The heavens declare the glory of God. The expanse shows his handiwork.
Day after day they pour out speech, and night after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.
Their voice has gone out through all the earth, their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun,
which is as a bridegroom coming out of his room, like a strong man rejoicing to run his course.
His going out is from the end of the heavens, his circuit to its ends. There is nothing hidden from its heat.
Yahweh’s law is perfect, restoring the soul. Yahweh’s covenant is sure, making wise the simple.
Yahweh’s precepts are right, rejoicing the heart. Yahweh’s commandment is pure, enlightening the eyes.
The fear of Yahweh is clean, enduring forever. Yahweh’s ordinances are true, and righteous altogether.
They are more to be desired than gold, yes, than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the extract of the honeycomb.
Moreover your servant is warned by them. In keeping them there is great reward.
Who can discern his errors? Forgive me from hidden errors.
Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over me. Then I will be upright. I will be blameless and innocent of great transgression.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, Yahweh, my rock, and my redeemer.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 1. The heavens declare the glory of God. Dr…
1. The heavens declare the glory of God. Dr Geddes has remarked, in reference to this psalm, that “no poem ever contained a finer argument against Atheism, nor one better expressed.”
The repetition which he makes in the second clause is merely an explanation of the first. David shows how it is that the heavens proclaim to us the glory of God, namely, by openly bearing testimony that they have not been put together by chance, but were wonderfully created by the supreme Architect. When we behold the heavens, we cannot but be elevated, by the contemplation of them, to Him who is their great Creator; and the beautiful arrangement and wonderful variety which distinguish the courses and station of the heavenly bodies, together with the beauty and splendor which are manifest in them, cannot but furnish us with an evident proof of his providence. Scripture, indeed, makes known to us the time and manner of the creation; but the heavens themselves, although God should say nothing on the subject, proclaim loudly and distinctly enough that they have been fashioned by his hands: and this of itself abundantly suffices to bear testimony to men of his glory. As soon as we acknowledge God to be the supreme Architect, who has erected the beauteous fabric of the universe, our minds must necessarily be ravished with wonder at his infinite goodness, wisdom, and power.
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 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 He reproacheth unto man his ingratitude, seeing the heavens,…
He reproacheth unto man his ingratitude, seeing the heavens, which are dumb creatures, set forth God’s glory.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–14 Psa 19:1 « To the chief Musician, A Psalm…
Psa 19:1 « To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. » The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
The heavens declare the glory of God] The world, saitb Clement of Alexandria, is Dei Scriptura, the first Bible that God made for the institution of man. The heavens (here instanced as a chief part of that Mundi totius machina) are compared to a scroll that is written, Rev 6:14. As in a horn book, which little ones carry, there be letters in a paper within which appear through the same; so, under the blue sapphire of the firmament, is spread a sheet of royal paper written all over with the wisdom and power of God. This book was imprinted, saith one, at the New Jerusalem, by the finger of Jehovah, and is not to be sold, but to be seen, at the sign of glory, of every one that lifts up his eyes to heaven; where he may plainly perceive Deum esse mentem, architectricem, intelligentem, sapientem, potentem, &c. This lesson is fairly lined out unto us in the brows of the firmament, which, therefore, we are bidden to behold and discern; since therein God hath made himself visible, yea, legible, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that men are left without excuse, Rom 1:20. But because this book of nature (with its three great leaves, heaven, earth, and sea), though never so diligently read over, cannot bring a man to the saving knowledge of God in Christ, nor make him perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works, behold another and better Book, even that of the Holy Scriptures, set forth, Psa 19:7-8, &c., of this psalm, that like as where the philosopher endeth the physician beginneth; so, where nature faileth us, Scripture may inform and comfort us. In this excellent psalm, then, we have the sum of all true divinity, saith reverend Beza, the end whereof is to give us that knowledge of God, and of his holy worship, whereby we may be made partakers of eternal life. Here, then, in the six first verses the prophet showeth that God manifesteth his glory to mankind by his works; and, first, by the work of creation, Psa 19:1; next, of government, Psa 19:2-3, &c., and that, 1. In the revolution of the starry sky, which revolution, first, causeth a perpetual vicissitude of days and nights, and so declareth the glory of God. 2. It bespeaketh all people at once, as a catholic preacher of God’s glory, Psa 19:4-5. Secondly, in the constant course of the sun (that common servant, as his name importeth), Psa 19:4, who, with his motion, Psa 19:5, enlighteneth all things with his light, and pierceth all things with his heat, Psa 19:6. Thus "the heavens declare the glory of God"; that is, they yield matter and occasion of glorifying him, according to that, Psa 145:10, "All thy works praise thee, O Lord; but thy saints bless thee." Some philosophers, and with them some Rabbis (Maimonides), have deemed, or rather doted, that the heaven was a living creature, and did actually praise and serve God. But this conceit is exploded by the wiser sort; and that axiom maintained, Formica coelos dignitate superat, An ant, because a living creature, is more excellent than the whole visible heavens. As for the saints and servants of God, it is truly affirmed by divines that there is not so much of the glory of God in all his works of creation and providence as in one gracious action that they perform.
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And the firmament showeth his handywork] The expanse or outspread firmament. It is taken both for the air, Gen 1:6, and for the sky, Gen 1:14, the whole cope of heaven, which showeth, Quam eleganter et ad amussim operetur Deus manibus suis; how neatly and exactly God worketh with his hands, which are attributed to him for our weakness’ sake (Vatablus).
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 On vv1–14 The heavens declare the glory of God, Psa 19:1.…
The heavens declare the glory of God, Psa 19:1. So do night and day, Psa 19:2,3, and the sun, Psa 19:4-6. The perfection, purity, and extent of God’s law; its effects, Psa 19:7-12. He prayeth against presumptuous sins, Psa 19:13.
The heavens; these visible heavens, so vast and spacious, richly adorned with stars, so various and admirable in their course or station, so useful and powerful in their influences.
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Declare; not properly, but objectively, as the earth, and trees, and stars are said to speak, Job 12:8 38:7; Isa 55:12; they demonstrate or make it evident and undeniable to all men of sense or reason; they are as a most legible book, wherein even he that runs may read it.
The glory of God, i.e. his glorious being or existence, his eternal power and Godhead, as it is particularly expressed, Rom 1:20; his infinite wisdom and goodness; all which are so visible in them, that it is ridiculous to deny or doubt of them, as it is esteemed ridiculous to think of far meaner works of art, as a house or a book, &c., that they were made without an artist, or without a hand.
The firmament; or, the expansion, i.e. all this vast space extended from the earth to the highest heavens, with all its goodly furniture, the same thing which he called heavens.
Showeth his handywork; the excellency of the work discovers who was the author of it, that it did not come by chance, nor spring of itself, but was made by the Lord God Almighty.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 7 From the things that are seen every day by…
From the things that are seen every day by all the world the psalmist, in these verses, leads us to the consideration of the invisible things of God, whose being appears incontestably evident and whose glory shines transcendently bright in the visible heavens, the structure and beauty of them, and the order and influence of the heavenly bodies. This instance of the divine power serves not only to show the folly of atheists, who see there is a heaven and yet say, "There is no God," who see the effect and yet say, "There is no cause," but to show the folly of idolaters also, and the vanity of their imagination, who, though the heavens declare the glory of God, yet gave that glory to the lights of heaven which those very lights directed them to give to God only, the Father of lights. Now observe here,
1. What that is which the creatures notify to us. They are in many ways useful and serviceable to us, but in nothing so much as in this, that they declare the glory of God, by showing his handy-works, Psa 19:1. They plainly speak themselves to be God's handy-works; for they could not exist from eternity; all succession and motion must have had a beginning; they could not make themselves, that is a contradiction; they could not be produced by a casual hit of atoms, that is an absurdity, fit rather to be bantered than reasoned with: therefore they must have a Creator, who can be no other than an eternal mind, infinitely wise, powerful, and good. Thus it appears they are God's works, the works of his fingers (Psa 8:3), and therefore they declare his glory. From the excellency of the work we may easily infer the infinite perfection of its great author. From the brightness of the heavens we may collect that the Creator is light; their vastness of extent bespeaks his immensity;, their height his transcendency and sovereignty, their influence upon this earth his dominion, and providence, and universal beneficence: and all declare his almighty power, by which they were at first made, and continue to this day according to the ordinances that were then settled.
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II. What are some of those things which notify this? 1. The heavens and the firmament - the vast expanse of air and ether, and the spheres of the planets and fixed stars. Man has this advantage above the beasts, in the structure of his body, that whereas they are made to look downwards, as their spirits must go, he is made erect, to look upwards, because upwards his spirit must shortly go and his thoughts should now rise. 2. The constant and regular succession of day and night (Psa 19:2): Day unto day, and night unto night, speak the glory of that God who first divided between the light and the darkness, and has, from the beginning to this day, preserved that established order without variation, according to God's covenant with Noah (Gen 8:22), that, while the earth remains, day and night shall not cease, to which covenant of providence the covenant of grace is compared for its stability, Jer 33:20; Jer 31:35. The counterchanging of day and night, in so exact a method, is a great instance of the power of God, and calls us to observe that, as in the kingdom of nature, so in that of providence, he forms the light and creates the darkness (Isa 45:7), and sets the one over-against the other. It is likewise an instance of his goodness to man; for he makes the out-goings of the morning and evening to rejoice, Psa 65:8. He not only glorifies himself, but gratifies us, by this constant revolution; for as the light of the morning befriends the business of the day, so the shadows of the evening befriend the repose of the night; every day and every night speak the goodness of God, and, when they have finished their testimony, leave it to the next day, to the next night, to stay the same. 3. The light and influence of the sun do, in a special manner, declare the glory of God; for of all the heavenly bodies that is the most conspicuous in itself and most useful to this lower world, which would be all dungeon, and all desert, without it. It is not an improbable conjecture that David penned this psalm when he had the rising sun in view, and from the brightness of it took occasion to declare the glory of God. Concerning the sun observe here, (1.) The place appointed him. In the heavens God has set a tabernacle for the sun. The heavenly bodies are called hosts of heaven, and therefore are fitly said to dwell in tents, as soldiers in their encampments. The sun is said to have a tabernacle set him, no only because he is in continual motion and never has a fixed residence, but because the mansion he has will, at the end of time, be taken down like a tent, when the heavens shall be rolled together like a scroll and the sun shall be turned to darkness. (2.) The course assigned him. That glorious creature was not made to be idle, but his going forth (at least as it appears to our eye) is from one point of the heavens, and his circuit thence to the opposite point, and thence (to complete his diurnal revolution) to the same point again; and this with such steadiness and constancy that we can certainly foretel the hour and the minute at which the sun will rise at such a place, any day to come. (3.) The brightness wherein he appears. He is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, richly dressed and adorned, as fine as hands can make him, looking pleasantly himself and making all about him pleasant; for the friend of the bridegroom rejoices greatly to hear the bridegroom's voice, Joh 3:29. (4.) The cheerfulness wherewith he makes this tour. Though it seems a vast round which he has to walk, and he has not a moment's rest, yet in obedience to the law of this creation, and for the service of man, he not only does it, but does it with a great deal of pleasure and rejoices as a strong man to run a race. With such satisfaction did Christ, the Sun of righteousness, finish the work that was given him to do. (5.) His universal influence on this earth: There is nothing hidden from the heart thereof, no, not metals in the bowels of the earth, which the sun has an influence upon.
III. To whom this declaration is made of the glory of God. It is made to all parts of the world (Psa 19:3, Psa 19:4): There is no speech nor language (no nation, for the nations were divided after their tongues, Gen 10:31, Gen 10:32) where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone through all the earth (the equinoctial line, suppose) and with it their words to the end of the world, proclaiming the eternal power of God of nature, Psa 19:4. The apostle uses this as a reason why the Jews should not be angry with him and others for preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, because God had already made himself known to the Gentile world by the works of creation, and left not himself without witness among them (Rom 10:18), so that they were without excuse if they were idolaters, Rom 1:20, Rom 1:21. And those were without blame, who, by preaching the gospel to them, endeavoured to turn them from their idolatry. If God used these means to prevent their apostasy, and they proved ineffectual, the apostles did well to use other means to recover them from it. They have no speech or language (so some read it) and yet their voice is heard. All people may hear these natural immortal preachers speak to them in their own tongue the wonderful works of God.
In singing these verses we must give God the glory of all the comfort and benefit we have by the lights of the heaven, still looking above and beyond them to the Sun of righteousness.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–13 The heavens declare the glory of God,.... By which…
The heavens declare the glory of God,.... By which we are to understand not the heavens literally taken, though these with the firmament are the handiworks of God, and do declare the glory of his perfections, especially his wisdom and power; these show that there is a God, and that he is a glorious one: but either Gospel churches, often signified by the kingdom of heaven, in the New Testament; the members of them being heaven-born souls, and the doctrines and ordinances ministered among them being from heaven; and there being a very great resemblance between them and heaven, in the company and communion enjoyed in them; and who declare the glory of the divine perfections, which is very great in the handiwork of their redemption; and who ascribe the glory of their whole salvation to God: or rather the apostles and first preachers of the word, as appears from Rom 10:18; who were set in the highest place in the church; had their commission, doctrine, and success from heaven; and who may be called by this name, because of the purity and solidity of their ministry, and their constancy and steadfastness in it, and because of their heavenly lives and conversations: these declared the glory of the divine perfections; such as those particularly of grace, goodness, and mercy, which are not discoverable by the light of nature or law of Moses, as, they are displayed in the salvation of men by Christ, in the forgiveness of their sins, the justification of their persons, and the gift of eternal life unto them: they taught men to ascribe the glory of salvation to God alone, Father, Son, and Spirit; they set forth in their ministry the glory of Christ, of his person, and of his offices and grace; and they showed that redemption was his handiwork, as follows:
and the firmament showeth his handiwork; for the same persons may be called the firmament, since they that are wise are said to shine as the brightness of it, Dan 12:3. These were like to stars in it, and were the light of the world, and declared that redemption is the work which Christ undertook, and came into this world to perform, and which he has finished; his hands have wrought it, and his own arm has brought salvation to him. The Targum interprets the heavens and the firmament, of such persons as contemplate the heavens, and look upon the firmament or air; and so do some other Jewish writers (w).
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(w) Jarchi & Kimchi in loc.
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 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14 The book of the creatures shews us the power…
The book of the creatures shews us the power and Godhead of the Creator, ver. 1-6. The book of the scriptures shews us his will; the excellency thereof, ver. 7-11. A prayer against sin, ver. 12, 14. To the chief musician, A psalm of David.
The heavens - They are as a legible book, wherein he that runs may read it. The glory - His eternal power and Godhead, his infinite wisdom and goodness. Firmament - Or, the expansion, all the vast space extended from the earth to the highest heavens, with all its goodly furniture.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 The heavens and their host proclaim the majesty of…
PSALM XIX
The heavens and their host proclaim the majesty of God, 1-6;
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the excellence and perfection of the Divine law, 7-10;
its usefulness, 11.
The psalmist prays for pardon and preservation from sin, 12, 13;
and thy his Words and thoughts may be holy, 14.
NOTES ON PSALM XIX
The title of this Psalm has nothing particular in it; but it is not very clear that it was written by David, to whom it is attributed; though some think that he composed it in the wilderness, while persecuted by Saul. For this opinion, however, there is no solid ground. There is no note in the Psalm itself to lead us to know when, where, or by whom it was written. It is a highly finished and beautiful ode.
Verse 1. The heavens declare the glory of God] Literally, The heavens number out the glory of the strong God. A first view of the starry heavens strikes every beholder with astonishment at the power by which they were made, and by which they are supported. To find out the wisdom and skill displayed in their contrivance requires a measure of science: but when the vast magnitude of the celestial bodies is considered, we feel increasing astonishment at these works of the strong God.
The firmament] The whole visible expanse; not only containing the celestial bodies above referred to, but also the air, light, rains, dews, &c., &c. And when the composition of these principles is examined, and their great utility to the earth and its inhabitants properly understood, they afford matter of astonishment to the wisest mind, and of adoration and gratitude even to the most unfeeling heart.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 Psa 19:1. The heavens, &c. — To magnify the…
Psa 19:1. The heavens, &c. — To magnify the power, wisdom, and goodness of the Creator, the psalmist begins with the works of creation, and, amidst the immensity of them, singles out those which are most conspicuous, grand, and striking, and best adapted to impress the mind of his reader with a sense of the infinite greatness and majesty of God, and to beget in him a solemn awe of, and veneration for, his matchless glories. The heavens — That is, the visible heavens, so vast and spacious, and richly adorned with stars and planets, so various and admirable in their courses or stations; so useful and powerful in their influences; declare the glory of God — His glorious being or existence, his eternal power and Godhead, as it is expressed, Rom 1:20; his infinite wisdom and goodness; all which they demonstrate, and make so visible and evident to all men of reason and consideration, that it is ridiculous to deny or doubt of them, as it is ridiculous to think of far meaner works of art, as suppose of houses, clocks, or watches, that they were made without an artist, or without a hand. The Hebrew, מספרים, mesapperim, is literally, they tell, or, preach, the glory of God. And this language of the heavens is so plain, and their characters are so legible, that all, even the most barbarous nations, that have no skill either in languages or letters, are able to understand and read what they declare. The firmament — Or, the expansion, all the vast space extending from the earth to the starry heavens, and especially the atmosphere, comprehending that fluid mixture of light, air, and vapours, which is everywhere diffused about us; and to the influences of which are owing all the beauty and fruitfulness of the earth, and all vegetable and animal life: all these by their manifold and beneficial operations, as well as by their beauty and magnificence, show his handiwork — As Creator, Preserver, and Governor. The excellence of the work discovers who was the author of it, that it did not come by chance, nor spring of itself, but was made by a Being of infinite wisdom, power, and goodness.
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 On vv1–14 The heavens declare the glory of God - They…
The heavens declare the glory of God - They announce, proclaim, make known his glory. The word heavens here refers to the material heavens as they appear to the eye - the region of the sun, moon, and stars. The Hebrew word is used in the Scriptures uniformly in the plural number, though in our common translation the singular number is often used. Gen 1:1, Gen 1:8-9, Gen 1:14, Gen 1:17, Gen 1:20; Gen 6:17; Gen 7:11, Gen 7:19, Gen 7:23; et soepe. The plural, however, is often retained, but without any special reason why it should be retained in one place rather than in another. Gen 2:1, Gen 2:4; Deu 10:14; Ezr 9:6; Psa 2:4; Psa 8:1, Psa 8:3; Psa 18:13. The original idea may have been that there was one heaven above another - one in which the sun was placed, another in which the moon was placed, then the planets, the fixed stars, etc. Above all was supposed to be the place where God dwells. The word glory here means that which constitutes the glory or honor of God - his wisdom, power, skill, faithfulness, benevolence, as seen in the starry worlds above us, the silent, but solemn movements by day and by night. The idea is, that these convey to the mind a true impression of the greatness and majesty of God. The reference here is to these heavens as they appear to the naked eye, and as they are observed by all men. It may be added that the impression is far more solemn and grand when we take into the estimate the disclosures of the modern astronomy, and when we look at the heavens, not merely by the naked eye, but through the revelations of the telescope.
And the firmament - See the note at Dan 12:3. The word rendered firmament - רקיע râqı̂ya‛, means properly “an expanse” - that which is spread out - and is applied to the heavens as they appear to be spread out or expanded above us. The word occurs elsewhere in the following places, and is always rendered “firmament” in our common version, Gen 1:6, Gen 1:7 (twice), Gen 1:8, Gen 1:14, Gen 1:15, Gen 1:17, Gen 1:20; Psa 150:1; Eze 1:22-23, Eze 1:25-26; Eze 10:1; Dan 12:3. The word “firmament” - that which is firm or fixed - is taken from the word used by the translators of the Septuagint, στερέωμα stereōma, from the idea that the heavens above us are a solid concave. In the Scriptures the stars are represented as placed in that expanse, so that if it should be rolled together as a tent is rolled up, they would fall down to the earth. See the note at Isa 34:4. The reference in the passage before us is to the heavens as they appear to be spread out over our heads, and in which the stars are fixed.
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Showeth his handywork - The heavens make known the work of his hands. The idea is that God had made those heavens by his own hands, and that the firmament, thus adorned with sun, and moon, and stars, showed the wisdom and skill with which it was done. Compare Psa 8:3.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 Psalms 19
Psalms 19
To the Chief Musician, A Psalm of David
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1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament sheweth his handywork.
2 Day unto day uttereth speech,
And night unto night sheweth knowledge.
3 There is no speech nor language,
Where their voice is not heard.
4 Their line is gone out through all the earth,
And their words to the end of the world.
In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,
5 Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
And rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.
6 His going forth is from the end of the heaven,
And his circuit unto the ends of it:
And there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.
7 The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul:
The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.
8 The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart:
The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.
9 The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever;
The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
10 More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold:
Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
11 Moreover by them is thy servant warned:
And in keeping of them there is great reward.
12 Who can understand his errors?
Cleanse thou me from secret faults.
13 Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins;
Let them not have dominion over me:
Then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.
14 Let the words of my mouth,
And the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight,
O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Its Contents and Composition It is usually supposed that this Psalm consists of two parts, the former expressing the praise of God as Creator, the latter the praise of God as revealing Himself in the laws of Moses. Since now, not only the subject, but likewise the language and structure of the verses of the two parts is different, and they seem to follow one another without connection, many interpreters regard the two parts as two entirely different poems, composed at different times (Köster, Hupf., Böttcher), which were afterwards united together by a later poet (Ewald), or by the compiler (De Wette). But it has been very properly remarked against this opinion, that the difference of tone and rhythm corresponds with the difference of subject, and that moreover the subject of the one part has an essential relation to that of the other part, and not a relation subsequently thought out by reflection; for the identity of the God of Revelation with the Creator is the fundamental principle of the Theocracy, and is expressly testified to by the Old Testament from the earliest times. Furthermore these references are here expressed partly by the intentional use of the Divine name of El in the first part, and of Jehovah, and indeed seven times, in the second part, partly by the juxtaposition of Sun and Law, both of which are called Light, the former Job_21:26, the latter Pro_6:3, which thus mediates the transition from the one part to the other. As for the language of the Psalm, Hitzig especially, has brought into notice, and emphasized against Hupfeld, the ancient and particularly Davidic features, especially of the second part.21 Hengstenberg had already previously carried this out in a peculiar manner by maintaining that there are to be observed not two, but rather three parts; for after the description of actual facts, in two parts the Psalm turns directly to Jehovah, and becomes a prayer for forgiveness and preservation. These opinions are yet so held, that the composition must fall in the period before the sin of David with Bathsheba.
[Delitzsch: “In the title of Psalms 18. David is called עבד ה׳ and in Psalms 19. he calls himself by this name. In both Psalms he calls upon Jehovah wih the name of צוּרי, there at the beginning, here at the close. These, with other points of contact, have co-operated in inducing the compiler to attach this Psalm which celebrates God’s revelation in Nature and the Law, to Psalms 18., which celebrates God’s revelation in the history of David.”22—C. A. B.]
Str. I. Psa_10:1. Tell … proclaimeth.—[A. V., declare … sheweth]. The heavens are personified as Psa_50:6; Psa_97:6; as the morning stars, Job_38:7; the trees, Isa_55:12; entire nature, Job_12:7; Psa_148:2 sq. Telling and proclaiming may consequently be asserted of them with expressions which elsewhere are used of historical narration, which proclaim the great works of God from generation to generation. This expression is the more pregnant, as the history of the creation of the heavens and its stars in Genesis, to which the word rakia (comp. Psa_150:1) refers, is represented as toledoth, and has had a historical course, which again was called forth and closely determined by the will of God and His activity as a Divine artificer, so that there is impressed and expressed (Calv.) therein, not only His creative power (Geier, et al.) but the action of His hands, that is His mastership and His majesty, the reflected image of His Godhead (Rom_1:20). [Hupfeld: “The heavens as the work of God reveal the Creator (as we say, ‘the work praises the master’) comp Psa_136:5; Isa_40:22 sq.; Isa_42:5; Isa_44:24, etc.”—Handywork=hand-work, work of the hand.—C. A. B.] The participial forms state, that these are constant and characteristic witnesses.
Psa_10:2. Day unto day poureth forth speech.—[A. V., Uttereth]. The interrupted character of this declaring, which reveals the glory of the Creator, is occasioned by a chain of tradition. It is not said that the heavens preach to us by day and by night (Maurer), or that the changes of time praise God (Isaki, Calv.) and that which in these changes is seen in the heavens, and happens under the heavens on earth, (Aben Ezra, Stier), but the difference of the heavens by day and by night is had in view, and therefore day is placed in direct reference to day, and night to night in order that their communications may gush forth or well forth (Psa_78:2; Mic_2:6; Mic_2:11; Pro_1:23). [De Wette: “The poet personifies the day and the night, and has them transmit the praise of God to every following day and every following night, as the father transmits to his son the songs and sayings praising his illustrious ancestry which he has inherited from his father.” Rosenm.: “Declaratur prædicatio sine intermissione. Et quia cœlum prædicat per dies et noctes, cum interdiu princeps astrorum, sol, conspicitur, noctu stellarum pulchritudo; et quia dies et noctes sibi invicem succedunt, ideo poëlico artificio finget noster, unum diem peracto cursu et prædicatione sua, tradere diei sequenti verba prædicationis, et noctem quoque, peracto cursu, et quasi hymno cantato, tradere nocti sequenti munus canendi, ut ita continue, et sine ulla intermissione dies et noctes quasi choreas dûcant, et Deum laudibus celebrent.”—C. A. B.]
Psa_10:3. No speech and no words whose voice unheard (might be) [A. V., (There is) no speech nor language (where) their voice is not heard].—The interpretation of these words as a relative clause, after Vitringa (Observ. Sacr p. 841, 59), approved by De Wette, Delitzsch, Hitzig, accords with the figure previously used, and gives the appropriate sense; that this natural language of the heavens is not a speech whose sound cannot be understood, but is rather a φανερόν (Rom_1:19) [that is manifest to all.—C. A. B.] The בְלִי, connected with the participle, is a poetical expression altogether like the alpha privativum (Ewald, § 286 g; § 322 a). Against this interpretation may be objected, not so much the parallelism which is thereby lost, as the reference of the suffix to the words which immediately precede, “speech and words,” whilst the suffix in the following line [Psa_10:4 a] refers back to heavens and the firmament, with which day and night correspond. But if we should apply this reference here likewise, and at the same time restore the parallelism (Kimchi et al.), then by this formal correctness we would only get the plain matter of course explanation, destroying the poetical movement and rhythm, that the expressions just used are not exact but poetical. We must not, however, regard this verse as a later gloss. The poetical use of בלי, which even Olshausen remarks, is already opposed to this. Still less can it be maintained that the antithesis is found in the following verse, that these dumb witnesses, without sound and language, are yet loud speakers, heralds everywhere understood. For then we must either supply the particle of antithesis (Flam., et al.), which is altogether arbitrary, or regard ver 3 as the antecedent to Psa_10:4 (De Dieu), or regard it really as a preceding circumstantial clause (Ewald23), which is as hard to believe as the supposition (Hupf.24) of an Oxymoron only half expressed: dumb, and yet loud enough. This contrast cannot be derived organically from the emphasis of the clause; it is simply forced into the clause. This is still more the case with Hengst, who finds indicated the forcibleness of the testimony which needs no language [Alexander]. The language does not admit of the interpretation which Luther, Calv., Geier and most ancient interpreters follow, after the ancient translations, that this testimony of the heavens is understood by people of all languages [Barnes]; nor indeed of the turn which Hofmann (Theol. Stud. und Krit., 1847) has given it: no speech, and no words, are there that its call is not heard, that is, the speaking of the heavens is carried on along with all other languages; the speech of the heavens sounds above all. Böttcher translates: Where is preaching and where are words? Not a sound of it is to be heard.25
Str. II. Psa_10:4. Their line.—Only the meaning “measuring line” can be proved for the word קו (Isa_34:17; Zec_1:16, etc.), which goes as far, or extends as far, as the territory extends, Jer_31:39; Job_38:5, Isa_34:17; Eze_47:3 (Chald., Isaki, Geier, Rosenm., Hengst., Hupf, Delitzsch). The meaning sounding string (De Wette, after some more ancient interpreters), is no more in the word than that of thread of discourse (Hitzig), or the line of writing (Aben Ezra, Calv., Cocc.). The derivation from קִוָּה=to stretch out, in the sense of τόνος from τείνω (Ewald, Maurer), is possible, and the Sept. (comp. Rom_10:18) really has φθόγγος, Symm., ἧχος, Vulg. and Jerome, sonus, Peschito, “its proclaiming.” But this meaning of sound, tune, is not proper to the word elsewhere, hence Olsh., Maurer, Gesen., propose to read קוֹלָם instead of קַוָּם, which, however, is used in the previous verse. The parallelism again (Camph.) is more in favor of a word for sound than of one for territory. Yet without this the extent of this proclaiming is stated as locally unlimited, much more embracing the entire circuit of the world.—[In them.—Hupfeld very properly refers the suffix here to the heavens in which God has set up a tent or abode for the sun, so Perowne and Barnes. Barnes: “The meaning is, that the sun has his abode or dwelling-place, as it were, in the heavens. The sun is particularly mentioned, doubtless, as being the most prominent object among the heavenly bodies, as illustrating in an eminent manner the glory of God. The sense of the whole passage is, that the heavens in general proclaim the glory of God, and that this is shown in a particular and special manner by the light, the splendor and the journeyings of the sun.”—C. A. B.]26
[Tent (A. V., tabernacle).—Hupfeld: “A dwelling is poetically assigned to the sun by God, so far as it, like all the stars, has its firm place in the heavens, from whence it begins its daily course in the following verse and again returns; without doubt with special reference to its abode at night (Geier). Comp. in the following verse, the bed-chamber, from which it steps forth in the morning. Thus Hab_3:11 : ‘The sun and moon stand still in their habitation (זְבוּל), and the מַזָּלוֹת, ‘lodgings’ or ‘houses,’ of the constellations of the zodiac as stations of the sun. The same figure among the Greeks and Romans (Hom., Ovid’s Metam.), and Ossian (III. 91). Comp. Herder, Geist. d. Heb. Poes., I. 78 sq.”—C. A. B.]
The allegorical reference of many ancient interpreters to the heavens as a figure of the Church, and the sun as the figure of the gospel, originates from the supposition, that there is here a prophecy used in Rom_10:18. But the apostle uses these words only on the ground of the parallel here given of the natural and historical revelations as typical of the proclamation of the gospel, which should embrace the entire world. [Perowne: “St. Paul, Rom_10:18, quotes the former part of this verse in illustration of the progress of the Gospel. ‘Faith,’ he says, ‘cometh by hearing,’ and then asks, ‘Have they (i.e. the nations at large) not heard?’ Yea, rather, so widely has the Gospel been preached, that its progress may be described in the words in which the Psalmist tells of God’s revelation of Himself in nature. The one has now become co-extensive with the other. The prœconium cœlorum is not more universal than the prœconium evangelii.”—C. A. B.]
[Psa_10:5. And he is like a bridegroom (A. V., Which (is) as a bridegroom).—It is better to regard וְהוּא as beginning an independent clause, as Delitzsch, Moll., Ewald, Perowne, et al. Hupf. uses a colon, but the relative construction is without warrant, and makes the clause too much dependent upon the preceding. Perowne: “Nothing can be more striking than the figures in which the freshness and gladness of the young morning and the strength of the sun’s onward march, are described.” Delitzsch: “The morning light has in it a freshness and cheerfulness, a renewed youth. Therefore the morning sun is compared to a bridegroom, the desire of whose heart is satisfied, who stands as it were at the beginning of a new life, and in whose youthful countenance the joy of the wedding-day still shines.”—As a hero to run a race.—Delitzsch: “As in its rise it is compared to a bridegroom, so in its rapid course (Sir_43:5) it is compared to a hero (vid.Psa_18:33), for it goes over its course anew, every time it steps forth, bestowing its light, and overcoming all things with גִּבוּרָה (Jdg_5:31).” Riehm: “The meaning is not he rejoices in running, but: he rejoices running = he runs joyfully (Hitzig).” The same comparison is used in the Zendavesta, II. 106 (De Wette). Barnes “The idea is that the sun seems to have a long journey before him and puts forth all his vigor, exulting in the opportunity of manifesting that vigor, and confident of triumphing in the race.”—C. A. B.]27
[Psa_10:6. His going forth.—Hupf.: “מוֹצָא, the usual word for the rising of the sun, appears here in its original figurative meaning: going forth, with reference to the stepping forth (יצא) from his chamber (Psa_10:5), in contrast with מָבוֹא, going into the chamber at his setting, “instead of which here תְקוּפָה, revolution, running down (from נקף, Isa_29:1; הִקִּיף, encompass, revolve), elsewhere of the passing away of the years, Exo_34:22; 1Sa_1:20, here of the daily passing away of the sun” (A. V., circuit). “This is not a description of its ‘extended course” (De Wette), but of the entire extent of its course: from one end of the heavens to the other (corresponding with ‘over the whole earth,’ and ‘to the end of the world,’ Psa_10:4, which here receive their explanation and fulfilment), and of its all-penetrating heat.”—Nothing is hid from its heat.—Hupfeld: “This refers properly to its all-penetrating warmth, heat (from which the sun poetically has the name הַמָּח, the hot, in contrast to the moon לְבָנָה, the pale, Isa_30:26); but including likewise the light, comp. in all languages a similar proverb, that the sun ‘sees and brings all things to light.’ ”—Barnes: “The rays of the sun penetrate everywhere. Nothing escapes it. It is not a more march for show and splendor; it is not an idle and useless journey in the heavens; but all things, vegetables, birds, beasts, men,—all that lives,—feel the effect of his vital warmth, and are animated by his quickening influence.”—C. A. B.]
Str. III. Psa_10:7. [Delitzsch: “The transition from the one part to the other has no external medium, it is only indicated by the fact that the Divine name יהוה [Jehovah] takes the place of אֵל (‘El). The word of nature reveals אל (‘El), the word of Scripture יהוה (Jehovah); the one God’s power and majesty, the other His counsel and will. Twelve eulogies of the law follow, two by two of which are constantly related as presumption and conclusion, according to the scheme of the Cæsura, rising and sinking as waves. We feel how the heart of the poet, when he begins to speak of God’s word and the revelation of His will, begins to beat with redoubled joy.”—C. A. B.]
The law.—The word תוֹרה means properly: instruction, doctrine, and therefore may mean likewise the word of prophecy (Isa_1:10; Isa_8:16); yes, it may be used of the νόμος of the last times. But this does not prove that it means here the Gospel (Cocc.), or the revelation and word of God in general (many ancient interpreters, likewise Stier). The following synonyms, then Psa_10:11, show that the reference here is only to the revelation of the law given by Moses as the rule of life for Israel. So it is not said that the Thorah converts the soul (Stier), or leads the spirit back into itself (Augusti), but this expression in its idiomatic use has no reference to the moral character, but to the experiences of life. The refreshment and reanimation of the soul is called its restoration and bringing back. Comp. 1Sa_30:12; Lam_1:11. [Alexander: “The effect of converting the soul would not have been attributed to the law in this connection, where the writer is describing the affections cherished towards the law by men already converted, which removes all apparent inconsistency with Paul’s representation of the law as working death, and at the same time the necessity of making the law mean the Gospel, or in any other way departing from the obvious and usual import of the Hebrew word.”—The testimony.—Perowne: “As testifying, bearing witness of God’s character, both in His goodwill towards those who obey Him, and in His displeasure against transgressions, especially in the latter sense. It is as Harless says: ‘The word of God testifying of Himself and affirming what He is, in opposition to the apostasy of man’ (Ethik. § 14, Anm). Vid.Deu_31:26-27 Hence the force of its connection with the ark and the mercy-seat, Exo_25:16; Exo_26:34; Lev_16:13; the symbol of God’s righteous severity against sin being hidden beneath the symbol of His grace and mercy.”—C. A. B.]
Simplicity—פֶתי is not the silly (Luther), nor the natural man in general (most interpreters), nor the open-minded and susceptible (Stier), such as the pious and the wise must certainly remain in order to further progress (Hengst.), but the man who is in the condition of one in his minority, uneducated and open to every impression, especially to slander and temptation (Hupf.), who, however, has not yet lost the disposition of a child (Calv.) (comp. Mat_11:25; 1Co_1:27).
Psa_10:8 [Delitzsch: “The law is divided into פִקּוּדַים, demands, or declarations respecting the obligations of man [A. V. statutes], these are יִשָׁרִים, right as norma normata, because they proceed from the just and holy will of God, and as norma normans, because they lead in the right way into right paths; they are therefore מְשׂמְּחֵי לֵב, their training and direction removes all obstructions, satisfies the moral needs and gives the glad consciousness of being in the right way to the right end. מִצְוַת ה׳, Jehovah’s statute (from צִוָּה, statuere), is the essence of His commands. The statute is called, lamp, Pro_6:23, and the law, light. So here, it is בָּרָה, pure, as sunlight (Son_6:10), and its light imparts itself by: מְאִירַת עְינַיִם, enlightening the eyes, which is meant not only of enlightening the understanding, but likewise of the entire condition, it makes spiritually clear and lovely as well as spiritually sound and fresh, for dimness of eye is trouble, sadness, perplexity.”—C. A. B ]28
Psa_10:9. The fear of Jehovah is here evidently metonymic = doctrines or their practice, as Isa_29:13.—[Clean—Barnes: “טָחוֹר, tâhor, means properly clear, pure, in a physical sense, as opposed to filthy, soiled; then, in a ceremonial sense, as opposed to that which is profane or common (Lev_13:17), and then, in a moral sense, as a clean heart, etc.,Psa_12:6; Psa_51:10. It is also applied to pure gold, Exo_25:11. The sense here is, that there is nothing in it that tends to corrupt the morals or defile the soul. Everything connected with it is of a pure and holy tendency, adapted to cleanse the soul and to make it holy.—Enduring forever.—Standing to all eternity. Not temporary; not decaying; not destined to pass away. It stands firm now, and it will stand firm forever. That is the law of God, considered as adapted to make the heart holy and pure is eternal. What it is now it will ever be. What its teaching is now it will continue to be forever.”—Judgments.—Delitzsch: “מִשְׁפְטִי ה׳ are the jura of the law, as corpus juris divini, all that is right and in accordance with right according to the decision of Jehovah; these laws are אְמֶת, truth, guarding and protecting itself, because as distinguished from most laws other than those of Israel they have an unchangeable, moral foundation”—Righteous altogether—Barnes: “That is, they are, without exception, just; or, they are altogether or wholly righteous.”—C. A. B.]
Psa_10:10 [Hupfeld: “The conclusion: hence the incomparable value of the Divine law, brought into view by comparison with the most important material goods after which men strive: Gold, as the rarest and therefore the most costly good and most sought after, symbol of the dearest possession and object of the most eager strife of men; Honey, as the sweetest symbol of the most delightful enjoyment The former comparison in the same sense (with pearls and precious stones), likewise Psa_119:72; Psalms 127 and frequently, in Pro_2:4; Pro_3:14 sq.; Pro_8:10 sq., 19; Pro_16:16; Psa_22:1; Job_28:15 sq.; the latter likewise Psa_119:103 and Pro_21:13.”—Honeycomb, more properly as in the margin, dropping of honeycombs. Barnes: “The allusion is to honey that drops from the combs, and therefore the most pure honey. That which is pressed from the comb will have almost inevitably a mixture of bee-bread and of the combs themselves. That which flows from the comb will be pure.”—C. A. B.]
Str. IV Psa_10:11. [Warned—Barnes: “זַהָר, zahar, means, properly, to be bright, to shine; then to cause to shine, to make light; and then to admonish, to instruct, to warn. The essential idea here is to throw light on a subject, so as to show it clearly; that is, make the duty plain, and the consequences plain. Comp. Lev_15:31; Eze_3:18; Eze_33:7” Alexander: “The phrase, Thy servant, brings the general doctrines of the foregoing context into personal application to the writer.”—C. A. B.]
Psa_10:12. Errors.—The word שְׁגִיאָה, which occurs only here, denotes the entire compass of unintentional sins, the ἀγνοήματα, which had happened בִּשְׁגָגָה, and even on this account not only concealed from men (Lev_4:13, but likewise not even known by the person himself (Lev_5:2 sq.), because they might have been committed unconsciously, but when they became known, were to be atoned for by offerings (Num_15:22 sq.). In contrast with them are the trespasses (Num_5:30 sq.), which are said to be committed with uplifted hand and as not to be atoned for, from which therefore the Psalmist wishes to be preserved.
Psa_10:13. The word זִדִים describes these as boasting [A. V. presumptuous (sins)], but not on the side of their appearance as disregarding all limits, but on the side of the origin of their sin from the heart boasting of its lusts. The plural form of this word is in other passages of Scripture always to be regarded properly as of haughty oppressors, and is likewise here thus taken by many, finally Köster and Olsh. But there is no other reference in this Psalm to the oppression of such hostile persecutors (the Sept. and Vulg. have read זָדִים). The context leads to the sphere of moral preservation, not of protection against external power. The expression ruler [A. V., have dominion] in the following member of the verse is entirely appropriate and clear only when we regard the plural form as denoting the abstract (Kimchi, Rosenm., Delitzsch, Hitzig), which especially recommends itself in an ancient piece of composition. The reference to the evil influence and the tempting power of association and intercourse with proud transgressors (De Wette, Hupf., Camph.), forces the abstract into the explanation in order to be endurable, and obscures the contrast that is in the clause Gen_4:7, Rom_5:14, and similar passages which are cited lead directly to an abstract, and חשׁךְ= hold back, preserve, is usually connected with an abstract (Gen_20:6; 1Sa_25:39). Still less is it to be supposed that the intentional sins are here personified as tyrants (Hengst.) which strive to bring the servant of God under their unworthy dominion. It is the boasting of his emotions which is charged against David (1Sa_17:28) comp. Jam_1:14 (Hitzig), which at the close of the verse after its expression as פשׁע, (= apostasy, treachery, rebellion) is marked with a word in apposition which expresses not the frequency (Calv.) but the greatness of the iniquity. The word נקּה (Psa_10:12 in Piel. Psa_10:13 in Niphal) is a judicial word, and stands always with reference to guilt and punishment. [Delitzsch: “Declare innocent, speak free, leave unpunished.”—C. A. B.]
Psa_10:14. [Delitzsch: “The Psalmist finally prays for the gracious acceptance of his prayer, in which heart and mouth unite, based upon the faithfulness of God, which is firm as a rock, and His redemptive Love.”—Be acceptable.—Perowne: “The usual formula applied to God’s acceptance of sacrifices offered to Him (Lev_1:3-4, etc.). Prayer to God is the sacrifice of the heart, and of the lips. Comp. Hos_14:2, ‘so will we offer our lips as calves.’ ” Alexander: “This allusion also serves to suggest the idea, not conveyed by translation, of atonement, expiation, as the ground of the acceptance which the Psalmist hopes or prays for.”—Jehovah, my rock and my redeemer.—(A. V., my strength), in the margin correctly rock. Perowne: “The name of Jehovah is repeated for the seventh time. The epithets ‘my Rock,’ ‘my Redeemer,’ have here a peculiar force. For He is my strength in keeping the Law; my Redeemer as delivering me from the guilt and power of sin.”—C. A. B.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The contemplation of the glory of nature must not lead to the deification of nature; it should lead up beyond the entire world, and beyond all the heavens, to the knowledge of the glory of God mirrored therein, and excite to the adoration of the Almighty Creator declaring Himself therein. The expanse of the heavens which cannot at all be surveyed by man, has yet received its limits from Him who is alone Infinite and Almighty. Even the sun, which is worshipped by so many nations as the King of heaven receives the measure of its motion, and the revolution of its course from the same hand, whose government and work disclose themselves in all things as by the hand of a Master, whom all His works praise. It is true the praise of nature is different by day from what it is by night; yet it preaches incessantly, and its sermon is not only heard everywhere in the world, but likewise is capable of being understood by every one.
2. But if the glorious works of God are so instructive and edifying to man, how much greater advantage may he derive from the law of God which is infinitely more glorious? For it is one and the same God, who declares Himself in creation, and reveals Himself in history. In natural things, however, only the glory of His metaphysical nature can be known; but the glory of His moral nature reveals itself in the words of His law, in which His will and counsel find expressions.
3. The twelve eulogiums of the law, whose parts are related to one another as presumption and consequence, and which are compared by Luther with the twelve fruits of the tree of life, refer to that excellence peculiar to the law of God as such, which is likewise expressly brought into view by Paul, Rom_7:12; Rom_7:14, by which it is the jewel of Israel and the comfort of those who act according to it. For the character of the Thorah as a Divine instruction respecting the duties to be fulfilled by the people of God and its individual members in all the relations of life, involves its having essentially the form of a testimony manifesting the will of God, and it divides itself into commandments and statutes which relate to the fear of Jehovah, and have the meaning of legal statutes They consequently have not only gone forth from God and received the essential characteristics of a complete and reliable rule of the rectitude and purity of all ordinances, the sincerity of their end and aim, the truth of statutes and decisions, but likewise treat of the true relation to God according to its subject and aim, and therefore spiritually refresh and admonish, whilst they rejoice the heart and enlighten the eyes. Moreover as essential parts of Divine revelation, they are of eternal duration, and are right, and continue in this connection in the history of redemption (Mat_5:17 sq.). Thus the law of Jehovah is Israel’s most valuable possession and sweetest food, a gracious gift of God, glad tidings (Psa_40:10).
4. The true servant of God experiences both the enlightenment and refreshment, the correction and reward of the law. He is preserved from venality and self-righteousness by the fact that the reward presupposes the fulfilment of the law. Moreover the servant of God perceives in the law as the mirror of perfection, his own imperfection, and its reference to human sins in general in their variety, number, and enormity. If he applies it to his own person, his claim of merit falls away. Moreover the law instructs him at the same time respecting the difference between deadly sins and venial sins, respecting the means of atonement, and respecting the conditions of forgiveness of sins, and thus preserves him from despair.
5. Moreover the arrangement of the institutions of atonement and the ordinances respecting their use, belong likewise to the commands and statutes of the Thorah. In these the Creator and Lawgiver reveals Himself as the Redeemer. The law itself thus urges to seek salvation in the grace of God by repentance and faith, whilst it discloses to the sinner his guilt, and makes him experience his inability to help himself, but likewise lets him know the readiness of God to forgive, and brings His saving strength near.
6. The institution of the confessional together with the requirements connected therewith, is in opposition to the confession and prayer made, Psa_19:13 sq. (comp. Conf. August, art. VI). But no one is to plead as an excuse, or to justify themselves by the secrecy and delicacy of many sins, the unfathomableness of the human heart, the impossibility of a complete knowledge of self and sin. Justification is a speaking clear and a declaring guiltless on the part of God; in this David and Paul agree (comp. likewise Psalms 32). It presupposes on the one side the grace of God, on the other the laying hold of the same, which cannot happen without repentance any more than without faith. But where repentance and faith are, which are mutually necessary to one another, the servant of God is urged ever to make a more complete surrender of himself, and to more entirely consecrate himself to God, partly by the knowledge that with conscientious self-examination, there still remain to him faults to be regretted; partly by the experience, that with the most honest striving after sanctification the danger even of a grave transgression, and likewise of a great fall, never entirely vanishes from him. “If the law is separated from the hope of forgiveness and the Spirit of Christ, it is so far from the sweetness of honey, that it rather kills poor souls by its bitterness.” (Calvin).
7. An evidence of such disposition of soul is the prayer for pardon and preservation, if heart and lip unite in it, and the chief desire of the soul is that God will accept it as an offering well-pleasing to Him, that is, that He will hear it. The soul then turns with it to the God of revelation already known as his rock and his redeemer, in whose protecting power and saving love he trusts with the more security as he has already received and experienced salvation from Him. “Original sin is not destroyed in this world, but pardoned.” (Seb. Schmidt).
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The glory of God is reflected for man even in the works of creation; but its splendor beams forth from the words of the revealed law, clearer than sunlight, yet it shines towards him most gloriously in acts of salvation for his redemption.—Nature and history preach the same God, that Isaiah , 1) the almighty Creator of the world; 2) the holy Lawgiver of the children of men; 3) the gracious Redeemer of penitent sinners.—It is true, our God is invisible, yet not unknown. There has never been a lack of preaching God, but often of people to hear the sermon, heed it, and obey it.—Even pious people have still hidden faults, but they do not hide them.—God helps us not only to know our sins, but likewise to receive pardon for our errors, and to obtain preservation from crimes.—To the people of God the law of God is the most costly good and the sweetest food. Three things are indispensable to the salvation of men, 1) adoration of the majesty of God; 2) repentance for their sins; 3) reconciliation with God by redemption.—He who would be the servant of God, must not only instruct himself by the law of God, but likewise be warned against transgression, and be led to its observance.—As the Lord so the servant; as the service so the reward.
Starke: As the heavens with their courses and order are a sure witness of the omnipotence and wisdom of God, just so the gospel is to be a constant and faithful witness of Christ. See here the chief end of all the creatures of God! The Creator’s glory is to be advanced by them, and man is to know God aright from them, and learn to love Him and praise Him.—It is shameful for man, the noblest creature, to be silent with respect to those things about which even dumb creatures speak in their fashion.—No day should pass without my glorifying my God, and no night when I should not seek my rest in His grace.—If David already, with the little proportion of revelation which he had, has uttered such excellent words, what should we now say, after the Scriptures of the New Testament have come to us, which have set every thing in a still greater light?—As the gospel is glad tidings, so it likewise works Divine joy in those who allow themselves to be enlightened by it.—The Holy Spirit accomplishes His office of admonishing the soul by the word of God, now by doctrine, now by the refutation of an imbibed error, now by punishing an observed impurity, now by awakening to faithfulness, likewise by consoling support in trouble.—Although the law is a mirror of sin, yet no man can observe and know either the multitude or the secrecy of his faults, still less tell them to others.—He who has given himself to God as a servant will be preserved by Him from being the servant of sin and the slave of Satan.—As long as the righteous are in the world they will not be entirely pure owing to original sin, yet they are pure before God, partly on account of the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, partly because God is pleased with their new obedience, whereby they free themselves from all gross prevailing sins.
Ambrose: Aliud est timere, quia peccaveris, aliud timere, ne pecces; ibi est formodo de supplicio, hic sollicitudo de præmio.—Augustine: When thou prayest thou speakest with God; when thou readest the Scriptures, God speaks with thee.—Osiander: God has done a greater and more glorious work in saving poor sinners, than in creating the world.—Arndt: God’s word, praise and glory, cannot and must not fail.—R. Stier: The first covenant in which God witnesseth His existence and will, joins on to the religion of nature and conscience which is presupposed, just as the other covenant which brings grace and truth, appeals to the law which preceded it.—O. v. Gerlach: The prayer for forgiveness of debts is followed directly by the prayer for preservation in and from temptation, as in the Lord’s prayer.—Tholuck: If all the preachers on earth were silent, and no human mouth told any more of God, there in the heavens His great glory and majesty are told and declared without cessation.—Umbreit: It is a mysterious song, which is sung by the universe, and to which the poet listens; it sounds so that it is heard only in the depths of the human soul, where the spring of faith is.—Diedrich: The work must praise the master everywhere, and blessed is he who understands it.
[Matth. Henry: From the brightness of the heavens we may collect that the Creator is light; their vastness of extent speaks His immensity; their height His transcendency and sovereignty; their influence upon this earth His dominion, and providence, and universal beneficence; and all declare His almighty power by which they were at first made, and continue to this day, according to the ordinances that were then settled.—The holy Scripture, as it is a rule both of duty to God and of our expectation from Him, is of much greater use and benefit to us than day or night, than the air we breathe in, or the light of the sun.—The discoveries made of God by His works might have served if man had retained his integrity; but to recover Him out of his fallen state another course must be taken, that must be done by the Word of God.—Barnes: The reason why any man is elated with a conviction of his own goodness is that he has no just sense of the requirements of the law of God; and the more any one studies that law, the more will he be convinced of the extent of his own depravity.—Spurgeon: We may rest assured that the true “vestiges of creation” will never contradict Genesis, nor will a correct “Cosmos” be found at variance with the narrative of Moses. He is wisest who reads both the world-book and the Word-book as two volumes of the same work, and feels concerning them, “my Father wrote them both.”—He who would guess at Divine sublimity should gaze upwards into the starry vault; he who would imagine infinity must peer into the boundless expanse; he who desires to see Divine wisdom should consider the balancing of the orbs; he who would know Divine fidelity must mark the regularity of the planetary motions; and he who would attain some conception of Divine power, greatness, and majesty, must estimate the forces of attraction, the magnitude of the fixed stars, and the brightness of the whole celestial train.—The gospel is perfect in all its parts, and perfect as a whole; it is a crime to add to it, treason to alter it, and felony to take from it.—What a blessing that in a world of uncertainties we have something sure to rest upon! We hasten from the quicksands of human speculations to the terra firma of Divine Revelation.—Free grace brings heart joy, earth-born mirth dwells on the lip, and flushes the bodily powers; but heavenly delights satisfy the inner nature, and fill the mental faculties to the brim. There is no cordial of comfort like that which is poured from the bottle of Scripture.—Look at the sun and it puts out your eyes, look at the more than sunlight of Revelation and it enlightens them; the purity of snow causes snow-blindness to the Alpine traveller, but the purity of God’s truth has the contrary effect, and cures the natural blindness of the soul.—Bible truth is enriching to the soul in the highest degree; the metaphor is one which gathers force as it is brought out; gold, fine gold—much fine gold; it is good, better, best; and therefore it is not only to be desired with a miser’s avidity, but with more than that.—Men speak of solid gold, but what is so solid as solid truth?—On the sea of life there would be many wrecks if it were not for the Divine storm-signals which give to the watchful a timely warning. The Bible should be our Mentor, our Monitor, our Memento Mori, our Remembrancer, and the keeper of our conscience.—He best knows himself who best knows the Word, but even such an one will be in a maze of wonder as to what he does not know, rather than on the mount of congratulation as to what he does know.—We have heard of a comedy of errors, but to a good man this is more like a tragedy.—Many books have a few lines of errata at the end, but our errata might well be as large as the volume if we could but have sense enough to see them. Augustine wrote in his older days a series of Retractations; ours might make a library if we had enough grace to be convinced of our mistakes, and to confess them.—If we had eyes like those of God we should think very differently of ourselves.—The transgressions which we see and confess are but like the farmer’s small samples which he brings to market, when he has left his granary full at home.—C. A. B.]
Footnotes:
[21][Riehm: “The change in the structure of the verses occasioned by difference of tone, can so much the less be urged against the unity of the Psalm, since the structure of verses which prevails in the first part, reappears in Psa_19:11. Against the supposition that the praise of the law betrays a later period of composition, comp. Psa_18:22 sq. 31. The words of this Psalm resound in Psalms 119”—C. A. B.]
[22][Perowne: “It may have been written perhaps in the first flush of an Eastern sunrise, when the sun was seen, going forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber and rejoicing as a mighty man to run his course. The song breathes all the life and freshness, all the gladness and glory of the morning. The devout singer looks out, first, on the works of God’s fingers, and sees all creation bearing its constant though silent testimony to its Maker; and then he turns himself with a feeling of deep satisfaction to that yet clearer and better witness concerning Him to be found in the inspired Scriptures. Thus he begins the day; thus he prepares himself for the duties that await him, for the temptations that may assail and the sorrows that may gather as a cloud about him. He has made trial of the preciousness of that word. He knows its deep, hallowing, soul-sustaining power. He knows that it is full of life and healing. But he knows also that it is a word that searches and tries the heart, that reveals the holiness of God, and the sinfulness of man; and therefore he bows himself in prayer, saying, ‘As for errors,—who can understand them? Cleanse Thou me from secret faults.’ ” This Psalm may be compared with Psalms 8 an evening psalm similar in its contemplations to this morning psalm. In both the contemplation of the Divine glory as declared in the heavens, begets a feeling of humility in the soul of the Psalmist which rises in Psa_8:5, into expression of faith and confidence in God, in Psalms 19, into prayer for forgiveness, preservation and acceptance.—C. A. B.]
[23][Ewald: “Without talk, without words, without its voice being heard, its sound became loud through the whole earth, etc.”—C. A. B.]
[24][Hupfeld compares this with Psa_8:3, the defence of God out of the mouth of sucklings.—C. A. B.]
[25]
[Perowne agrees with Hengst. and Hupfeld, thus: “ ‘Their voice is not heard, lit. is inaudible.’ This seems to be a kind of correction or explanation of the bold figure which had ascribed language to the heavens. They have a language, but not one that can be classed with any of the dialects of earth. They have a voice, but one that speaks not to the ear, but to the devout and understanding heart. The sense is very well expressed in the well-known paraphrase of Addison:—
‘What though in solemn silence all
Move round this dark terrestrial ball,
* * * * *
In reason’s ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice,’ ” etc.
So Wordsworth: “The elements are God’s Evangelists; the universe is God’s Church. The sermon which they preach has found its response in the universal assent of mankind. But the eloquence of the elements is a silent eloquence, and thus differs from the articulate utterances of the Church.” The view of our author is preferable.—C. A. B.]
[26][De Wette, Gesen., Maurer, Hitzig, Baur and Delitzsch regard the suffix as indefinite and relative. Thus De Wette: “The end of the world is here designated as the dwelling of the sun, which is regarded as at the end of the heavens, where it passes the night, where in the evening at sunset it turns in, and in the morning goes forth. Thus Helios turned in with Thetis, and Ossian gives the sun a shady cave, where to pass the night.”—C. A. B.]
[27][Wordsworth: “It cannot, surely, be by chance that we have here figurative expressions which describe the work of Christ, the King of kings, the Mighty Conqueror, who is compared in both Testaments to the sun (Mal_4:2; Rev_1:16; Rev_10:1), and shines forth as a sun in the Tabernacle of His Church, and dispels the darkness of sin and error, and illumines the world with His light: and who is also called the Bridegroom in Scripture, and as a Bridegroom (Joh_3:29; Rev_21:9) came forth from His heavenly chamber, to unite our nature to the Divine. He came forth ‘de utero virginali tanquam thalamo’ (says Augustine), in order to espouse to Himself the Bride. His Church, and to join her in mystic wedlock to Himself. And therefore all ancient expositors agree in applying these words to Christ; and this Psalm is appointed, in the Sarum and Latin use, for Christmas Day; and in the Gregorian use, for the Annunciation.”—C. A. B.]
[28][Perowne: “According to the expressive Hebrew idiom, it is to the soul what food is to the worn and fainting body. It is what the honey which he found in the wood was to Jonathan, when he returned, wearied and exhausted, from the pursuit of his enemies. Comp. Psa_119:18; Act_26:18; Eph_1:18—C. A. B.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 12 uttereth--pours forth as a stream; a perpetual testimony.
uttereth--pours forth as a stream; a perpetual testimony.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1–14 1. The heavens declare—Publish, with the adsignification of praise;…
1. The heavens declare—Publish, with the adsignification of praise; they celebrate, as the word often denotes.
Glory of God—The moral excellence of his nature. Num_14:20-21; Joh_11:40.
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Firmament—The Hebrew רקיע, (rakeea,) firmament, comes from רקע, (raka,) to spread out. In the Old Testament the noun has the sense of expanse, and also of firmness, steadfastness. The latter idea comes to us through the Septuagint, στερεωμα, and the Vulgate firmamentum. It occurs once in New Testament, Col_2:5, and is rendered steadfastness. The idea of firmness is phenomenal, because the sky, as an arch, appears to support the celestial bodies. Job_37:18. The Hebrews had no accurate knowledge of celestial distances, and the firmament, with them, sometimes meant atmosphere, (Gen_1:6-7,) and at others, as in the text, the region of the planets and stars. Gen_1:14; Dan_12:3. The Hebrew idea of rakeea embraces the notions of extension and regularity, and as Girdlestone says, (Hebrew Synonymes, page 424,) “It is clear that the ideas of heaven presented to the Jew by the Bible are singularly in accordance with the views entertained by students of modern astronomy.”
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 On vv1–14 1. “The glory of the Lord” denotes (1) that…
1. “The glory of the Lord” denotes (1) that visible manifestation of His Presence by which He was wont to reveal Himself to Israel, the Shechinah as it was called in later times (Exo_16:7; Exo_16:10; Exo_33:22; Rom_9:4): and (2) in a wider sense, as here, the glory of God is the unique majesty of His Being as it is revealed to man, that manifestation of His Deity which the creature should recognise with reverent adoration. All creation is a revelation of God, but the heavens in their vastness, splendour, order, and mystery are the most impressive reflection of His greatness and majesty. The simplest observer can read the message; but how much more emphatic and significant has it become through the discoveries of modern astronomy!
the firmament) Lit. the expanse: the vault of heaven, spread out over the earth (Gen_1:6 ff.; Job_37:18), proclaims what He has done and can do.
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1–6. The universal revelation of God in Nature.
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 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 (1) The heavens declare.—Better, the heavens are telling. The…
(1) The heavens declare.—Better, the heavens are telling. The poet is even now gazing at the sky, not philosophising on a familiar natural phenomenon, nor is he merely enjoying beauty. Not only is his æsthetic faculty satisfied, but his spirit, his religious nature is moved. He has an immediate apprehension, an intuition of God. He is looking on the freshness of the morning, and all he sees is telling of God, bringing God before him. This constitutes the essence of the greater part of Hebrew poetry. This is the inspiration of the bard of Israel—a religious inspiration. The lower, the aesthetic perception of beauty, is ready at every moment to pass into the higher, the religious emotion. All truly great poetry partakes of this elevation—Hebrew poetry in its highest degree. Some lines from Coleridge’s “Hymn before Sunrise in the Yale of Chamouni not only supplies a modern example, but explains the moral, or rather spiritual process, involved—
“O dread and silent mount! I gazed upon thee
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Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,
Did’st vanish from my thought; entranced in prayer,
I worshipped the Invisible alone.”
(See an article on “God in Nature and in History,” in The Expositor for March, 1881.)
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 On vv1–14 THE nineteenth psalm is one of meditative praise. The…
THE nineteenth psalm is one of meditative praise. The psalmist, looking abroad over the whole world, finds two main subjects for his eulogy first, the glorious fabric of the material creation (vers. 1-6); and, secondly, the Divine Law which God has given to man (vers. 7-11). Having thus poured out his heart in praise and thanksgiving to God, he turns his eye inward upon himself, and finds many shortcomings (ver. 12). The thought of these leads him to prayer, and so the hymn concludes with a few short petitions (vers. 12-14).
Rhythmically, the divisions correspond to the changes in the thought. There is first a stately movement, continued for six versos, devoted to the glories of the universe; then a livelier strain in longer (mostly double) lines, praising the Law of the Lord, and extending to five verses only; finally, a conclusion in short, broken lines, limited to three verses.
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The psalm is generally allowed to be David"s, and is declared to be his by the title. There are no internal indications by which to assign it a date.
The heavens declare the glory of God; literally, the heavens are recounting the glory of God of El, "the Mighty One the God of nature. (see Rom_1:20) David is perhaps carrying out his declared intention (Psa_18:49) of praising God among the heathen," and therefore takes their standpoint the ground of nature. And the firmament showeth his handywork. (On "the firmament," see Gen_1:6, Gen_1:20) It is the entire atmosphere enveloping the earth, in which the clouds hang and the birds move. Like the starry heavens above, this, too, "showeth," or rather, "proclaimeth," God"s handiwork.
HOMILIES BY C. CLEMANCE Vers. 1-6. The voice of God in his works.
There is enough in this psalm for twenty discourses. But in this department of the "Pulpit Commentary" it is not our province to dwell on specific texts, however attractive, but to indicate how by a homiletic exposition of the psalm as a whole, it may be brought home to us for everyday life in the continuous unfolding of the Scripture. At the same time, the two divisions of the psalm are so entirely distinct that they call for separate treatment, as they open up to the preacher entirely different branches of thought and instruction. There is no reason to question the Davidic authorship of the psalm, but it is so couched that from its contents there is nothing by which we can infer either its authorship or date; and it so speaks to man as man, that it is of equal value by whomsoever or whensoever it was penned. We have in its first six verses a rehearsal of the voices of God in the firmament above. And we gather from the forms of expression that the writer was accustomed to speak of natural phenomena in the language of his day. In his view the firmament of heaven spread out as a hemisphere above the earth, like a splendid and pellucid sapphire, in which the stars were supposed to be fixed, and over which the Hebrews believed there was a heavenly ocean. The Bible was not meant to teach science, but to teach God. Science has to do with the matter, order, and laws of the creation. In religion we have to do with the great Author of all. And while we find the writer far enough away from our present conceptions of what the heavens are, we find he is one to whom God had spoken as Jehovah, the great I AM and who had been taught God"s Law to man as well as God"s utterances in nature. And as God"s voices to us have become clearer than they were in the psalmist"s time, by his revelation in Christ Jesus, so the glory of his works has become amazingly clearer through the discoveries man has made therein; and he will fall very far short of a suitable setting forth of the truths of this first half of the psalm, who does not utilize the recent discoveries of science as a pedestal on which to set, in clearer and fuller ways, Jehovah"s glory! The expositor is bound to show how gloriously science helps religion, in furnishing him with new material for setting forth the greatness of God l An unfolding of the verses before us will lead us along several lines of thought, with which we propose to deal cumulatively.
I THERE ARE NATURAL OBJECTS AND FACTS HERE SPECIFIED. The heavens. The firmament. The sun. The orderly succession of day and night. In regard to each of these, science helps religion. And grand as was the scene in olden time to the natural eye, and with all the imperfections of ancient knowledge, the grandeur is unspeakably vaster now, owing to discoveries which have since been and are still being made (The expositor of this psalm needs to read up to date in astronomical researches.)
II AMONG THEM THERE IS INCESSANT ACTIVITY. "The heavens declare," etc. Their activity is not conscious on their part, but it is nevertheless real. Light is ever acting on the vegetable world, and helps to open the petals of the flower, to give blossom its colour, and fruit its sweetness. Thus there is a reciprocal relation established between the sunbeam and the plant. So also is there between the stars above us and the mind of man. And though they utter not a word (ver. 3, Hebrew), they are sounding forth a message to the soul of man. "Their line is gone out," etc. (ver. 4). The word "line" is one of much interest. It meant, first, any cord or string; then a string stretched out so as to emit a musical sound; then the sound emitted by the string; then a full musical chord. "For ever singing, as they shine, "The hand that made us is Divine!
III THESE ACTIVITIES ARE WONDROUSLY VARIED. The four verbs used here are all of them exceedingly expressive. The heavens are falling the glory of God, recounting it to us as in the pages of a book; the firmament is showing his handiwork, setting it before our eyes as in a picture; day unto day welleth forth speech, pouring it out as from a fountain; night unto night breatheth out knowledge, breathing it out gently so that the attentive listener may hear. "During the French Revolution, it was said to a peasant, " I will have all your steeples pulled down, that you may no longer have any object by which you may be reminded of your old superstitions." "But," replied the peasant, "you cannot help leaving us the stars.
IV WITH ALL THIS VARIETY OF EXPRESSION, THEY TELL OF A CREATING POWER. "The glory of God;" "The firmament showeth his handiwork." When this is said, there are two points involved one implied, the other expressed. It is implied that man has the faculty of understanding these varied forms of expression. Surely a perceived object implies a perceiving subject, and a message addressed implies the existence of those by whom it can be understood. The question of the origin of things will, must, come up; quite irrespectively of method, there will be the question of cause. The old design argument is valid as ever, though it may need to be thrown into a different form. That which it requires mind to understand, must a fortiori require the equivalent of mind to bring into being. From nature"s framework, power, wisdom, benevolent adaptation, order, etc., are manifest. Even the objection raised from the existence of wasted seeds, abortive organs, rudimentary and undeveloped possibilities, comes to nought when it is remembered that no atom of matter is wasted, but, if unused at one moment, is worked up again in other collocations. The advance of the most cultured thought at the present time is remarkable. The old atheism is now out of date; and so, intellectually, is even the old agnosticism. It is behind the times. The latest developments of Darwinism honour God. But while on the ground of knowledge and culture, intellect must admit the existence of "a Power above us," it is only the lowly, devout, and loyal spirit that will see God in all things, and enjoy all things in God.
V GOD"S MESSAGE FROM THE HEAVENS IS RESPONDED TO IN HOLY SONG. Whoso forgets the title of the psalm will miss much of its beauty and glory. It is meant for the choirmaster. It is to be set to music, and uttered in song. Poetry, music, song, are the audible response of man to the inaudible voices of the day and of the night. Through the stars, God speaks to man without words; with his voice man speaks to God. Thus the universe is one grand antiphony. God"s music delighting man; man"s music adoring God. The heavens speak to us of God; we respond to the God of heaven.
Note: Although we do not wish here to anticipate unduly the teaching of the second half of this psalm, yet we may be permitted to remark that, glorious as the music of the heavens is to those who have ears to hear, yet there is another message from the eternal throne, which alone tells us the thoughts God has towards us, and which, when understood and received, does touch our hearts and move our tongues to louder, sweeter, tenderer song than ever nature"s glory could inspire. C.
HOMILIES BY W. FORSYTH Vers. 1-14. Nature as a preacher.
Mark
I THE GRAND SUBJECT. "The glory of God.
II THE SPLENDID AUDIENCE. "All the earth.
III THE FAITHFUL DELIVERY. Marked by truth, freshness, constancy, impartiality (vers. 1-4). Other preachers cannot continue by reason of death. Hence there is change. One succeeds another. But this preacher goes on without break or weariness from day to day and age to age, bearing witness for God. (Rom_1:20 Act_14:17)
IV THE DIVERSE RESULTS. Minds vary. Where there is freedom of thought, there will be difference of opinion. When Paul preached at Athens, "some mocked, and others said, We will hear thee again on this matter. Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed". (Act_17:32-34) And so it is here. Some hear, and others hear not. Some recognize God"s presence and working, and give him praise, and others deny that in all they see there is anything more than the evolution of matter, and the play of cause and effect.
V THE NECESSITY OF THE WORD. Nature can teach, but only such as are susceptible. It can proclaim the glory of God, but only to such as have already been brought to the knowledge of God. Our minds have been darkened and deadened by sin. Nature cannot tell us how sin is to be taken away. It is dumb as to a Saviour. it cannot inspire hope. It cannot convert the soul. Hence the necessity of the Word of the Law by which is the knowledge of sin, and the gospel which reveals to us a Saviour. It is those who have been brought to the knowledge and love of God through Jesus Christ who are best able to appreciate the service of nature. W.F.
HOMILIES BY C. SHORT Vers. 1-10. God"s revelation of himself in nature and in his Word.
In nature it is continuous. Day utters speech unto day, night unto night. It is speechless; it has a language, but it is not articulate. It is universal. Gone out through all the world, and through all time. In his Word it his a converting power power to make wise, to rejoice the heart and enlighten the eyes. It endures for ever; unlike the firmament, and is entirely true and righteous.
I A COMPARISON OF THESE TWO REVELATIONS.
1. Both reveal Gods glory. The heavens reveal his glory by day and by night. But our solar system is but the glory of a single point of light, when compared with the glory of all the systems that fill infinite space. But quality rather than quantity is the test of the glory of any work. To redeem and reclaim a world of souls from the ruin of sin transcends the work of creating and sustaining all the suns and the stars of the universe; and this is the glory of God"s Word.
2. Both contain important instruction. "Day unto day uttereth speech" (ver. 2). "The testimony of the Lord is sure or, "true, making wise the simple. To the devout mind nature suggests more than it directly teaches the Sun of Righteousness, the mighty Quickener and Joy of darkened souls. Christ the great Bridegroom of the Church. But the Word uttered by prophets, Christ, and inspired men, expels our ignorance upon the topics most necessary to our highest well-being. They make us truly wise.
3. Both demand study and labour to enjoy their blessings. Great things can benefit us only by the exercise of earnest and inquisitive thought. La Place and Newton thus came to understand the science of the heavens; Milton and others, their poetry; and David and others, their religion. We benefit by the Word in a similar way. Study leading to practice and experience will open its stores of truth to us.
II A CONTRAST OF THESE REVELATIONS.
1. The one universal, the other partial. Every one not born blind has seen the heavens; there are millions who have never heard of Christ. God does some things by taking them entirely into his own hands; but he takes us as fellow-labourers in the work of making known his Word.
2. The one is full of great spiritual energies; the other is not. Material things can do only material work; nature cannot alter a depraved will or heal a wounded conscience. Spiritual forces must rouse spiritual natures like ours. Christ is the Word of God, and can give the highest deliverance and salvation which souls need. Makes us wise with the noblest wisdom, gives light to the mind. The one rejoices the senses, the other the heart. The mourner can be made to sing, the captive to leap for joy, the heartbroken to laugh with gladness, the penitent to receive peace. Nature can do nothing of this to any extent. S.
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 On vv1–11 It would be idle to enquire into the particular…
It would be idle to enquire into the particular period when this delightful poem was composed, for their is nothing in its title or subject to assist us in the enquiry. The heading, "To the Chief Musician, a Psalm of David, "informs us that David wrote it, and that it was committed to the Master of the service of song in the sanctuary for the use of the assembled worshippers. In his earliest days the psalmist, while keeping his father's flock, had devoted himself to the study of God's two great booksnature and Scripture; and he had so thoroughly entered into the spirit of these two only volumes in his library that he was able with a devout criticism to compare and contrast them, magnifying the excellency of the Author as seen in both. How foolish and wicked are those who instead of accepting the two sacred tomes, and delighting to behold the same divine hand in each, spend all their wits in endeavouring to find discrepancies and contradictions. We may rest assured that the true "Vestiges of Creation" will never contradict Genesis, nor will a correct "Cosmos" be found at variance with the narrative of Moses. He is wisest who reads both the world book, and the Word book as two volumes of the same work, and feels concerning them, "My Father wrote them both."
This song very distinctly divides itself into three parts, very well described by the translators in the ordinary heading of our version. The creatures show God's glory, Ps 19:1-6. The word showeth his grace, Ps 19:7-11. David prayeth for grace, Ps 19:12-14. Thus praise and prayer are mingled, and he who here sings the work of God in the world without, pleads for a work of grace in himself within.
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Ver. 1. The heavens declare the glory of God. The book of nature has three leaves, heaven, earth, and sea, of which heaven is the first and the most glorious, and by its aid we are able to see the beauties of the other two. Any book without its first page would be sadly imperfect, and especially the great Natural Bible, since its first pages, the sun, moon, and stars, supply light to the rest of the volume, and are thus the keys, without which the writing which follows would be dark and undiscerned. Man walking erect was evidently made to scan the skies, and he who begins to read creation by studying the stars begins the book at the right place.
The heavens are plural for their variety, comprising the watery heavens with their clouds of countless forms, the aerial heavens with their calms and tempests, the solar heavens with all the glories of the day, and the starry heavens with all the marvels of the night; what the Heaven of heavens must be hath not entered into the heart of man, but there in chief all things are telling the glory of God. Any part of creation has more instruction in it than human mind will ever exhaust, but the celestial realm is peculiarly rich in spiritual lore. The heavens declare, or are declaring, for the continuance of their testimony is intended by the participles employed; every moment God's existence, power, wisdom and goodness, are being sounded abroad by the heavenly heralds which shine upon us from above. He who would guess at divine sublimity should gaze upward into the starry vault; he who would imagine infinity must peer into the boundless expanse; he who desires to see divine wisdom should consider the balancing of the orbs; he who would know divine fidelity must mark the regularity of the planetary motions; and he who would attain some conceptions of divine power, greatness, and majesty, must estimate the forces of attraction, the magnitude of the fixed stars, and the brightness of the whole celestial train. It is not merely glory that the heavens declare, but the "glory of God, "for they deliver to us such unanswerable arguments for a conscious, intelligent, planning, controlling, and presiding Creator, that no unprejudiced person can remain unconvinced by them. The testimony given by the heavens is no mere hint, but a plain, unmistakable declaration; and it is a declaration of the most constant and abiding kind. Yet for all this, to what avail is the loudest declaration to a deaf man, or the clearest showing to one spiritually blind? God the Holy Ghost must illuminate us, or all the suns in the milky way never will.
The firmament sheweth his handywork; not handy in the vulgar use of that term, but hand work. The expanse is full of the works of the Lord's skilful, creating hands; hands being attributed to the great creating Spirit to set forth his care and workmanlike action, and to meet the poor comprehension of mortals. It is humbling to find that even when the most devout and elevated minds are desirous to express their loftiest thoughts of God, they must use words and metaphors drawn from the earth. We are children, and must each confess, "I think as a child, I speak as a child." In the expanse above us God flies, as it were, his starry flag to show that the King is at home, and hangs out his escutcheon that atheists may see how he despises their denunciations of him. He who looks up to the firmament and then writes himself down an atheist, brands himself at the same moment as an idiot or a liar. Strange is it that some who love God are yet afraid to study the God declaring book of nature; the mock spirituality of some believers, who are too heavenly to consider the heavens, has given colour to the vaunts of infidels that nature contradicts revelation. The wisest of men are those who with pious eagerness trace the goings forth of Jehovah as well in creation as in grace; only the foolish have any fears lest the honest study of the one should injure our faith in the other. Dr. Macosh has well said, "We have often mourned over the attempts made to set the works of God against the Word of God, and thereby excite, propagate, and perpetuate jealousies fitted to separate parties that ought to live in closest union. In particular, we have always regretted that endeavours should have been made to depreciate nature with a view of exalting revelation; it has always appeared to us to be nothing else than the degrading of one part of God's work in the hope thereby of exalting and recommending another. Let not science and religion be reckoned as opposing citadels, frowning defiance upon each other, and their troops brandishing their armour in hostile attitude. They have too many common foes, if they would but think of it, in ignorance and prejudice, in passion and vice, under all their forms, to admit of their lawfully wasting their strength in a useless warfare with each other. Science has a foundation, and so has religion; let them unite their foundations, and the basis will be broader, and they will be two compartments of one great fabric reared to the glory of God. Let one be the outer and the other the inner court. In the one, let all look, and admire and adore; and in the other, let those who have faith kneel, and pray, and praise. Let the one be the sanctuary where human learning may present its richest incense as an offering to God, and the other the holiest of all, separated from it by a veil now rent in twain, and in which, on a blood sprinkled mercyseat, we pour out the love of a reconciled heart, and hear the oracles of the living God."
Whole Psalm. The magnificent scenery to which the poem alludes is derived entirely from a contemplation of nature, in a state of pastoral seclusion; and a contemplation indulged in, at noontide or in the morning, when the sun was travelling over the horizon, and eclipsing all the other heavenly bodies by his glory. On which account it forms a perfect contrast with the eighth Psalm, evidently composed in the evening, and should be read in connection with it, as it was probably written nearly at the same time; and as both are songs of praise derived from natural phenomena, and therefore peculiarly appropriate to rural or pastoral life. John Mason Good.
Whole Psalm. The world resembles a divinity school, saith Plutarch, and Christ, as the Scripture telleth, is our doctor, instructing us by his works, and by his words. For as Aristotle had two sorts of writings, one called exoterical, for his common auditors, another acromatical, for his private scholars and familiar acquaintance: so God hath two sorts of books, as David intimates in this Psalm; namely, the book of his creatures, as a common place book for all men in the world: The heavens declare the glory of God, Ps 19:1-6; the book of his Scriptures as a statute book for his domestic auditory, the church: The law of the Lord is an undefiled law, Ps 19:7-8. The great book of the creatures in folio, may be termed aptly the shepherd's kalendar, and the ploughman's alphabet, in which even the most ignorant may run (as the prophet speaks) and read. It is a letter patent, or open epistle for all, as David, in our text, Their sound is gone out into all lands, and their words unto the ends of the world; there is neither speech nor language but have heard of their preaching. For albeit, heaven, and the sun in heaven, and the light in the sun are mute, yet their voices are well understood, catechising plainly the first elements of religion, as, namely, that there is a God, and that this God is but one God, and that this one God excelleth all other things infinitely both in might and majesty. Universus mundus (as one pithily) nihil aliud est quam Deus explicatus: the whole world is nothing else but God expressed. So St. Paul, Ro 1:20: God's invisible things, as his eternal power and Godhead, "are clearly seen" by the creation of the world, "being understood by the things that are made." The heavens declare this, and the firmament shows this, and the day tells this, and the night certifies this, the sound of the thunder proclaims, as it were, this in all lands, and the words of the whistling wind unto the ends of the world. More principally the sun, which as a bridegroom cometh out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a giant to run his course. The body thereof (as mathematicians have confidently delivered) is one hundred and sixty-six times bigger than the whole earth, and yet it is every day carried by the finger of God so great a journey, so long a course, that if it were to be taken on the land, it should run every several hour of the day two hundred and twenty-five German miles. It is true that God is incapable to sense, yet he makes himself, as it were, visible in his works; as the divine poet (Du Bartas) sweetly:
"Therein our fingers feel, our nostrils smell, Our palates taste his virtues that excel,
He shows him to our eyes, talks to our ears, In the ordered motions of the spangled spheres."
So the heavens declare, that is, they make men declare the glory of God, by their admirable structure, motions, and influence. Now the preaching of the heavens is wonderful in three respects. 1. As preaching all the night and all the day without intermission: verse 2. One day tells another, and one night certifies another. 2. As preaching in every kind of language: Ps 19:3. There is neither speech, nor language, but their voices are heard among them. 3. As preaching in every part of the world, and in every parish of every part, and in every place of every parish: Ps 19:4, Their sound is gone into all lands, and their words unto the ends of the world. They be diligent pastors, as preaching at all times; and learned pastors, as preaching in all tongues; and catholic pastors, as preaching in all towns. Let us not then in this University (where the voices of so many great doctors are heard), be like to truants in other schools, who gaze so much upon the babies, (the pictures or illustrations of a book), and gilded cover, and painted margent of their book, that they neglect the text and lesson itself. This is God's primer, as it were, for all sorts of people; but he hath another book proper only for his domestic auditory the church: "He sheweth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with any nation, neither have the heathen knowledge of his laws." Ps 147:19-20. Heathen men read in his primer, but Christian men are well acquainted with his Bible. The primer is a good book, but it is imperfect; for after a man hath learned it he must learn more; but the law of the Lord, that is, the body of the Holy Scriptures, is a most absolute canon of all doctrines appertaining either to faith or good manners; it is a perfect law, converting the soul, giving wisdom to the simple, sure, pure, righteous, and rejoicing the heart, etc. John Boys.
Whole Psalm. Saint Chrysostom conjectures that the main intention of the greatest part of this Psalm consists in the discovery of divine providence, which manifests itself in the motions and courses of the heavenly bodies, concerning which the psalmist speaketh much, from Ps 19:1-7. Saint Austin upon the place, is of a quite different opinion, who conjectures that Christ is the whole subject of this Psalm; whose person is compared to the sun for excellency and beauty, and the course of whose doctrine was dispersed round about the world by his apostles to which Saint Paul alludes (Ro 10:18); "Have they not heard? Yes, verily, their sound went into all the earth, "etc., and the efficacy of whose gospel is like the heat of the sun, which pierceth into the very heart of the earth, so that into the secrets of the soul. I confess this allegorical exposition is not altogether impertinent, neither is that literal exposition of Saint Chrysostom to be blamed, for it hath its weight. But to omit all variety of conjecture, this Psalm contains in it:
1. A double kind of the knowledge of God, of which one is by the book of the creature; and this divines call a natural knowledge: there is not any one creature but it is a leaf written all over with the description of God; his eternal power and Godhead may be understood by the things that are seen, saith the apostle. Ro 1:20. And, as every creature, so especially the heavens do lead us to the knowledge of a God; so Ps 19:1: The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handywork; they are the theatres, as it were, of his wisdom, and power, and glory. Another is by the book of Scripture; and this knowledge is far more distinct and explicit: with the other even the heathen do grope after a deity, but with this Christians do behold God, as it were, with open face. The characters here are now fresh, spiritual, complete, and lively. The word of God is the singular means to know God aright. Look, as the light which comes from the sun, so that word of God, which is light, is the clearest way to know God who is light itself. Hence it is that the psalmist stands much upon this from Ps 19:7-12, where he sets open the word in its several encomiums and operations; namely, in its perfection, its certainties, and firmness; its righteousness, and purity, and truth; and then in its efficacythat it is a converting word, an enlightening word, an instructing word, a rejoicing word, a desirable word, a warning word, and a rewarding word.
2. A singular and experimental knowledge of himself. So it seemeth, that that word which David did so much commend, he did commend it from an experimental efficacy; he had found it to be a righteous, and holy, and pure, and discovering word, laying open, not only visible and gross transgressions, but also, like the light of the sun, those otherwise unobserved and secret atoms of senses flying within the house; I mean in the secret chambers of the soul. Obadiah Sedgwick, 1660,
Ver. 1. The heavens declare the glory of God, etc. The eminent saints of ancient times were watchful observers of the objects and operations of nature. In every event they saw the agency of God; and, therefore, they took delight in its examination. For they could not but receive pleasure from witnessing the manifestations of his wisdom and beneficence, whom they adored and loved. They had not learned, as we have in modern times, to interpose unbending laws between the Creator and his works; and then, by giving inherent power to these laws, virtually to remove God away from his creation into an ethereal extramundane sphere of repose and happiness. I do not say that this is the universal feeling of the present day. But it prevails extensively in the church, and still more in the world. The ablest philosophers of modern times do, indeed, maintain that a natural law is nothing more than the uniform mode in which God acts; and that, after all, it is not the efficiency of the law, but God's own energy, that keeps all nature in motion; that he operates immediately and directly, not remotely and indirectly, in bringing about every event, and that every natural change is as really the work of God as if the eye of sense could see his hand turning round the wheels of nature. But, although the ablest philosophy of modern times has reached this conclusion, the great mass of the community, and even of Christians, are still groping in the darkness of that mechanical system which ascribes the operation of this natural world to nature's laws instead of nature's God. By a sort of figure, indeed, it is proper, as the advocates of this system admit, to speak of God as the author of its natural events, because he originally ordained the laws of nature. But they have no idea that he exerts any direct and immediate agency in bringing them about; and, therefore, when they look upon these events they feel no impression of the presence and active agency of Jehovah.
But how different, as already remarked, were the feeling of ancient saints. The psalmist could not look up to heaven without exclaiming, The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. When he cast his eyes abroad upon the earth, his full heart cried out, "O Lord, how manifold are thy works! In wisdom hast thou made them all; the earth is full of thy riches." In his eye everything was full of God. It was God who "sent springs into the valleys, which run among the hills." When the thunderstorm passed before him, it was "God's voice in the heavens, and his lightnings that lighted the world." When he heard the bellowings, and saw the smoke of the volcano, it was "God who looketh on the earth, and it trembleth; he toucheth the hills, and they smoke." Edward Hitchcock, D.D., L.L.D., 1867.
Ver. 1. The heavens declare, etc. Man has been endued by his Creator with mental powers capable of cultivation. He has employed them in the study of the wonderful works of God which the universe displays. His own habitation has provided a base which has served him to measure the heavens. He compares his own stature with the magnitude of the earth on which he dwells; the earth, with the system in which it is placed; the extent of the system, with the distance of the nearest fixed stars; and that distance again serves as a unit of measurement for other distances which observation points out. Still no approach is made to any limit. How extended these wonderful works of the Almighty may be no man can presume to say. The sphere of creation appears to extend around us indefinitely on all sides; "to have its centre everywhere, its circumference nowhere." These are considerations which from their extent almost bewilder our minds. But how should they raise our ideas toward their great Creator, when we consider that all these were created from nothing, by a word, by a mere volition of the Deity. "Let them be, "said God, and they were. "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth." "For he spake, and it was done. He commanded, and it stood fast." Ps 33:6, 9. What must be that power, which so formed worlds on worlds; worlds in comparison of which this earth which we inhabit sinks into utter nothingness! Surely when we thus lift up our thoughts to the heavens, the moon and the stars which he hath ordained, we must feel, if we can ever feel, how stupendous and incomprehensible is that Being who formed them all; that "the heavens" do indeed "declare the glory of God; "and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Temple Chevallier, in "The Hulsean Lectures for 1827."
Ver. 1. I have often been charmed and awed at the sight of the nocturnal heavens, even before I knew how to consider them in their proper circumstances of majesty and beauty. Something like magic has struck my mind, on transient and unthinking survey of the aethreal vault, tinged throughout with the purest azure, and decorated with innumerable starry lamps. I have felt, I know not what, powerful and aggrandising impulse, which seemed to snatch me from the low entanglements of vanity, and prompted an ardent sigh for more sublime objects. I thought I heard, even from the silent spheres, a commanding call to spurn the abject earth, and pant after unseen delights. Henceforth I hope to imbibe more copiously this moral emanation of the skies, when, in some such manner as the preceding, they are rationally seen, and the sight is duly improved. The stars, I trust, will teach as well as shine, and help to dispel both nature's gloom and my intellectual darkness. To some people they discharge no better a service than that of holding a flambeau to their feet, and softening the horrors of their night. To me and my friends may they act as ministers of a superior order, as counsellors of wisdom, and guides to happiness! Nor will they fail to execute this nobler office, if they gently light our way into the knowledge of their adored Makerif they point out with their silver rays our path to his beatific presence. James Hervey, A.M., 1713-1758.
Note continued on See Psalms on "Job 42:12"
Psalms 19:2*
Ver. 1-2. See Psalms on "Ps 19:1" for further information.
Ver. 1-4. See Psalms on "Ps 19:1" for further information.
Ver. 1-4. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handiwork. See Psalms on "Ps 19:1" for further information.
Ver. 1-4. Like as the sun with his light beneficially comforteth all the world, so Christ, the Son of God, reacheth his benefits unto all men, so that they will receive them thankfully, and not refuse them disobediently. Robert Cawdray.
Ver. 1-5. Parallel between the heavens and the revelation of Scripture, dwelling upon Christ as the central Sun of Scripture.
Ver. 1-4. See Psalms on "Ps 19:1" for further information.
Ver. 1-4. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handiwork. See Psalms on "Ps 19:1" for further information.
Ver. 1-4. Like as the sun with his light beneficially comforteth all the world, so Christ, the Son of God, reacheth his benefits unto all men, so that they will receive them thankfully, and not refuse them disobediently. Robert Cawdray.
Ver. 1-5. Parallel between the heavens and the revelation of Scripture, dwelling upon Christ as the central Sun of Scripture.
Ver. 1-4. See Psalms on "Ps 19:1" for further information.
Ver. 1-4. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handiwork. See Psalms on "Ps 19:1" for further information.
Ver. 1-4. Like as the sun with his light beneficially comforteth all the world, so Christ, the Son of God, reacheth his benefits unto all men, so that they will receive them thankfully, and not refuse them disobediently. Robert Cawdray.
Ver. 1-5. Parallel between the heavens and the revelation of Scripture, dwelling upon Christ as the central Sun of Scripture.
Ver. 1-5. Parallel between the heavens and the revelation of Scripture, dwelling upon Christ as the central Sun of Scripture.
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 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 The heavens declare the glory of God.
Psa_19:1
The heavens declare the glory of God.
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The glory of God
Nature exists not for a merely natural, but for a moral end; not for what it is, but for what it says or declares.
I. What nature tells us to think of God.
1. Nature reveals God. The race as a whole have heard the declaration of His eternal power and Godhead. In proportion as they have heard, adoring, they have risen in the scale of manhood.
2. Nature declares the knowledge and power of God. The marks of mathematical and geometric law in nature are conspicuous. The more we explore the different departments of nature, the more we find it pervaded by strict arithmetical and dynamic laws. We meet thought everywhere. The race of man, as a whole, has heard, and to some extent understood, the testimony of nature to infinite thought and power.
3. Nature declares that God is just and good. This has been called in question. Nature says that every natural law, if obeyed, tends to happiness. Natures laws are benevolent, Men have not fully appreciated this, for one reason, because they have so commonly broken those laws and have suffered. But does nature in any wise speak of the Divine mercy? This question has often been wrongly answered. Listen attentively, and you will hear nature say that God is merciful. It is a striking fact that very many, if not all, physical penalties can be mitigated, if not relieved, by some counter law, some curious side-process or arrangement. God has so made nature as practically to encourage self-sacrifice for each other. Whenever men take pains for each other, to help each other over their faults and their consequences, there is an illustration, however faint, of the Divine principle of mercy. Mercy is the policy of the Divine government; it is the character of God Himself.
II. What God thinks of nature.
1. God looks upon nature as a basis of language. Let the heavenly orbs be for signs. Signs are vehicles of ideas. Let them say something; let them be words. The universe is Gods telephone, Gods grand signal service system by which He can flash messages from the heights above to the deepest valleys below. The material system is Gods great instrument of conversation.
2. God tells us what to think of this eloquent material system. It is Gods most glorious schoolroom by which to teach us reality,--above all, to teach us self-government, and painstaking for one another. Why are we in such a world? Because we needed to be. We need what we get here. We need that knowledge of ourselves which nature can give. We need to be where we are. We need just the restraints and the liberties, the trials and the triumphs, the joys and the sorrows, the smiles and the tears, the bliss and the anguish of this strange life. And in all, and through all, we need to know Him who placed us here, and is revealing Himself to us in a thousand ways. (Charles Beecher.)
The Biblical conception of nature
The whole of revelation reposes on this broad platform: how God and nature stand to one another. Now, there are two opposite extremes into which our conceptions on this point may fall. We may immerse God in nature; or we may isolate nature from God.
1. We immerse God in nature if we treat nature as itself possessed of properties which are strictly personal; as when, for example, we accustom ourselves to think of it as originating its own processes, as intending its own results, or as conscious of its own plan. Men talk of nature as though it were aiming at certain ends, striving to accomplish them, adapting itself to new conditions, overcoming fresh obstacles, and so forth. The corrective lies in the scriptural idea of creation as an act of will of One who is outside of material being. Scripture is strictly philosophical when it traces all phenomena, all change, ultimately to a will. But will is an attribute of personality; and the Person whose will determines that nature should be what it is must be a Person not Himself included in the nature which He wills shall be. He is God. Again--
2. We may unduly isolate nature as Gods workmanship from God the worker. We do this, e.g., when we conceive of the universe as teaching us nothing of God, being only a whirl of material change without spiritual meaning; or when we represent it as a machine which, being somehow endued with a given stock of force, must go on so long as the force lasts, like a watch that has been once wound up. To separate the work from the worker after this sheer and mechanical fashion may do some harm to science, and it leaves hardly any foothold for religion. Again, the spiritual conception of creation will furnish the corrective. According to it, God is personally separate from and above nature, yet for all that He has put into His handiwork His own thoughts. We may fairly say that both sides of the idea lie in embryo in the solitary phrase, By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made. For the word of any person serves two functions: it is the organ of command, conveying an act of will; it is also the organ of expression, revealing the speakers nature. Stupendous conception of primary force! The force of personal will, resident in the Supernatural Being, in the one sole unmade, unborn Person, who is that He is; is, and was, and is to come, the Almighty. The sole cause; sole origin of being; sole efficient factor in the beginning; is this act of volition or self-determination of an Infinite Personal Will. He spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast. It accords with experience; it satisfies philosophy; not less does it meet the religious necessities of the spirit; for if I am to worship at all, where shall I find a nobler object of worship than the Person who will give being to all beings but Himself? On the other hand, the word of a speaker while it utters his will must no less reflect, consciously or unconsciously, his inner self. It seems to me that in this Biblical conception of nature as the revelation of its Maker we find the common root whence have grown two very dissimilar growths of the ancient and of the modern world. The great fact of the whole ancient world was this, that its multiform religions started from a nature basis. The sun and stars, the reproductive forces of animal and vegetable life, the decay and revival of the year, the wondrous cycle, in short, of cosmic change through which nature accomplishes herself, was the common fact which very early riveted the attention of primitive man, till out of it there grew up in many lands, under many shapes, a system of religious observance everywhere the same in principle. Being whose thoughts these objects revealed, men began to adore the symbol, and to forget the Invisible Person behind it. Easy and rapid was the downward plane to idolatry and polytheism and gross fetish worship. Yet what is worth noting is, that such nature religions would have been impossible had not nature really spoken to unsophisticated men a Divine message, had it not been charged to their souls from the first with Divine ideas. We are far enough removed now from that early stage of human experience. The world is grown aged, and the work of its age is not to worship nature, but to master it. Yet this modern science which leads to the utilisation of physical forces for human needs is not less an outgrowth from the same root. For all our power over nature reposes immediately on our correct reading of natural laws. Observation of naked facts will never put into mans hand the sceptre of the physical world, Naked facts must lead on to the discovery of law; and law is the Divine idea governing the facts; and when man has discovered and mastered that Divine idea, then he becomes in his degree a divinity on earth, a lord over matter, a maker and disposer in his turn. What does this mean but that we come to read behind phenomena the thought and will of One whom, because He is a personal Spirit as we are, we can comprehend? We reach the secret principles on which He makes, not made merely but is ever making, the world; and when we thus know His mind, or on what lines His will moves, we enter upon a share of His dominion; we fall in with His working plan; we, too, govern by imitating Him. I have cited both ancient nature worship and modern nature study as alike dependent for their possibility upon the same truth of Scripture; this, namely, that nature, being made by Gods Word, speaks to us His thoughts. But if I desired conclusive evidence how insufficient is this revelation of itself to guide men to friendly communion with God, where could I find any more conclusive than is furnished by the history both of ancient nature religions and of modern science! Of the one the tendency was more and more to immerse God in nature, till He was wholly lost in His own handiwork. Of the latter--modern science--the tendency very decidedly is to isolate nature from God, as a wholly separate existence whose relationship to its Author (if any) is at least unknown. This moral revelation, which began with Abraham and culminated in Jesus Christ, admits of being both compared and contrasted with the older nature revelation.
1. The later revelation starts from and builds upon the earlier one. It is not so often recollected as it should be, but once seen it cannot be doubted that underneath every other relationship which the God of the Bible claims to sustain to us as Lawgiver, Father, Redeemer, Promiser, Saviour there lies this broad, original relationship of all--that He is our Creator. That tie to Him, which we share with even the dumb cattle and the dead earth, bears up and justifies all the rest. Man is a portion of the created universe, and its Maker must be his Lord and King.
2. It must be clear that such a revelation as we actually possess in the Bible is only possible if God be (as the Bible teaches) at once above nature, and yet present, self-revealed in nature. First of all, we are ourselves part of the world, and if we are to receive communications that transcend what the world itself can tell us, then He who gives them must stand outside of and above the world. The supernatural is impossible if God be inseparable from nature or be its slave. On the other hand, the actual revelation recorded in the Bible employed nature as its organ. In the revelation of new truth God is constantly found availing Himself of the old creation. Dreams, and visions, and voices to the ear, the thundercloud on Sinai, the cleft sea, dearth and the plague, the vicissitudes of war, conquest, and revolt were all turned into vehicles for teaching saving lessons to mankind. The whole of Bible teaching, too, attaches itself to the parables of nature. Above all, His final revelation of Himself is in the life of a Man, a true natural life resting on the physical basis of a true body, born of a woman; so that the highest of all revelations is in appearance the most human, the least supernatural.
3. The voice of the new revelation agrees with the voice of the old. To develop the congruousness of the Divine image in nature with the Divine image in Scripture would take too long; I only suggest it to you. The absolute unity of plan which strict research is daily proving more and more--a unity now known to reach as far as the planets in their spheres--attests that the Creator is one. And Scripture proceeds on the unity of God. (b) Throughout all nature we find a will at work whose method is to bind itself by orderly method and fixed law. This reveals a mind in God intolerant of what is arbitrary, eccentric, or illegal. All is variety, yet all is system. Now, the revelation of the Divine will in Scripture is likewise the revelation of a law, and its chief end is the reduction of moral anarchy to moral order. (c) Again, we are daily learning how patiently, and through what long, slow, even laborious processes God has been pleased to build up His physical universe, as though a thousand years were to Him of no more account than a single day, so long as the results are wrought by growth and evolution, rather than by sudden shocks or interventions. This is Gods way in nature, and it has been His way in grace. (d) Once more, the God of nature avenges the transgression of every physical law by a sentient creature. Scripture discovers precisely the same features in the moral and spiritual rule of God. So far the two revelations walk abreast. Thanks be to God, the Gospel continues its parable where the voice of nature falters and grows mute. Of law, of transgression, of penalty and reward, of life and death, nature has no less to say than the Bible has. But of another law higher than that of penalty, of grace which transcends judgment, of the spiritual law of self-sacrifice, of redemption of life by life, and giving up of the just for the unjust, and forgiveness of sin and regeneration of the lapsed,--the physical universe is wholly, or all but wholly, silent. (J. O. Dykes, D. D.)
Gods works and Word
Providence is the best schoolmaster. This Psalm leads us, and is designed to lead us, to a contemplation of nature. Not the faintest apprehension appears, lest contradictions may be discovered between the world book and the word book. The sympathy with nature is complete, and not the less so because the poet has been enabled to penetrate the closest of her secrets. The wisest of men are those who with pious eagerness trace the goings-forth of Jehovah as well in creation as in grace. Just that is the wisdom here. The study is a reverent study. God is seen everywhere. The lines are saturated with theology. There are, however, other voices of praise. While, doubtless, the heavens are the work of Gods fingers and declare His glory, His Word is yet more to be desired. Fascinated as David has been with the contemplation of the Creators works, he does not make the blunder of despising the written revelation. Some of the grounds for a conclusion which so exalts the Word above the works.
1. A comparison of the contents of the two revelations. From nature we may learn the existence of an infinite personal God. But is this mighty Author of the universe a friend? There throbs the tremendous interrogation concerning which the heavens make to the eager shepherd boy no answer. With regard to the problems which most deeply affect our welfare, nature only baffles us. The Gospel far surpasses all that nature can be made to teach.
2. Not only in its contents, but in the proclamation of them, is the Word magnified. Consider the instrumentalities selected for the utterance of the Gospel. Angels, the Son of God.
3. Consider by what enforcement of his Word God is magnified. In nature there is no provision for effectively reaching the conscience and moving the will. To apply to us the redemption purchased by Christ, the Spirit has come.
4. Observe the stupendous effects produced, by Gods Word. Enlightening the eyes. rejoicing the heart, making wise the simple, converting the soul, here are effects chiefly wrought by Gods Word. (Hanford A. Edson, D. D.)
The testimony of the works and the Word
Nature is the volume in which the Godhead of the Creator is plainly discoverable. Scripture is the volume in which all may read the Divine will concerning men.
I. Natures testimony to the existence of God. Nature is here pictured as comprising the heavens and the firmament, together with alternating days and nights--these sublime works witnessing for God. David attempts to teach no lesson in astronomy. He imagines an observant and thoughtful man opening his eyes upward, and affirms that what this man beholds proves the presence and power of God. These heavens are forever telling or revealing the presence, power, majesty, supremacy of the Infinite. What he means to say is, that the realm of nature, beautiful in outline, vast in proportions, grand in order and methods of movement, illustrates glorious qualities of being and of character, and that in this creation the good of man and of all sentient beings has been so manifestly sought and secured that God therein is plainly revealed as ever present in power and in proclamation of Himself. Here, then, is not astronomy, but revelation. A scene in which he affirms that the humblest observer may be convinced of Gods existence and glory. These things could not have originated in what has been called a casual hit of atoms, they must have had a Creator, and the Creator can be no other than an infinite and eternal God.
II. The revelation of God in Scripture. Looking first at the stellar world, and viewing the splendour of a solar day, David confesses his vision of God is incomplete, and so he affirms the Infinite to come nearer to man than in the stars, and making Himself better known in the law, the testimony, the statutes, the Commandments, and in the providences which play around him. The term law may refer to the preceptive portions of Scripture; testimonies may mean doctrines; statutes, ordinances and forms of worship; commandments are directions to duty; fear indicates anxiety to please God; and judgments are Gods record or declaration of the results of unforgiven sin. But all these terms may be gathered up as referring to the body of Scripture, revelations which have been made either by voice, or vision, or inspiration in any form. The writers purpose was to indicate the excellent properties and purposes of Scripture, including precept, promise, and perfect rules of life. Calling this revelation the statutes of God, the idea evidently is of something binding on universal man. Calling it the fear of the Lord seems to refer to that filial affection which reigns in a human heart, making man ashamed of sin, and becoming for him a cleansing power. Judgments of the Lord is a comprehensive phrase, summing up the substance and object of Scripture.
III. The law, testimony, statutes, commandments, fear, and judgments of the Lord tested. Put them to the test of personal experience. This shall prove whether or no the claim of the Psalmist has warrant in the lives of men. There never was a man who received the law of God into his heart and obeyed it who did not become a new man, enriched thereby beyond all measurement or estimate. (Justin E. Twitchell.)
Gods glory in the skies
The immediate outlook upon nature is independent of scientific elaboration. It is unalterable by intellectual mutations and advances; it rests on those permanent relations which hold between the soul of man within and the world without. But the whole stress of the Psalm is laid on that aspect of the natural world which it is the work of science to emphasise and to extricate. What the Psalmist sees is the manifestation of law, of regularity, of reason. There is about it all, as the mighty drama discloses itself, the calmness, the majesty, of rational knowledge. The awful silence in which the tremendous scene proceeds is more eloquent than words. Dumb in the vault, yet filled with voices that toll in our ears, voices that cry without a language, and assure us of that eternal consciousness which possesses the entire round of the heavens, whose rule and line goeth out throughout all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world. Universal law acting in silence, with absolute security of rhythm. The mystic eloquence of law. That is the vision which overawes the Psalmist; and is not that the very essence of our scientific presentation of nature? Law acting in silence, that is nature as science discloses it. Silent as it may be, this perfect law, this undeviating order, this calm precision, this infinite regularity of succession, this steady certainty of movement, this unbroken universality, these disciplined forces, this rhythmic harmony, this balance, this precaution, this response of day to night, and night to night, that is intelligence, that is reason, that is consciousness, that is speech! No one can face it in its wholeness, part answering to part, and each to all, without becoming aware of its mystic eloquence. It all speaks, speaks as it works, speaks without a language, speaks without a sound. The Psalmist has but to lift his eyes, and then above it, allied to it, a corresponding world opens out,--a world, too, of law, of certainty, of regularity, of order, no less than the world of nature. Here, too, all is sane, rational, secure, quiet, and sure, as the silent stars in the night. This higher order of life moves along the course set before it, and its laws never flag or fail; no chance confuses it, and no unruly accident disturbs it. This world is the world of consciousness, the world of the moral law, the world of the religious spirit, the world of the fear of the Lord. Laws, statutes, testimonies, commandments,--no physical world could be based on grounds more fixed and uniform and sure. Everywhere precision, everywhere unalterable rigour--that is what delights him. Error, wrong, sin--these may be on his own side, but this does not shake the absolute authority of this reign of law without him. Only, it makes him tremble, lest even unwittingly he may have introduced any quiver of disturbance into this fabric of exquisite and harmonious order. Who can tell how oft he offendeth? Oh, cleanse Thou me from secret faults. Can we recover at all for ourselves this mental temper of the Psalmist? This world of which he is speaking is what we name spiritual, religious, supernatural, and as soon as we have touched such names as these we recall something wholly unlike nature, wholly opposed to scientific law and the necessities of reason. Yet veracity, regularity, universality, these are the very notes of the Divine action in both spheres, and in both, therefore, there is the same ground for reason to work upon. Nature will enable us to understand the supernatural. Our faith in Christ Jesus lays large and unfaltering trust in the veracity of human faculties, in the solidity of knowledge, in the reality of an instructed and intelligent experience. Base your belief in Jesus on the convictions that form the ground of your confidence in the stability and reality of life. (Canon Scott Holland.)
The moral law and the starry heavens
Two things, said Kant, fill the soul with awe and wonder: the starry heaven above, and the moral law within. How many of us have felt this amazement without expressing it! Approach man from a material point of view, and he is utterly insignificant; but view him from a spiritual point of view, and how wonderful is he! That strange faculty within him which witnesses to a law above himself, which speaks to him of the right even when he is yielding to the wrong, which enables him to hold communion with infinite perfection, which gives meaning to such words as trust, duty, obedience, religion, that faculty which perpetuates in him the image of his Maker; whence did it come? Yes, said Pascal, man is a worm, but then he is a worm that thinks. This is exactly the mystery which filled a mind so powerful as that of Kant. To see no mystery in man and his spiritual nature is a sure mark of a shallow and second-rate mind. What is the thought which the contemplation of the heavenly bodies presents to us most prominently? Is it not order or law? But how about the spiritual world? Are there laws for mind as well as for body? Is there not an order in moral things which cannot be violated with impunity? The Kingdom of Heaven is a reign of law too. One order alike for the material and the moral. The law of the material world we reach through observation and generalisation; the law of the soul through Gods revelations of Himself to mans spiritual nature, but both are alike of God, and not two laws but one. How pure, elevating, and ennobling was the writers conception of true religion. (J. A. Jacob, M. A.)
Gods works and Word
Every varying mood of nature is an index finger to the power and glory of the Creator. His works lie open beside His Word,--the one a volume of illustrations, the other a book of inspired principles. In the 19th Psalm these double volumes of revelation are bound together. There is both a world book and a word book in the Psalmists thought. Both are bearing eternal witness to the Creator.
I. The witness of the heavens. In the clear dry air of the East the heavens shine with a strange brilliancy. To the reverent soul of David, the stars in their courses and the moon in her phases were nightly lessons of wonder and of God. To the Psalmists eye the whole firmament was written over, and the whole universe was resonant to his ear with the name of God. And to the eyes of this devout shepherd, this witness of creation to its Creator was continuous. And yet this witness of the heavens is silent. It is their silence which puts such terrible emphasis upon the testimony of the heavens; for silence is the great law of the universe. This witness is also universal in its reach and influence. The stars preach a gospel of Divine law and power, before which worshippers of all races and generations have kneeled in reverence and awe. But man, made in the likeness of God, is not measured by physical, but by moral standards. The moral law written upon conscience and soul has brought man into fellowship with the Infinite, and there follows that sharp transition in thought which cuts this Psalm like the keen stroke of a knife when David remembers the glory of Gods law. Grander than that of the heavens is--
II. The witness of the moral law. In this sudden rebound from the glory of the sun to the greater glory of the truth the Psalmist seems to chide himself for having forgotten the greater in the less. For what the sun is in the natural world, bringing light and inspiring growth, the law of God is in the spiritual, revealing moral darkness and quickening the life of souls. Climbing up adjectives of admiring descriptions, David unfolds the nature of the Word of Jehovah. It is perfect, with a completeness which fits all needs and encompasses all souls. It is sure,--an eternal verity to which men may anchor and never drift. It is right, with an absolute rectitude and justice. This Divine law not only reveals the glory of Jehovah, but also--
III. It reveals the heart of man. Without the revelation of the mirror man is a stranger to his own face; without the revelation of Gods law we were strangers to the guilt of sin. For the law lays a man bare to himself. Gather up the lesson of the Psalm--
1. That there is no conflict between Gods works and Gods Word. There may be conflict between the flippant guesses of men and the Thus saith the Lord in the Book. But the world book and the word book are one and the same truth.
2. The Psalm reveals the vastness and variety of the witnesses which God has put about us. The heathen of all lands have deified the forces of nature and the planets of the sky, and worshipped. Such witness is ours, but supplemented by the written Word, the enlightened conscience, the civilised state, and the Christian Church. (Monday Club Sermons.)
The revelation in nature
Modern poets are never tired of dwelling on the beauties of nature. The Hebrew poet perceived these just as keenly, but he never set them forth for their own sake. He considered them only as they bear on our moral and spiritual relations with God, or as they illustrate the being and glory of the Most High. So it is here, The first line sets forth the continuous action of the transparent vault which arches over the earth. Its order and beauty and splendour are not the work of chance or the product of blind unconscious forces, but bear willing witness to the perfections of the one Supreme Creator. He made them, and they are forever telling the story of His unsearchable riches. There is no pause, no interruption in the testimony. Day after day, night after night, the unbroken succession goes on. It is poured out as from a copious, gushing fountain. The sentiment is as true as it is poetical. In every age and land the starry heavens have proclaimed to the thoughtful observer: It is He that hath made us. The fact that this is done without the use of articulate language, so far from weakening the testimony makes it stronger. A modern critic coolly expunges this couplet on the ground that it is prosaic and that it directly contradicts the preceding verse, whereas it is a fine statement of the fact that words are not literally used; and there is no more contradiction in it than in the common proverb, Actions speak louder than words. The heavens have a voice, but it is one that speaks not to the ear but to the devout and understanding heart, as Addison has well expressed it in the well-known stanzas, according to which the radiant orbs, though they move in solemn silence, still in reasons ear rejoice. In the next couplet the poet proceeds further. Not only is the testimony of the heavens distinct and clear and unbroken, but it is also universal. Their line means their measuring line, for this is the established meaning of the word, and there is neither need nor justification for changing the text. The province of these witnesses for God is co-extensive with the earth. Everywhere the heavens compass the globe, and everywhere they preach the same Divine sermon. In the Epistle to the Romans (Rom_10:18) the Apostle employs these words to express the wide diffusion of the Gospel among the Gentiles, and its freedom from all national or ecclesiastical restrictions. As Hengstenberg well says, The universal revelation of God in nature was a providential prediction of the universal proclamation of the Gospel. The Apostle says their sound instead of their line, because he followed the Septuagint version. The sense is, of course, the same. In Pauls day the Gospel occupied the central position in the Roman world: it is for Christians now to make it actually as universal as the witness of the heavens. To carry still further forward the figure, the sun is introduced because his apparent course indicates clearly the width of the domain covered by the testimony of the heavens. In them is his position. All talk of sun gods in this connection is simple folly. David is not reciting mythology, but writing poetry. In this view he compares the bright reappearance of the morning sun to that of a bridegroom coming forth from the nuptial apartment, and his steady ongoing through the skies to the rapid course of a hero on his joyful way to the goal of victory. Nothing can be more striking than these figures. The king of day starts from one end of heaven and never pauses till he reaches the other, and his presence is one that can be felt as well as seen, for nothing can hide itself from his heat. Here comes a quick transition from Gods revelation of Himself in nature to the similar revelation in the written Word. Its abruptness is quite excusable in view of the analogy, the law being in the spiritual world what the sun is in the natural. (Talbot W. Chambers, D. D.)
Gods works and Word
The Bible recognises no conflict between science and religion. It asserts a unity of origin for the Word and the world. Faith takes Gods word; science takes mans. But
Science walks with humble feet
To seek the God that faith has found.
I. That the Bible nowhere contradicts established science.
This is an amazing statement, for the Bible was written by unlearned men. Every truth of today has been opposed by men, not by Scripture. No doubt the Bible often speaks of things as they appear to the eye, as sunrise and sunset. But these are not contradictions to science.
II. The Bible always has been, and is yet, far in advance of the discoveries of science. Ere science discovered the order of progress in the developed world, or that the strata of the earth were formed by the action of water, and that the mountains were once under the sea; or that the earth was a sphere; or that the earth was upheld by no visible support; or that the stars were innumerable; or that light makes music as it flies; or that the sun had an orbit of its own--the Bible had said all these things. The Word is as full of undiscovered wisdom as the world.
III. Very few scientific men recognise any antagonism between the revelation by word and that by works. The American Association for the Advancement of Science embraces the great names in this country. At its last meeting it was found that seven-eighths of these were professing Christians. The greatest of them see God in nature today.
IV. Nature is a universal revelation of God, but of the lowest kind. The heavens so declare the glory of God that even a heathen savage is without excuse if he do not discern God. The law of the Lord is the next higher revelation. See what is here said of it. But the highest revelation is Christ. He brings life and love to light; reveals a greater power in spiritual realms than gravitation is in material realms. But all revelations are one and of one God. (Bishop R. W. Warren.)
The revelation of the prophecy of the heavens
I. The heavens a revelation of God. They show Gods character, as all works show character. The fault has been in men if they have not apprehended the declaration of the heavens. Paul said it could be clearly seen. This revelation is--
1. Ceaseless.
2. Wordless. The Hebrew rightly rendered reads--No speech nor language; their voice is not heard. That is, they utter no articulate words.
3. Universal. Their line--the measuring line used for the determining the boundaries of estates--takes in the whole earth; throughout this vast territory the signs which proclaim God are found.
II. This revelation a prophecy of that of the Gospel. For it also is universal. Hence Paul quotes this Psalm. But how came Paul to see this meaning in Davids words? Because the heavens are Christs handiwork. Without Him was nothing made that was made. And they manifest and declare Him. It is plain, therefore, that if He thus send His heavens to proclaim Him through all lands, and to sing His praise, much more will He desire that the Gospel of His grace by which far more glory will be His should be known far and wide, to the ends of the earth, that none may be hid from its saving light and heat. What a teacher, then, we have in the heavens. They sing to us of God, and of God in Christ. They declare the glory of Him whom not having seen we love. (Samuel Cox, D. D.)
Gods two great preachers
I. Nature as a preacher. It continues its eloquent discourse from age to age, and its aim in all is to draw the mind of man from the visible to the invisible, from the material to the spiritual, from itself to universal being.
II. The Bible as a preacher. This preacher is called by different names, law, testimony, statutes, commandments, fear of the Lord, judgments of the Lord.
1. The character of this preacher. Perfect, established, righteous, holy, thoroughly sound, precious.
2. The work of this preacher.
(1) A soul-restoring work.
(2) A mind-enlightening work.
(3) A heart-gladdening work.
(4) A life-regulating work.
(5) A sin-convincing work.
(6) A prayer exciting work.
The Psalmist prays against sin, and he prays for holiness. The text implies three facts concerning human words and thoughts--
1. That God takes cognisance of them.
2. That God is pleased with right words and thoughts.
3. That God aids man in the promotion of right words and thoughts. (Homilist.)
Nature a preacher
Five subjects for thought.
I. The subject of the discourse. The glory of God. Nature proclaims Gods existence, government, and attributes.
1. The fact of nature reveals the being of God.
2. The vastness of nature, the immensity of God.
3. The uniformity of nature, the unity of God.
4. The regularity of nature, the unchangeableness of God.
5. The arrangements of nature, the wisdom of God.
6. The happiness of nature, the goodness of God.
7. The purity of nature, the holiness of God.
8. The beauty of nature, the tastefulness of God.
9. The variety of nature, the exhaustlessness of God.
II. The incessantness of its delivery. Nature as a preacher never tires, never pauses. Whilst generations come and go, this great preacher continues his sublime discourse without a break or pause.
III. The intelligibleness of its language. Its language is that of symbol; the easiest language for man to understand. A language of signs, addressed to eye and heart. So intelligible is the language that there is no excuse for ignorance of God.
IV. The vastness of its audience. Their line--that is, their instruction. All men live under those heavens, all of which are vocal with discourse of God.
V. The immensity of its resources.
1. The greatest light dwells in the heart of this preacher.
2. The greatest light circulates through the whole being of this preacher. From the subject learn--
(1) Mans capacity to study and to worship God.
(2) Mans obligation to study and to worship God. Study nature scientifically and religiously. (Homilist.)
Nature in Scripture
The scientific contemplation of nature is wholly absent from Scripture, and the picturesque is very rare. This Psalmist knew nothing about solar spectra, or stellar distances, but he heard a voice from out of the else waste heavens which sounded to him as if it named God. Comte ventured to say that the heavens declare the glory of the astronomer, not of God; but if there be an order in them, which it is a mans glory to discover, must there not be a mind behind the order, and must not the Maker have more glory than the investigator? The Psalmist is protesting against stellar worship, which some of his neighbours practised. The sun was a creature, not a god; his race was marked out by the same hand which in depths beyond the visible heavens had pitched a tent for his nightly rest. We smile at the simple astronomy; the religious depth is as deep as ever. Dull ears do not hear these voices; but whether they are stopped with the clay of earthly tastes and occupations, or stuffed with scientific wadding of the most modern kind, the ears that do not hear Gods name sounded from the abysses above have failed to hear the only word which can make man feel at home in nature. Carlyle said that the sky was a sad sight. The sadness and awfulness are taken away when we hear the heavens telling the glory of God. The unscientific Psalmist who did hear them was nearer the very heart of the mystery than the scientist who knows everything else about them but that. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
God revealed in nature
Is the picture to be accepted as a revelation of the artists genius? Is the poem to be regarded as a test of the poets mental power? Then carry this rule with you in all your contemplations of the universe--as you walk beneath the dome of heaven, as you tremble in the shadows of the everlasting hills, as you rise into rapture while gazing on the swelling grandeur of the great deep and feel yourself wrapt in the presence of God. The universe is the thought of God made visible. (R. Venting.)
God seen in nature
The immortal Newton exclaimed, Glory to God, who has permitted me to catch a glimpse of the skirts of His garments. My calculations have encountered the march of the stars. So sang Copernicus, Volta, Galileo, and Kepler. How truly did Young write, the undevout astronomer is mad.
The firmament sheweth His handiwork.--
The comet and its teachings
Not often during the lifetime of a generation does a comet present itself. Give thought to the bright vision which no doubt engages the attention of other worlds beside our own, and on which the gaze of the unfallen inhabitants of celestial spheres may be fixed in reverent admiration.
1. Notice its beauty. In the exhaustless provision which God has made for our love of the beautiful we recognise an assurance that He regards with yet tenderer care our far deeper longings, the moral wants of our souls. 2, As we gain from science a knowledge of the movements of the comet we are impressed with the supremacy of law. No portion of the universe is more completely under the control of law than these comets, which were once supposed to be so erratic. Whatever is within the attraction of the sun moves upon one of three curves. As soon as a sufficient portion of the course of any body is known its whole curve can be ascertained. It is to the universal supremacy of law that all the achievements of science have been due. The supremacy of physical is a guarantee for the authority and permanence of moral law. The same Being who has established the one has pledged His veracity to the maintenance of the other.
3. Further knowledge of this comet impresses us with the magnitude of the universe. How numberless are the bodies inhabiting the measureless expanse. Of these worlds, is it likely that ours alone is inhabited?
4. Viewed in the light of these considerations, how insignificant does the world appear! And how insignificant is man! It is his soul alone that gives him dignity in the scale of being.
5. What a conception does a just view of the universe give us of the greatness and dignity of God! Who can escape His eye? Who can defy His power?
6. How great is the Divine condescension, especially as manifested in the atonement! (H. L. Wayland.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Psalms 19
Psalms 19
Is this originally one psalm or bits of two, pieced together to suggest a comparison between the two sources of knowledge of God, which the authors did not dream of? The affirmative is strongly maintained, but, we may venture to say, not so strongly sustained. The two parts are said to differ in style, rhythm, and subject. Certainly they do, but the difference in style accounts for the difference in structure. It is not an unheard of phenomenon that cadence should change with theme; and if the very purpose of the song is to set forth the difference of the two witnesses to God, nothing can be more likely than such a change in measure. The two halves are said to be put together abruptly without anything to smooth the transition. So they are, and so is Psa_19:4 put by the side of Psa_19:3; and so does the last turn of thought (Psa_19:12-14) follow the second. Cyclopean architecture without mortar has a certain impressiveness. The abruptness is rather an argument for than against the original unity, for a compiler would have been likely to try to make some sort of glue to hold his two fragments together, while a poet, in the rush of his afflatus, would welcome the very abruptness which the manufacturer would avoid. Surely the thought that binds the whole into a unity-that Jehovah is El, and that nature and law witness to the same Divine Person, though with varying clearness-is not so strange as that we should have to find its author in some late editor unknown.
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Psa_19:1-6 hymn the silent declaration by the heavens. The details of exposition must first be dealt with. "Declare" and "makes known" are participles, and thus express the continuity of the acts. The substance of the witness is set forth with distinct reference to its limitations, for "glory" has here no moral element, but simply means what Paul calls "eternal power and Godhead," while the Divine name of God ("El") is used in intended contrast to "Jehovah" in the second half, a nuance which must be obliterated if this is a conglomerate psalm. "His handiwork," in like manner, limits the revelation. The heavens by day are so marvellously unlike the heavens by night that the psalmists imagination conjures up two long processions, each member of which passes on the word entrusted to him to his successor-the blazing days with heaven naked but for one great light, and the still nights with all their stars. Psa_19:3 has given commentators much trouble in attempting to smooth its paradox. Tastes are curiously different, for some critics think that the familiar interpretation gives a flat, prosaic meaning, while Cheyne takes the verse to be a gloss for dull readers, and exclaims, "How much the brilliant psalm fragment gains by its omission!" De gustibus, etc. Some of us may still feel that the psalmists contrast of the awful silence in the depths of the sky and of the voice that speaks to opened ears thrills us with something very like the electric touch of poetry. In Psa_19:4 the thought of the great voices returns.
Their hue is usually explained as meaning their sphere of influence, marked out, as it were, by a measuring cord. If that rendering is adopted Psa_19:4 b would in effect say, "Their words go as far as their realm." Or the rendering "sound" may be deduced, though somewhat precariously, from that of line, since a line stretched is musical. But the word is not used as meaning the string of an instrument, and the very slight conjectural emendation which gives "voice" instead of "line" has much to recommend it. In any case the teaching of the verse is plain from the last clause, namely the universality of the revelation. It is singular that the mention of the sun should come in the close of the verse; and there may be some error in the text, though the introduction of the sun here may be explained as completing the picture of the heavens, of which it is the crowning glory. Then follows the fuller delineation of his joyous energy, of his swift strength in his course, of his penetrating beams, illuminating and warming all. Why should the glowing metaphors, so natural and vigorous, of the sun coming forth from his bridal chamber and, hero-like, running his race, be taken to be traces of ancient myths now innocently reclaimed from the service of superstition? To find in these two images a proof that the first part of the psalm belongs to the post-exilic "literary revival of Hebrew mythology" is surely to lay more on them than they can bear.
The scientific contemplation of nature is wholly absent from Scripture, and the picturesque is very rare. This psalmist knew nothing about solar spectra or stellar distances, but he heard a voice from out of the else waste heavens which sounded to him as if it named God. Comte ventured to say that the heavens declare the glory of the astronomer, not of God; but, if there be an order in them, which it is a mans glory to discover, must there not be a mind behind the order, and must not the Maker have more glory than the investigator? The psalmist is protesting against stellar worship, which some of his neighbours practised. The sun was a creature, not a god; his "race" was marked out by the same hand which in depths beyond the visible heavens had pitched a "tent" for his nightly rest. We smile at the simple astronomy; the religious depth is as deep as ever. Dull ears do not hear these voices; but whether they are stopped with the clay of earthly tastes and occupations, or stuffed with scientific wadding of the most modern kind, the ears that do not hear Gods name sounded from the abysses above, have failed to hear the only word which can make man feel at home in nature. Carlyle said that the sky was "a sad sight." The sadness and awfulness are taken away when we hear the heavens telling the glory of God. The unscientific psalmist who did hear them was nearer the very heart of the mystery than the scientist who knows everything else about them but that.
With an abrupt transition which is full of poetical force, the singer turns to the praises of the better revelation of Jehovah. Nature speaks in eloquent silence of the strong God, but has no witness to His righteous will for men or His love to them which can compare with the clear utterances of His law. The rhythm changes, and in its cadence expresses the psalmists exuberant delight in that law. In Psa_19:7-11 the clauses are constructed on a uniform plan, each containing a name for the law, an attribute of it, and one of its effects. The abundance of synonyms indicates familiarity and clear views of the many sides of the subject. The psalmist had often brooded on the thought of what that law was, because, loving its Giver, he must needs love the gift. So he calls it "law," or teaching, since there he found the best lessons for character and life. It was "testimony," for in it God witnessed what lie is and what we should be, and so witnessed against sin; it was a body of "precepts" (statutes, A.V.) giving rich variety of directions: it was "commandment," blessedly imperative; it was "fear of the Lord," the effect being put for the cause; it was "judgments," the decisions of infinite truth concerning duty.
These synonyms have each an attribute attached, which, together, give a grand aggregate of qualities discerned by a devout heart to inhere in that law which is to so many but a restraint and a foe. It is "perfect," as containing: without flaw or defect the ideal of conduct; "sure" or reliable, as worthy of being absolutely followed and certain to be completely fulfilled; "right," as prescribing the straight road to mans true goal; "pure" or bright, as being light like the sun, but of a higher quality than that material brilliance: "clean," as contrasted with the foulness bedaubing false faiths and making idol worship unutterably loathsome: "true" and "wholly righteous" as corresponding accurately to the mind of Jehovah and the facts of humanity and as being in full accordance with the justice which has its seat in the bosom of God.
The effects are summed up in the latter clauses of these verses, which stand, as it were, a little apart, and by the slight pause are made more emphatic. The rhythm rises and falls like the up-springing and sinking of a fountain. The law "restores the soul," or rather refreshes the life, as food does; it "makes the simple wise" by its sure testimony, giving practical guidance to narrow understandings and wills open to easy beguiling by sin; it "rejoices the heart," since there is no gladness equal to that of knowing and doing the will of God; it "enlightens the eyes" with brightness beyond that of the created light which rules the day. Then the relation of clauses changes slightly in Psa_19:9 and a second attribute takes the place of the effect. It "endures forever," and, as we have seen is "wholly righteous." The Old Testament law was relatively imperfect and destined to be done away, but the moral core of it abides. Being more valuable than all other treasures, there is wealth in the very desire after it more than in possessing these. Loved, it yields sweetness in comparison with which the delights of sense are bitter; done, it automatically rewards the doer. If obedience had no results except its inward consequences, it would be abundantly repaid. Every true servant of Jehovah will be willing to be warned by that voice, even though it rebuke and threaten.
All this rapture of delight in the law contrasts with the impatience and dislike which some men entertain for it. To the disobedient that law spoils their coarse gratifications. It is as a prison in which life is wearisomely barred from delights; but they who dwell behind its fences know that these keep evils off, and that within are calm joys and pure pleasures.
The contemplation of the law cannot but lead to self-examination, and that to petition. So the psalmist passes into prayer. His shortcomings appal, for "by the law is the knowledge of sin," and he feels that beyond the sin which he knows, there is a dark region in him where foul things nestle and breed fast. "Secret faults" are those hidden, not from men, but from himself. He discovers that he has hitherto undiscovered sins. Lurking evils are most dangerous because, like aphides on the underside of a rose leaf, they multiply so quickly unobserved; small deeds make up life, and small, unnoticed sins darken the soul. Mud in water, at the rate of a grain to a glassful, will make a lake opaque. "Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth." Conscience needs educating; and we have to compare ourselves with the ideal of perfect life in Jesus, if we would know our faults, as young artists go over their copies in front of the masterpiece. But the psalmist knows that, servant of God though he is, he is in danger from another class of sins, and so prays to be held back from "presumptuous sins," i.e. wilful conscious transgressions. Such deliberate contraventions of law tend to become habitual and despotic; so the prayer follows that they may not "have dominion." But even that is not the lowest depth. Deliberate sin, which has gained the upper hand. is but too apt to end in apostacy: "Great transgression" is probably a designation for casting off the very pretence of worshipping Jehovah. That is the story of many a fall. First, some unsuspected evil habit gnaws away the substance of the life, as white ants do wood, leaving the shell apparently intact; then come sins open and palpable, and these enslave the will, becoming habits, and then follows entire abandonment of the profession of religion. It is a slippery, dark stairway, and the only safety is in not setting foot on the top step. God, and God only, can "keep us back." He will, if we cling to Him, knowing our weakness. Thus clinging, we may unblamed cherish the daring hope that we shall be "upright and innocent," since nothing less than entire deliverance from sin in all its forms and issues can correspond to the will of God concerning us and the power of God in us, nor satisfy our deepest desires.
The closing aspiration is that Jehovah would accept the song and prayer. There is an allusion to the acceptance of a sacrifice, for the phrase "be acceptable" is frequent in connection with the sacrificial ritual. When the words of the mouth coincide with the meditation of the heart, we may hope that prayers for cleansing from, and defence against, sin, offered to Him whom our faith recognises as our "strength" and our "Redeemer," will be as a sacrifice of a sweet smell, well-pleasing to God. He best loves the law of Jehovah who lets it teach him his sin, and send him to his knees; he best appreciates the glories of the silent heavens who knows that their witness to God is but the prelude of the deeper music of the Scriptures declaration of the heart and will of Jehovah and who grasps Him as his "strength and his Redeemer" from all evil, whether evil of sin or evil of sorrow.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 “This psalm instructs its readers in the glory and…
INTRODUCTION
“This psalm instructs its readers in the glory and goodness of God; first, by directing their contemplation to the structure of the heavens, to the course of the sun, and to the kindly influences of its light and heat upon the earth; secondly, by inviting their attention to the revealed law, which is more especially adapted to impress them with a sense of God’s superintending care, and to increase their understanding and knowledge of the Divine power and will. The psalm, therefore, divides itself into two parts; the first, extending to the 8th verse; and the second, comprising the remainder.”—Phillips.
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NATURAL THEOLOGY
(Psa_19:1-7.)
The Psalmist here represents the universe as a grand cathedral in which the sun is the great preacher, ever declaring the glory of the Creator.
We notice:
I. The subject of the revelation. “The heavens declare the glory of God.” “The contemplation of the glory of nature must not lead to the deification of nature; it should lead up beyond the entire world, and beyond all the heavens, to the knowledge of the glory of God mirrored therein, and excite to the adoration of the Almighty Creator declaring Himself therein. The expanse of the heavens which cannot at all be surveyed by man, has yet received its limits from Him who is alone Infinite and Almighty. Even the sun, which is worshipped by so many nations as the king of heaven, receives the measure of its motion, and the revolution of its course from the same hand, whose government and work disclose themselves in all things as by the hand of a Master, whom all His works praise.”—Moll. We must not stop with nature, but see in her forces and glories the signs of a Divine existence and love. We must not survey the heavens, as some do, in a coarse utilitarian spirit. The heavens reflect the Divine glory in their own glory. The colours in the heavens bear no discoverable relation to the utilitarian ends of light, they are a testimony to God’s own love of beauty; incidental colours dashed into the creation without any direct bearing upon the known functions fulfilled by light; dashed in to tell us that God loves beauty, that He is full of it, and that these things are His own dim reflections. Nature declares the wisdom, power, love, and faithfulness of God. Some unbelieving men have dared to find fault with the works of God. One of these recently and blasphemously spoke of creation as a “blundering contrivance.” But how poor are the grandest works of man when compared with the works of God! When the disturbed fairies left the palace they were building incomplete, the legend tells us that no architects or painters could be found to complete the edifice, such was the wondrous beauty of spiritual workmanship; but if God had left any portion of the universe incomplete, which of our critics would have finished it? Ah! we cannot rival the magnificent proportions, the exquisite balancings, the splendid hues, the perennial freshness and glory of creation.
II. The characteristics of the revelation. Mark 1. Its fulness. “Uttereth speech.” “Pours forth speech.”—Kay. It streams forth as from an overflowing spring, is the sense of the original. There are abundant evidences of God’s power and glory.
2. Its constancy and perpetuity. The heavens are declaring—always declaring. “Day unto day,” &c. “The idea of perpetuity is here. The words of this discourse of praise are carried forward in an uninterrupted line of transmission.”—Delitzsch. 3. Its variety. Day and night, with their various phenomena.
4. Its silence. (Psa_19:3.) Mark the unobtrusiveness of nature’s deeper teachings. “Their ‘voice is not heard,’ lit. ‘is inaudible.’ They have a language, but not one that can be classed with any of the dialects of earth. They have a voice, but one that speaks not to the ear, but to the devout and understanding heart.”—Perowne. “The sense of the whole passage is this: that although the heavens are not endued with the power of human speech, yet the instruction which they convey is not less definite; the lessons which they teach are not, on that account, less clear and distinct to the intelligent and pious student of nature. The number and stupendous magnitude of the heavenly bodies; the sun which governs the day; the moon and stars, which render to man such important service by night; the clouds gathering water, which descends and refreshes the earth; the thunder and lightning, and the elements; all these preach to us as intelligibly as if they addressed us in our own language; and not only to us, but to all nations; the greatness and wisdom, the mercy and loving-kindness of Jehovah.”—Phillips.
“The heavens articulately shine,
And speak their Architect Divine.”
If we will know God in nature, we must have a seeing eye, and a hearing ear. “Holy silence itself is a speech, provided there be the ear to hear it.”—Tholuck.
5. Its universality (Psa_19:4-7). “Their line,” &c. Their measuring line extends to the confines of the earth. The glorious sun declares the glory of God all over the earth.
III. The importance of this revelation. Some Christians speak depreciatingly of nature, but it is a mistake. The Psalmist in this place declares the harmony of creation with the moral law. “The object of the psalm is not to contrast the moral and material revelations, but rather to identify their author and their subject. The doctrinal sum of the whole composition is, that the same God who reared the frame of nature is the giver of a law, and that this law is in all respects worthy of its author.”—Alexander. The first part of the psalm treats of God in visible nature, the second, of God in moral law; and these two great ideas are ever needed to balance each other. If we think of God in nature only, and forget God as revealed in moral law, we glide into pantheism. The most perfectly organised and commanding form of pantheism the world has ever seen (that of India), was growing up at the very moment David wrote, from this one-sidedness of view: the lights, the clouds, the winds of heaven, all manifestations of God, were being substituted for the moral essence of God itself, and becoming separate gods. On the other hand, contemplation of God as revealed in moral law, and forgetfulness of Him as revealed in nature, is apt to produce a narrow, cramped, and degenerate type of religion such as the Jews presented in their darkest and most exclusive moods. The two ideas will always be needed, the one to counterpoise the other; and David ever expresses the wisest and most far-reaching instincts of inspiration in putting them side by side.
IV. The limitation of this revelation.
As Lord Bacon says: “The heavens indeed tell of the glory of God, but not of His will, according to which the poet prays to be pardoned and sanctified.”—Delitzsch. Lord Bacon’s “Prayer:” “I have delighted in the brightness of Thy temple. Thy creatures have been my books; but Thy Scriptures much more. I have sought Thee in the courts, fields, and gardens; I have found thee in Thy temples.” Fallen man needs the truth of God bringing home to him, with a clearness that nature cannot accomplish. And we need many truths of which nature knows nothing. “There is this great difference between God’s book of nature and His book of grace. The one, splendid and glorious as its Almighty Maker, was formed for man in innocency, and is imperfectly adapted to a fallen state; the other is suited to a corrupt nature, and, telling of mercy, addresses itself to its wants, and speaks with a Divine power which refuses to be silenced or passed by.”—Ryland.
Lessons:
1. We need never fear that the true religion of nature will lead us away from God.
2. The believer in God alone apprehends the highest glory and significance of nature. “None save a believer can rightly meditate on the works of God. Worldly men may, and do, understand and admire the wonderful works of God; the lover of science can truly estimate the wisdom and the beauty which pervade all nature; who else, indeed, can so well do it? But unassisted, man rests there; his thoughts go no further. It is ‘by faith that we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear;’ and thus the mind is led from nature up to nature’s God.”—Ryland.
3. The believer finding deep joy in the workmanship of God, finds full satisfaction only in turning to that moral law which is the revelation of God’s nature.
THE SOUL-RESTORING POWER OF LAW
(Psa_19:7.)
“The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.” “The same Almighty Hand which had given the sun his light-giving, life-sustaining power in the physical world, had provided life and light also for the spiritual world.”—Kay.
Mark:
I. The attribute of the law. It is “perfect.” The law of God, the moral law, as given in the whole of the Scriptures, is perfect, i.e., free from all defect or blemish. It is spotless.
1. It is the perfect transcript of the glory of God. It is the exact expression of God’s moral nature. The earth is a reflection of God’s metaphysical glory—it tells us of His eternal power and Godhead; but the revelation of God’s will in moral law is the revelation of His highest nature and glory. As such a revelation it is “perfect.” It is not mixed and marred like the words of men; it is a stainless mirror reflecting the sublime holiness of the deity. It is the picture of God drawn by His own hand. It is “light, and in it is no darkness at all.”
2. It is the perfect theory of the good of man. “The divine law is called ‘perfect,’ i.e., spotless and harmless, as being absolutely well-meaning, and altogether directed towards the wellbeing of man.”—Delitzsch.
Through the disorder of our nature we regard moral law as our great enemy, as that which stands in the way of our freedom and our joy, but really it presents us with the grand secret of living and immortal good.
II. The effect of the law. “Converting the soul.” Paul tells us in the Romans how the law condemns, how it threatens, how it kills. And this is the effect of the law as considered in itself. But we must remember that when the Psalmist is speaking here of the law, he comprehends in it the promises of God, and regards it in connection with the great system of sacrifices. The evangelical idea is included in the views of law which he gives us in this psalm. “If the law is separated from the hope of forgiveness and the Spirit of Christ, it is so far from the sweetness of honey, that it rather kills poor souls by its bitterness.”—Calvin. Thus understood, the law “revives the soul.”
1. It brings back the soul to God. “It calls it back from its wanderings by reminding it of its ingratitude, by setting before it its high destiny, by bringing it to its true Shepherd and Guardian.”—Perowne. Having restored the soul to God,
2. The law strengthens and perfects it. The law harmonises, vivifies, strengthens, rejoices, the whole moral man. “It gives the same support to the mind that food does to the body when exhausted (Lam_1:11. See also Psa_23:3; Pro_25:13).”—French. “The word here translated ‘restoring’ is used of restoring from disorder and decay (Psa_80:19), from sorrow and affliction (Rth_4:15), from death (1Ki_17:21-22).”—Kay. The perfect law makes those who receive it faultless.
THE LIGHT-GIVING POWER OF THE LAW
(Psa_19:7.)
“The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.” Observe:
I. The infallibility of the law. “The testimony of the Lord is sure.” “Testimony, i.e. revealed will. Probably the two tables of the testimony, containing the decalogue, are here especially referred to.”—French. But we must understand the moral law as a whole. This law is sure, or, true. It is true, therefore, sure. “It is raised above all doubt in its declarations, and verifying itself in its threatenings and promises.”—Delitzsch. We want a doctrine that is infallible; speculative and unverified teaching we feel to be untrustworthy and powerless.
1. We cannot believe in the infallibility of the Church. One Pope contradicts another; the same Pope is inconsistent with himself. Neither,
2. In the infallibility of philosophers. The faith of one generation of thinkers is laughed at by the next. Neither,
3. In the infallibility of ourselves, of our personal opinions and convictions arrived at outside revelation. There is no infallible guide but the moral law declared on Sinai and developed in Holy Writ. We must not live according to the maxims of men, neither must we make intuitions and inward impressions our rule of action, but prayerfully seek light on the holy oracles, and God will not permit us to wander into false ways.
II. The subjects of its illumination. “Making wise the simple.” “The simple, lit. ‘the open,’ not here ‘the foolish’ as often in Proverbs, but he who is ready to become a fool, that he may be wise, who has the true childlike spirit (Mat_11:25; 1Co_1:27), which best fits him to become a disciple in the school of God.”—Perowne.
1. We must feel our need of guidance.
2. We must be sincere and open in our search for instruction.
3. We must be fully prepared to obey the light as it is given.
THE JOY-GIVING POWER OF THE LAW
(Psa_19:8.)
“The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.”
If our moral life attain to completeness, we shall observe in it three stages in relation to the law of God.
I. The period of rebellion against the law.
In our original, natural state, we fret against God’s commandments. There is a twofold reason for this.
1. We rebel against the law because it denies us certain gratifications which we covet. Our irregular desires lead us to covet what the law denies. But,
2. We rebel against the law chiefly because it is the law. We dislike the law because it is the will of another asserting itself above our will. We resent the law not only because it sometimes comes between our passion and its gratification, but because of its dogmatism. Our will shall be supreme; we will be our own law. The “carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither, indeed, can be.”
This is life’s first stage. Law is a tyranny we resent. Next comes,
II. The period of submission to the law.
We come to the conviction that it is better to submit than to rebel; we cease to be God’s enemies, and become His servants. We painfully keep the law, but cannot be said to love it. There is a constant friction. Then comes,
III. The period of joy in the law.
In ancient times laws were put into verse, and there comes a period, if we live rightly, when God’s laws become poetry to us,—the statute becomes a song. Holiness becomes beauty to the eye, sweetness to the taste, music to the ear. God’s law, the grand expression of God’s nature, becomes the great object of our love and desire! “I delight to do Thy will, O God.” Philosophers rejoice in natural law,—they are never weary of celebrating the glorious reign of law, and to discover law and extol it, is considered the highest intellectual triumph. But to admire the moral law, the law which denies so much that we like, and enjoins so much that we do not like, this is, indeed, the triumph of life. If the statutes of the Lord are to rejoice our heart,
(1.) We must know them better. The more clearly we perceive the nature of the Divine law, the more we approve of it. “Open Thou mine eyes that I may see wonderful things out of Thy law.”
(2.) We must grow in love. A growing love turns law into music. What is painful to dry reason, the heart makes light.
(3.) We must be obedient. Every act of obedience makes the next act more easy, until at last what was forced and painful becomes instinctive and delightful.
Lessons:
1. In keeping the law of God, we find true delight. “The statutes of the Lord are right.” How fatal such a severe, inexorable, unyielding law to happiness! No; to keep the law of God, which is given in all its fulness in Jesus Christ, is the secret of sublime content. Let believers not rest until they realise this high condition. We praise God because He is good; but not enough because He is righteous. We obey the law because it is safe; but do not sufficiently find liberty and joy in it.
2. There is no real satisfaction except in keeping the statutes of God.
THE PURIFYING POWER OF THE LAW
(Psa_19:8.)
“The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.” The idea here is that the spotless law imparts to us its Divine quality, and thus fills the soul with vision and joy. Inquire.
I. How the law makes us pure? It does this—
1. By setting before us a pure ideal. It brings all heaven before our eyes, and there is something impulsive in the very spectacle of perfection.
2. By awakening in our soul passionate desires for purity.
3. By strengthening us to reach the highest planes of life. Show,
II. How this purity is the source of spiritual strength, joy, and vision.
1. Strength. “There is an allusion here to the dimness of the eyes produced by extreme weakness and approaching death, recovery from which is figuratively” represented as an enlightening of the eyes.”—Alexander. Sin and corruption mean weakness, but the truth of God in Christ brings to the soul newness of life. Purity is another word for power.
2. Joy. Dimness of eyes means sorrow; enlightening the eyes means the return of gladness. Impurity means disorder and misery; purity means harmony and brightness.
3. Vision. Our bewilderments spring from our passions. Purity is vision. “The pure in heart shall see God.”
THE ABSOLUTE PERFECTION OF THE LAW
(Psa_19:9-11.)
Consider:
I. The incomparable excellence of the law as considered in itself (Psa_19:9).
1. The purity of the law. “The fear of the Lord is clean.” The commandments which teach the fear of the Lord are without any admixture of error or unrighteousness. “The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
(1.) The moral law as contained in the Scriptures contains no false principle of conduct or action.
(2.) The moral law as given in the Scriptures is no lower form of morality for an imperfect civilisation, but the absolute law for the highest creatures and the highest worlds.
(3.) The moral law is not merely correct in the main, but all and every of its special requirements are just and righteous.
2. The stability of the law. “Enduring for ever.” It is changeless and everlasting. The moral law continues. The ceremonial law was abrogated—it served its purpose, and ceased to be; civil law is susceptible to continual modifications; natural law will be changed, for the sun and sky and planets shall be dissolved in fire; but moral law abides firm as the throne of God. “Not one jot or tittle of it shall perish.”
II. The incomparable excellence of the law considered in its relation to those who keep it.
1. Intellectually considered it is of supreme excellence. “More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold.” This seems to point to the mental appreciation of the truth. More than gold, than fine gold, than much fine gold. They will do that for us which gold cannot do.
2. Emotionally it is. “Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.” Experimentally it is unutterably grateful, filling the soul with sweetness. Sweeter than honey and the droppings of the comb. More grateful than all the pleasures of sense. “What wonder is it that this converting, instructing, exhilarating, enlightening, eternal, true, and righteous Word should be declared preferable to the riches of eastern kings, and sweeter to the soul of the pious believer than the sweetest thing we know of is to the bodily taste! How ready we are to acknowledge all this! Yet the next hour, perhaps, we part with the true riches to obtain the earthly mammon, and barter away the joys of the spirit for the gratification of sense! Lord, give us affections towards Thy Word in some measure proportionate to its excellence; for we can never love too much what we can never admire enough.”—Horne. Dr. Duncan said a little before his death: “I wish I had a little more personal faith. I think with the Psalmist that these things are more precious than gold, yea, than much fine gold; but I cannot go so well with him in that, ‘they are sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.’ I stick at that; that has often been a plague with me; the precious things were more as casketed jewels than as meat and drink. They delight the intellect; but, oh! I wish I had a loving heart! I go mourning all the day for want of it.”
3. Practically it is (Psa_19:11). The twofold province of revealed law. It is to preserve. It admonishes, points out peril, and saves. A miner’s safety-lamp was brought out some time ago, which, besides serving the purpose of an ordinary safety-lamp, sounds a note of warning to the workmen the moment the air around becomes so charged with fire-damp as to be dangerous or explosive. Thus the Word, which is a lamp unto our feet, gives a timely note of warning lest we fall into temptation and sin. And in the keeping of it there is great reward. It is true that in the end it will bring us great recompense. “The Hebrew word signifies the last, the end of a thing; and thence it may signify reward, as the consequence or result of an action.”—Phillips. But this is hardly the truth intended here. “In the act of keeping them—not merely as the consequence of doing so.”—Kay. “Not only for keeping, but in keeping of them. As every flower hath its sweet smell, so every good action hath its sweet reflection upon the soul.”—Trapp.
“The work of righteousness is peace:
The great reward’s already given;
And all Thy servants, Lord, confess
Obedient love is present heaven.”
SECRET FAULTS
(Psa_19:12.)
Let us consider what these secret faults are, and our duty in the recollection of them:
I. The sins known to ourselves, but not known to the world. There is a certain portion of our life which is sheltered from the popular gaze. There is a certain privacy left us, so that God may put us to the test as to how far we are good because the world looks at us, and how far we are good because He looks at us. How have we acted here? How acted when free from the criticisms of society? Is it not true that we are often more pure before men than before God? We put the best side of everything to the world: but this is more true of our characters than it is of anything else. How carefully we veil our faults from our neighbour! our schemes of pride! our unspoken anger! our fits of envy! our greed of gold! our stained imaginations! And thus it comes to pass that good men think worse of themselves than society does. When, on a certain festive occasion, Pestalozzi, the German philanthropist, was presented with a wreath, he put it gently away, saying, “Crowns are not for me, but for the innocent.” The best of men have ever had the feeling that if the world knew them better it would praise them less.
II. The sins known to the world, but not to us. We see sins that the world cannot see; they see sins we do not see. How often men are egregiously mistaken concerning themselves and their doings! And this applies, perhaps, more to character than it does to anything else. Individuals move amongst us, in whose countenance, in whose eye, we behold the evidence of a fatal disease, and yet they see it not; and thus we often see in those with whom we have to do evidences of moral disorder and imperfection which they apprehend not, or apprehend very imperfectly. We may be very sure that our friends see similar faults in us. The portrait our friends paint of us is very different from that rose-coloured picture we draw of ourselves.
III. The sins neither known to us, nor to the world, but which are known to God. There are deeps of evil in us with which we have but the slightest acquaintance. As Alexander Smith says, “What strangers we are to ourselves. In every man’s nature there is an interior unexplored as that of Africa, and over that region what wild beasts may roam.” “The perfection and spirituality of God’s law render it almost impossible for a fallen son of Adam ever to know all the innumerable instances of his transgressing it. Add to which, that false principles and inveterate prejudices make us regard many things as innocent, and some things as laudable, which, in the eye of heaven, are far otherwise. Self-examination is a duty which few practise as they ought to do: and he who practises it best will always have reason to conclude his particular confessions with this genial petition, ‘Cleanse Thou me from secret faults.’ ”—Horne. To society we wear a mask, to ourselves a veil, but to God’s eye neither mask nor veil, for our iniquities are set before Him, our secret sins in the light of His countenance. “Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight; but all things are naked and open unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” Learn,
1. To recognise the reality and guilt of our secret sinfulness. These secret sins are real sins. “These faults are of daily and hourly incursion, involuntary and unavoidable infirmities, yet are they sins properly so called; and we must be cleansed from them by the merit and Spirit of Christ.”—Trapp. “No one is to plead as an excuse, or to justify themselves by the secrecy and delicacy of many sins, the unfathomableness of the human heart, the impossibility of a complete knowledge of self and sin.”—Moll. Our secret faults make us weak. They rob our character of beauty, as a flower fades when a worm is at the root. They are likely to become manifest faults. As Bishop Hopkins says: “The least sin, if let alone in the heart, will, like a small speck in fruit, spread to a total rottenness.” Our secret faults will confront us at the bar of God. “He shall bring every thought into judgment, with every secret thing.”
2. To seek forgiveness and cleansing from this secret sinfulness. “Clear thou me from hidden faults.” “The word translated clear is borrowed from the law, and means not so much to cleanse by renovation of the heart, as to acquit by a judicial sentence. (See Exo_34:7; Num_14:18.) Such an acquittal, in the case of sinners against God, involves the idea of a free forgiveness.”—Alexander. Let us seek this forgiveness, but let us seek also the cleansing grace. Psa_19:14.
“But who can all his errors tell,
Or count the thoughts by which he fell?
Omniscient God, to Thee alone
My sin’s infinity is known!
Do Thou my secret faults efface,
And show forth all Thy cleansing grace.
Law goes further than our power of introspection, and the cleansing power must go deeper than our own insight.
PRESUMPTUOUS SINS
(Psa_19:13.)
Let us inquire:
I. What these sins are? Deliberate, wilful, and high-handed sins. “Wilful, insolent ones.”—Kay. “Divines have distinguished sin into three kinds; called sins of ignorance, sins of infirmity, and sins of presumption. The will is supposed to concur more or less in all, otherwise they could not be sins; but they have their names from what is most prevailing and predominant in each. If there be more of ignorance than wilfulness in it, it is a sin of ignorance; if there be more of infirmity than wilfulness in it, it is a sin of infirmity; but if there be more of wilfulness than of either, or both the former, it is then a wilful sin; and that is what the text calls presumptuous sin.”—Waterland. These are sins of scarlet dye—sins evidently against reason, conscience, society.
II. Out of what they arise? The order observed by the Psalmist is most instructive—first secret faults, then presumptuous sins. The latter arise out of the former. We ignore our secret sins, and they are uncared for, unrepented of, unstriven against, and they develop into bold and outrageous sin. Let us watch the first strayings of our heart from God and righteousness. Not all at once do men become open and high-handed sinners. We observe:
III. The dark tyranny they exercise. “Let them not have dominion over me.” Dr. Phillips translates this: “From the proud, i.e., from tyrannical or haughty governors. This is much better than to render it by presumptuous sins.” But this translation has not the sanction of the great commentators. Alexander says: “The Hebrew word properly denotes proud men, but seems to be here applied to sins by a strong personification.” “Keep thy servant from presumptuous, or wilful sin; literally, from proud, presumptuous, insolent ones, the tyrants of the soul (Num_15:17-31); let them not have dominion over me.”—Wordsworth. When sin comes to this pass it is hard to be repented of. It is hard to renounce. The soul is at the mercy of sin. Like tyrannical governors oppressing a captured city, so does sin triumph and grind down the soul. It is comparatively easy to shake off faults whilst yet incipient, private, and occasional; but they have become tyrants whose yoke it is well nigh impossible to shake off when they have developed into habitual, open, shameless sins. The sinner, then, is the slave of imperious lusts. Observe:
IV. The absolute sin in which they culminate. “Then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.” “The great apostasy.” The idea is, that wilful sins extinguish God’s Spirit within us. The unpardonable sin. Secret sins lead to open sin; and open sin indulged in, persevered in, leads to the great transgression—the quenching of the Spirit, and final apostasy from God.
1. Let us beware of secret faults.
2. Let us beware of presumptuous sins. There are no sins so dark and awful but we are capable of them. Let us watch and tremble lest we should fall into those insolent, defiant sins which provoke the mighty and glorious Being who has set His glory above the heavens.
3. Let us live in dependence upon Divine aid. “Keep back thy servant.” Cry mightily to God for preventing grace.
4. Let us seek for entire sanctification of spirit (Psa_19:14). It were vain, indeed, for a man to seek to purify his own heart, but David sees in God his Strength and Deliverer. Christ delivers from sin; His Spirit purifies the heart; and that Spirit preserves us with garments unspotted from the world.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 Psa 19:1-6
Psa 19:1-6
Part First.
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The praise of the Divine glory in the natural world of creation is first general (vers. 1-4) and then particular (vers. 4-6).
I. The whole visible expanse of sky is the theme or occasion of praise. Its teaching or testimony is (1) constant and continuous, (2) independent of language, and (3) universal.
II. The commission given generally to the heavens to declare God’s glory and to the firmament to show His handiwork is centred in the particular ascendency and sovereignty of the orb of day. (1) He has a position which implies supremacy. (2) The bright and radiant bravery of the sun is illustrated by significant comparisons. (3) The two leading features of his supremacy are clearly indicated: the wide sweep of his command and the penetrating, all-searching potency of his beams.
Part Second.
The transition from the natural world to the spiritual is made with startling abruptness. As in the stroke of a magic wand, the sun is gone. Another sun breaks forth from a higher heaven—the law of the Lord.
I. This sudden substitution implies similarity or analogy. (1) The law of the Lord has a fixed position; (2) a resplendent beauty and authoritative power; (3) a sweep and range to take in the uttermost bounds of human consciousness and experience, as well as a piercing, fiery energy to ransack every nook and cranny in the thoughts and intents of the human heart.
II. In this great analogy a difference is to be noted. The heavens are the result in time of what God, as the Almighty, is pleased from all eternity to determine fully to do; the law is the image from everlasting to everlasting of what God, as Jehovah, from everlasting to everlasting necessarily is. And as what God in His essential nature is transcends incalculably in glory what God, in the exercise of His discretionary choice, may think fit to do, so the law of Jehovah transcends the heavens which declare His glory, and in which He has set a tabernacle for the sun.
R. S. Candlish, The Gospel of Forgiveness, p. 113.
References: Psa 19:2.—A. Mursell, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xix., p. 147. Psa 19:3.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 249. Psa 19:3, Psa 19:4.—V. Welby Gregory, Expositor, 3rd series, vol. iii., p. 315. Psa 19:4.—W. G. Harder, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vi., p. 398; H. R. Reynolds, Notes of the Christian Life, p. 146. Psa 19:4-6.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvii., No. 1020; A. P. Stanley, Sermons in the East, p. 71.
Psa 19:5
This rising sun is here a figure, token, or shadow of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I. Every one may understand that as the sun is beyond comparison the brightest object in these outward and visible heavens, so the great privilege of the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom and Church of Christ’s saints, is to have the Sun of Righteousness, God made Man, especially present, abiding, and reigning in it. It is the kingdom and Church of Christ; that is all its hope and glory.
II. As Christ is a Sun to His Church by His glorious abiding in it, so the manner in which He came to be so is likened by the Divine Psalmist to a bridegroom coming out of his chamber. He married the nature of God to the nature of man, by taking on Him our flesh, of the substance of His mother, and that without spot of sin, to make us clean from all sin.
III. The Psalmist goes on, next, to tell us that He is still in a certain sense running His course. Our Saviour, God made Man, born for us, and crucified, and risen again, fills the whole Church and the whole world. But His faithful and considerate people are more particularly made aware of His presence by the outward means of grace and the visible ordinances of the holy catholic Church. The doctrine is given in two words by the Apostle when he says concerning the Church that in it "Christ is all and in all." Christ is in every person, and He is every person’s all. Consider these plain thoughts about our duty and practice. (1) According to our profession as Christians, we really regard the most holy Jesus as our all. Surely we shall never willingly miss an opportunity of coming to Him, of prevailing on Him to come more and more to us. (2) Taking that other half of St. Paul’s account of how Christ is the Sun of His Church—that He is in all—there is no Christian who is not partaker of Him. This will give us deep thoughts of our duty to our neighbour, as the other of our services paid to Almighty God. It is a remarkable saying of St. Peter, "Honour all men." Do not only deal kindly with them, but respect and honour them. Why? Because they are made after the image of God. By the same rule, and more, the meanest Christian must be honoured, because he bears Christ about within him. In honouring Christians, we are honouring Christ; loving them, we are loving Him; in going out of our way to serve them, we are making a little sacrifice to Him, who thought not His life too dear to be parted with on the Cross for our salvation.
Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times" vol. i., p. 248 (see also J. Keble, Sermons for the Christian Year: Christmas to Epiphany, p. 12).
References: Psa 19:5, Psa 19:6.—J. C. Hare, Sermons in Herstmonceux Church, p. 227. Psa 19:7.—Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Genesis to Proverbs, p. 147. Psa 19:7-9.—G. Matheson, Expositor, 1st series, vol. xii., p. 89.
Psa 19:7-9
There are here six different names by which the law of Jehovah is called, and six different statements regarding it, corresponding to these different names.
I. "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul." Its very perfection fits it for being the instrument of the Spirit in effecting that result.
II. "The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple." The simple are the credulous ones who listen to any tale, the careless ones who will take no warning. The enmity of the sinner’s carnal mind against God disposes him simply to believe the devil’s lie. The soul must be converted. The simple must be made wise.
III. "The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart." By the statutes of Jehovah we may understand the separate and several precepts of the law, as it is broken up into particulars and brought to bear in detail upon the different realms of thought and affection, or of words and deeds, which it is designed to regulate and rule.
IV. "The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes." The law, which is manifold in its details, is yet one in essence, one in principle. The statutes, which are many, have one centre, the commandment of Jehovah, or, as I would understand the phrase, what is called, and called rightly, the spirit of the law, its general ruling spirit, as distinguished from its special minute requirements and applications. This spirit of the law is clear as crystal, clear as noonday. Hence it has a wondrous efficacy to enlighten the eyes.
V. "The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever." It is a constant and consistent, a permanent and perennial, principle of thought and action. It implies a settled, serene frame of mind, always the same, reverential, conscientious, simple, and guileless, fixed in and on God. It is clean, purged from all sinister aims, all cherished lusts, and the whole miserable scheming of dead formality. And being thus clean, it endureth for ever.
VI. "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." The administration of the law, in the providence of God towards you, is in entire harmony with the establishment of the law in you, as Jehovah commanding and Jehovah feared. And now, as regards the enforcing of it on the part of God, it passes on into yet another formula, and becomes Jehovah judging.
R. S. Candlish, The Gospel of Forgiveness, p. 129.
Reference: Psa 19:8.—J. H. Hitchens, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvii., p. 36.
Psa 19:10-11
I. The value of the law, as compared with gold, may be measured by the good it does; its honey sweetness by its manner of doing it.
II. The twofold commendation of the law in ver. 10 may be taken in connection with what follows as well as with what goes before (ver. 11). (1) "By them is Thy servant warned." This makes them in my esteem more to be desired than gold, yea, than much fine gold. If I am the servant of Jehovah, I desire to be continually warned, admonished at every step, reminded of duty, cautioned against danger. (2) "And in keeping of them there is great reward." This explains their being sweeter than honey. The service is the reward begun; the reward is the service perfected. In serving now, amid whatever sufferings, I have a taste of heaven’s joy.
R. S. Candlish, The Gospel of Forgiveness, p. 153.
Psa 19:11
St. Paul says, "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." Where then is the reward, the great present reward, in keeping God’s commandments? If an uninspired writer had affirmed that the most miserable being in creation would be a Christian supposing him without hopes for the future, there would have been uttered on all hands a vehement contradiction; the disciples of Christ would have pressed eagerly forward, attesting the possession of such a measure of gladness and peace that if deceived for hereafter, the advantage was on the side of the deception.
I. It were nothing to prove to the lukewarm professor that there should be no resurrection; he has never known the ecstasies of piety, and therefore he feels not the appalling declaration. But it is different with a man whose whole soul is in his religion, who upholds himself in every trial by the consolation which he draws from the future, and who finds a refuge from every grief and a deep fountain to cleanse in the conviction that Christ has abolished death and opened an eternal kingdom to His followers. It must be the extreme point of misery at which a righteous man would be placed who, having taken up Christianity as a charter of the future, should find it altogether limited to the present, and we can contend for it therefore as a literal truth that by bringing home to the true Christian a proof that there is no resurrection you would instantly make him "of all men most miserable." But since you can find no such proof, there is nothing in the saying of St. Paul to invalidate this saying of the Psalmist in our text. U. Whilst we maintain that there are present enjoyments in religion which vastly more than counterpoise the disquietude it may cause, we are certain that if Christian hope were suddenly bounded by the horizon of time, then all this present enjoyment would be virtually destroyed. Each present enjoyment in religion anticipates the future. What would you leave the believer if you intercepted those flashings from the far-off country which struggle through the mist and cloud of this region of eclipse, and shed lustre round the path by which he toils on to glory? Who then shall rival the Christian in misery if, after setting out in the expectation of a blessed immortality, he discovers that only in this life is there hope in Christ? He loses the enjoyments of religion, he cannot relish the enjoyments of irreligion, stripped of the acquired, unfitted for the natural, knowing that he is doomed to be an outcast hereafter, and unable to cheat himself with forgetfulness here. It is nothing against the truth of our text that St. Paul applies the epithet "most miserable" to Christians if Christ had not opened to them eternity. Christ has opened to them eternity; and therefore we can confidently say, with the Psalmist, of the commandments of God, "Moreover by them is Thy servant warned, and in keeping of them there is great reward."
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2625.
Psa 19:12
I. How is it that sin possesses the power of deceiving; that, being foul, it can often look so fair, or where it cannot conceal altogether, can yet conceal to so large an extent, its native hideousness? I need hardly answer that it derives this power altogether from ourselves. There is that in every one of us which is always ready to take the part of sin, to plead for sin, to be upon sin’s side, sin having a natural correspondence and affinity with everything which is corrupt and fallen within us. There is (1) our love of ease; (2) our love of pleasure; (3) our pride. All the pride as well as all the passions of man are enlisted on the side of sin.
II. How shall we deliver ourselves from these sorceries of sin? How shall we understand our errors, or at least understand that we can never understand them to the full, and thus seek of God that He would cleanse us from them? (1) Grasp with a full and firm faith the blessed truth of the one sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction made for your sins. (2) Remember that He who made that atonement for your sins, and so enabled you to look them in the face—for they are sins not imputed any more—is also the Giver of the Spirit, of that Spirit which convinces us of sin, of righteousness, of judgment to come. Ask of God, and ask earnestly, and ask continually, for this convincing Spirit.
R. C. Trench, Sermons Preached in Ireland, p. 36.
I. The most ready method of convincing ourselves of the existence in us of faults unknown to ourselves is to consider how plainly we see the secret faults of others.
II. Consider the actual disclosures of our hidden weakness which accidents occasion. We cannot tell how we should act if brought under temptations different from those which we have hitherto experienced. This thought should keep us humble. We are sinners, but we do not know how great. He alone knows who died for our sins.
III. What if we do not know ourselves even where we have been tried and found faithful? Faithful Abraham, through want of faith, denied his wife. Moses, the meekest of men, was excluded from the land of promise for a passionate word. The wisdom of Solomon was seduced to bow down to idols.
IV. No one begins to examine himself and to pray to know himself, like David in the text, but he finds within him an abundance of faults which before were either entirely or almost entirely unknown to him.
V. But let a man persevere in prayer and watchfulness to the day of his death, yet he will never get to the bottom of his heart. Doubtless we must all endure that fiery and terrifying vision of our real selves, that last fiery trial of the soul before its acceptance, a spiritual agony and second death to all who are not then supported by the strength of Him who died to bring them safe through it, and in whom on earth they have believed.
VI. Call to mind the impediments that are in the way of our knowing ourselves. (1) Self-knowledge requires an effort and a work. (2) Self-love answers for our safety. (3) This favourable judgment of ourselves will specially prevail if we have the misfortune to have uninterrupted health, and high spirits, and domestic comfort. (4) The force of habit makes sins once known become secret sins. (5) To the force of habit must be added that of custom. The most religious men, unless they are specially watchful, will feel the sway of the fashion of their age, and suffer from it, as Lot in wicked Sodom, though unconsciously. (6) Our chief guide amid the evil and seducing customs of the world is obviously the Bible. "The world passeth away; but the word of the Lord endureth for ever." How much extended then, and strengthened, necessarily must be this secret dominion of sin over us when we consider how little we read Scripture! (7) To think of these things, and to be alarmed, is the first step towards acceptable obedience; to be at ease is to be unsafe. We must know what the evil of sin is hereafter if we do not learn it here.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. i., p. 41.
Psa 19:12-14
I. The first prayer, "Cleanse Thou me from secret faults," springs naturally out of the complaint, "Who can understand his errors?" Germs of evil are in our nature that can never be estimated or counted. You may trace and track sin in its outward manifestations, you may reach it inwardly in its volitions or movements of voluntary choice, but still more deeply seated is the mystery of iniquity in the inner man.
II. In your spiritual exercise of soul upon Jehovah’s law, you find secret faults bordering on the region of presumptuous sins. These are acts of the will, as the former are faults of the nature. The prayer implies a keen and vivid apprehension of our liability to such sins.
III. "Let them not have dominion over me." There is the possibility of a sad downward tendency indicated here. Any natural lust, if the will consents to it but a little and but for a little, becomes a tyrant whose yoke it is hard indeed to shake off. It acquires and wields the stern dominion of habit.
IV. "Then shall I be upright." If you follow the course deprecated in the preceding petitions, you must cease to be upright.
V. There is still one more disaster which the spiritual man dreads. He is alive to the terrible risk and danger of the "great transgression." I take this expression to denote the unpardonable sin, the sin against the Holy Ghost which can never be forgiven.
VI. In the closing words the Psalmist prays generally and universally that always and everywhere the words of his mouth and the meditation of his heart may be such as God may accept.
R. S. Candlish, The Gospel of Forgiveness, p. 164.
References: Psa 19:12.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vi., No. 299; Ibid., vol. iii., No. 116; J. Jackson, Repentance: its Necessity, Nature, and Use, p. 78; H. Thompson, Concionalia: Outlines for Parochial Use, 1st series, vol. i., p. 111; J. Caird, Sermons, p. 40; J. M. Wilson, Sermons in Clifton College Chapel, p. 60. Psa 19:13.—Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 76. Psa 19:13, Psa 19:14.—J. Keble, Sermons for the Christian Year: Lent to Passiontide, p. 95. Psa 19:14.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iii., p. 287. Psalm 19—A. Maclaren, Life of David, p. 24; J. Oswald Dykes, Expositor, 1st series, vol. ix., p. 42; P. Thompson, Ibid., 2nd series, vol. i., p. 170; I.Williams, The Psalms Interpreted of Christ, p. 361.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v1 The power of creation and of the law.
The power of creation and of the law.
To the chief musician: a psalm of David.
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The nineteenth psalm gives us, then, the prior witness before Christ came, but which faith realizes as what the apostle calls the law, -the "word of the beginning of Christ." (Heb 6:1, marg.) If the knowledge of the new man is that "Christ is all," (Col 3:10-11,) then He must be found in creation and law alike, or these must be thrown aside as unworthy of contemplation or regard.
And in fact with the many this seems to have been very much the case; the retribution having now come -who can wonder? -in the one falling into the hands of the higher critic for exposition, the other into those of the Darwinian evolutionist. Scripture has not the responsibility of this, we may be sure; and our only hope is in coming back to Scripture.
1. Even the creed, which has been long called the apostles’, and which, though not that, has expressed since the ninth century the faith of the western church, -nay, the Nicene, five centuries earlier, and put forth to maintain the divine glory of Christ, -both of these ascribe the work of creation only to the Father. The apostle Paul, on the other hand, declares of the Son, that "all things were created by Him, and for Him," (Col 1:16); and the apostle John, that "by Him," as the "Word of God," the Revealer, "all things were made; and without Him was not anything made that was made." (Joh 1:3.) Thus if "the expanse telleth the work of His hands," we may well expect it not to be silent as to Him in whose Person only there has been full revelation made of God. And it is not silent: for the very orb that brings the day is, as we have long since learned, His symbol; and the night is constituted by the absence of this.
Creation is the earliest witness of God to man, though, as soon as man fell, he had need of, and in the mercy of God found, addition to it. If men turned their back on that, or corrupted it with their own folly, the witness of creation still remained, and they could not silence this. "For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead: so that they are without excuse." (Rom 1:20.)
Here it is the heavens alone that are brought forward in testimony, -those heavens so suggestive of infinity and power, to which in their paths the stars move in orderly subjection. "The heavens declare the glory of God," -El, "the Mighty"; "and the expanse telleth the work of His hands."
The testimony is continuous and progressive. One day adds its tale to that of another, and one night likewise to that which is gone before it. Never exhausted, the story never ends. The day with its multitudinous voices, subdued each by the very multitude of them, is like a river of speech flowing on continuously: while the night, with its quiet breathing, speaks in the hush perhaps more intelligibly to the more attentive ear.
Speech, then, the psalmist ascribes to creation; and he is earnest about it: he would have us know that he means fully what he says. It is "speech" and it is "words," he says, -really that: words, in spite of the sneer of the skeptic, -in spite of the dullness of the people of God themselves, -words really to be heard by those that listen for them. A poor, flat, unprofitable thing to say, affirms the higher critic of the day: out with it! what use in letting us know that words have meaning?* But, indeed, there is signal use in insisting upon that which, after all, is so feebly realized, or even understood. Granted there is something known as "natural theology" which students of divinity are supposed to study, and a few others know something about, -how much does the average Christian hear of this continual witness to God of the multitudinous voices of the day and night? How far are the natural sciences converted to God today? Still more must we ask, how far are they Christianized? What another thing would our lives be, if this were so!
{*So Cheyne, in his pretentious book upon the Psalms, in which the whole parade of modern learning, is turned out to assure the simple believer how impossible it is for him to understand them aright apart from this. This writer has a gift for scenting the air of a certain period -especially the Maccabean -about a psalm, and knows by an instinct that cannot deceive him how impossible it is for a writer to rise -or be raised -above his "period." "Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis." We will let him give us a specimen of his method and results, as we find it in his recent volume of Bampton Lectures (pp. 191,192): —
"Let this lecturer then say for himself that he cannot divide sharply between the age of David, and that, say, of Isaiah. The latter is no Christian, nor is the former a heathen. It is possible, that if we had a sufficient number of the more religious psalms of David, we might detect in them some real affinities to the religion of Isaiah [?! ]. But it may be questioned whether these affinities would have struck an uncritical observer; and, above all, whether either David (who was not a church leader like Zoroaster) or even Isaiah could have dreamed of church hymns such as those contained in the Psalter. That David was a gifted musician is indeed attested, not only by the prophet (Amo 6:5, but not according to the Septuagint), but by one of the very earliest historical traditions (1Sa 16:14-23), and we may assume that he could also, like the Arab prince-poet, Imra al Kais, as a ’sweet song-maker’ (2Sa 23:1) fascinate his half-primitive people. His poetry would, of course, be chiefly occasional in its character. The early races quickly fell into the moods of joy and grief, both of which required the services of the poet;" [for the services of the critic, now so essential, they could, it seems, somehow afford to wait!] "but, strange to say, passionately as the Israelites loved dancing (cf. 1Sa 20:11, Jer 30:19, Jer 31:4), the only two indubitably Davidic compositions are in the elegiac style. You know them full well: one is in 2Sa 1:19-27, the other in 2Sa 3:33-34. . . . But though these may be the only authentic specimens of David’s work, and his posthumous fame rested chiefly upon his secular poetry (Amo 6:5), we need not assume that all his compositions had a non-religious character."!!
This is from an "Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture" at Oxford, and a Canon of Rochester. We do not propose to review it: it is a pyramid which will hardly stand upon its apex, as the audacious theorist imagines. It is solemn, indeed, to know that for a system which everywhere eliminates from Scripture that which makes it to be indeed "the word of God," the writer claims "the continual guidance both of the Church and of each faithful Christian by the Holy Spirit." (Bampton Lectures, p. 25.) This, and "the principle of the Kenosis [or, as it has been lately paraphrased, the self-limitation] of the Divine Son" seem to Prof. Cheyne "the only possible foundation for a reform of apologetics suited to our English orthodoxy." One shrinks from putting this into the plain English necessary to convey it to any simple Christian. It means just this: that the only way of saving the mutilated Bible which may be left us by the critics from the contempt of infidelity, is to refer its mutilation to the Spirit of God acting in the critics, and leading them to a more advanced point of view than the Lord Himself, with the limitation of human ignorance to which He was pleased to condescend, ever attained!! This is, alas, to be now "our English orthodoxy", and fearless criticism of the kind adduced is now to be urged as "fearless FAITH in the Paraclete." Surely the enemy of truth is "coming in like a flood." May the Spirit of the Lord lift up a standard against him!}
True, the language here is parabolic: as such the Lord used it; in this way He took up nature, without apology, -sometimes without explanation. And when on a certain occasion He had done this, and the disciples appealed to Him for explanation, He rebuked them for their need of it. "Know ye not this parable?" He asked: "and how, then, will ye know all parables?" (Mar 4:13.) Wonderful words, which show what He expects from us! -which show also what a wealth of understanding may be ours. If nature be in this way the very realm of parables, how then should nature lie open to us throughout its wide extent! How familiar, after all the centuries of acquaintance with it, should its voices sound to us! But, if we will not let Christ be the Teacher of natural things to us, it is not hard to prophesy who will slip into His seat, and teach us. For the strife between Christ and the devil allows of no neutrality: that which is not for Christ is against Him; the unoccupied ground grows weeds and thorns and briars. Nature itself may teach us things like these.
Let us take the shame, then, of needing so simple a thing to be enforced, as that nature’s speech is intended to be heard. As the universal witness, its doctrine is not intended to be esoteric, but for all. As a matter of fact, perverted though it be, the speech of all people is in nature’s words. The rudest and the simplest use most its picture-signs. "Their line is gone out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world."
{Verse 4, The Septuagint gives "sound" and this the apostle quotes in Rom 10:1-21.}
Across these heavens, from his chamber in the ends of them, goes forth the unfailing sun; in perpetual vigor, spreading around the joy which is associated with his presence: for "a pleasant thing it is to behold the sun." His seems indeed the joy of strength, -the joy that springs out of realized competency. Always filling his place, -always full-orbed, -always the centre of light, though the clouds of earth may gather and shut him in, -always the centre of warmth, though the winter may build up its barrier of frost against him, -darkness and cold and death the sure result of his absence: if this be a parable then, is there any possible way but one in which to interpret it? Or does Scripture fail to reveal its meaning?
The Bridegroom coming forth of His chamber, who is at the same time the "Sun of righteousness" that "shall arise with healing in His wings," source of light, of life, of fruitfulness, to the whole earth rejoicing in His beams: shall we look at this picture and yet find Theism indeed, but not Christology, in nature’s lessons? Or shall we speak slightingly of "parables" as after all merely the ingenious play of fancy, brilliant perhaps but unreal, not rooted in the nature of things? able to give, therefore, no deep, true, (if you will,) scientific glance into that nature? Nay: this is their real spiritual equivalent, and spirit is the essence of things, and gives the law of external nature. As it is said of Israel’s history, that "all these things happened unto them for types," so it is true of nature that all these things are arranged and ordered so that it should be the true reflection of the glory of God; -so that its voices should tell Him forth. And instead of being unscientific, to follow this out would give us truest science, would relieve us of much that causes sorest perplexity, would bring the material and spiritual into perfect reconciliation, and God into everything that He has made. Is this to be desired? It is the one thing which gives all knowledge value. It is that which alone can establish science itself; nay, lift it up into the sphere of the eternal! It will be its immeasurable exaltation. Finally, it will make our Bible the unifier and key of every kind of knowledge, and Christ, in result, the sum of it. Is this, Christian reader, a thing desirable? Is it to you a thing credible? It is that of which the apostle assures us, that the knowledge of the "new man," "renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him," is that "Christ is ALL, and in all." (Col 3:10-11.)
If this were apprehended, how would our minds be opened and enlarged to take in truth by every avenue open to us! What a guide should we have in those depths unexplorable by mere human intellect, -"the Spirit" that "searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." (1Co 2:10.) What a standard by which to judge of all the principles of science! What a confirmation of each by each as these two witnesses (His word and work) were brought into one harmonious testimony! What a satisfaction of the desires of the heart that pants after God!
Not in vain, then, has the psalmist put into his contemplation of the heavens this picture of the Ruler of the Day, this glorious source of energy for the earth, as the science of the time would not hesitate to speak of it. In doing this, he has but been preaching Christ to us from a text broad writ in the heavens. And it is sweet to turn back from this to the first chapter of Genesis, and to see how the books of nature and of Scripture begin together thus with the unfolding of Christ! The "light" of the first day, (which God is, in its spiritual significance,) put, on the fourth, upon its material candlestick, as the Old Testament revelation of God, becomes for us in the New the glory of the Only-begotten in the Man Christ Jesus. And here is what may assure us of the science of Moses, that it is sealed thus with the seal of the King of kings. Christ is in it, a living picture, a likeness speaking for itself as drawn by the Author of nature Himself, and so really still, day by day, pouring forth speech. Moses has only been the scribe recording this utterance; but a faithful one.
Service is blessed work when it is true, and Christ least of all disdains this character of Servant. In the fifth verse we see Him as this, keeping to His God-ordained course, His "circuit," which brings Him back to be in His place in the morning, the earth’s timekeeper, as all else. Look but a little deeper, this may seem all upset: it is the earth that is turning upon itself, even while it circles around him; and this only establishes the true relation, after all, between the soul and Christ: to Him it owes its obedience, and revolves around Him, and fidelity to Him is the path in which we find Him, "faithful and true." Yet after all, the first thought was not untrue, -in some sense it was the truest. The tie between the earth and sun is mutual, as the law of gravity assures us, strongest upon the sun’s side, which continually pours out upon the earth its fructifying light and heat, "nothing hid from the heat thereof." The "less is blessed of the better." Servant of God for us, Servant even to us in His love, this and His Lordship are not opposed or contrary in the Christ of God. While all our changes, (which, without due self-knowledge, may seem His,) all that they make known of us, do but approve His faithfulness to the ordained path of perfect wisdom and right government.
This is, of course, but an illustration, -a typical example of nature’s teaching. It is all we can expect in this place. We are now to listen to another testimony.
2. Creation bears witness to God,who as Creator knows no difference of nations or of classes. Jew and Gentile are equal in His eyes, and men as a whole "His offspring." But they -not He -have got away from this. Hence, even in the interests of men at large, the call of Israel out from the nations, to be the conservator of truth from which on all sides they had departed, otherwise destined to be lost out of the world. Hence her necessary isolation, while yet in the centre of the great lines of the world’s traffic: like one of her own cities of refuge, with its roads kept open on every side, and its safe keeping for the man who fled to it.
Israel’s law was thus a testimony to Jehovah, Israel’s God; who is of course also the Creator, the God of all, but driven, as it were, by the unbelief of men, into this exceptional place. Thus it is that with Israel alone is found the pure record of creation itself; which we find in Assyria and Babylonia overlaid with the perversions of men turning from the truth, and given up to fables. Abundant evidence is there in the comparison of these, that in the beginning the account was one, and that thus the truth they had, which they had given up. "When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened."
Israel were in themselves no better, and not because of any betterness in them did God take them up. Among them also, if the truth were found, it was found in continual strife with the evil and unbelief of man. If it were maintained, it was maintained with a strong hand which chastened for iniquity. Their history is, as Moses testified against them, that of a stiff-necked and disobedient people; and to our own day what else has been the history of the professing people of God?
But He had in His heart purposes of love to man that must be fulfilled, which the ages slowly, because everything should be written large and fully before the eyes of the universe, and fixed on the tablets of eternal remembrance, -slowly indeed, yet continuously, were to work out. Israel in those purposes were the elect of God; and Jehovah, His covenant name with them, throws up, as a rampart against the power of evil, the pledge of His immutability and truth. His law is thus inflexible, as founded upon the holiness of His nature, and yet wedded indissolubly to these purposes of His grace. If it condemned and humbled, it was yet a "ministration" -a ministry of love in doing this, -a " ministration of death" and "of condemnation." (2Co 3:7; 2Co 3:9.) In itself "holy, just, and good," it was the delight of the renewed nature. But the effect was, on this very account, the humbling of man before God, the abasement of all self-righteousness, and thus in the end the preparation for the gospel of salvation.
The testimony of the law has then its right place just here in this nineteenth psalm, where it is found; and found in this double character also, as testimony to the holiness of God, and so searching the heart before God. In the next psalm we go on to the salvation for the reception of which the way is thus prepared.
"The law of Jehovah is perfect, restoring the soul": converting," in the broader sense of the word, would not be wrong, -that is, turning it from any wrong path. Torah, "the law," means literally that which points out the way; and as "perfect" it is an infallible guide. Its certainty for guidance is therefore what is here declared. The soul as the impulsive part of man’s nature is that which needs to be turned or restrained from following its own inclinations, and so is named here. How blessed to have the certainty which is found in listening to God’s voice. It is the first point of all, clearly, for blessing. Apart from this, wisdom and folly, holiness and unholiness, are names, and nothing else. We seek to please God, and know not but we offend Him. The road we take to heaven may, after all, be the road to hell: for "there is a way that seemeth right unto a man, and the end thereof are the ways of death." (Pro 14:12.) When God has spoken, and we have heard His voice, our path then becomes that of simple obedience; we are not left to prove it by results, which come all too late for help as to what is before us. Results, so far as these can be depended on even, testify but of what, being past, is already beyond recall.
But in God’s path, -realizing that we are there, -results are in His hand. "The servant knoweth not what his lord doeth"; but the servant of God may be well assured that power is in His hand to carry out the purposes of unfailing wisdom. He may be at rest therefore. "Great peace have they that love Thy law, and nothing shall stumble them." (Psa 119:165, marg.)
This is what, first of all, -priceless boon it is! -the law of the Lord secures: a heart at rest. One may not know the future; but he knows his present Guide: and the future can have no disappointment or surprise for Him who sees the end from the beginning.
And to this the second part of the verse here corresponds. "The testimony of Jehovah" takes quite different ground from that of the "law." Its appeal is not, as that of the latter, to authority, but to fact and truth; and "the testimony of Jehovah is sure," beyond possibility of overthrow. His are the lips of truth: to Him who is the Omnipotent it is yet an impossibility to lie; day to day, night to night, gather a constantly increasing experience which proclaims His faithfulness. So that His testimony "maketh wise the simple" or inexperienced, with the wisdom of experience. Faith, then, is not credulity. It is not necessary to it to shut one’s eyes. He who is Light leads in the light. Question, scrutinize, use every faculty that He has given: they shall not be put to shame; only o’erpassed, as finite by the Infinite, and blessed and drawn out by the very overpassing. Not a soul brought to God but the intellect expands as the heart does. Christ dwelling within must needs enlarge the place of His dwelling. His testimony received makes wise the simple.
The next couplet speaks of moral discernment, putting a difference; but the terms used are not exactly what we are accustomed to, and need to be put together according to the parallelism, in order to be clearly seen. We have here on the one hand, not the law as a whole, but its "precepts," -the details in which, with "line upon line," the application of its principles is made to all the circumstances of daily life. These concrete forms more clearly show us the principles they embody, and the "commandment of Jehovah," though not a plural, is only meant in this way to individualize more thoroughly the single precept.
The precepts of Jehovah are right; the commandment of Jehovah is pure: thus we have now moral character. What connects itself with these respectively is that the right precepts "rejoice the heart," the pure commandment "enlightens the eyes." The parallelism is here thought to be maintained by the latter phrase being taken as indicating revival, refreshment, as when Jonathan tasted the honey in the wood, it is said that "his eyes were lightened." The numerical structure seems to plead for a different meaning, and one more consonant perhaps with the parallelism itself, which should not be mere repetition but advance in significance. In Ephesians we find (Eph 1:18, R.V.) "having the eyes of your heart enlightened," -an expression which connects the two parts of this together. The heart is indeed that which largely governs the eyes; and the joy of the heart in Jehovah’s precepts enables the eyes to discern aright. From the opposite of this all error, in fact, proceeds.
In the third parallel, in harmony with its numerical significance, we come to the principle which underlies all this, which is "the fear of Jehovah" Himself, and which is "clean," -frees from the defilement which forbids approach to or communion with Him. Thus it has the real elements of endurance in it: for the favor of God has that; what is in harmony with His mind abides. So also the judgments of Jehovah, to which the fear of Him causes us to cling, are truth; and thus, according to the primary meaning of the word, firm and stable. "They are righteous altogether": and the righteous is an everlasting foundation." (Pro 10:25.)
From all this comes the value that experience sets upon these divine words," more desirable than gold," -much of it and refined; and for enjoyment, sweeter to the taste than the purest honey, that which drops and is not pressed out of the comb.
Conscience also is exercised by them: a thing which the true servant of God is able to appreciate. Happy is he who can invite the light of God’s word to search out all his heart, shunning no ray of it. The "reward" found is both one present and to come, -in that day when no reserve will be possible any longer.
3. The third and last section of the psalm is a prayer to God Himself, into whose presence the soul has thus been brought, to find itself naked and open to Eyes that see beyond all that the fullest self-consciousness can be aware of. And these inaccessible depths, what are they? What may appear in them, when the secrets of all hearts shall be exposed? Alas, it is not because of their profundity, but because of their tortuous labyrinths comes the difficulty -the impossibility -of exploration: "the heart is deceitful above all things . . . who can know it?"
Our comfort, then, must be in turning away from ourselves to Him in whom we can have a confidence that in ourselves we cannot; and in the knowledge that He fully knows us, yet turns not from us because of what He knows. We can understand the joy of the woman of Samaria, who had found the Christ in Him who had told her all things she had done. But He had first opened to her the heart of God, and assured her of her welcome to Him. Grace had heralded the truth to her, and made her glad to have it told her.
So here, with the conviction "who understandeth his errors?" the psalmist turns in confidence to God with the prayer, "Free me from things hidden from me." Sins are not harmless because unknown. They are still sins, as witness the law of sacrifice. (Lev 4:2; Lev 4:13, etc.) The dust of a defiling world settles down on us silently, and the mirror of conscience is dulled ere we are aware. The basin and towel in the Lord’s hand (Joh 13:1-38) are requisite, not when we are conscious of evil merely, but because we are too little conscious. Hardening is not only by the open front of sin: for the Christian it is more generally through its deceitfulness. (Heb 3:13.) Satan does not in general present himself as Satan, nor sin as sin; but the dress changes nothing of its character.
Between sins of ignorance and presumptuous sins there is, of course, an immense difference. While all sin is, as already said, sin, and the want of knowledge can never justify us, with God’s word in our hand, and Himself so accessible for our enlightenment, yet a sin committed in real ignorance does not shut out God as a sin against conscience does. If it were so, communion would be impossible to any, short of practical perfection. But He is tender and merciful, and of infinite compassion. It would not be this to pass over that which argues a spirit of "revolt," which trifles with His known will. Here, too, we must take care; for we may trifle with His will by refusing to seek the light, as well as by refusing to walk by it when we have it. And this, one must fear, is the cause of many blighted lives among the children of God. They do not know, indeed, the evil paths they are in, but they have, nevertheless, as it were instinctively, turned from and refused the knowledge. Not willing to be disturbed, or to abide the cost of truth, they give up seeking it, -at least, in the dreaded line. But they cannot so escape from the consequences, terrible as some day they will find them, of real disobedience.
We can find our safeguard only in the sanctuary. The Lord Himself is our constant necessity; and the self-distrust is wholesome that keeps us close to Him. So the cry here now: "Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins: let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright; I shall be innocent of great revolt." And the psalm ends with the longing desire for positive sanctification, -the acceptance of heart and mouth before God -this God, known in the power of His salvation ever (Joh 4:22), -"Jehovah, my Rock and my Redeemer."
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv12–13
Psalms
SECRET FAULTS
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Psa 19:12.
The contemplation of the ‘perfect law, enlightening the eyes,’ sends the Psalmist to his knees. He is appalled by his own shortcomings, and feels that, beside all those of which he is aware, there is a region, as yet unilluminated by that law, where evil things nestle and breed.
The Jewish ritual drew a broad distinction between inadvertent-whether involuntary or ignorant-and deliberate sins; providing atonement for the former, not for the latter. The word in my text rendered ‘errors’ is closely connected with that which in the Levitical system designates the former class of transgressions; and the connection between the two clauses of the text, as well as that with the subsequent verse, distinctly shows that the ‘secret faults’ of the one clause are substantially synonymous with the ‘errors’ of the other.
They are, then, not sins hidden from men, whether because they have been done quietly in a corner, and remain undetected, or because they have only been in thought, never passing into act. Both of these pages are dark in every man’s memory. Who is there that could reveal himself to men? who is there that could bear the sight of a naked soul? But the Psalmist is thinking of a still more solemn fact, that, beyond the range of conscience and consciousness, there are evils in us all. It may do us good to ponder his discovery that he had undiscovered sins, and to take for ours his prayer, ‘Cleanse Thou me from secret faults.’
I. So I ask you to look with me, briefly, first, at the solemn fact here, that there are in every man sins of which the doer is unaware.
It is with our characters as with our faces. Few of us are familiar with our own appearance, and most of us, if we have looked at our portraits, have felt a little shock of surprise, and been ready to say to ourselves, ‘Well! I did not know that I looked like that!’ And the bulk even of good men are almost as much strangers to their inward physiognomy as to their outward. They see themselves in their looking-glasses every morning, although they ‘go away and forget what manner of men’ they were. But they do not see their true selves in the same fashion in any other mirror. It is the very characteristic of all evil that it has a strange power of deceiving a man as to its real character; like the cuttle-fish, that squirts out a cloud of ink and so escapes in the darkness and the dirt. The more a man goes wrong the less he knows it. Conscience is loudest when it is least needed, and most silent when most required.
Then, besides that, there is a great part of every one’s life which is mechanical, instinctive, and all but involuntary. Habits and emotions and passing impulses very seldom come into men’s consciousness, and an enormously large proportion of everybody’s life is done with the minimum of attention, and is as little remembered as it is observed.
Then, besides that, conscience wants educating. You see that on a large scale, for instance, in the history of the slow progress which Christian principle has made in leavening the world’s thinkings. It took eighteen centuries to teach the Church that slavery was unchristian. The Church has not yet learned that war is unchristian, and it is only beginning to surmise that possibly Christian principle may have something to say in social questions, and in the determination, for example, of the relations of capital and labour, and of wealth and poverty. The very same slowness of apprehension and gradual growth in the education of conscience, and in the perception of the application of Christian principles to duty, applies to the individual as to the Church.
Then, besides that, we are all biassed in our own favour, and what, when another man says it, is ‘flat blasphemy,’ we think, when we say it, is only ‘a choleric word.’ We have fine names for our own vices, and ugly ones for the very same vices in other people. David will flare up into generous and sincere indignation about the man that stole the poor man’s ewe lamb, but he has not the ghost of a notion that he has been doing the very same thing himself. And so we bribe our consciences as well as neglect them, and they need to be educated.
Thus, down below every life there lies a great dim region of habits and impulses and fleeting emotions, into which it is the rarest thing for a man to go with a candle in his hand to see what it is like.
But I can imagine a man saying, ‘Well, if I do not know that I am doing wrong, how can it be a sin?’ In answer to that, I would say that, thank God! ignorance diminishes criminality, but ignorance does not alter the nature of the deed. Take a simple illustration. Here is a man who, all unconsciously to himself, is allowing worldly prosperity to sap his Christian character. He does not know that the great current of his life has been turned aside, as it were, by that sluice, and is taken to drive the wheels of his mill, and that there is only a miserable little trickle coming down the river bed. Is he any less guilty because he does not know? Is he not the more so, because he might and would have known if he had thought and felt right? Or, here is another man who has the habit of letting his temper get the better of him. He calls it ‘stern adherence to principle,’ or ‘righteous indignation’; and he thinks himself very badly used when other people ‘drive him’ so often into a temper. Other people know, and he might know, if he would be honest with himself, that, for all his fine names, it is nothing else than passion. Is he any the less guilty because of his ignorance? It is plain enough that, whilst ignorance, if it is absolute and inevitable, does diminish criminality to the vanishing point, the ignorance of our own faults which most of us display is neither absolute nor inevitable; and therefore, though it may, thank God! diminish, it does not destroy our guilt. ‘She wipeth her mouth and saith, I have done no harm’: was she, therefore, chaste and pure? In all our hearts there are many vermin lurking beneath the stones, and they are none the less poisonous because they live and multiply in the dark. ‘I know nothing against myself, yet am I not hereby justified. But he that judgeth me is the Lord.’
II. Now, secondly, let me ask you to look at the special perilousness of these hidden faults.
As with a blight upon a rose-tree, the little green creatures lurk on the underside of the leaves, and in all the folds of the buds, and because unseen, they increase with alarming rapidity. The very fact that we have faults in our characters, which everybody sees but ourselves, makes it certain that they will grow unchecked, and so will prove terribly perilous. The small things of life are the great things of life. For a man’s character is made up of them, and of their results, striking inwards upon himself. A wine-glassful of water with one drop of mud in it may not be much obscured, but if you come to multiply it into a lakeful, you will have muddy waves that reflect no heavens, and show no gleaming stars.
These secret faults are like a fungus that has grown in a wine-cask, whose presence nobody suspected. It sucks up all the generous liquor to feed its own filthiness, and when the staves are broken, there is no wine left, nothing but the foul growth. Many a Christian man and woman has the whole Christian life arrested, and all but annihilated, by the unsuspected influence of a secret sin. I do not believe it would be exaggeration to say that, for one man who has made shipwreck of his faith and lost his peace by reason of some gross transgression, there are twenty who have fallen into the same condition by reason of the multitude of small ones. ‘He that despiseth little things shall fall by little and little’; and whilst the deeds which the Ten Commandments rebuke are damning to a Christian character, still more perilous, because unseen, and permitted to grow without check or restraint, are these unconscious sins. ‘Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth.’
III. Notice the discipline, or practical issues, to which such considerations should lead.
To begin with, they ought to take down our self-complacency, if we have any, and to make us feel that, after all, our characters are very poor things. If men praise us, let us try to remember what it will be good for us to remember, too, when we are tempted to praise ourselves-the underworld of darkness which each of us carries about within us.
Further, let me press upon you two practical points. This whole set of contemplations should make us practise a very rigid and close self-inspection. There will always be much that will escape our observation-we shall gradually grow to know more and more of it-but there can be no excuse for that which I fear is a terribly common characteristic of the professing Christianity of this day-the all but entire absence of close inspection of one’s own character and conduct. I know very well that it is not a wholesome thing for a man to be always poking in his own feelings and emotions. I know also that, in a former generation, there was far too much introspection, instead of looking to Jesus Christ and forgetting self. I do not believe that self-examination, directed to the discovery of reasons for trusting the sincerity of my own faith, is a good thing. But I do believe that, without the practice of careful weighing of ourselves, there will be very little growth in anything that is noble and good.
The old Greeks used to preach, ‘Know thyself.’ It was a high behest, and very often a very vain-glorious one. A man’s best means of knowing what he is, is to take stock of what he does. If you will put your conduct through the sieve, you will come to a pretty good understanding of your character. ‘He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls,’ into which all enemies can leap unhindered, and out from which all things that will may pass. Do you set guards at the gates and watch yourselves with all carefulness.
Then, again, I would say we must try to diminish as much as possible the mere instinctive and habitual and mechanical part of our lives, and to bring, as far as we can, every action under the conscious dominion of principle. The less we live by impulse, and the more we live by intelligent reflection, the better it will be for us. The more we can get habit on the side of goodness, the better; but the more we break up our habits, and make each individual action the result of a special volition of the spirit guided by reason and conscience, the better for us all.
Then, again, I would say, set yourselves to educate your consciences. They need that. One of the surest ways of making conscience more sensitive is always to consult it and always to obey it. If you neglect it, and let it prophesy to the wind, it will stop speaking before long. Herod could not get a word out of Christ when he ‘asked Him many questions’ because for years he had not cared to hear His voice. And conscience, like the Lord of conscience, will hold its peace after men have neglected its speech. You can pull the clapper out of the bell upon the rock, and then, though the waves may dash, there will not be a sound, and the vessel will drive straight on to the black teeth that are waiting for it. Educate your conscience by obeying it, and by getting into the habit of bringing everything to its bar.
And, still further, compare yourselves constantly with your model. Do as the art students do in a gallery, take your poor daub right into the presence of the masterpiece, and go over it line by line and tint by tint. Get near Jesus Christ that you may learn your duty from Him, and you will find out many of the secret sins.
And, lastly, let us ask God to cleanse us.
My text, as translated in the Revised Version, says, ‘Clear Thou me from secret faults.’ And there is present in that word, if not exclusively, at least predominantly, the idea of a judicial acquittal, so that the thought of the first clause of this verse seems rather to be that of pronouncing guiltless, or forgiving, than that of delivering from the power of. But both, no doubt, are included in the idea, as both, in fact, come from the same source and in response to the same cry.
And so we may be sure that, though our eye does not go down into the dark depths, God’s eye goes, and that where He looks He looks to pardon, if we come to Him through Jesus Christ our Lord.
He will deliver us from the power of these secret faults, giving to us that divine Spirit which is ‘the candle of the Lord,’ to search us, and to convince of our sins, and to drag our evil into the light; and giving us the help without which we can never overcome. The only way for us to be delivered from the dominion of our unconscious faults is to increase the depth and closeness and constancy of our communion with Jesus Christ; and then they will drop away from us. Mosquitoes and malaria, the one unseen in their minuteness, and the other, ‘the pestilence that walketh in darkness,’ haunt the swamps. Go up on the hilltop, and neither of them are found. So if we live more and more on the high levels, in communion with our Master, there will be fewer and fewer of these unconscious sins buzzing and stinging and poisoning our lives, and more and more will His grace conquer and cleanse.
They will all be manifested some day. The time comes when He shall bring to light the hidden things and darkness and the counsels of men’s hearts. There will be surprises on both hands of the Judge. Some on the right, astonished, will say, ‘Lord, when saw we Thee?’ and some on the left, smitten to confusion and surprise, will say, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name?’ Let us go to Him with the prayer, ‘Search me, O God! and try me; and see if there be any wicked way in me; and lead me in the way everlasting.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 This Ps. falls into two well-marked divisions. Psa_19:1-6 describe…
This Ps. falls into two well-marked divisions. Psa_19:1-6 describe the glory of God (El) as seen in the heavenly bodies, especially the sun, and are thus parallel to Psalms 8. Psa_19:7-14 deal with the excellence of the revelation of God (Jehovah) in the Law—the subject which is expanded in Psalms 119. It is possible that two independent Pss. are here combined, as in Psalms 108, or that the second half was written as an addition to the first by another hand. The first part may quite well have been David's work. The second part may be divided into the praises of the Law (Psa_19:7-11), and the Psalmist's prayer for preservation from sin (Psa_19:12-14). This is one of the Pss. for Christmas Day.
1. The firmament] the sky, conceived of as a solid canopy: see Gen_1:6.
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2. Days and nights in unbroken succession testify to God's glory.
3. RV 'There is no speech nor language; Their voice cannot be heard.' Their witness is none the less impressive for its silence.
4. The silent testimony of the heavens is world-wide. Their line] the measuring line, marking off the region to which the message of the skies comes. LXX has 'their sound,' and is followed by St. Paul, who quotes this v. in Rom_10:18. Tabernacle] or tent: see Isa_40:22. The sun, as the most glorious of the heavenly bodies, is personified as a hero.
5. As a bridegroom] The comparison suggests the vigour and beauty of youth as well as the splendour of wedding attire. A race] RV 'his course' from E. to W., the two 'ends' of heaven mentioned in Psa_19:6.
6. There is nothing hid, etc.] another way of putting the universal scope of the sun's testimony.
7-9. Here we have a sudden transition from nature to revelation. The word law (torah) means 'teaching' or 'instruction,' and describes not only the Law of Moses, but all the commandments of God. It is described as a testimony (see Exo_25:16, Exo_25:21) or witness to God's character and requirements (Psa_19:7), as statutes (RV 'precepts'), a commandment (Psa_19:8), judgments or moral decisions (Psa_19:9). Each term is connected with some practical benefit which the Law confers on men.
7. Converting] RV 'restoring.'
8. Enlightening the eyes] imparting refreshment and vigour to the soul: see on Psa_13:3.
9. The fear of the lord] another expression for the Law, which produces this fear in the heart. Clean] opposed to impurity of life. Enduring for ever] as the expression of God's eternal righteousness.
10. The honeycomb] rather, 'the droppings of the honeycomb,' the purest of the honey.
12. Understand] RV 'discern.' cleanse] RV 'clear,' in the sense of 'acquit.' Unconscious sins could be atoned for (Num_15:22-26), and for such sins forgiveness is asked here.
13. presumptous sins] those deliberately committed, in contrast to those of ignorance and inadvertence. For such transgressions the Law provided no atonement (Num_15:30-31), and the Psalmist prays to be restrained from committing them. Innocent from the great transgression] RV 'clear from great transgression.'
14. Strength] RV 'rock.'
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv9, 14 fear of the Lord
fear of the Lord
The "fear of the Lord," a phrase of the O.T. piety, meaning reverential trust, with hatred of evil.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 Psalms 19
Psalms 19
Christ in Creation and in Revelation
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1 In creation (Psa 19:1-6)
2. In revelation (Psa 19:7-11)
Psa 19:1-6. This Psalm also bears witness to Christ as Creator and as revealing Himself through the Word. The two great books, Creation and Revelation, bear witness to Him. The Heavens which declare the glory of God were created by Him (Col 1:16; Joh 1:3). And there is a testimony to Him in creation which is continuous. “Day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night showeth knowledge.” (See Rom 1:20) The sun is especially mentioned, for the sun is the type of Christ. “As a bridegroom coming out of His chamber he rejoiceth as a strong man to run his course. His going forth is from the end of the heavens, and his circuits unto the end of it and nothing is hid from the heat thereof.” He is the Sun of Righteousness, who will arise some day with healing beneath his wings.
Psa 19:7-11. The second witness to Him is the Law of Jehovah, the testimony and the precepts of the Lord. It is His written Word. This Word comes from Himself and speaks of Himself. What this Word is and what it produces and the practical use of the testimony of the Lord as well as prayer are mentioned in these verses.
The nineteenth Psalm is an introduction to the next five Psalms, which tells us more fully of the person of Christ, the Creator and Revealer, in His great work as Redeemer.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 A Prophecy of the Gospel.
A Prophecy of the Gospel.
Luther says of this psalm that it is a prophecy of the Gospel as it was intended to go forth into all the world, as wide as the heavens extend, and to be proclaimed and taught both day and night, and not only in the language of the Jews, but in all tongues. To the chief musician, a psalm of David.
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v. 1. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth, is announcing or extolling, His handiwork. The entire universe reflects the majesty of God’s creative power, and therefore all nature is here personified as a preacher of His omnipotence and providence.
v. 2. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge, all nature being engaged in one mighty and uninterrupted sermon and anthem of praise, which will last as long as the change of day and night will continue, all creation being a witness to the majesty of the Creator.
v. 3. There is no speech nor language, literally, "Not is there speech, and not are there words," where their voice is not heard. The message proclaimed by the inanimate creatures everywhere and at all times is of a nature to be clearly discernible to all ears which are not deliberately stopped up. God has always manifested Himself, made Himself known in such away as to be seen and recognized by all who had their eyes and ears open. There is no excuse if men have not understood God’s eternal power and Godhead, Rom 1:20.
v. 4. Their line, the territory belonging to the sphere of the heavens, as they proclaim the glory of God, is gone out through all the earth, has encompassed the earth, has reached as far as creation extends, and their words to the end of the world. All the inhabitants of the earth are able to hear the announcement and to give glory and honor to the Lord of creation. St. Paul applies these words to the Gospel-message which now has gone out "into all the earth" and its words "unto the ends of the world," Rom 10:18. In them hath He set a tabernacle for the sun, namely, in the regions of the heavens,
v. 5. which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, happy in the possession of the bride whose love gives him strength to cope with the problems of life, and rejoiceth as a strong man, like a valiant hero, to run a race.
v. 6. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it, as he completes his course to the western horizon; and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof, the beneficial effects of its light and wamth are felt by all creatures. But in addition to this revelation of God in nature He has made Himself known to men in a much more wonderful manner, namely, in the message of the grace of God in Christ Jesus, in the Gospel.
v. 7. The Law of the Lord, Holy Writ, the Word of the Lord, is perfect, converting the soul, restoring it to its fullness, to the strength it ought to have; the testimony of the Lord is sure, trustworthy, dependable, making wise the simple.
v. 8. The statutes of the Lord are right, straight, without devious bypaths, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; in short, the Word of God, the glorious message of the Gospel, contains in itself the power to sanctify men, for it is the truth, Joh 17:17.
v. 9. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. The childlike fear and reverence of God is purity, holiness, truth, because it flows out of the Gospel.
v. 10. More to be desired are they, the contents of the Word, than gold, yea, than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb, the droppings of honeycombs, on account of the incomparably beautiful facts stated in the Gospel.
v. 11. Moreover, by them, by these same glorious truths as contained in Scripture, is Thy servant warned, lest he forget their beauties, and in keeping of them there is great reward, namely, the reward of God’s mercy, of the indwelling of the Triune God, Joh 14:23. What application will the believer, then, make of the wonderful truths thus presented?
v. 12. Who can understand, who can notice, who can keep track of, his errors? How far is the ideal which the Christian holds before him from the reality in which he finds himself! Even the believer still has so many weaknesses that he is hardly conscious of them. Therefore he adds the plea: Cleanse Thou me from secret faults. The reference is to all the transgressions which remain unnoticed, particularly also the guilt of inherited sin.
v. 13. Keep back Thy servant also from presumptuous sins, from proud wickedness; let them not have dominion over me, for open transgression will surely drive faith out of the heart; then shall I be upright, perfect, making progress in true sanctification, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression, of the great crime of faithlessness, of apostasy, which to all believers is a horror. It is a work of God’s mercy to keep His servants in true faith and obedience to the end. And therefore the believer prays in conclusion:
v. 14. Let the words of my mouth, his sincere prayer, and the meditation of my heart, which dictates the prayer, be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my Strength, the Rock of his refuge, and my Redeemer, by whose deliverance he has been kept time and again. Thus every child of God will pray and sing with mouth and heart, in true faith in the Gospel, in firm trust in the redemption earned by Christ, in whom we have both forgiveness and strength for a life of true sanctification.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 7, 9, 11, 13 General Information:
General Information:
Parallelism is common in Hebrew poetry. (See: Poetry and Parallelism)
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For the chief musician
"This is for the director of music to use in worship."
A psalm of David
Possible meanings are 1) David wrote the psalm or 2) the psalm is about David or 3) the psalm is in the style of David's psalms.
The heavens declare
The heavens are described as if they were a person. AT: "The heavens show" or "The heavens look like they declare"
the skies make his handiwork known
The skies are described as if they were a teacher. AT: "The skies seem to make God's handiwork known to us" (See: Personification)
his handiwork
"his creation" or "the world that he has made"
speech pours out
What is beautiful about creation is compared to speaking, as if creation were a person. Then those words are compared to water that flows everywhere. AT: "creation is like a person speaking to everyone" (See: Personification and Metaphor)
There is no speech or spoken words; their voice is not heard
These phrases express clearly that the first two verses were a metaphor. AT: "There is no real speech or spoken words; no one hears an actual voice with their ears"
their voice is not heard
Other translations read "where their voice is not heard," emphasizing that creation's "speech" is available everywhere.
translationWords
psalm
David
heaven
glory
God
reveal
know
word
voice
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 On vv1, 3, 7, 12, 13, 14 Ps 19 God’s wisdom is manifest in heaven (19:1-4),…
Ps 19 God’s wisdom is manifest in heaven (19:1-4), in nature (19:4-6), in his instruction (19:7-11), and in the life of the psalmist (19:12-14). Like Ps 8, this hymn uses creation to motivate reflection—it is a peaceful oasis after the drama of the lament and victory psalms. The psalm begins with creation as a source of wisdom, then moves to God’s word as the perfect source of wisdom, and ends with the human need for redemption.
19:1-4 The created order is an arena of God’s wisdom, and the heavens are the place of God’s dwelling (2:4; see 8:1; 57:5; 89:6; 115:3). From heaven, God observes humanity (11:4; 14:2; 33:13; 53:2; 80:14; 102:19) and comes to the rescue of his servants (18:6-8, 13; 20:6; 57:3; 76:8; 144:5). The heavens remain unaffected by human failures and rebellions (see 2:1-4). They display God’s qualities of fidelity, righteousness (36:5; 50:6; 57:10; 85:11; 89:2, 5; 97:6; 108:4), and wisdom (136:5; see 119:89-90). The heavens reveal the Lord’s glory (see 19:1) and give evidence of his presence and handiwork.
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19:1 The glory of God refers to the splendor or manifest presence of the Creator (113:4). • God (Hebrew ’el): El is an ancient designation for God that signifies his creative power.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.