowledge of a future state, it may be enough for the present purpose to say that the language of both these Psalms seems much too emphatic and high-pitched, to be fully satisfied by a reference to anything in this life. It certainly looks as if the great awaking which David puts in immediate contrast with the death of ‘men of this world,’ and which solaced his heart with the confident expectation of beholding God, of full satisfaction of all his being, and possibly even of wearing the divine likeness, pointed onwards, however dimly, to that ‘within the veil.’ And as for the other psalm, though the awaking of God is, no doubt, a Scriptural phrase for His ending of any period of probation and indulgence by an act of judgment, yet the strong words in which the context describes this awaking, as the ‘destruction’ and the ‘end’ of the godless, make it most natural to take it as here referring to the final close of the probation of life. That conclusion appears to be strengthened by the contrast which in subsequent verses is drawn between this ‘end’ of the worldling, and the poet’s hopes for himself of divine guidance in life, and afterwards of being taken {the same word as is used in the account of Enoch’s translation} by God into His presence and glory-hopes whose exuberance it is hard to confine within the limits of any changes possible for earth.
The doctrine of a future state never assumed the same prominence, nor possessed the same clearness in Israel as with us. There are great tracts of the Old Testament where it does not appear at all. This very difficulty, about the strange disproportion between character and circumstances, shows that the belief had not the same place with them as with us. But it gradually emerged into comparative distinctness. Revelation is progressive, and the appropriation of revelation is progressive too. There is a history of God’s self-manifestation, and there is a history of man’s reception of the manifestation. It seems to me that in these two psalms, as in other places of Old Testament Scripture, we see inspired men in the very course of being taught by God, on occasion of their earthly sorrows, the clearer hopes which alone could sustain them. They stood not where we stand, to whom Christ has ‘brought life and immortality to light’; but to their devout and perplexed souls, the dim regions beyond were partially opened, and though they beheld there a great darkness, they also ‘saw a great light.’ They saw all this solid world fade and melt, and behind its vanishing splendours they saw the glory of the God whom they loved, in the midst of which they felt that there must be a place for them, where eternal realities should fill their vision, and a stable inheritance satisfy their hearts.
The period, then, to which both David and Asaph look, in these two verses, is the end of life. The words of both, taken in combination, open out a series of aspects of that period which carry weighty lessons, and to which we turn now.
I. The first of these is that to all men the end of Life is an awaking.
The representation of death most widely diffused among all nations is that it is a sleep. The reasons for that emblem are easily found. We always try to veil the terror and deformity of the ugly thing by the thin robe of language. As with reverential awe, so with fear and disgust, the tendency is to wrap their objects in the folds of metaphor. Men prefer not to name plainly their god or their dread, but find roundabout phrases for the one, and coaxing, flattering titles for the other. The furies and the fates of heathenism, the supernatural beings of modern superstition, must not be spoken of by their own appellations. The recoil of men’s hearts from the thing is testified by the aversion of their languages to the bald name-death. And the employment of this special euphemism of sleep is a wonderful witness to our weariness of life, and to its endless toil and trouble. Everywhere that has seemed to be a comforting and almost an attractive name, which has promised full rest from all the agitations of this changeful scene. The prosperous and the wretched alike have owned the fatigue of living, and been conscious of a soothing expectance which became almost a hope, as they thought of lying still at last with folded hands and shut eyes. The wearied workers have bent over their dead, and felt that they are blest in this at all events, that they rest from their labours; and as they saw them absolved from all their tasks, have sought to propitiate the power that had made this ease for them, as well as to express their sense of its merciful aspect, by calling it not death, but sleep.
But that emblem, true and sweet as it is, is but half the truth. Taken as the whole, as indeed men are ever tempted to take it, it is a cheerless lie. It is truth for the senses-’the foolish senses,’ who ‘crown’ Death, as ‘Omega,’ the last, ‘the Lord,’ because ‘they find no motion in the dead.’ Rest, cessation of consciousness of the outer world, and of action upon it, are set forth by the figure. But even the figure might teach us that the consciousness of life, and the vivid exercise of thought and feeling, are not denied by it. Death is sleep. Be it so. But does not that suggest the doubt-’in that sleep, what dreams may come?’ Do we not all know that, when the chains of slumber bind sense, and the disturbance of the outer world is hushed, there are faculties of our souls which work more strongly than in our waking hours? We are all poets, ‘makers’ in our sleep. Memory and imagination open their eyes when flesh closes it. We can live through years in the dreams of a night; so swiftly can spirit move when even partially freed from ‘this muddy vesture of decay.’ That very phrase, then, which at first sight seems the opposite of the representation of our text, in reality is preparatory to and confirmatory of it. That very representation which has lent itself to cheerless and heathenish thoughts of death as the cessation not only of toil but of activity, is the basis of the deeper and truer representation, the truth for the spirit, that death is an awaking. If, on the one hand, we have to say, as we anticipate the approaching end of life, ‘The night cometh, when no man can work’; on the other the converse is true, ‘The night is far spent; the day is at hand.’
We shall sleep. Yes; but we shall wake too. We shall wake just because we sleep. For flesh and all its weakness, and all its disturbing strength, and craving importunities-for the outer world, and all its dissipating garish shows, and all its sullen resistance to our hand-for weariness, and fevered activity and toil against the grain of our tastes, too great for our strength, disappointing in its results, the end is blessed, calm sleep. And precisely because it is so, therefore for our true selves, for heart and mind, for powers that lie dormant in the lowest, and are not stirred into full action in the highest, souls; for all that universe of realities which encompass us undisclosed, and known only by faint murmurs which pierce through the opiate sleep of life, the end shall be an awaking.
The truth which corresponds to this metaphor, and which David felt when he said, ‘I shall be satisfied when I awake,’ is that the spirit, because emancipated from the body, shall spring into greater intensity of action, shall put forth powers that have been held down here and shall come into contact with an order of things which here it has but indirectly known. To our true selves and to God we shall wake. Here we are like men asleep in some chamber that looks towards the eastern sky. Morning by morning comes the sunrise, with the tender glory of its rosy light and blushing heavens, and the heavy eyes are closed to it all. Here and there some lighter sleeper, with thinner eyelids or face turned to the sun, is half conscious of a vague brightness, and feels the light, though he sees not the colours of the sky nor the forms of the filmy clouds. Such souls are our saints and prophets, but most of us sleep on unconscious. To us all the moment comes when we shall wake and see for ourselves the bright and terrible world which we have so often forgotten, and so often been tempted to think was itself a dream. Brethren, see to it that that awaking be for you the beholding of what you have loved, the finding, in the sober certainty of waking bliss, of all the objects which have been your visions of delight in the sleep of earth.
This life of ours hides more than it reveals. The day shows the sky as solitary but for wandering clouds that cover its blue emptiness. But the night peoples its waste places with stars, and fills all its abysses with blazing glories. ‘If light so much conceals, wherefore not life?’ Let us hold fast by a deeper wisdom than is born of sense; and though men, nowadays, seem to be willing to go back to the ‘eternal sleep’ of the most unspiritual heathenism, and to cast away all that Christ has brought us concerning that world where He has been and whence He has returned, because positive science and the anatomist’s scalpel preach no gospel of a future, let us try to feel as well as to believe that it is life, with all its stunted capacities and idle occupation with baseless fabrics, which is the sleep, and that for us all the end of it is-to awake.
II. The second principle contained in our text is that death is to some men the awaking of God.
‘When Thou awakest, Thou shalt despise their image.’ Closely rendered, the former clause would read simply ‘in awaking,’ without any specifying of the person, which is left to be gathered from the succeeding words. But there is no doubt that the English version fills the blank correctly by referring the awaking to God.
The metaphor is not infrequent in the Old Testament, and, like many others applying to the divine nature, is saved from any possibility of misapprehension by the very boldness of its materialism. It has a well-marked and uniform meaning. God ‘awakes’ when He ends an epoch of probation and long-suffering mercy by an act or period of judgment. So far, then, as the mere expression is concerned, there may be nothing more meant here than the termination by a judicial act in this life, of the transient ‘prosperity of the wicked.’ Any divinely-sent catastrophe which casts the worldly rich man down from his slippery eminence would satisfy the words. But the emphatic context seems, as already pointed out, to require that they should be referred to that final crash which irrevocably separates him who has ‘his portion in this life,’ from all which he calls his ‘goods.’
If so, then the whole period of earthly existence is regarded as the time of God’s gracious forbearance and mercy; and the time of death is set forth as the instant when sterner elements of the divine dealings start into greater prominence. Life here is predominantly, though not exclusively, the field for the manifestation of patient love, not willing that any should perish. To the godless soul, immersed in material things, and blind to the light of God’s wooing love, the transition to that other form of existence is likewise the transition to the field for the manifestation of the retributive energy of God’s righteousness. Here and now His judgment on the whole slumbers. The consequences of our deeds are inherited, indeed, in many a merciful sorrow, in many a paternal chastisement, in many a partial exemplification of the wages of sin as death. But the harvest is not fully grown nor ripened yet; it is not reaped in all its extent; the bitter bread is not baked and eaten as it will have to be. Nor are men’s consciences so awakened that they connect the retribution, which does befall them, with its causes in their own actions, as closely as they will do when they are removed from the excitement of life and the deceit of its dreams. ‘Sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily.’ For the long years of our stay here, God’s seeking love lingers round every one of us, yearning over us, besetting us behind and before, courting us with kindnesses, lavishing on us its treasures, seeking to win our poor love. It is sometimes said that this is a state of probation. But that phrase suggests far too cold an idea. God does not set us here as on a knife edge, with abysses on either side ready to swallow us if we stumble, while He stands apart watching for our halting, and unhelpful to our tottering feebleness. He compasses us with His love and its gifts, He draws us to Himself, and desires that we should stand. He offers all the help of His angels to hold us up. ‘He will not suffer thy foot to be moved; He that keepeth thee will not slumber.’ The judgment sleeps; the loving forbearance, the gracious aid wake. Shall we not yield to His perpetual pleadings, and, moved by the mercies of God, let His conquering love thaw our cold hearts into streams of thankfulness and self-devotion?
But remember, that that predominantly merciful and long-suffering character of God’s present dealing affords no guarantee that there will not come a time when His slumbering judgment will stir to waking. The same chapter which tells us that ‘He is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance,’ goes on immediately to repel the inference that therefore a period of which retribution shall be the characteristic is impossible, by the solemn declaration, ‘But the day of the Lord shall come as a thief in the night.’ His character remains ever the same, the principles of His government are unalterable, but there may be variations in the prominence given in His acts, to the several principles of the one, and the various though harmonious phases of the other. The method may be changed, the purpose may remain unchanged. And the Bible, which is our only source of knowledge on the subject, tells us that the method is changed, in so far as to intensify the vigour of the operation of retributive justice after death, so that men who have been compassed with ‘the loving-kindness of the Lord,’ and who die leaving worldly things, and keeping worldly hearts, will have to confront ‘the terror of the Lord.’
The alternation of epochs of tolerance and destruction is in accordance with the workings of God’s providence here and now. For though the characteristic of that providence as we see it is merciful forbearance, yet we are not left without many a premonition of the mighty final ‘day of the Lord.’ For long years or centuries a nation or an institution goes on slowly departing from truth, forgetting the principles on which it rests, or the purposes for which it exists. Patiently God pleads with the evil-doers, lavishes gifts and warnings upon them. He holds back the inevitable avenging as long as restoration is yet possible-and His eye and heart see it to be possible long after men conclude that the corruption is hopeless. But at last comes a period when He says, ‘I have long still holden My peace, and refrained Myself, now will I destroy’; and with a crash one more hoary iniquity disappears from the earth which it has burdened so long. For sixty times sixty slow, throbbing seconds, the silent hand creeps unnoticed round the dial and then, with whirr and clang, the bell rings out, and another hour of the world’s secular day is gone. The billows of the thunder-cloud slowly gather into vague form, and slowly deepen in lurid tints, and slowly roll across the fainting blue; they touch-and then the fierce flash, like the swift hand on the palace-wall of Babylon, writes its message of destruction over all the heaven at once. We know enough from the history of men and nations since Sodom till to-day, to recognise it as God’s plan to alternate long patience and ‘sudden destruction’:-
‘The mills of God grind slowly,
But they grind exceeding small’;
and every such instance confirms the expectation of the coming of that great and terrible day of the Lord, whereof all epochs of convulsion and ruin, all falls of Jerusalem, and Roman empires, Reformations, and French Revolutions, and American wars, all private and personal calamities which come from private wrong-doing, are but feeble precursors. ‘When Thou awakest, Thou wilt despise their image.’
Brethren, do we use aright this goodness of God which is the characteristic of the present? Are we ready for that judgment which is the mark of the future?
III. Death is the annihilation of the vain show of worldly life.
The word rendered image is properly shadow, and hence copy or likeness, and hence image. Here, however, the simpler meaning is the better. ‘Thou shalt despise their shadow.’ The men are shadows, and all their goods are not what they are called, their ‘substance,’ but their shadow, a mere appearance, not a reality. That show of good which seems but is not, is withered up by the light of the awaking God. What He despises cannot live.
So there are the two old commonplaces of moralists set forth in these grand words-the unsatisfying character of all merely external delights and possessions, and also their transitory character. They are non-substantial and non-permanent.
Nothing that is without a man can make him rich or restful. The treasures which are kept in coffers are not real, but only those which are kept in the soul. Nothing which cannot enter into the substance of the life and character can satisfy us. That which we are makes us rich or poor, that which we own is a trifle.
There is no congruity between any outward thing and man’s soul, of such a kind as that satisfaction can come from its possession. ‘Cisterns that can hold no water,’ ‘that which is not bread,’ ‘husks that the swine did eat’-these are not exaggerated phrases for the good gifts which God gives for our delight, and which become profitless and delusive by our exclusive attachment to them. There is no need for exaggeration. These worldly possessions have a good in them, they contribute to ease and grace in life, they save from carking cares and mean anxieties, they add many a comfort and many a source of culture. But, after all, a true, lofty life may be lived with a very small modicum. There is no proportion between wealth and happiness, nor between wealth and nobleness. The fairest life that ever lived on earth was that of a poor Man, and with all its beauty it moved within the limits of narrow resources. The loveliest blossoms do not grow on plants that plunge their greedy roots into the fattest soil. A little light earth in the crack of a hard rock will do. We need enough for the physical being to root itself in; we need no more.
Young men! especially you who are plunged into the busy life of our great commercial centres, and are tempted by everything you see, and by most that you hear, to believe that a prosperous trade and hard cash are the realities, and all else mist and dreams, fix this in your mind to begin life with-God is the reality, all else is shadow. Do not make it your ambition to get on, but to get up. ‘Having food and raiment, let us be content.’ Seek for your life’s delight and treasure in thought, in truth, in pure affections, in moderate desires, in a spirit set on God. These are the realities of our possessions. As for all the rest, it is sham and show.
And while thus all without is unreal, it is also fleeting as the shadows of the flying clouds; and when God awakes, it disappears as they before the noonlight that clears the heavens. All things that are, are on condition of perpetual flux and change. The cloud-rack has the likeness of bastions and towers, but they are mist, not granite, and the wind is every moment sweeping away their outlines, till the phantom fortress topples into red ruin while we gaze. The tiniest stream eats out its little valley and rounds the pebble in its widening bed, rain washes down the soil, and frost cracks the cliffs above. So silently and yet mightily does the law of change work that to a meditative eye the solid earth seems almost molten and fluid, and the everlasting mountains tremble to decay.
‘Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not?’ Are we going to be such fools as to fix our hopes and efforts upon this fleeting order of things, which can give no delight more lasting than itself? Even whilst we are in it, it continueth not in one stay, and we are in it for such a little while! Then comes what our text calls God’s awaking, and where is it all then? Gone like a ghost at cockcrow. Why! a drop of blood on your brain or a crumb of bread in your windpipe, and as far as you are concerned the outward heavens and earth ‘pass away with a great’ silence, as the impalpable shadows that sweep over some lone hillside.
‘The glories of our birth and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against fate,
Death lays his icy hand on kings.’
What an awaking to a worldly man that awaking of God will be! ‘As when a hungry man dreameth, and behold he eateth, but he awaketh and his soul is empty.’ He has thought he fed full, and was rich and safe, but in one moment he is dragged from it all, and finds himself a starving pauper, in an order of things for which he has made no provision. ‘When he dieth, he shall carry nothing away.’ Let us see to it that not in utter nakedness do we go hence, but clothed with that immortal robe, and rich in those possessions that cannot be taken away from us, which they have who have lived on earth as heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. Let us pierce, for the foundation of our life’s house, beneath the shifting sands of time down to the Rock of Ages, and build there.
IV. Finally, death is for some men the annihilation of the vain shows in order to reveal the great reality.
‘I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness.’
‘Likeness’ is properly ‘form,’ and is the same word which is employed in reference to Moses, who saw ‘the similitude of the Lord.’ If there be, as is most probable, an allusion to that ancient vision in these words, then the ‘likeness’ is not that conformity to the divine character which it is the goal of our hopes to possess, but the beholding of His self-manifestation. The parallelism of the verse also points to such an interpretation.
If so, then, we have here the blessed confidence that when all the baseless fabric of the dream of life has faded from our opening eyes, we shall see the face of our ever-loving God. Here the distracting whirl of earthly things obscures Him from even the devoutest souls, and His own mighty works which reveal do also conceal. In them is the hiding as well as the showing of His power. But there the veil which draped the perfect likeness, and gave but dim hints through its heavy swathings of the outline of immortal beauty that lay beneath, shall fall away. No longer befooled by shadows, we shall possess the true substance; no longer bedazzled by shows, we shall behold the reality.
And seeing God we shall be satisfied. With all lesser joys the eye is not satisfied with seeing, but to look on Him will be enough. Enough for mind and heart, wearied and perplexed with partial knowledge and imperfect love; enough for eager desires, which thirst, after all draughts from other streams; enough for will, chafing against lower lords and yet longing for authoritative control; enough for all my being-to see God. Here we can rest after all wanderings, and say, ‘I travel no further; here will I dwell for ever-I shall be satisfied.’
And may these dim hopes not suggest to us too some presentiment of the full Christian truth of assimilation dependent on vision, and of vision reciprocally dependent on likeness? ‘We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is,’-words which reach a height that David but partially discerned through the mist. This much he knew, that he should in some transcendent sense behold the manifested God; and this much more, that it must be ‘in righteousness’ that he should gaze upon that face. The condition of beholding the Holy One was holiness. We know that the condition of holiness is trust in Christ. And as we reckon up the rich treasure of our immortal hopes, our faith grows bold, and pauses not even at the lofty certainty of God without us, known directly and adequately, but climbs to the higher assurance of God within us, flooding our darkness with His great light, and changing us into the perfect copies of His express Image, His only-begotten Son. ‘I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness,’ cries the prophet Psalmist. ‘It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master,’ responds the Christian hope.
Brethren! take heed that the process of dissipating the vain shows of earth be begun betimes in your souls. It must either be done by Faith, whose rod disenchants them into their native nothingness, and then it is blessed; or it must be done by death, whose mace smites them to dust, and then it is pure, irrevocable loss and woe. Look away from, or rather look through, things that are seen to the King eternal, invisible. Let your hearts seek Christ, and your souls cleave to Him. Then death will take away nothing from you that you would care to keep, but will bring you your true joy. It will but trample to fragments the ‘dome of many-coloured glass’ that ‘stains the white radiance of eternity.’ Looking forward calmly to that supreme hour, you will be able to say, ‘I will both lay me down in peace and sleep, for Thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety.’ Looking back upon it from beyond, and wondering to find how brief it was, and how close to Him whom you love it has brought you, your now immortal lips touched by the rising Sun of the heavenly morning will thankfully exclaim, ‘When I awake, I am still with Thee.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 I will see your face in righteousness
I will see your face in righteousness
Here "face" represents Yahweh in all of his being. David is confident he will see Yahweh. AT: "because I act in the right way, I will be with you one day" (See: Synecdoche)
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I will be satisfied, when I awake, with a sight of you
David believes that after he dies, he will be with Yahweh. This can be made clear in the translation. AT: "After I die, I will be happy to wake up in your presence" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
translationWords
face
righteous
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 17:15 see you face to face: The psalmist does…
17:15 see you face to face: The psalmist does not allow temporary concerns raised by adversaries to stand in the way of his experiencing a real and lasting relationship with the Lord.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.