To you, Yahweh, I call. My rock, don’t be deaf to me, lest, if you are silent to me, I would become like those who go down into the pit.
Parallel Translations
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To you, Yahweh, I call. My rock, don’t be deaf to me, lest, if you are silent to me, I would become like those who go down into the pit.
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Unto thee will I cry, O LORD my rock; be not silent to me: lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit.
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A Psalm of David. Unto thee, O LORD, do I call; my Rock, be not Thou deaf unto me; lest, if Thou be silent unto me, I become like them that go down into the pit.
Cross-references (19)
Passages linked to Psalms 28:1 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Psalms 143:7 Hurry to answer me, Yahweh. My spirit fails. Don’t hide your face from me, so that I don’t become like those who go down into the pit.
- Psalms 18:2 Yahweh is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower.
- Psalms 88:4-6 I am counted among those who go down into the pit. I am like a man who has no help, set apart among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more. They are cut off from your hand. You have laid me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths.
- Psalms 83:1 God, don’t keep silent. Don’t keep silent, and don’t be still, God.
- Proverbs 1:12 Let’s swallow them up alive like Sheol, and whole, like those who go down into the pit.
- Isaiah 26:4 Trust in Yahweh forever; for in Yah, Yahweh, is an everlasting Rock.
- Job 33:28 He has redeemed my soul from going into the pit. My life will see the light.’
- Revelation 20:3 and cast him into the abyss, and shut it, and sealed it over him, that he should deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years were finished. After this, he must be freed for a short time.
- Psalms 22:2 My God, I cry in the daytime, but you don’t answer; in the night season, and am not silent.
- Psalms 30:9 “What profit is there in my destruction, if I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise you? Shall it declare your truth?
- Psalms 35:22 You have seen it, Yahweh. Don’t keep silent. Lord, don’t be far from me.
- Isaiah 38:18 For Sheol can’t praise you. Death can’t celebrate you. Those who go down into the pit can’t hope for your truth.
- Psalms 3:4 I cry to Yahweh with my voice, and he answers me out of his holy hill.
- Psalms 5:2 Listen to the voice of my cry, my King and my God; for I pray to you.
- Psalms 69:15 Don’t let the flood waters overwhelm me, neither let the deep swallow me up. Don’t let the pit shut its mouth on me.
- Psalms 77:1 My cry goes to God! Indeed, I cry to God for help, and for him to listen to me.
- Psalms 39:12 “Hear my prayer, Yahweh, and give ear to my cry. Don’t be silent at my tears. For I am a stranger with you, a foreigner, as all my fathers were.
- Psalms 142:1 I cry with my voice to Yahweh. With my voice, I ask Yahweh for mercy.
- Psalms 42:9 I will ask God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (26 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 1. Unto thee, O Jehovah! will I cry. The…
1. Unto thee, O Jehovah! will I cry. The Psalmist begins by declaring that he would betake himself to the help of God alone, which shows both his faith and his sincerity. Although men labor every where under a multitude of troubles, yet scarcely one in a hundred ever has recourse to God. Almost all having their consciences burdened with guilt, and having never experienced the power of divine grace which might lead them to betake themselves to it, either proudly gnaw the bit or fill the air with unavailing complaints, or, giving way to desperation, faint under their afflictions. By calling God his strength, David more fully shows that he confided in God’s assistance, not only when he was in the shade and in peace, but also when he was exposed to the severest temptations. In comparing himself to the dead, too, he intimates how great his straits were, although his object was not merely to point out the magnitude of his danger, but also to show that when he needed succor, he looked not here and there for it, but relied on God alone, without whose favor there remained no hope for him. It is, therefore, as if he had said, I am nothing if thou leavest me; if thou succourest me not, I perish. It is not enough for one who is in such a state of affliction to be sensible of his misery, unless, convinced of his inability to help himself, and renouncing all help from the world, he betake himself to God alone. And as the Scriptures inform us that God answers true believers when he shows by his operations that he regards their supplications, so the word silent is set in opposition to the sensible and present experience of his aid, when he appears, as it were, not to hear their prayers.
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 He counteth himself as a dead man, till God…
He counteth himself as a dead man, till God show his favor toward him, and grant him his petition.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Psa 28:1 « [A Psalm] of David. » Unto…
Psa 28:1 « [A Psalm] of David. » Unto thee will I cry, O LORD my rock; be not silent to me: lest, [if] thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit.
Ver. 1. Unto thee will I cry, O Lord my rock] That thou mayest grant me what I begged so earnestly of thee in the former psalm especially, Psa 28:4, "One thing have I desired of the Lord, that I will seek after," &c. For this psalm is of the same subject with that; and seemeth to have been made much about the same time, viz. after that David had twice spared Saul’s life, 1Sa 24:4-6, &c.; 1Sa 26:12; 1Sa 26:21. Only here he expresseth himself, not as if he had been a private person, and in daily danger of his life; but as destined and designed to the kingdom by Almighty God, to whom, therefore, he prayeth for himself and the people, and against their implacable enemies, with so great confidence, as that he presently praiseth him for his request obtained, Psa 28:6.
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Be not silent to me] Cease not, as deaf, from me. If God seem to be deaf to us, we must cry the louder; that, having prepared our hearts by such a seeming silence, he may cause his ears to hear, Psa 10:17, which he will not fail to do when once we set up our note, and make bitter moan.
Lest, if thou be silent, &c.] Here are his reasons to help his hope to be heard. God is well pleased that we argue it out with him in prayer.
Like them that go down into the pit] Or, dirty dungeon, that is, the grave; or, as Kimchi, lest I be as the wicked, that go down to hell. "The righteous perisheth," Isa 57:1, that is, the world looks upon them as lost.
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 Be not silent; be not deaf to my prayers,…
Be not silent; be not deaf to my prayers, nor dumb as, to thy answers to them: lest I be in the like or same condition with them
that go down into the pit, i.e. a lost creature; as I shall certainly be, if thou dost not succour me.
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 In these verses David is very earnest in prayer.
In these verses David is very earnest in prayer.
I. He prays that God would graciously hear and answer him, now that, in his distress, he called upon him, Psa 28:1, Psa 28:2. Observe his faith in prayer: O Lord, my rock, denoting his belief of God's power (he is a rock) and his dependence upon that power - "He is my rock, on whom I build my hope." Observe his fervency in prayer: "To thee will I cry, as one in earnest, being ready to sink, unless thou come in with seasonable succour." And observe how solicitous he is to obtain an answer: "Be not silent to me, as one angry at my prayers, Psa 80:4. Lord, speak to me, answer me with good words and comfortable words (Zac 1:13); though the thing I pray for has not been given me, yet let God speak to me joy and gladness, and make me to hear them. Lord, speak for me, in answer to my prayers, plead my cause, command deliverances for me, and thus hear and answer the voice of my supplications." Two things he pleads: - 1. The sad despair he should be in if God slighted him: "If thou be silent to me, and I have not the tokens of thy favour, I am like those that go down into the pit (that is, I am a dead man, lost and undone); if God be not my friend, appear not to me and appear not for me, my hope and my help will have perished." Nothing can be so cutting, so killing, to a gracious soul, as the want of God's favour and the sense of his displeasure. I shall be like those that go down to hell (so some understand it); for what is the misery of the damned but this, that God is ever silent to them and deaf to their cry? Those are in some measure qualified for God's favour, and may expect it, who are thus possessed with a dread of his wrath, and to whom his frowns are worse than death. 2. The good hopes he had that God would favour him: I lift up my hands towards thy holy oracle, which denotes, not only an earnest desire, but an earnest expectation, thence to receive an answer of peace. The most holy place within the veil is here, as elsewhere, called the oracle; there the ark and the mercy-seat were, there God was said to dwell between the cherubim, and thence he spoke to his people, Num 7:89. That was a type of Christ, and it is to him that we must lift up our eyes and hands, for through him all good comes from God to us. It was also a figure of heaven (Heb 9:24); and from God as our Father in heaven we are taught to expect an answer to our prayers. The scriptures are called the oracles of God, and to them we must have an eye in our prayers and expectations. There is the word on which God hath caused and encouraged us to hope.
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II. He deprecates the doom of wicked people, as before (Psa 26:9, "Gather not my soul with sinners): Lord, I attend thy holy oracle, draw me not away from that with the wicked, and with the workers of iniquity," Psa 28:3. 1. "Save me from being entangled in the snares they have laid for me. They flatter and cajole me, and speak peace to me; but they have a design upon me, for mischief is in their heart; they aim to disturb me, nay, to destroy me. Lord, suffer me not to be drawn away and ruined by their cursed plots; for they have, can have, no power, no success, against me, except it be given them from above." 2. "Save me from being infected with their sins and from doing as they do. Let me not be drawn away by their fallacious arguments, or their allurements, from the holy oracle (where I desire to dwell all the days of my life), to practise any wicked works;" see Psa 141:4. "Lord, never leave me to myself, to use such arts of deceit and treachery for my safety as they use to my ruin. Let no event of Providence be an invincible temptation to me, to draw me either into the imitation or into the interest of wicked people." Good men dread the way of sinners; the best are sensible of the danger they are in of being drawn aside into it; and therefore we should all pray earnestly to God for his grace to keep us in our integrity. 3. "Save me from being involved in their doom; let me not be led forth with the workers of iniquity, for I am not one of those that speak peace while war is in their hearts." Note, Those that are careful not to partake with sinners in their sins have reason to hope that they shall not partake with them in their plagues, Rev 18:4.
III. He imprecates the just judgments of God upon the workers of iniquity (Psa 28:4): Give them according to their deeds. This is not the language of passion or revenge, nor is it inconsistent with the duty of praying for our enemies. But, 1. Thus he would show how far he was from complying with the workers of iniquity, and with what good reason he had begged not to be drawn away with them, because he was convinced that they could not be made more miserable then to be dealt with according to their deeds. 2. Thus he would express his zeal for the honour of God's justice in the governing world. "Lord, they think all well that they do, and justify themselves in their wicked practices. Lord, give them after the work of their hands, and so undeceive those about them, who think there is no harm in what they do because it goes unpunished," Psa 94:1, Psa 94:2. 3. This prayer is a prophecy that God will, sooner or later, render to all impenitent sinners according to their deserts. If what has been done amiss be not undone by repentance, there will certainly come a reckoning day, when God will render to every man who persists in his evil deeds according to them. It is a prophecy particularly of the destruction of destroyers: "They speak peace to their neighbours, but mischief is in their hearts; Lord, give them according to their deeds, let the spoilers be spoiled, and let those be treacherously dealt with who have thus dealt treacherously;" see Isa 33:1; Rev 18:6; Rev 13:10. Observe, He foretels that God will reward them, not only according to their deed, but according to the wickedness of their endeavours; for sinners shall be reckoned with, not only for the mischief they have done, but for the mischief they would have done, which they designed, and did what they could to effect. And, if God go by this rule in dealing with the wicked, surely he will do so in dealing with the righteous, and will reward them, not only for the good they have done, but for the good they have endeavoured to do, though they could not accomplish it.
IV. He foretels their destruction for their contempt of God and his hand (Psa 28:5): "Because they regard not the works of the Lord and the operations of his hands, by which he manifests himself and speaks to the children of men, he will destroy them in this world and in the other, and not build them up." Note, A stupid regardlessness of the works of God is the cause of their ruin. Why do men question the being or attributes of God, but because they do not duly regard his handiworks, which declare his glory, and in which the invisible things of him are clearly seen? Why do men forget God, and live without him, nay, affront God, and live in rebellion against him, but because they consider not the instances of that wrath of his which is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men? Why do the enemies of God's people hate and persecute them, and devise mischief against them, but because they regard not the works God has wrought for his church, by which he has made it appear how dear it is to him? See Isa 5:12.
In singing this we must arm ourselves against all temptations to join with the workers of iniquity, and animate ourselves against all the troubles we may be threatened with by the workers of iniquity.
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 Unto thee will I cry,.... This denotes the distress…
Unto thee will I cry,.... This denotes the distress the psalmist was in, fervency and ardour in prayer, resolution to continue in it, and singularity with respect to the object of it; determining to cry to the Lord only; to which he was encouraged by what follows;
O Lord my rock; he being a strong tower and place of defence to him, in whom were all his safety, and his trust and confidence, and in whom he had an interest;
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be not silent to me; or "deaf" (q); persons that do not hear are silent, and make no answer; as the Lord seems to be, when he returns no answer to the cries of his people; when he does not arise and help them; when he seems not to take any notice of his and their enemies, but stands at a distance from them, and as if he had forsaken them; see Psa 39:12; the words may be considered, as they are by some, as an address to Christ his rock, his advocate and intercessor; that he would not be silent, but speak for him, and present his supplications to God, with the much incense of his mediation; see Sa1 7:8;
lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit; either like such that fall into a ditch, and cannot help themselves out, and they cry, and there is none to take them out from thence; or like such that die in battle, and are cast into a pit, and there buried in common with others; which David might fear would be his case, through Saul's violent pursuit after him; or lest he should be like the dead, who are not regarded, and are remembered no more; or lest he should really die by the hands of his enemies, and so be laid in the grave, the pit of corruption; or be in such distress and despair as even the damned in hell be, the pit out of which there is no deliverance.
(q) "ne obsurdescas", Vatablus, Tigurine version, Gejerus; so Ainsworth, Junius & Tremellius, Michaelis.
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 A prayer for help, ver. 1-3. The doom of…
A prayer for help, ver. 1-3. The doom of the wicked, ver. 4, 5. A thanksgiving, closed with prayer, ver. 6-9. A psalm of David.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain A righteous man in affliction makes supplication to God,…
PSALM XXVIII
A righteous man in affliction makes supplication to God, and
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complains of the malice of his enemies, 1-4;
whom he describes as impious, and whose destruction he
predicts, 5.
He blesses God for hearing his prayers, and for filling him
with consolation, 6, 7;
then prays for God's people, 8, 9.
NOTES ON PSALM XXVIII
This Psalm is of the same complexion with the two preceding; and belongs most probably to the times of the captivity, though some have referred it to David in his persecutions. In the five first verses the author prays for support against his enemies, who appear to have acted treacherously against him. In the sixth and seventh he is supposed to have gained the victory, and returns with songs of triumph. The eighth is a chorus of the people sung to their conquering king. The ninth is the prayer of the king for his people.
Verse 1. O Lord my rock] צורי tsuri not only means my rock, but my fountain, and the origin of all the good I possess.
If thou be silent] If thou do not answer in such a way as to leave no doubt that thou hast heard me, I shall be as a dead man. It is a modern refinement in theology which teaches that no man can know when God hears and answers his prayers, but by an induction of particulars, and by an inference from his promises. And, on this ground, how can any man fairly presume that he is heard or answered at all? May not his inductions be no other than the common occurrences of providence? And may not providence be no more than the necessary occurrence of events? And is it not possible, on this skeptic ground, that there is no God to hear or answer? True religion knows nothing of these abominations; it teaches its votaries to pray to God, to expect an answer from him, and to look for the Holy Spirit to bear witness with their spirits that they are the sons and daughters of God.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Psa 28:1. Be not silent to me — Hebrew,…
Psa 28:1. Be not silent to me — Hebrew, אל תחרשׁ ממני, al techeresh mimmenni, be not deaf to me, that is, to my prayers; do not act as if thou didst not hear, or didst disregard my prayers; lest, if thou be silent to me — And return no answer to my petitions; I become like them that go down to the pit — That is, lest I be in the same condition with them, a dead, lost, undone creature, as I certainly shall be if thou do not succour me. If God be not my friend, and appear not for me, my help and hope are perished. Nothing can be so distressing to a gracious soul as the want of God’s favour and the sense of his displeasure. Or, as some understand it, lest I be like those that go down to hell; for what is the misery of the damned but this, that God is for ever silent to them, and deaf to their cry?
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 Unto thee will I cry - That is, under…
Unto thee will I cry - That is, under the consciousness of the danger to which I am exposed - the danger of being drawn away into the society of the wicked. In such circumstances his reliance was not on his own strength; or on his own resolutions; on his own heart; or on his fellowmen. He felt that he was safe only in God, and he appeals to Him, therefore, in this earnest manner, to save him.
O Lord my rock - See the notes at Psa 18:2.
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Be not silent to me - Margin, “from me.” So the Hebrew. The idea is that of one who will not speak to us, or who will not attend to us. We pray, and we look for an “answer” to our prayers, or, as it were, we expect God to “speak” to us; to utter words of kindness; to assure us of His favor; to declare our sins forgiven.
Lest, if thou be silent to me - If thou dost not answer my supplications.
I become like unto them that go down into the pit - Like those who die; or, lest I be crushed by anxiety and distress, and die. The word “pit” here refers to the grave. So it is used in Psa 30:3; Psa 88:4; Isa 38:18; Isa 14:15, Isa 14:19. The meaning is, that if he did not obtain help from God he despaired of life. His troubles would overwhelm and crush him. He could not bear up under them.
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 Psalms 28
Psalms 28
A Psalm of David
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1 Unto thee will I cry, O Lord my rock;
Be not silent to me:
Lest, if thou be silent to me,
I become like them that go down into the pit.
2 Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry unto thee,
When I lift up my hands toward thy holy oracle.
3 Draw me not away with the wicked, and with the workers of iniquity,
Which speak peace to their neighbors,
But mischief is in their hearts.
4 Give them according to their deeds, and according to the wickedness of their endeavours:
Give them after the work of their hands;
Render to them their desert.
5 Because they regard not the works of the Lord, nor the operation of his hands,
He shall destroy them, and not build them up.
6 Blessed be the Lord,
Because he hath heard the voice of my supplications.
7 The Lord is my strength and my shield;
My heart trusted in him, and I am helped:
Therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth;
And with my song will I praise him.
8 The Lord is their strength,
And he is the saving strength of his anointed.
9 Save thy people, and bless thine inheritance:
Feed them also, and lift them up for ever.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Its Contents and Composition. Although there are no individual historical features which are sharply and unmistakably prominent, yet this Psalm is not a mere Psalm of general lamentation (De Wette), composed by David for the Buffering and afflicted (Hengst.), or composed by a later poet for liturgical use for the people (Olsh.), as it is pretended with a superabundance in expression and rhythm, as is often the case in the later Psalms and Prophets, in connection with the heaping up of current phrases (Hupf.). We hear in this Psalm the voice of supplication, as it rises pressingly and earnestly, in peril of death, (Psa_28:1,) to Jehovah, the Holy One, imploring to be heard (Psa_28:2). It is from the mouth and heart of a man, who would not be swept away with evil doers and hypocrites (Psa_28:3); and he implores for them righteous recompense (Psa_28:4); and he founds this judgment on its necessity and describes it in its reliable workings (Psa_28:5), whilst he himself in the certainty of being heard and of the constant protection of Jehovah, praises Him (Psa_28:6), and furthermore will praise Him thankfully in songs (Psa_28:7); for Jehovah is the Protector and Deliverer of His people and His anointed (Psa_28:8). Finally he prays for continual blessings for the people—they are the property of Jehovah (Psa_28:9). These last two verses must then be regarded as the words of the anointed himself unless we should regard them as an appendix of intercession for the king and the people (Hupf.), and there is no apparent occasion for uniting them with the preceding verses. It is then more appropriate to think of David as the author, in the time of the trouble with Absalom, although the “longing turning towards the sanctuary” (Delitzsch) is not very apparent. This is better than to think of Josiah (Ewald), or Jeremiah (Hitzig). There are frequent and evident resemblances to the preceding Psalm.
Str. I. [Psa_28:1. To Thee Jehovah, do I cry; My rock, be not silent from me, lest, if Thou be silent from me, I become like them that go down to the pit.—The A. V. is not properly punctuated. My rock belongs to the second clause. For the meaning of rock vid.Psa_18:2. The preposition מִן, from, is used with a pregnant meaning = Turn not away from me in silence, (De Wette, Moll. Perowne, et al ).10 The pit is the grave in its narrower and broader sense. Comp. Isa_14:15; Psa_30:4; Psa_88:6.
Psa_28:2. When I lift up my hands.11—To lift up the hands and spread them out towards heaven was the usual posture of prayer with the Hebrews, (1Ki_8:22, Isa_1:15), so likewise among the Greeks and other ancient nations. And so also they were lifted up towards the sanctuary at Jerusalem, especially by the later Jews. So the Mahometans pray towards Mecca, and the Samaritans towards the holy place of Mt. Gerizim.—C. A. B.]—To Thy holy throne-hall.—This is literally the back room as a local designation of the Most Holy place, (1Ki_6:5; 1Ki_6:16 sq., 1Ki_8:6; 1Ki_8:8), where was the throne of God (1Ki_8:30; 1Ki_8:39; 1Ki_8:43; 1Ki_8:49) in the temple (1Ki_8:30; Dan_6:11, Psa_5:7,) as in heaven (1Ki_8:22; 1Ki_8:54), to which the hands were lifted up (Psa_63:4; Psa_134:2; Psa_141:2; Lam_2:19), and spread out (Psa_143:6; Exo_9:29; Exo_9:33; 1Ki_8:22; 1Ki_8:38; 1Ki_8:54; Jos_1:15) corresponding with the lifting up of the heart (Psa_24:4; Lam_3:41). This meaning of debîr is completely proved by comparing with the Arabic, comp. Delitzsch and Hupfeld in loco. This was first proved by C. B. Michaelis in 1735 in a dissertation (now printed in Potts. sylloge V. 131 sq). then first by Conrad Iken 1748 in his Diss. Phil. Theol. I. 214 sq. In accordance with the derivation from dibber = speak, which Hengstenberg again justifies, the ancient interpreters thought of an audience-room and parlor, and translated it by oraculum,λαλητήριον, χρηματιστὴριον. Luther translates, chor. [A. V holy oracle].12
[Str. II. Psa_28:3. Draw me not away, e.g., to destruction, vid.Psa_26:9; Eze_32:20; Job_24:22.—Who speak peace.—They make peaceful and friendly professions whilst plotting mischief and war, hypocrites, dissemblers, frequently alluded to in the Psalms.—C. A. B.]
[Str. III. Psa_28:4. Render to them their desert.—Delitzsch: “This phrase הֵשִׁיב גְמוּל, which is frequently used by the prophets, means to recompense, or repay to any one what he has performed or rendered, likewise what he has committed or deserved. The thought and its expression remind us of Isa_3:8-11; Isa_1:16.”
Psa_28:5. Because they regard not.—Delitzsch: “The propriety of prayer for recompense is derived from their blindness towards the righteous and gracious government of God in human history (comp. Isa_5:12; Isa_22:11).—The contrast of בָנָה, build, with חָרָם, tear down is in the style of Jeremiah (Jer_42:10, comp. Jer_1:10, Psa_18:9, et al.”—C. A. B.]
[Str. IV. Psa_28:6. Because He hath heard,—Hupfeld: “This is not a praising God because He has actually heard, this being presupposed in the perfect, שָׁמָר as Psa_6:9 sq.; Psa_20:7; Psa_26:12; Psa_31:22 sq.; nor as if he had, in the mean time, received an answer from the sanctuary (Psa_28:2) as Hengstenberg supposes; but in the confidence of faith.”—C. A. B.]
[Str. V. Psa_28:7. With my song will I praise Him.—The Vulgate has a different reading here, following the Sept. [It reads my flesh (caro mea,ἡ σἀρξ μου) for my heart in the third clause, and my will (ex voluntate mea, ἐκθελήματός μου) for my song, in the fourth clause.—Delitzsch: “In מִשִּׁירִי the song is regarded as the source of the הוֹדוֹת. From his sorrows springs the song, and from the song springs the praise of Him who has taken these sorrows away.”—C. A. B.]
Str. VI. Psa_28:8. Jehovah is protection for them.—This turns the glance upon the true members of the people whose fortune the Psalmist bears upon his heart together with his own, although they have not been mentioned before. Hitzig and Delitzsch very properly reject the correction of לָמוֹ, which all codd. have, into לְעַמּוֹ that is, for his people, however appropriate this might be.—And He is the saving defence of His anointed.—This is literally, the defence of deliverance. [Delitzsch: “Jehovah is then עֹז because He mightily preserves them from the destruction into which they themselves would fall or be plunged by others; and He is the מָעוֹז יְשׁוּעוֹת of His anointed because He surrounds him as an inaccessible place of refuge; which secures him salvation in its fulness, instead of the ruin contemplated.”—C. A. B.]
Psa_28:9. Feed them and bear them forever.—This reminds us of Deu_1:31; Deu_32:11, Isa_63:9 and the conclusion itself of Psalms 3, 29. [Perowne: “It is impossible not to see in these tender, loving words, ‘feed them and bear them,’ the heart of the shepherd king. Feed them, O, Thou true Shepherd of Israel, (Psa_80:1): bear them, carry them in Thine arms (Isa_63:9; Isa_40:11).—C. A. B.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. If God could be deaf and dumb to the supplications of His servant, there could be neither comfort nor hope for him. And if God should turn away from him, his ruin would be certain. But then the servant of God would share the fate of the wicked. This however is impossible, so long as the servant of God is neither unfaithful nor a hypocrite. If he can really establish himself on God as his rock, when he lifts up his hands and heart in faith (Psa_28:7), to the God enthroned in the Holiest of All, then he will experience, that even on the brink of an abyss there is a way of escape and he will not be drawn down into its depths with the ungodly. For God is just, and shows Himself in His unchangeable faithfulness and truth as a rock, to those who trust in Him and abide by Him. Moreover when threatened with ruin, all depends on this alone, his showing himself by his conduct as standing on this rock and fortifying himself there by his actions.
2. If we not only set before our eyes the judgments of God, but likewise establish ourselves near to God and on His side, then there arises partly a feeling of security in the protection of God, which discloses itself at once as the assurance of being heard in prayer, partly a strong feeling of the contrast between ourselves and ungodly and hypocritical oppressors. This feeling looks at their conduct as they sin against God and their neighbors, and sees that it will be doubly punished, and it discloses itself in appealing to God to execute His judgments. Under such circumstances and feelings it is possible to pray; recompense them, without sinning.
3. The characteristics of the ungodly, and the indications of their swift ruin, are their not observing the doings and actions of God, which are exactly opposed to their own. God will be constantly less intelligible and conceivable to them whilst they blind themselves in such a manner that they fancy that they can not only deceive men by their hypocrisy, but likewise can escape the judgment of God by not observing the Divine government. But the less attention they give to these things, the deeper they involve themselves in wicked plans, and the more surely they fall when they least expect it, into the recompensing hand of God.
4. God is the Avenger and Deliverer, Defence and Helper, not only for His anointed, but likewise for His people. For He is not only their Lord who will not allow His property and inheritance to be taken from Him; but He is likewise their Shepherd who watches and protects, cares for and leads the people especially belonging to Him; He is their God and Father, who bears them in their weakness, “at all times from of old,” (Isa_63:9), as a man his son (Deu_1:31) and as an eagle her young (Deu_32:11) lifting them above all hindrances, and bearing them forth out of all dangers, and thus raising them above all present and all future enemies. (2Sa_5:12).—“To His work you must look if your work is to endure” (P. Gerhardt).
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
When trouble increases, trust in God must not decrease; our prayers must not be silent, though God for a while is silent.—That prayers are not heard for a while, is no sign that God is angry, but that He would try our faith, and train us in patience.—Great sufferings cannot choke the desire for prayer so long as the heart does not become faint-hearted.—The confidence of the pious in God’s assistance against ungodly enemies, has its ground not in the feeling of personal worth, but in the assurance of Divine righteousness.—Not to observe the Divine government, is a characteristic of the ungodly and the sign of their ruin.—Many trouble themselves no more with God’s judgment than they do with His commandments; but he who transgresses the latter cannot escape the former.—God recompenses justly; therefore fear His judgment, but trust in His righteousness.—The innocent may suffer much and long; but they will not call upon God in vain, and even when they die they will not be swept away with the guilty.—A pious king seeks not only his own deliverance, but the salvation of his people at the same time.—He who trusts God, has built well.—God not only protects His own children, in time, but He likewise blesses them for eternity.
Starke: O how sweet it is for the soul, when God hears it and it is sure of this in its inmost nature! but how painful it is when God is silent! and yet we must persevere in patience, until it shall please Him to hear our prayer.—He who would not be carried away with the ungodly in the judgment of God, must be on his guard against their sins.—To desire punishment for our enemies out of a spirit of revenge, is not Christian; but we may sigh to the righteous Judge against the enemies of God and His glory.—If God were not the strength and protection of His Church, how could it endure the power of its enemies?—If the Lord is our strength, why do we ever lament our weakness? Is that not perhaps a palliation of our indolence?—Franke: In external trouble hypocrites and the ungodly go to God in order to be freed from them; but they do not think of being delivered from their troubles of sin, and therefore it is no wonder, that they are unable to speak of answers to prayer.—Renschel: Although the pious dwell among the ungodly yet they are distinguished from them, 1) by their prayers; 2) by their life; 3) by their reward.—Frisch: The help which God has postponed He has not refused.—Herberger: God’s silence often brings the greatest sorrow; but God is often silent in order that He may hear thee with all the more love.—Tholuck: He who keeps the Lord before him as the Mighty One, and can hope in His strength, is already helped.—Taube: The prayer of the pious in trouble is an evidence that they have the refuge as well as need it.
[Matth. Henry: Nothing can be so cutting, so killing, to a gracious soul as the want of God’s favor, and the sense of His displeasure.—Those who are careful not to partake with sinners in their sins have reason to hope that they shall not partake with them in their plagues, Rev_18:4.—A stupid regardlessness of the works of God is the cause of the sin of sinners, and so becomes the cause of their ruin.—The saints rejoice in their friends’ comforts as well as their own; for as we have no less benefit by the light of the sun, so neither by the light of God’s countenance, for others sharing therein; for we are sure there is enough for all, and enough for each.—Those, and those only, whom God feeds and rules, that are willing to be taught and guided, and governed by Him, shall be saved, and blessed, and lifted up forever.—Barnes: It is sufficient for us to feel that God hears us; for if this is so, we have the assurance that all is right. In this sense, certainly, it is right to look for an immediate answer to our prayers.—Spurgeon: The thorn at the breast of the nightingale was said by the old naturalists to make it sing; David’s grief made him eloquent in holy psalmody.—God’s voice is often so terrible that it shakes the wilderness; but His silence is equally full of awe to an eager suppliant. When God seems to close His ear, we must not therefore close our mouths, but rather cry with more earnestness; for when our note grows shrill with eagerness and grief, He will not long deny us a hearing. What a dreadful case should we be in if the Lord should become for ever silent to our prayers!—We stretch out empty hands, for we are beggars; we lift them up, for we seek heavenly supplies; we lift them towards the mercy-seat of Jesus, for there our expectation dwells.—The best of the wicked are dangerous company in time, and would make terrible companions for eternity; we must avoid them in their pleasures, if we would not be confounded with them in their miseries.—It is a sure sign of baseness when the tongue and the heart do not ring to the same note. Deceitful men are more to be dreaded than wild beasts; it were better to be shut up in a pit with serpents than to be compelled to live with liars.—God’s curse is positive and negative; His sword has two edges, and cuts right and left.—They who pray well, will soon praise well; prayer and praise are the two lips of the soul.—Heart work is sure work; heart trust is never disappointed. Faith must come before help, but help will never be long behindhand.—When the heart is glowing, the lips should not be silent. When God blesses us, we should bless Him with all our heart.—C. A. B.]
Footnotes:
[10][Alexander follows Hupfeld in rendering; lest Thou hold Thy peace from me, and I be made like those going down (into) the pit. The rendering in the text is better. It is that of De Wette, Ewald, Delitzsch, Moll, Perowne, et al.—C. A. B.]
[11][So A. V., Hupfeld, Delitzsch, Perowne, et al. De Wette translates, because I cry, etc; Hitzig, since I cry, etc.; Moll and Alexander, in my crying, etc.—C. A. B.]
[12][Delitzsch agree with Moll and translates, to Thy holy throne-hall; Hupfeld and Perowne, to the innermost place of Thy sanctuary; Ewald, to Thy holy chamber; Hitzig, to Thy holy unapproachable place—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.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 1. My rock—My protection, defence, Deu_32:8. The Hebrew punctuation…
1. My rock—My protection, defence, Deu_32:8. The Hebrew punctuation would make this the beginning of the second line thus:—
Unto thee, O Jehovah, will I call;
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O my Rock, be not silent from me.
Silent to me—Silent from me; that is, do not turn from me in silence.
Pit—The grave, as Pro_28:17; Isa_38:18
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 1. Render with R.V.,
1. Render with R.V.,
Unto thee, O Lord, will I call;
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My rock, be not thou deaf unto me.
He appeals to Jehovah as his rock, the ground of his confidence. See Psa_18:2 (note), 31.
be not silent unto me] Lit. from me; and similarly in the next line. The rendering be not silent may stand, as in Psa_35:22; Psa_39:12; or we may render with R.V., be not thou deaf. The sense is, ‘Turn not away from me as though thou didst not hear, lest if thou turn away in unregarding silence, I become’ &c. like them that go down to the pit] i.e. the dying or the dead. The pit is the grave or Sheol. Cp. Psa_22:29; Psa_88:4; Pro_1:12. How natural a prayer if people were dying of pestilence all round him! The last line recurs in Psa_143:7.
1, 2. Introductory appeal for a hearing, emphasising the urgency of the need.
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 (1) My rock.—Heb., tsûr, from a root implying “bind…
(1) My rock.—Heb., tsûr, from a root implying “bind together” (Deu_14:25), not necessarily therefore with sense of height, but with that of strength and solidity. Thus Tyre (or Tsûr) is built on a broad shelf of rock. We see from Deu_32:30-31; 1Sa_2:2, that “rock” was a common metaphor for a tutelary deity, and it is adopted frequently for Jehovah in the Psalms and poetical books. Sometimes in the Authorised Version it is rendered “strong” (Psa_60:9; Psa_71:3; see margin). The LXX. (followed by Vulg.) here, as generally, apparently through timidity, suppresses the metaphor, and renders “my God.” In the song of Moses in Deuteronomy, the metaphor occurs nine times, and Stanley thinks it was derived from the granite peaks of Sinai (Jewish Church, p. 195).
Be not silent to me.—Vulg. and margin, rightly, “from me.” The word rendered “silent” appears, like κωφὸς in Greek, to have the double meaning of deaf and dumb, and is apparently from an analogous derivation. (See Gesenius, Lex., sub voce.) Hence we might render, “turn not a deaf ear to me,” or “turn not from me in silence.”
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Them that go down into the pit—i.e., the dead, or those just about to die (Psa_30:3). In Psa_88:4, the expression is parallel to “My life draweth nigh unto the grave;” pit (bôr) is either the sepulchre (as Isa_14:19), or the world of the dead (Psa_88:4). The two significations pass one into the other. This expression suggests that the psalmist was on a bed of sickness.
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 This short psalm consists of three parts:
This short psalm consists of three parts:
(1) a prayer for succour (vers. 1, 2);
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(2) a denunciation of the wicked (vers. 3-5); and
(3) a thanksgiving for aid given, or regarded as certain to be given (vers. 6-9).
Metrically, it contains three strophes, corresponding to the three subjects, and respectively of two, three, and four verses, thus gradually increasing in length. There is no reason for doubting the assertion of the title, that it is "a Psalm of David," but we cannot definitely assign it to any particular period of his life. It would suit almost any occasion when he was in danger or difficulty.
Unto thee will I cry, O Lord my Rock; be not silent to me; rather, as in the Revised Version, to thee, O Lord, will I call; my Rock, be not thou deaf unto me. "My Rock" belongs to the second clause. It is with David, in these early psalms, an epitheton usilatum. (comp. Psa_18:2 Psa_27:5 Psa_31:2, 3 40:3 61:2 62:2, etc.) The Hebrew term used is sometimes taut, sometimes sela", which call to our minds the two great rook-fortresses of Tyre and Petra. Lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit; i.e. without hope, desperate.
HOMILIES BY C. CLEMANCE Vers. 1-9. Providence and prayer.
The contents of this psalm are in some respects similar to the contents of others already noticed. But there is one peculiarity about it to which we here propose to devote special attention. It is seen in the psalmist"s prayer against his enemies. On account of such petitions, much reproach has been cast on the Bible itself as if all the sixty-six books of which the Scriptures are composed were to be held responsible for the prayers and petitions of every Old Testament saint! No such absurdity could have roothold if the actual state of the case were clearly understood. And we deem it to be of no small importance that where readers of the Bible find special difficulty, expounders thereof should put forth special strength, and by no means pass lightly over such passages, or leave them unaccounted for. This psalm is a reflection of varied scenes which may be witnessed in the world of the known laws of God"s providence, of earnest desires which go up from the hearts of God"s people in prayer, and of grateful songs which go forth from their lips in praise. There is no reason for attributing the psalm to any one else than to David. Nor do we know of any times in the ancient history which the psalm more clearly reflects than those of the shepherd-king. Nor is there any Old Testament character who would be so likely to speak and write and pray in the style of the psalm before us. In dealing with it as a unity (which method alone falls in with the plan of this section of the Commentary), we have four lines of thought to unfold.
I HERE IS A TWOFOLD OUTLOOK. The writer of this psalm was the anointed of the Lord (ver. 8). He was Israel"s king; and was withal encompassed by foes. Not only were there those who were the people of God, his inheritance (ver. 9), but there were also those who regarded not God, and who cared not for man (vers. 3, 5). And the time has not come when such a double outlook has ceased. The righteous, the wicked tares and wheat both are still on "the field of the world," growing together until the harvest.
II HERE IS A TWOFOLD YEARNING OF THE PSALMIST.
1. For the righteous. (Ver. 9) "Save thy people, and bless thine inheritance." Put the emphasis on "thy," "thine;" herein lies the force of the praying one"s tender pleading with God "Feed them;" i.e. tend them, rule them; let them find thee all that thou art as their Shepherd. "Lift them up," equivalent to "bear them up," carry them in thine arms. (Isa_63:9 Deu_1:31 Deu_32:11; see Perowne hereon)
2. Against the wicked. (Ver. 4) It is here that so many have found a difficulty. We acknowledge that there would be a difficulty if these were the words of God to man; but as they are the words of man to God, why should there be any difficulty at all? Is any one bound to defend every word that any saint ever offered in prayer? Surely not. It is, however, only fair to the writer to bear in mind:
(1) That he does not pray against the wicked with personal vindictiveness, but regards them as the enemies of God (ver. 5), and of society likewise (ver. 3).
(2) No saint"s prayers ever could go beyond the limits of the inspiration and revelation which were granted to him. No one even now can pray beyond the limits of his own knowledge. In the Old Testament times the all-conquering love of God had not been revealed as it has been to us, and so could not yield fuel for prayer.
(3) That such a prayer as this is a historical representation of the petitions of saints in the psalmist"s time, and is no absolute model for our time, with our larger and warmer light-beams from on high. At the same time, we are bound also to remember that we ought not to cherish the like feelings towards the wicked that we do towards the righteous. Yea, if we are righteous, we cannot. And while we plead with God to build up those who are pure and true, we ought to plead with him to frustrate the designs of unreasonable and wicked men, and to arise and vindicate the great cause of righteousness and truth. And this we may do, while leaving it absolutely with God to deal with wicked people as he sees fit. The Judge of all the earth will do right, and we surely can leave the matter there. "Vengeance is mine: I will repay, saith the Lord." Job"s words are better than any prayers for vengeance: " I know that my Vindicator liveth." There let us rest. For we have to recognize
III A TWOFOLD ACTION OF GOD"S PROVIDENCE. He builds up the righteous, but disconcerts the schemes of the wicked. So the experience of life shows us, and so this psalm indicates.
1. To the righteous. God is
(1) their Strength;
(2) their Shield;
(3) the Stronghold of salvation for them and for their anointed king.
This may be applied in the highest sense. (cf. Rom_8:28 Heb_2:10)
2. To the wicked. (Ver. 5) "He shall break them down, and not build them up". (cf. Psa_18:25, 26 37:35 73:18-20) God will seem to men according to what they are. If they follow his commandments, peace will attend their steps. If they violate them, all nature will be full of detectives, whips, and stings.
IV A TWOFOLD ACT TOWARDS GOD.
1. Prayer. "Hear... when I lift up my hands toward thy holy oracle;i.e. towards the "mercy-seat" (ver. 2). Although he was not selfish enough to cramp his desires within the limits of his own personal need, yet he was not unnatural enough to leave himself out. In fact, God was so much to him that his very life seemed bound up in God and his loving-kindness; the lack of a message from God to his spirit would almost drive him to despair (vers. 1, 2). But, as is so often the case, the very psalms which begin with the deepest sighing end with the most joyous shouting. Hence, following on prayer, there is:
2. Praise. (Ver. 6) The lower God takes us down in the valley of humiliation, the higher will he take us up on the mount of exultation. (Isa_41:16) And those who spend most time with God in weeping and supplication will have the loudest and sweetest strains to raise over the wonders of delivering grace. "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy." This is as true of prayer as it is of work.
Note: Making all allowance for the difference of tone in the two dispensations, the Hebrew and the Christian, yet throughout both the same laws hold good.
1. That prayer is one of the forces by means of which God sways the world.
2. That his people have for thousands of years been praying to him to bring in righteousness and to put down wrong of every kind.
3. That it is more certain these prayers will be answered than that the sun will rise to-morrow.
4. And, consequently, it is for men to decide whether to their life there shall attach the privilege of being borne upon the hearts of all God"s saints in prayer, or the peril of being surrounded with petitions that they may ultimately be put to shame. C.
HOMILIES BY W. FORSYTH Vers. 1-9. Man"s cry and God"s response.
In this psalm we find
I MAN"S CRY TO GOD. (Vers. 1-5) Prayer is an instinct of the heart. Man cries to man. There is a bond of brotherhood between all men. The simple fact that a brother is in need gives him a claim to help. Friend cries to friend. The nearer our relationships, the deeper our obligations. The child cries to its lather. Whatever may be the conduct of others, we are sure that parents will do what they can for their children. With how much more reason and confidence may we cry to God! He is ever near. He is always pitiful. He will surely help all those who cry to him. It is true we may be tried, sorely tried. Distresses may multiply. Our fears may magnify our danger. We may tremble as on the verge of the gulf. But let us not despair. Bartimaeus was not answered at the first, but he cried again. The Syro-Phoenician woman seemed at first to be met with repulse and refusal, but she pleaded the more earnestly. The sisters of Bethany were left for three whole days in their woe; but the Saviour came in his good time, brining light and joy. So let us learn to pray and wait. Daniel took comfort by looking toward Jerusalem; let us look above, to Jesus, "the Author and Finisher of our faith.
II GOD"S RESPONSE TO MAN"S CRY. (Vers. 6-9) In the deepest sense, God"s response to man"s cry is Christ. In him God has come to us in human form, brining salvation. Through him God is ever with us, to hear the prayer of the sinner and to satisfy the desires of his saints. When we pray it may be that the answer is delayed. As Joseph spoke roughly to his brethren, though love and kindness were in his heart all the time, so God may seem for a while to close his ear, and suffer us to struggle and cry in vain; but we are sure that his love does not change. He is not like Baal (1Ki_18:27) or the god of Ekron. (2Ki_1:2) If he delays it is because this is needful. It is part of his discipline; it is necessary for the full accomplishment of his purposes. It may be also that God will answer our prayers in a way different from what we expected. We are weak and ignorant. Our minds are clouded, our hearts are confused. We are harassed and distressed by the things which press most closely upon us. We are not fit judges as to what is best. Let us confide in God. He knows what we are and what we need. His way is always the best way. Paul, hard pressed by the thorn in the flesh, besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from him. But he erred. It had been sent as a preventative, "lest he should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations;" and it had not yet served its full purpose. God did not cause it to depart, but he did what was far better. He said, "My grace is sufficient for thee." And Paul, now better taught, cries, "Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me". (2Co_12:7-9) Baxter"s rule is good, "As thou wilt, when thou wilt, and where thou wilt." But many times God is pleased to answer the prayers of his people by granting their requests. We ask light, and he gives light. We seek pardon, and he says, "Thy sins are forgiven thee." We crave help in trouble, and he sends forth his angels for our comfort and deliverance. God"s response to our cry calls for thanksgiving. Thus prayer ends in praise (vers. 6, 7). There is gratitude for deliverance. Faith is strengthened, hope is revived, and love breaks forth into joyful songs of victory. "I"ll praise my Maker with my breath, And when my voice is lost in death Praise shall employ my nobler powers. My days of praise shall ne"er be past While life and thought and being last, And immortality endures. W.F.
HOMILIES BY C. SHORT Vers. 1-9. The oppressed righteous king.
It is the king who speaks, whose cause is identical with that of the people. Difference between this and the twenty-sixth psalm. The ground-thought of both is that God will not involve in the same outward fate those who are inwardly different; and that the lot of the wicked cannot be the same as that of the righteous. But there it is the oppressed individual righteous man that speaks; here it is the oppressed righteous king speaking for himself and his people.
I THE PRAYER FOR DELIVERANCE. (Vers. 1-3) Arguments of the psalmist why God should answer him.
1. The certain, firm faithfulness of God. "God was his Rock." God and he were friends, and he could not but listen to the cry of a friend for help. Besides, God has promised to deliver the righteous out of his troubles. We have this assurance in the gospel. "He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
2. If God did not answer him, he would soon be past deliverance. "Like them that go down to the dead." No human help could avail him; no operation of mere natural law. God"s arm must interpose for him. All real answers to prayer are supernatural something above nature from the realm of spirit.
3. He lifted his hands to the place where God speaks with his people. (See Exo_25:22) That is, he puts himself into the divinely appointed way of being heard praying towards the mercy-seat between the cherubim. Did all he knew and could do for being answered. Have we done that?
4. God was too just to involve him in a common fate with wicked and deceitful men. (Ver. 3) "Draw me not away," etc. That would not be just. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?
II A PRAYER THAT THE WICKED MAY NOT GO UNPUNISHED. (Vers. 4, 5) Particularly his enemies. The prayer might not have been prompted by malignity. For:
1. Their frustration might have been necessary to his deliverance. If so, he was only crying for justice, such as we often invoke upon those guilty of injustice. "Give them according to their deeds," and let them not continue in their unrighteous courses.
2. The prayer is followed by a prophecy of their assured doom. Because they do not study God"s righteous judgments, they fall into increasing wickedness, and make sure of being destroyed.
III PRAYER ANSWERED IS FOLLOWED BY CONFIDENCE AND THANKSGIVING.
1. The struggles of his soul have brought victory, praise, and joy. (Vers. 6-8)
2. The psalmist prays that the Lord would do eternally that which he had now done. (Ver. 9) Would continue to do for ever the same as he had now done for him and his people. 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 Title and Subject. Again, the title "A Psalm of…
Title and Subject. Again, the title "A Psalm of David, " is too general to give us any clue to the occasion on which it was written. Its position, as following the twenty-seventh, seems to have been designed, for it is a most suitable pendant and sequel to it. It is another of those "songs in the night" of which the pen of David was so prolific. The thorn at the breast of the nightingale was said by the old naturalists to make it sing: David's griefs made him eloquent in holy psalmody. The main pleading of this Psalm is that the suppliant may not be confounded with the workers of iniquity for whom he expresses the utmost abhorrence; it may suit any slandered saint, who being misunderstood by men, and treated by them as an unworthy character, is anxious to stand aright before the bar of God. The Lord Jesus may be seen here pleading as the representative of his people.
Division. The first and second verses earnestly entreat audience of the Lord in a time of dire emergency. From Ps 28:2-5, the portion of the wicked is described and deprecated. In Ps 28:6-8, praise is given for the Lord's mercy in hearing prayer, and the Psalm concludes with a general petition for the whole host of militant believers.
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Ver. 1. Unto thee will I cry, O Lord, my rock. A cry is the natural expression of sorrow, and is a suitable utterance when all other modes of appeal fail us; but the cry must be alone directed to the Lord, for to cry to man is to waste our entreaties upon the air. When we consider the readiness of the Lord to hear, and his ability to aid, we shall see good reason for directing all our appeals at once to the God of our salvation, and shall use language of firm resolve like that in the text, "I will cry." The immutable Jehovah is our rock, the immovable foundation of all our hopes and our refuge in time of trouble: we are fixed in our determination to flee to him as our stronghold in every hour of danger. It will be in vain to call to the rocks in the day of judgment, but our rock attends to our cries. Be not silent to me. Mere formalists may be content without answers to their prayers, but genuine suppliants cannot; they are not satisfied with the results of prayer itself in calming the mind and subduing the willthey must go further and obtain actual replies from heaven, or they cannot rest; and those replies they long to receive at once, if possible; they dread even a little of God's silence. God's voice is often so terrible that it shakes the wilderness; but his silence is equally full of awe to an eager suppliant. When God seems to close his ear, we must not therefore close our mouths, but rather cry with more earnestness; for when our note grows shrill with eagerness and grief, he will not long deny us a hearing. What a dreadful case should we be in if the Lord should become for ever silent to our prayers! This thought suggested itself to David, and he turned it into a plea, thus teaching us to argue and reason with God in our prayers. Lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit. Deprived of the God who answers prayer, we should be in a more pitiable plight than the dead in the grave, and should soon sink to the same level as the lost in hell. We must have answers to prayer: ours is an urgent case of dire necessity; surely the Lord will speak peace to our agitated minds, for he never can find it in his heart to permit his own elect to perish.
Ver. 1. Unto thee do I cry. It is of the utmost importance that we should have a definite object on which to fix our thoughts. Man, at the best of times, has but little power for realising abstractions; but least of all in his time of sorrow. Then he is helpless; then he needs every possible aid; and if his mind wander in vacancy, it will soon weary, and sink down exhausted. God has graciously taken care that this need not be done. He has so manifested himself to man in his word, that the afflicted one can fix his mind's eye on him, as the definite object of his faith, and hope, and prayer. "Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not." Jer 33:3. This was what the psalmist did; and the definiteness of God, as the object of his trust in prayer, is very clearly marked. And specially great is the privilege of the Christian in this matter. He can fix his eye on Jesus; he, without any very great stretch of the imagination, can picture that Holy One looking down upon him; listening to him; feeling for him; preparing to answer him. Dear reader, in the time of your trouble, do not roam; do not send out your sighs into vacancy; do not let your thoughts wander, as though they were looking for some one on whom to fix; for some one to whom you could tell the story of your heart's need and desolation. Fix your heart as the psalmist did, and say, "Unto thee will I cry." ... Oh! happy is that man, who feels and knows that when trouble comes, he cannot be bewildered and confused by the stroke, no matter how heavy it may be. Sorrow stricken he will be, but he has his resource, and he knows it, and will avail himself of it. His is no vague theory of the general sympathy of God for man; his is a knowledge of God, as a personal and feeling God; he says with the psalmist, "Unto thee will I cry." Philip Bennett Power.
Ver. 1. My rock. One day a female friend called on the Rev. William Evans, a pious minister in England, and asked how he felt himself. "I am weakness itself, "he replied; "but I am on the Rock. I do not experience those transports which some have expressed in the view of death; but my dependence is on the mercy of God in Christ. Here my religion began, and here it must end."
Ver. 1. My rock. The Rev, John Rees, of Crownstreet, Soho, London, was visited on his deathbed by the Rev. John Leifchild, who very seriously asked him to describe the state of his mind. This appeal to the honour of his religion roused him, and so freshened his dying lamp, that raising himself up in his bed, he looked his friend in the face, and with great deliberation, energy, and dignity, uttered the following words: "Christ in his person, Christ in the love of his heart, and Christ in the power of his arm, is the Rock on which I rest; and now (reclining his head gently on the pillow), Death, strike!" K. Arvine.
Ver. 1. Be not silent to me. Let us next observe what the heart desires from God. It is that he would speak. Be not silent to me. Under these circumstances, when we make our prayer, we desire that God would let us know that he hears us, and that he would appear for us, and that he would say, he is our Father. And what do we desire God to say? We want him to let us know that he hears us; we want to hear him speak as distinctly to us, as we feel that we have spoken to him. We want to know, not only by faith that we have been heard, but by God's having spoken to us on the very subject whereupon we have spoken to him. When we feel thus assured that God has heard us, we can with the deepest confidence leave the whole matter about which we have been praying, in his hands. Perhaps an answer cannot come for a long time; perhaps things, meanwhile, seem working in a contrary way; it may be, that there is no direct appearance at all of God upon the scene; still faith will hold up and be strong; and there will be comfort in the heart, from the felt consciousness that God has heard our cry about the matter, and that he has told us so. We shall say to ourselves, "God knows all about it; God has in point of fact told me so; therefore I am in peace." And let it be enough for us that God tells us this, when he will perhaps tell us no more; let us not want to try and induce him to speak much, when it is his will to speak but little: the best answer we can have at certain times is simply the statement that "he hears; "by this answer to our prayer he at once encourages and exercises our faith. "It is said, "saith Rutherford, speaking of the Saviour's delay in responding to the request of the Syrophenician woman, "he answered not a word, "but it is not said, he heard not a word. These two differ much. Christ often heareth when he doth not answer his not answering is an answer, and speaks thus"pray on, go on and cry, for the Lord holdeth his door fast bolted, not to keep you out, but that you may knock, and knock, and it shall be opened." Philip Bennett Power.
Ver. 1. Lest...I become like them that go down into the pit. Thou seest, great God, my sad situation. Nothing to me is great or desirable upon this earth but the felicity of serving thee, and yet the misery of my destiny, and the duties of my state, bring me into connection with men who regard all godliness as a thing to be censured and derided. With secret horror I daily hear them blaspheming the ineffable gifts of thy grace, and ridiculing the faith and fervour of the godly as mere imbecility of mind. Exposed to such impiety, all my consolation, O my God, is to make my cries of distress ascend to the foot of thy throne. Although for the present, these sacrilegious blasphemies only awaken in my soul emotions of horror and pity, yet I fear that at last they may enfeeble me and seduce me into a crooked course of policy, unworthy of thy glory, and of the gratitude which I owe to thee. I fear that insensibly I may become such a coward as to blush at thy name, such a sinner as to resist the impulses of thy grace, such a traitor as to withhold my testimony against sin, such a self deceiver as to disguise my criminal timidity by the name of prudence. Already I feel that this poison is insinuating itself into my heart, for while I would not have my conduct resemble that of the wicked who surround me, yet I am too much biased by the fear of giving them offence. I dare not imitate them, but I am almost as much afraid of irritating them. I know that it is impossible both to please a corrupt world and a holy God, and yet I so far lose sight of this truth, that instead of sustaining me in decision, it only serves to render my vacillation the more inexcusable. What remains for me but to implore thy help! Strengthen me, O Lord, against these declensions so injurious to thy glory, so fatal to the fidelity which is due to thee. Cause me to hear thy strengthening and encouraging voice. If the voice of thy grace be not lifted up in my spirit, reanimating my feeble faith, I feel that there is but a step between me and despair. I am on the brink of the precipice, I am ready to fall into a criminal complicity with those who would fain drag me down with them into the pit. Jean Baptiste Massillon, 1663-1742, freely translated by C.H.S.
Ver. 1. (first clause). A sinner's wise resolution in the hour of despondency.
Ver. 1. The saint's fear of becoming like the ungodly.
Ver. 1. God's silencewhat terror may lie in it.
Ver. 1. (last clause). How low a soul may sink when God hides his face.
Ver. 1-2. Prayer.
1. Its naturea "cry."
1. The utterance of life.
2. The expression of pain.
3. The pleading of need.
4. The voice of deep earnestness.
2. Its object"O Lord, my rock." God as our Foundation, Refuge, and immutable Friend.
3. Its aim"Hear, ""Be not silent." We expect an answer, a clear and manifest answer, a speedy answer, a suitable answer, an effectual answer.
4. Its medium"Towards thy holy oracle." Our Lord Jesus, the true mercy seat, etc.
Psalms 28:2*
Ver. 1-2. Prayer.
1. Its naturea "cry."
1. The utterance of life,
2. The expression of pain.
3. The pleading of need.
4. The voice of deep earnestness.
2. Its object"O Lord, my rock." God as our Foundation, Refuge, and immutable Friend.
3. Its aim"Hear, ""Be not silent." We expect an answer, a clear and manifest answer, a speedy answer, a suitable answer, an effectual answer.
4. Its medium"Towards thy holy oracle." Our Lord Jesus, the true mercy seat, etc.
Psalms 28:3*
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 Unto Thee will I cry, O Lord my Rock.
Psa_28:1-7
Unto Thee will I cry, O Lord my Rock.
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The prayer of a saint in distress
I. He prays that God would graciously hear and answer him now that, in his distress, he called upon him (Psa_28:1-2). Observe--
1. His faith in prayer. O Lord, my rock.
2. His fervency in prayer. Unto Thee will I cry--as one in earnest, being ready to sink unless Thou come in with seasonable succour.
3. How solicitous he is to obtain an answer. Be not silent to me.
4. His plea.
(1) The sad despair he should be in if God slighted him. If Thou be silent to me, etc. If God be not my friend, appear not to me, and appear not for me, my hope and my help is perished.
(2) The good hopes he had that God would favour him. I lift up my hands, etc. The most holy place, within the veil, is here called the oracle. That was a type of Christ; and it is to Him that we must lift up our eyes and hands, for through Him all good comes from God to us. It was also a figure of heaven (Heb_9:24); and from God, as our Father in heaven, we are taught to expect answers to prayer.
II. he deprecates the doom of wicked people (Psa_28:3).
1. Save me from being entangled in the snares they have laid for me.
2. Save me from being infected with their sins, and from doing as they do.
3. Save me from being involved in their doom.
III. he deprecates the just judgments of God upon the workers of iniquity (Psa_28:4). This is not the language of passion or revenge; nor is it inconsistent with the duty of praying for our enemies. But--
1. Thus he would show how far he was from complying with the workers of iniquity.
2. Thus he would express his zeal for the honour of Gods justice in governing the world.
3. This prayer is a prophecy that God will, sooner or later, render to all impenitent sinners according to their deserts. Observe, he foretells that God will reward them, not only according to their deeds, but according to the wickedness of their endeavours; for sinners shall be reckoned with, not only for the mischief they have done, but for the mischief they would have done, which they designed, and did what they could to effect. And if God go by this rule in dealing with the wicked, sure He will do so in dealing with the righteous, and will reward them, not only for the good they have done, but for the good they endeavoured to do, though they could not compass it.
IV. he foretells their destruction for their contempt of God and his hand (Psa_28:5). Why do men question the Being or attributes of God but because they do not duly regard His handi-works which declare His glory, and in which the invisible things of Him are clearly seen? Why do men forget God, and live without Him--nay, affront God, and live in rebellion against Him, but because they consider not the instances of that wrath of His which is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and Unrighteousness of men? Why do the enemies of Gods people hats and persecute them, and devise mischief against them, but because they regard not the works God has wrought for His Church, by which He has made it appear how dear it is to Him? (Isa_5:12). (M. Henry, D. D.)
A cry for help
1. To the right person.
2. At the right time.
3. With the right motives.
4. In the right way. (J. E. Scott.)
The instincts of the heart
I. the sense of dependence upon God. How sweet it is to say unto God, My Rock. This gives confidence in life and in death. Said a dying saint (the Rev. John Rees), Christ in His person, Christ in the love of His heart, and Christ in the power of His arm, is the rock on which I rest; and now (reclining his head gently on the pillow), Death, strike.
II. craving for fellowship with God.
1. God s silence deprecated as the greatest evil.
2. Gods fellowship sought as the greatest good:
(1) Humbly.
(2) Earnestly.
(3) Importunately.
(4) Through faith in the mercy of God.
III. confidence in the eternal justice of God.
1. Deliverance sought from the doom of the wicked.
2. Retribution craved.
IV. gratitude foe the goodness of God.
1. For answered prayers.
2. For assistance in time of need.
3. For assurance of hope.
V. exulting joy in the saving strength of God.
VI. trust in the ultimate triumph and blessedness of Gods people. (W. Forsyth, M. A.)
A supplication metaphorically expressed
I. The object of prayer is here given in metaphor.
1. His nature. Rock. What so immutable, abiding?
(1) Deep in the nature of every man is the desire for some object on which to settle its confidence and its love.
(2) The human spirit, without a fixed centre, is like the sea--never at rest.
(3) All outside the soul is unsettled and shifting as the clouds. Riches take to themselves wings and flee away; friends drop into the grave. The soul wants a Rock amidst this surging sea.
2. His attitude. Silent. Even Christ on the cross exclaimed, My God, etc. Does not this prove mans intuitive belief in the fact that fellowship with the Great Father is happiness? Whatever may be mans theoretical credenda concerning the Eternal, his primitive faith is, that happiness is attained only by close communion with Him.
3. His salvation. Lest I be like them who go down into the pit. From what a pit does the great God deliver His people--
(1) The pit of uncorrectable depravity.
(2) The pit of unpardonable guilt.
(3) The pit of unrelievable despair.
II. The nature of the prayer is here given in metaphor.
1. Prayer has respect to a special manifestation of God. Toward Thy holy oracle. What the Mercy Seat was to the Jew, Christ is to humanity in these last times--the Temple in which God is to be met, and where the Shekinah radiates--Emmanuel--God with us. Man in prayer requires that his Deity should appear as a local personality.
2. Prayer is the elevation of the soul to God. I lift up my hands. The lifting up of the hands symbolizes the lifting up of the heart. (Homilist.)
Be not silent to me, lest if Thou be silent to me I become like them that go down into the pit.
The Silences of God
The instinct of religion is to cry to God. The personal providence of God is the reason of prayer. The psalmist is in trouble, and as he prays his imagination suggests what it would be if God were silent to him.
I. Is God silent to our prayers? We pray expecting His answer. Prayer is not the mere utterance of surcharged hearts, like Lears raving to the winds. There is moral benefit in simple desire, and that desire grows by utterance. The Rock may not speak to us, but we can lean against it and find shelter under it. But the idea of God speaking to us is as essential for prayer as our speaking to Him. We ask for response, not merely that He would listen. In what sense may God be silent to a praying man? It is a possibility, and as such it is deprecated. Perhaps David was impatient because the answer did not at once come. Sometimes the answer may follow at once, as the thunder-clap the lightning. I will, be thou clean, was the instant answer to the lepers cry. But the answer to the Syro-Phoenician, to the centurion, to the disciples in the storm, to the sisters of Lazarus, were purposely delayed. The long winter is not a capricious delay of spring; it prepares for a fuller, a more luxuriant life. Surely was not the Father, in this sense, silent to the well-beloved Son Himself when He prayed in His agony, thrice, Father, if it be possible. His cup might not pass, but He was heard in that He feared. Our hasty desires are often not wise. The thing demanded might send leanness into our souls.
II. there are other silences that perplex us. What is the meaning of many of Gods laws--the economy of violence, of death, of death as the condition of life? Why are the secrets of Nature so hidden? Why did not God tell at the first what powerful generations have just discovered? Wherefore do the wicked prosper? Why is God silent when His people are wronged with impunity and success? No doubt, much that we call Gods silence is speech that is unheard. It is not His silence, but only our deafness. Christianity has taught us how to regard suffering itself as a gospel.
III. concerning his kingdom we are perplexed. Lord, are there few that be saved? He is silent to our curiosity even when prompted by benevolence.
IV. in spiritual things, again, we often think, in our obtuseness, that God is silent. We do not always hear Gods voice in our own souls. The Babel voices of passion drown it. He that will do the will of God shall know of the doctrine. Some men see and hear God everywhere; others never see or hear Him at all. To the spiritual soul Gods world is a whispering gallery--dead stones speak.
V. to such a soul the thought that God may be silent to him is intolerable. He would be as those who perish. Every delay was painful. The Divine Fatherhood has such meaning to us that we cannot bear the hiding of Gods face. This is the meaning of all the great yearnings after God with which the Psalms are full. To be thrown upon the mystery and sin and trouble of life, all the burden and the mystery of this unintelligible world, without God is, to a religious soul, intolerable. How terrible to think of men to whom God is always silent, who are spiritually so deaf that they cannot hear, and to whom, if they could hear, God has no words that He could speak but of rebuke. There are men who all their lives have been saying prayers but have never prayed, and to whom God has never spoken. What if the silence should never be broken? (H. Allen, D. D.)
The silence of God
I shall treat the subject mainly from the standpoint of those to whom the silence of God is a burden, more or less perplexing, mysterious.
I. while complaining of Gods silence, are you really so certain that he is silent? What if God has been speaking distinctly and repeatedly, while from faults of your own you have not heard Him? There are two pre-requisites to the catching of Gods voice! Listen for it in the proper quarter. Many miss the Divine message because they fail to realize how often it comes to us in the ordinary and the commonplace. Where is the Christ? do you ask?--the Christ that I need to save me, to guide me? Why, in the weekly sermons you hear, in the daily Scriptures you read, in the temporal experiences that befall you, in the spiritual aspirations that stir in you. Lay your ear to the things that are close to you: customary ordinances, customary providences, as well as your yearnings and anxieties for a better life. Christ is speaking in these.
2. Listen for it with the necessary sympathy. Otherwise, though close to the sphere where God speaks, with His messages ringing all round about you, you may miss or mistake their meaning; they will be no real messages to you. Who are those that appreciate the poets message? Only such as have a portion of the poets soul. Who are those that appreciate the musicians message? Only such as have a portion of the musicians taste. And who are those that appreciate the Divine message? Only such as have an element of the Divine character, that raises you to the knowledge of the Divine, instals you into fellowship with the Divine.
II. in complaining of Gods silence, are you sure that his silence will continue? Remember the Syro-Phoenician woman. If your prayer be a prayer for simple relief, cud if you are careful to ask for it in the right spirit, willing to wait for it till the right time, you need not lose heart, though Christ at the outset be silent. The speaking will surely follow. And meanwhile through the very silence Christ may work by blessing as well as by speech. He may keep you waiting for a time that faith may be strengthened, that hope may be fanned, that love may be refined, that patience may be perfected, that desire may be purified.
III. in complaining of Gods silence, are you sure it would be good for you if he spoke? (Joh_16:12). He meets many a question that goes up to Him about concealed things in life and doctrine with a shake of the head, the attitude of reticence and of reserve. And the reason is this--the knowledge of such matters is meanwhile unsafe. A modern religious writer has beautifully said that the key to Gods silence on many points is to be found in the simple words, We shall be changed, and the fact that God waits till the change takes place.
IV. in complaining of Gods silence, are you sure you are not provoking him to keep silence? how? By sin that is wilfully indulged in, or sin that is insufficiently repented of-inadequately realized and confessed (Psa_66:18). But, you say, I have grieved over my iniquity. Yes, but there is grieving and grieving. Have you renounced it? Have you renounced the fruits of it? Have you gone to God with such an absence of self-justification and self-excuse as to say, I and not another have done this thing, and against Thee and not another has this thing been done? For if not, grieve as you may, plead as you may, be prepared for Gods silence.
V. in complaining of Gods silence, are you sure you are giving him the opportunity to speak? Truly, says the psalmist, my soul waiteth upon God. It ought rather to read, is silent to God. A friend told me some time ago that a Christian lady startled him with a question worth the repeating. She first asked, Do you pray? Yes. And how long do you remain on your knees, after you have prayed, waiting for an answer? Well, he said, it is strange; I never thought of doing that at all. We forget the duty of stillness, of quietness. We forget the duty of now and again being silent to God in the attitude of expectancy and recipiency. (W. A. Gray.)
The silence of God
I think it was Thomas Carlyle who used those pathetic words when speaking of the Deity: He does nothing. The world moved ever onwards; men and Women struggled and loved and hated; vice lifted its head unblushingly in our streets, and dishonesty and cruelty worked havoc in the peace of the universe. And yet the God of purity and of justice never seemed to interfere. The world ran riot, and He put not forth His lined; men cried to Him for help and deliverance, and He remained for ever silent. Now, this Eternal silence has had a twofold effect upon men. In one class it has given rise to defiance; in another it has given rise to despair. The unbeliever challenges the Divine interference, and when silence is the answer to his demand he denies the power of the Eternal Spirit; the man of faith appeals to God for light and leading, and the silence nearly drives him to desperation. There is nothing more trying to the faith of men than this silence, or seeming silence, on the part of God. Does God speak to you, or is He silent? Is the silence of the universe for you ever broken by the mysterious voice of an Unseen Being? Can you with the eye of sense look at the heavens above you, and with the eye of faith pierce the eternal blue, and believe that the God who lives in the universe is a Being who has ears but heareth not, who has eyes but seeth not, who has a heart but knows nothing of the wants and needs of that broken heart of yours? If prayer does nothing else for a man, it at least bears him up on the wings of faith, far from the vexing trifles of the present into the unknown region where the Father dwells; and no one can live for a moment in that holy place without hearing the voice of God. Prayer purifies, says Richter; and purity is the voice of God. Again, we may hear the Divine voice in Nature if we open our ears to its sound. That voice was for ever in the ears of the psalmist; he heard the voice of God in the hurricane and in the calm. And the reason why men to-day do not hear God speaking to them in Nature is simply that they allow the murmur of the world to stifle the whisper of heaven To hold silent communings with the silent God you must leave the bustle of the world behind you. It is not often that God speaks to a man through the noise of his hammer in the workshop, or the columns of his ledger in the office, or the pages of his bank-book. Leave these things behind and go away and seek Gods face in the lonely valley or on the silent, hillside. There you will discover the truest part of your manhood, you will see that the life of thought is the nearest akin to that of God, and in every blade of grass you will see the mystery of the Divine workmanship, in every peeping flower you will see the Eternal smile, in the murmur of the mountain streamlet you will hear the music of the angels, in the breeze which kisses your cheek you will feel the breath of God. We hear the voice of God also in the voice of conscience within us. If you stifle that voice it will become fainter day by day till it altogether dies away; if you listen to its appeal it will ultimately lead you to where you may see God face to face. Once more, the voice of God may come to you in the memory of the past. Your life must have been a very uneventful one if you cannot look back upon it and see many stages plainly marked which give the lie to the assertion of the silence of God, if you cannot point to many struggles, many victories, and also many defeats in your lifes history where you heard the voice of God breaking the silence around. But, above all, do we hear the voice of God in the memory of departed friends and comrades. There is a great deal more meaning than we think of in the words, He being dead yet speaketh. The memory of the departed lifts us up to higher things, and we hear their voices calling us to walk nobly and endure manfully. The memory of a dead parent often keeps a young mans feet from walking in the paths of sin; the memory of a dead friend stimulates us to a higher ideal and a nobler end. What man who has a dear child in the eternal kingdom does not feel better and purer and more Christ-like when he thinks of that angel face smiling upon him in tender affection? (A. Warr, M. A.)
The seeming silence of God
The seeming silence of God means human incapacity and dulness. This is the obstacle to hearing. There is an eternal reality corresponding with the ancient phrase, Communion with God. But this implies more than the existence of the Heavenly voice. It implies organs made sensitive to it. The material world is full of sounds which are constantly failing upon ears that are too dull or too deaf to hear them. We speak of the silence of the sea, of the silence of the night, of the silence of the mighty mountain. But to men with ears, to men not wanting in the vision and the faculty divine, these things are unceasingly eloquent with speech. To some God does not seem to speak because there has been no preparation for hearing. Where the soul is filled with the noise of mundane voices, the Divine voices which are resounding through its chambers cannot be distinguished. The man who cries despairingly to God, Be not silent to me, needs to remember that it is himself more than God that needs to be stirred. He must set himself to understand the language in which the Divine One is wont to communicate with the human spirit. Even among men the spoken and the written word are not the only methods of intercommunication. To the trained eye of friendship many an important message may be conveyed without the use of any audible or written word. We speak to God in a voice audible, but He may answer us in impressions, in impulses, and similar. And this language, the language of the spirit of the unseen God, cannot be understood without any instruction. The one who rushes into the Divine presence with petitions, his soul full of earths voices, having never learned even the alphabet of the spiritual world, cannot expect to understand the answer he may receive, any more than a man ignorant of the telegraph code could interpret the dots and dashes which he is given to understand are the reply to a communication which he has flashed along the speaking wires. To the aspiring, sensitive soul, God is never silent. (J. Hunter, D. D.)
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 Psalms 28
Psalms 28
THE unquestionable resemblances to Psalms 26 scarcely require that this should be considered its companion. The differences are as obvious as the likenesses. While the prayer "Draw me not away with the wicked" and the characterisation of these are alike in both, the further emphatic prayer for retribution here and the closing half of this psalm have nothing corresponding to them in the other. This psalm is built on the familiar plan of groups of two verses each, with the exception that the prayer, which is its centre, runs over into three. The course of thought is as familiar as the structure. Invocation is followed by petition, and that by exultant anticipation of the answer as already given; and all closes with wider petitions for the whole people.
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Psa_28:1-2 are a prelude to the prayer proper, bespeaking the Divine acceptance of it, on the double ground of the psalmists helplessness apart from Gods help and of his outstretched hands appealing to God enthroned above the mercy seat. He is in such straits that, unless his prayer brings an answer in act, he must sink into the pit of Sheol, and be made like those that lie huddled there in its darkness. On the edge of the slippery slope, he stretches out his hands toward the innermost sanctuary (for so the word rendered, by a mistaken etymology, "oracle" means). He beseeches God to hear, and blends the two figures of deafness and silence as both meaning the withholding of help. Jehovah seems deaf when prayer is unanswered, and is silent when He does not speak in deliverance. This prelude of invocation throbs with earnestness, and sets the pattern for suppliants, teaching them bow to quicken their own desires as well as how to appeal to God by breathing to Him their consciousness that only His hand can keep them from sliding down into death.
The prayer itself (Psa_28:3-5) touches lightly on the petition that the psalmist may be delivered from the fate of the wicked, and then launches out into indignant description of their practices and solemn invocation of retribution upon them. "Drag away" is parallel with, but stronger than, "Gather not" in Psa_26:9. Commentators quote Job_24:22, where the word isused of Gods dragging the mighty out of life by His power, as a struggling criminal is haled to the scaffold. The shuddering recoil from the fate of the wicked is accompanied with vehement loathing of their practices. A man who keeps his heart in touch with God cannot but shrink, as from a pestilence, from complicity with evil. and the depth of his hearty hatred of it is the measure of his right to ask that he may not share in the ruin it must bring, since God is righteous. One type of evildoers is the object of the psalmists special abhorrence: false friends with smooth tongues and daggers in their sleeves, the "dissemblers" of Psalms 26; but he passes to the more general characterisation of the class, in his terrible prayer for retribution, in Psa_28:4-5. The sin of sins, from which all specific acts of evil flow, is blindness to Gods "deeds" and to "the work of His hands," His acts both of mercy and of judgment. Practical atheism, the indifference which looks upon nature, history, and self, and sees no signs of a mighty hand tender, pure, and strong, ever active in them all, will surely lead the purblind "Agnostics" to do "works of their hands" which, for lack of reference to Him, fail to conform to the highest ideal and draw down righteous judgment. But the blindness to Gods work here meant is that of an averted will rather than that of mistaken understanding, and from the stem of such a thorn the grapes of holy living cannot be gathered. Therefore the psalmist is but putting into words the necessary result of such lives when from suppliant he becomes prophet, and declares that "He shall cast them down, and not build them up." The stern tone of this prayer marks it as belonging to the older type of religion, and its dissimilarity to the New Testament teaching is not to be slurred over. No doubt the element of personal enmity is all but absent, but it is not the prayer which those who have heard "Father, forgive them," are to copy. Yet, on the other hand, the wholesome abhorrence of evil, the solemn certitude that sin is death, the desire that it may cease from the world, and the lowly petition that it may not drag us into fatal associations are all to be preserved in Christian feeling, while softened by the light that falls from Calvary.
As in many psalms, the faith which prays passes at once into the faith which possesses. This man, when he "stood praying, believed that he had what he asked," and, so believing, had it. There was no change in circumstances, but he was changed. There is no fear of going down into the pit now, and the rabble of evil-doers have disappeared. This is the blessing which every true suppliant may bear away from the throne, the peace which passeth understanding, the sure pledge of the Divine act which answers prayer. It is the first gentle ripple of the incoming tide; high water is sure to come at the due hour. So the psalmist is exuberant and happily tautological in telling how his trusting heart has become a leaping heart, and help has been flashed back from heaven as swiftly as his prayer had travelled thither.
The closing strophe (Psa_28:8-9) is but loosely connected with the body of the psalm except on one supposition. What if the singer were king over Israel, and if the dangers threatening him were public perils? That would explain the else singular attachment of intercession for Israel to so intensely personal a supplication. It is most natural that Gods "anointed" who has been asking deliverance for himself, should widen his petitions to take in that flock of which he was but the under-shepherd, and should devolve the shepherding and carrying of it on the Divine Shepherd King, of whom he was the shadowy representative. The addition of one letter changes "their" in Psa_28:8 into "to His people" a reading which has the support of the LXX and of some manuscripts and versions and is recommended by its congruity with the context. Cheynes suggestion that "His anointed" is the high priest is only conjecture. The reference of the expression to the king who is also the psalmist preserves the unity of the psalm. The Christian reader cannot but think of the true King and Intercessor, whose great prayer before His passion began, like our psalm, with petitions for Himself, but passed into supplication for His little flock and for all the unnumbered millions "who should believe on" Him "through their word."
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 Hitsig and others have assigned this psalm to Jeremiah,…
INTRODUCTION
Hitsig and others have assigned this psalm to Jeremiah, but there does not seem to be thy sufficient reason for questioning the traditional title which gives it to David. It may have been composed before he became king in Jerusalem, or at the time of Absalom’s rebellion. It consists of two divisions. After earnestly entreating audience (Psa_28:1-2), the psalmist prays that he may not be confounded with the wicked in their just punishment (Psa_28:3-5). He then gives thanks for anticipated deliverance, and ends with a catholic prayer for the blessing of God upon all His people (Psa_28:6-9). There are points of resemblance between this psalm and the two preceding.
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THE INSTINCTS OF THE HEART
This psalm may be held to express the deepest feelings of the heart.
I. The sense of dependence upon God (Psa_28:1). This “cry” is common. It expresses dependence. It is founded on the relation of the soul to God. The creature cries to the Creator, the subject cries to the sovereign, the sinner cries to the Saviour. In want and peril; when burdened with sorrow, and when bowed to the dust under the sense of sin and the fear of death, the soul instinctively, turns to God for relief.
“My Rock” (cf. Psa_18:2; Psa_31:2; Psa_42:9). There is everything in God to meet the needs of His people. If they are weak, with Him is everlasting strength. If all things “under the sun” are liable to change, He is “the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.” How sweet it is to say unto God “my Rock.” This gives confidence in life and in death. Said a dying saint (the Rev. John Rees), “Christ in His person, Christ in the love of His heart, and Christ in the power of His arm, is the rock on which I rest; and now” (reclining his head gently on the pillow), “Death, strike.”
II. Craving for fellowship with God.
The more we love a friend, the more strongly we seek his presence, and the more deeply do we deplore his estrangement and silence.
Here,
1. God’s silence is deprecated as the greatest evil. Many feel no concern whether their prayers are heard or not. Mere formalists. Not so the psalmist. For God to be silent to him, was terrible. It left him without resource and hope; it seemed the closing in upon him of the “blackness of darkness,” of the grave or of hell. He shrinks from such a doom, as an unspeakable horror. Hence his passionate cry, “Be not silent to me,” &c. (“the pit” cf. Psa_22:29; Psa_30:3; Isa_14:19, Eze_26:20).
2. God’s fellowship sought as the greatest good (Psa_28:2). Humbly. The lifting up of the hands is the symbolism of prayer (Exo_9:29, 1Ki_8:22). It expresses the desire of the humble, the reaching forth of the heart to God. Earnestly. “The earnestness of the cry is to be measured, not only by the greatness of the peril which is threatened, but by the faith which cleaves to God, knowing that in Him only is there help.”—Perowne. “When I cry,” that is now, at once, while I am speaking. Importunately. It is a matter of life and death. “Supplications.” This word, being in the plural, shows the persistence and constancy of the good in prayer. Through faith in the mercy of God. “Holy Oracle,” “This is the Holy of Holies, where the mercy seat stood;” for the “Oracle” is, in Hebrew, the spot where Jehovah spoke to men, referring probably to His promise in Exo_25:22, “There will I meet thee, and commune with thee.”—Bonar. “To this, as the depositary of the ark and the earthly residence of God, the ancient saints looked, as we look now to Christ, in whom the idea of the Mosaic sanctuary has been realised.”—Alexander. “We stretch out empty hands, for we are beggars; we lift them up, for we seek heavenly supplies; we lift them towards the mercy-seat of Jesus, for there our expectation dwells.”—Spurgeon. God’s fellowship is the life and joy of the soul. We want, not so much what He gives, as Himself.
III. Confidence in the eternal justice of God. This world is not left to chance, or blind fate, or mere arbitrary will. It is governed by a power that maketh for righteousness. This has been the faith of the good in all ages.
“If this fail,
The pillared firmament is rottenness,
And earth’s base built on stubble.”—Milton.
Hence, there is room for prayer (Psa_28:3-5). First, deliverance is sought from the doom of the wicked. “Draw me not away,” i.e., to destruction with them (Exo_32:20; Job_24:22; Psa_26:9). “The wicked, the workers of iniquity, and the deceivers, are three terms for the unrighteous, referring to the heart, the hand, and the tongue.”—Murphy. The good man shrinks from such company. He appeals confidently to God, not to confound the just with the unjust. Next, Retribution is craved (Psa_28:4). This implies their obstinate impenitency. Reason, conscience, and revelation proclaim that for such there can be no escape. There may be delay, there may be seeming inequality and failure, but retribution must come in the end, to the uttermost. The faith of the psalmist rises to prophetic certainty. There is nothing of mere human passion and animosity. “The reason why God’s judgments should overtake the wicked, is not their malice against the psalmist, but their disregard of the Most High.”—Perowne.
IV. Gratitude for the Goodness of God. Prayer leads to praise. The full heart bursts into song. “Blessed be the Lord!” For answered prayers (Psa_28:6). Perhaps the very thing asked was granted, or something better given instead. Answered prayers demand acknowledgment. For assistance in time of need (Psa_28:7). “My strength,” internal. “My shield,” external. The former includes all needful grace to enlighten, renew, and sanctify. The latter implies help and defence against every foe. How complete is the security of the people of God!
For assurance of hope. “The certainty that prayer is heard anticipates visible fulfilment.”—Perowne. “My heart trusteth in Him.” This flows from the “strength,” and wins the “shield.” Twice over he says “my heart,” not only showing the sincerity, but the strength and intensity of his gratitude. “With (lit. ‘out of’) my song,” the song being, as it were, the source and the occasion of his praise (Psa_22:25). “He who enjoys aught without thanksgiving, is as though he robbed God.”—Talmud.
V. Exulting Joy in the Saving Strength of God (Psa_28:8). Every believer is, like Paul, “a pattern.” What God does for one, He is able to do for all. The attention is fixed upon Him as an Almighty and All-Merciful Saviour. “The Lord is their strength,” i.e., of yonder ones, of such as possess the character already described (cf. Psa_119:9-11; Isa_33:2).
“He is the saving strength of His anointed.” “First the people, then Himself their monarch, but not David the man, but David the king as anointed of God, and chosen to feed His people.”—Perowne. Strength that is rightly used, to help and not to oppress, to save and not to destroy, commands admiration. Here is the glory of the gospel. It is the power of God unto salvation. Christ came not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. “Let the children of Zion be joyful in their king.”
VI. Trust in the ultimate triumph and blessedness of God’s people (Psa_28:9). “It is impossible not to see, in these tender loving words, ‘feed them, and bear them,’ the heart of the Shepherd-King. Feed them, O Thou true Shepherd of Israel (Psa_80:1); bear them, carry them in Thine arms (Isa_63:9; Isa_40:11). Perhaps the reference may be to Deu_1:31; Deu_32:11.”—Perowne.
Mark, as to the good.
1. Their character. “Thy people.”
2. Their privilege. “Thine inheritance” (Deu_4:20; Eph_1:16).
3. Their destiny. “Save” from sin. “Bless” with the fruits of righteousness. “Feed” with the bread of life. “Lift” with the arm of the Lord to the dignity and blessedness of heaven. This prayer breathes throughout the most Catholic spirit. It is akin to that of Paul (Eph_3:14-19).
This prayer expresses also the most delightful confidence. It looks to the future with hope. It sees a good time coming, and is glad, with foretaste of the joy. What an inspiration to all who pray and work.
“Ah! when shall all men’s good
Be each man’s rule, and universal peace
Lie like a shaft of light across the land,
And like a lane of beams athwart the sea,
Thro’ all the circle of the golden year.”
—Tennyson.
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 I. The Psalmist used the words of the text…
Psa 28:1
I. The Psalmist used the words of the text in what we may describe as their lowest, their least alarming, sense. His fears extended only to a temporary, an apparent, silence, to a want of comfort and of happiness, rather than an actual withdrawal of God’s love and grace. To be incapable of entering into the feeling expressed in the text—the dread of being deserted even temporarily by Him in whom the soul lives, and moves, and has its being—implies that God is not as yet the object of all our affections, the centre of all our interests. If there are things which we dread more than God’s silence, there must be things which we desire more than the sound of His voice.
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II. If God is sometimes silent to a true Christian, what is He to others? Are there any to whom He is always silent? Absolutely silent indeed He is to no man. Outwardly His voice reaches all of us in His word, all men everywhere in His works. Inwardly, too, in conscience, He speaks to all. Thoughts accusing or else excusing—these too are of Him. But all these may be, and yet God, in the most serious and awful sense, may still be silent to us, and this in more ways than one. (1) A man may pray because it is his duty, but all the time he is silent to God, and God to him. His heart was silent, his spirit was silent, while his lips were uttering the words of prayer; and therefore God, who looks on the heart and answers with His blessing no other prayer than that there uttered, heard no sound, and gave no response. (2) There is such a thing as a penal silence, a condition in which for our sins God has ceased to speak to us. (3) There is a silence which can never be broken, a silence which is the last, the eternal, punishment of sin, a silence which is itself the very pain and misery of hell.
C. J. Vaughan, Harrow Sermons, 2nd series, p. 283.
References: Psa 28:1.—Bishop Woodford, Sermons on Subjects from the Old Testament, p. 118; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 185. Psa 28:7.—Ibid., Sermons, vol. xxiv., No. 1423. Psa 28:9.—Ibid., vol. xiii., No. 768; Ibid., Evening by Evening, p. 106. Psa 29:1.—Expositor, 3rd series, vol. v., p. 310. Psa 29:2.—A. Fletcher, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. xvi., p. 329; Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 229. Psa 29:5.—R. Roberts, My Late Ministry, p. 238. Psa 29:9, Psa 29:10.—J. Keble, Sermons for the Christian Year: Ascension Day to Trinity, p. 124; C. J. Vaughan, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxii., p. 209.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain The test of experience.
The test of experience.
[A psalm] of David.
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We have now in the fourth psalm of this series the ground of experience itself: "I trusted in Him and am helped"; a good argument in its place, and the necessary result of a life lived with God. How can we ignore all that has been gained in this way of practical acquaintance with Him? The richer we are in such experiences the brighter our lives will be, the more energetic, and the more fruitful. In the nature of things experience cannot be the first foundation; and it does not come in that place here.
1. The circumstances are still those of the last days, in which enemies and evil-doers surround the righteous. Jehovah is their one resource: if He interfere not, they will be like those going down to the pit. The psalmist cannot say that he will be among those going down to the pit, but like them. Yet the shadow of death is upon their souls: they fear it. The national deliverance looked for is, of course, not the other side of death, -not out of it, but from it. Death would, of course, end for the individual all hopes of this, though God will, in fact, for those who endure martyrdom, reserve a better place -a place with the heavenly saints of the first resurrection. (Rev 20:5-6.) But this does not come into view here. The "pit," however, is for that reason more than the grave, though in the imagery of it. Confidence is based upon the Unchangeable God, and the dependence itself which the needy one has on Him. The prayer of Solomon for all those that pray towards the temple is remembered here, and made a ground of hope (1Ki 8:30). The mercy of the Lord is ever toward those that fear Him, and toward those that hope in His mercy, which He cannot deny; for He cannot deny Himself.
2. But the judgment of the world is come, and only by judgment can the deliverance of Israel be effected: so again we have the remnant’s prayer for the destruction of the wicked. Evil has come to its height, and, in that which threatens because of it, it might well seem that none could at all escape, but that evil and just would alike be swallowed up in undistinguishing ruin. We can well understand, therefore, the cry, "Draw me not away with the wicked!" with whom the smoothness of the outside only disguises the treachery of their hearts. Their works testify against them; their reward, in contrast with the grace to the righteous, is prayed to be according to their works.
3. This is their character manward; but the fountain of all the evil is in their thorough ignorance of Jehovah. His works are before them; the operations of His hands are all around them: ignorance means only alienation from Him; moral incapacity to discern what is of Him is just the sign of the inveteracy of the evil, and which, because incurable, must be extirpated with the sharpest surgery in very mercy to mankind. The prayer changes therefore here to prophecy: he who does discern what God is, has the surest ground for anticipating the future of these stubborn sinners.
4. We have now the experience which works hope: along the way, before the end has come, Jehovah yet manifests Himself in signal interventions, which are the anticipation of the full deliverance to come. How blessed are the foretokens of the dawn, though it has not come. How good the help by the way, sent from Him who awaits us at the end of the way!
So here, Jehovah has heard and helped; Jehovah has shown Himself both strength and shield; prayer has been answered, and praise follows it.
5. But more: the heart is led on to realize the security of the abiding blessing, the necessary issue of what God is to His anointed. He upon whom, because of what He is, the Spirit rests in His fullness (Mat 3:16-17) is the One who enlists all the power of God in His behalf, in the conflict between good and evil that must last as long as evil lasts upon the earth. "A stronghold of salvation to His Anointed He!" Thus to be under Him is to find deliverance assured. He is the "Captain of salvation," saving to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him. Thus at the close of the psalm faith in the remnant, soon to be the nation, turns to Him, to put the burden of Israel’s need upon His strong shoulder. It is a suited close to the series of psalms we have been considering; for the next psalm, though the final one, is in many respects different. Saviour and Shepherd they own Him now, themselves His people and His inheritance: for the lost sheep recovered, the place is upon His shoulder, according to the tender picture which He has Himself drawn. Once again it will be said, in view of this part of their history, -and they will be made to know it too, as never yet, -"He bare them and carried them all the days of old."
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain This Ps. is in many respects similar to Psalms…
This Ps. is in many respects similar to Psalms 26, especially in the writer's prayer that he may be distinguished from the wicked, and may escape their fate; and in the confidence which he reaches in the closing verses. In this Ps., however, the peril of death appears more acute (Psa_28:1), and some have supposed that both Pss. were written in a time of pestilence.
1. The pit] the grave, or Sheol, the state of the dead. Unless his prayer is heard he looks for nothing less than death.
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2. Thy holy oracle] RM 'the innermost place of thy sanctuary,' the Holy of Holies, where God's Presence specially dwells. Here, as in Psalms 26, the existence of the Temple seems to be indicated.
3. Draw me not away] to punishment and destruction: cp. Psa_26:9.
4. Deeds] RV 'work.' Endeavours] RV 'doings.'
Work] RV' operation.' These changes bring out the intended contrast between this v. and the next.
5. Destroy] RV 'break down,' in direct opposition to build up.
8. Their strength] RM 'a strength unto his people.' The saving strength] RV 'a stronghold of salvation.' His anointed] the king.
9. Feed them] as a shepherd. Lift them up] RV 'bear them up,' a beautiful continuation of the same figure: see Isa_40:11.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain Psalm 28
Psalm 28
Prayer For Judgment and Praise For the Answer
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1. Prayer for judgment (Psa 28:1-5)
2. Praise for the answer (Psa 28:6-9)
Psa 28:1-5. Their cry now increaseth because of their enemies, the enemies of Israel in the last days. They breathe out cruelty to them (Psa 27:12). They pass through the valley of the shadow of death and if He does not answer and remains silent they be like those that go down to the pit. Hence the imprecatory prayer, “Give them according to their deeds, etc.” (Psa 28:4)
Psa 28:6-9. In faith the answer is anticipated and praise is given for it. The Psalm ends with a prayer. “Save Thy people (Israel), and bless Thine inheritance, and lift them up forever.” The next Psalms bring the answer.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain Prayer and Comfort in Times of Rebellion.
Prayer and Comfort in Times of Rebellion.
A psalm of David, written in similar circumstances as the two foregoing ones, his heart apparently being so full that his mouth was bound to speak, David in this case including himself with the people of God in praying against the oppression of the wicked and the unbelievers.
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v. 1. Unto Thee will I cry, once more with importunate earnestness, O Lord, my Rock, his impregnable Stronghold, Psa 18:2. Be not silent to me, being deaf to his prayer and so refusing to answer, lest, if Thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit, sinking down into the grave in utter hopelessness.
v. 2. Hear the voice of my supplications, of his loud, and earnest entreaty, when I cry unto Thee, when I lift up my hands, in a gesture of urgent pleading, toward Thy holy oracle, literally, "throne-hall," this word here being used to designate the Most Holy Place, for the lid of the Ark of the Covenant was the place of the Lord’s presence in the midst of His people, Exo 25:22.
v. 3. Draw me not away, to destruction, to punishment in time and eternity, with the wicked and with the workers of iniquity, which speak peace to their neighbors, with an outward profession of friendliness, but mischief is in their hearts, their outward show of kindness being assumed in order to mislead the trusting believers and thus to bring destruction upon them all the more quickly.
v. 4. Give them according to their deeds, all that their wickedness deserved, and according to the wickedness, the evil and hypocrisy, of their endeavors; give them after the work of their hands, paying them back in kind; render to them their desert. Note that a true believer places his case into the hands of the Lord, to whom revenge belongs.
v. 5. Because they regard not the works of the Lord, they are blind to the righteous and gracious government of Jehovah, nor the operation of His hands, in everything that He does for mankind, He shall destroy them and not build them up, the picture being that of a building which is torn down instead of having its construction finished.
v. 6. Blessed be the Lord because He hath heard the voice of my supplications, his cries for mercy, the believer being sure even in advance of being heard.
v. 7. The Lord is my Strength, which serves to protect him, and my Shield, safe-guarding him against every attack. My heart trusted in Him, and I am helped, the fulfillment of his prayer being represented as already present; therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth, and with my song will I praise Him, giving all glory to Him alone for His merciful salvation.
v. 8. The Lord is their Strength, a protection to all those who believe and trust in Him, and He is the saving Strength of His anointed, mightily preserving all those consecrated to Him from every form of destruction by placing them in such places of refuge where the wiles of the enemies cannot reach them. It is in this joyful and certain confidence that the concluding prayer is made for the Christian Church of all times,
v. 9. Save Thy people, with an everlasting redemption, and bless Thine inheritance, the people whom Jehovah Himself had chosen for His portion; feed them also, as a true Shepherd, and lift them up forever, bearing them up, carrying them in His arms. Cf Deu 32:11. That is the proper prayer of the Church at all times, especially when the forces of darkness are unusually active in assailing the work of the Lord as effected through the means of grace.
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 General Information:
General Information:
Parallelism is common in Hebrew poetry. (See: Poetry and Parallelism)
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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.
I cry out
"I call out loudly"
my rock
This is a metaphor for strength. AT: "my strength" (See: Metaphor)
do not ignore me
"do not be silent to me" or "do not leave me alone"
I will join those who go down to the grave
People who die are spoken of as if they are going down into the grave. AT: "I will die like those who are in the grave" (See: Metaphor)
Hear the sound of my pleading
Here "sound" refers to the content of his request. AT: "Hear my strong request" (See: Metonymy)
I lift up my hands toward your most holy place
Lifting up hands is a symbol of worship. The writer is not worshiping the holy place, but Yahweh who lives in the holy place. (See: Symbolic Action)
your most holy place
Possible meanings are 1) if David wrote this, then this refers to the tent that God told his people to set up so that they could worship him there, or 2) if a person wrote this after the time of David, then the writer is referring to the temple in Jerusalem.
translationWords
psalm
David
Yahweh
cry
grave
hand
holy place
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 Ps 28 In this individual lament, the psalmist pleads…
Ps 28 In this individual lament, the psalmist pleads for justice and mercy. He expresses confidence in the Lord’s strength and faithfulness, and he intercedes for the Lord’s people.
28:1-2 The psalmist urges the Lord to listen; his urgency flows out of the tension between his deep relationship with the Lord and the adversity he faces.
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28:1 if you are silent: The psalmist appeals to the Lord to take action (35:22; 50:3; 83:1; 109:1).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.