A revelation is within my heart about the disobedience of the wicked: “There is no fear of God before his eyes.”
For he flatters himself in his own eyes, too much to detect and hate his sin.
The words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit. He has ceased to be wise and to do good.
He plots iniquity on his bed. He sets himself in a way that is not good. He doesn’t abhor evil.
Your loving kindness, Yahweh, is in the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
Your righteousness is like the mountains of God. Your judgments are like a great deep. Yahweh, you preserve man and animal.
How precious is your loving kindness, God! The children of men take refuge under the shadow of your wings.
They shall be abundantly satisfied with the abundance of your house. You will make them drink of the river of your pleasures.
For with you is the spring of life. In your light we will see light.
Oh continue your loving kindness to those who know you, your righteousness to the upright in heart.
Don’t let the foot of pride come against me. Don’t let the hand of the wicked drive me away.
There the workers of iniquity are fallen. They are thrust down, and shall not be able to rise.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1–12 1. Ungodliness saith to the wicked in the midst…
1. Ungodliness saith to the wicked in the midst of my heart Commentators are not agreed as to the interpretation of the first verse. Literally it is, The saying [or speech] of transgression, or rather, Transgression saith to the wicked As, however, the letter ל, lamed, is in Hebrew sometimes used for מן, min, some translate it thus, Ungodliness or transgression speaketh of the wicked in my heart; as if the prophet had said, I clearly perceive from the wickedness which the ungodly commit, that they are not influenced by the fear of God. But as there is no need to depart from the proper signification of the words, I rather agree with others in supposing that the language of the prophet is to this effect: The malice of the wicked, though seemingly hidden and unknown, speaks aloud in my heart, and I am a sure witness of what it says or suggests.
And, first, it is to be observed, that the prophet speaks not of outward faults, but penetrates even to the very source; as if he had said, Although the wicked cloak their malice with wily dissimulation, yet I know it so well that I seem to hear it speaking. It is indeed true, that as the ungodly and profane rush headlong into every kind of wickedness, as if they were never to be called to render up an account of it, the judgment which David here expresses may be formed even from their life; but his language is much more emphatic when he says, that the servants of God openly perceive the depravity of such persons hidden within the heart. Now David does not speak of the wicked generally, but of the abandoned despisers of God. There are many who indulge in their vices, who, notwithstanding, are not intoxicated by the wretched infatuation which David here censures. But when a man becomes hardened in committing sin, ungodliness at length reduces him to such a state of insensibility, that, despising the judgment of God, he indulges without fear in the practice of every sin to which his depraved appetite impels him. A reckless assurance, therefore, in the commission of sin, and especially where it is associated with a contempt and scorn of every holy admonition, is, as it were, an enchantment of Satan, which indicates that the condition of such a person is indeed hopeless. And although true religion has the effect of keeping the hearts of the godly in the fear of God, and drives wicked thoughts far from their minds, yet this does not prevent them from perceiving and understanding in their hearts how the ungodly are agitated with horrible fury when they neither regard God nor are afraid of his judgments.
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There is no fear of God before his eyes David shows in these few words the end of all evil suggestions; and it is this, that the sense both of good and evil being destroyed or suppressed, men shrink from nothing, as if there were not seated in heaven a God, the Judge of all. The meaning therefore is, Ungodliness speaks in my heart to the wicked man, urging him to the extremity of madness, so that, laying aside all fear of God, he abandons himself to the practice of sin; that is to say, I know as well what the ungodly imagine in their hearts, as if God had set me as a witness or judge to unveil their hypocrisy, under the mask of which they think their detestable malice is hidden and deeply buried. When the wicked, therefore, are not restrained by the fear of God from committing sin, this proceeds from that secret discourse with themselves, to which we have referred, and by which their understanding is so depraved and blinded, that, like brute beasts, they run to every excess in rioting. Since the eyes are, as it were, the guides and conductors of man in this life, and by their influence move the other senses hither and thither, it is therefore said that men have the fear of God before their eyes when it regulates their lives, and by presenting itself to them on every side to which they may turn, serves like a bridle to restrain their appetites and passions. David, by using here a contrary form of expression, means that the ungodly run to every excess in licentiousness, without having any regard to God, because the depravity of their own hearts has completely blinded them.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12 I see evidently by his deeds, that sin pusheth…
I see evidently by his deeds, that sin pusheth forward the reprobate from wickedness to wickedness, albeit he go about to cover his impiety.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–12 Psa 36:1 « To the chief Musician, [A Psalm]…
Psa 36:1 « To the chief Musician, [A Psalm] of David the servant of the LORD. » The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, [that there is] no fear of God before his eyes.
A Psalm of David the servant of the Lord] See Psa 18:1, title. Then he had well nigh finished his rule, here he is about to begin it, and therefore assumeth this title. Servus est nomen officii, servant is a name of office or duty. Tertullian saith of Augustus (we may better of David), Gratius ei fuit nomen pietatis, quam potestatis, He took more pleasure in names of duty than of dignity; so those heavenly courtiers rejoice rather to be styled angels, that is, messengers, and ministering spirits, than thrones, principalities, powers, &c.
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Ver. 1. The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart] Some say it is libbi for libbo, Jod for Vau, and render it within (or in the midst of) his own heart; and so make it the same in sense with Psa 14:1, but these make too bold with the text (Jerome, Vulgate). David, that zealous servant of God, was fully persuaded of, and deeply affected with, the profligate wickedness of some graceless persons (such as were Saul, and his blood-sucking sycophants {malicious accuser}), that they were stark atheists, and had not the least spark of common goodness left in them; that they had neither the fear of God nor shame of the world to rein them in from any outrage. This is mine opinion of them, saith David, I am strongly so conceited, and I will give you my grounds. "I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say."
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–12 When I consider the great and manifold transgressions of…
When I consider the great and manifold transgressions of ungodly men, I conclude within myself that they have cast off all fear, and sense, and serious belief of the Divine Majesty.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 5 David, in the title of this psalm, is styled…
David, in the title of this psalm, is styled the servant of the Lord; why in this, and not in any other, except in Ps. 18 (title), no reason can be given; but so he was, not only as every good man is God's servant, but as a king, as a prophet, as one employed in serving the interests of God's kingdom among men more immediately and more eminently than any other in his day. He glories in it, Psa 116:16. It is no disparagement, but an honour, to the greatest of men, to be the servants of the great God; it is the highest preferment a man is capable of in this world.
David, in these verses, describes the wickedness of the wicked; whether he means his persecutors in particular, or all notorious gross sinners in general, is not certain. But we have here sin in its causes and sin in its colours, in its root and in its branches.
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I. Here is the root of bitterness, from which all the wickedness of the wicked comes. It takes rise, 1. From their contempt of God and the want of a due regard to him (Psa 36:1): "The transgression of the wicked (as it is described afterwards, Psa 36:3, Psa 36:4) saith within my heart (makes me to conclude within myself) that there is no fear of God before his eyes; for, if there were, he would not talk and act so extravagantly as he does; he would not, he durst not, break the laws of God, and violate his covenants with him, if he had any awe of his majesty or dread of his wrath." Fitly therefore is it brought into the form of indictments by our law that the criminal, not having the fear of God before his eyes, did so and so. The wicked did not openly renounce the fear of God, but their transgression whispered it secretly into the minds of all those that knew any thing of the nature of piety and impiety. David concluded concerning those who lived at large that they lived without God in the world. 2. From their conceit of themselves and a cheat they wilfully put upon their own souls (Psa 36:2): He flattereth himself in his own eyes; that is, while he goes on in sin, he thinks he does wisely and well for himself, and either does not see or will not own the evil and danger of his wicked practices; he calls evil good and good evil; his licentiousness he pretends to be but his just liberty, his fraud passes for his prudence and policy, and his persecuting the people of God, he suggests to himself, is a piece of necessary justice. If his own conscience threaten him for what he does, he says, God will not require it; I shall have peace though I go on. Note, Sinners are self-destroyers by being self-flatterers. Satan could not deceive them if they did not deceive themselves. Buy will the cheat last always? No; the day is coming when the sinner will be undeceived, when his iniquity shall be found to be hateful. Iniquity is a hateful thing; it is that abominable thing which the Lord hates, and which his pure and jealous eye cannot endure to look upon. It is hurtful to the sinner himself, and therefore ought to be hateful to him; but it is not so; he rolls it under his tongue as a sweet morsel, because of the secular profit and sensual pleasure which may attend it; yet the meat in his bowels will be turned, it will be the gall of asps, Job 20:13, Job 20:14. When their consciences are convinced, and sin appears in its true colours and makes them a terror to themselves - when the cup of trembling is put into their hands and they are made to drink the dregs of it - then their iniquity will be found hateful, and their self-flattery their unspeakable folly, and an aggravation of their condemnation.
II. Here are the cursed branches which spring from this root of bitterness. The sinner defies God, and even deifies himself, and then what can be expected but that he should go all to naught? These two were the first inlets of sin. Men do not fear God, and therefore they flatter themselves, and then, 1. They make no conscience of what they say, true of false, right or wrong (Psa 36:3): The words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit, contrived to do wrong, and yet to cover it with specious and plausible pretences. It is no marvel if those that deceive themselves contrive how to deceive all mankind; for to whom will those be true who are false to their own souls? 2. What little good there has been in them is gone; the sparks of virtue are extinguished, their convictions baffled, their good beginnings come to nothing: They have left off to be wise and to do good. They seemed to be under the direction of wisdom and the government of religion, but they have broken these bonds asunder; they have shaken off their religion, and therewith their wisdom. Note, Those that leave off to do good leave off to be wise. 3. Having left off to do good, they contrive to do hurt and to be vexatious to those about them that are good and do good (Psa 36:4): He devises mischief upon his bed. Note, (1.) Omissions make way for commissions. When men leave off doing good, leave off praying, leave off their attendance on God's ordinances and their duty to him, the devil easily makes them his agents, his instruments to draw those that will be drawn into sin, and, with respect to those that will not, to draw them into trouble. Those that leave off to do good begin to do evil; the devil, being an apostate from his innocency, soon became a tempter to Eve and a persecutor of righteous Abel. (2.) It is bad to do mischief, but it is worse to devise it, to do it deliberately and with resolution, to set the wits on work to contrive to do it most effectually, to do it with plot and management, with the subtlety, as well as the malice, of the old serpent, to devise it upon the bed, where we should be meditating upon God and his word, Mic 2:1. This argues the sinner's heart fully set in him to do evil. 4. Having entered into the way of sin, that way that is not good, that has good neither in it nor at the end of it, they persist and resolve to persevere in that way. He sets himself to execute the mischief he has devised, and nothing shall be withholden from him which he has purposed to do, though it be ever to contrary both to his duty and to his true interest. If sinners did not steel their hearts and brazen their faces with obstinacy and impudence, they could not go on in their evil ways, in such a direct opposition to all that is just and good. 5. Doing evil themselves, they have no dislike at all of it in others: He abhors not evil, but on the contrary, takes pleasure in it, and is glad to see others as bad as himself. Or this may denote his impenitency in sin. Those that have done evil, if God give them repentance, abhor the evil they have done and themselves because of it; it is bitter in the reflection, however sweet it was in the commission. But these hardened sinners have such seared stupefied consciences that they never reflect upon their sings afterwards with any regret or remorse, but stand to what they have done, as if they could justify it before God himself.
Some think that David, in all this, particularly means Saul, who had cast off the fear of God and left off all goodness, who pretended kindness to him when he gave him his daughter to wife, but at the same time was devising mischief against him. But we are under no necessity of limiting ourselves so in the exposition of it; there are too many among us to whom the description agrees, which is to be greatly lamented.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–12 The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart,....…
The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart,.... Which is represented as a person speaking within him; not that the transgression of the wicked was really in him; sin was in him, and sin of the same kind and nature with the wicked man's; but he taking notice of and considering the wicked man's sinful course of life, and his daring impieties, conceived in his own mind, and concluded from hence,
that there is no fear of God before his eyes; no reverential affection for him, but enmity to him; no godly filial fear, but at most only a slavish fear, a fear of punishment; no holy and humble fear of him, but pride and wickedness; no fiducial and obediential fear, but all the reverse; true worship of him, either internally or externally: there can be no fear of God in any unregenerate man's, heart, because it is not of nature, but of grace, and is, what is implanted at first conversion; there is in some an appearance of it, where it is not really, whose fear is taught by the precept of men; and in others there may be some awe of the divine Being, and trembling at the thought of a future judgment, arising from the dictates of nature, the light of revelation, and the enjoyment of a religious education; but in some there is no fear of God at all, and they are bold and daring enough to assert it themselves, as the unjust judge did, Luk 18:4. Such as the atheist, the common swearer, the debauchee and epicure, who give up themselves to all manner of wickedness, contemn revelation, despise the word of God, and regard no day nor manner of worship; and this notwithstanding the majesty of God, at whose presence they tremble not, and notwithstanding the goodness of God, which should induce them to fear him, and notwithstanding the judgment of God on others, and even on themselves; see Jer 3:8; and notwithstanding the future awful judgment, which they put far away or disbelieve. The Targum is, "transgression saith to the wicked within my heart"; and Jarchi's note upon the text is this,
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"this text is to be transposed thus, it is in my heart, that transgression, which is the evil imagination, says to the wicked man, that there should be no fear of God before his eyes; and the phrase, "in the midst of my heart", is as if a man should say, so it seems to me.''
The Septuagint version, and those that follow it, render the words thus, "the transgressor said, that he might sin in himself, there is no fear of God before his eyes". Gussetius (b) interprets "before his eyes", before the eyes of God himself, who is so good a Being, that the sinner fears no punishment from him, but will pardon all his sins.
(b) Ebr. Comment. p. 488.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12 The grievous state of the wicked, ver. 1-4. The…
The grievous state of the wicked, ver. 1-4. The goodness of God, ver. 5-9. David prays, in confidence of deliverance, ver. 10- 12. To the chief musician, a psalm of David, the servant of the Lord.
No fear - When I consider the manifold transgressions of ungodly men, I conclude within myself, that they have cast off all fear of the Divine majesty.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1–12 The miserable state of the wicked, 1-4.
PSALM XXXVI
The miserable state of the wicked, 1-4.
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The excellence of God's mercy in itself, and to his followers,
5-9.
He prays for the upright, 10;
for himself that he may be saved from pride and violence, 11;
and shows the end of the workers of iniquity, 12.
NOTES ON PSALM XXXVI
The title in the Hebrew is, To the conqueror, to the servant of Jehovah, to David. The Syriac and Arabic suppose it to have been composed on occasion of Saul's persecution of David. Calmet supposes, on good grounds, that it was written during the Babylonish captivity. It is one of the finest Psalms in the whole collection.
Verse 1. The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart] It is difficult to make any sense of this line as it now stands. How can the transgression of the wicked speak within my heart? But instead of לבי libbi, MY heart, four of Kennicott's and De Rossi's MSS. have לבו libbo, HIS heart. "The speech of transgression to the wicked is in the midst of his heart." "There is no fear of God before his eyes." It is not by example that such a person sins; the fountain that sends forth the impure streams is in his own heart. There the spirit of transgression lives and reigns; and, as he has no knowledge of God, so he has no fear of God; therefore, there is no check to his wicked propensities: all come to full effect. Lust is conceived, sin is brought forth vigorously, and transgression is multiplied. The reading above proposed, and which should be adopted, is supported by the Vulgate, Septuagint, Syriac, AEthiopic, Arabic, and Anglo-Saxon. This latter reads the sentence thus: [Anglo-Saxon]; which I shall give as nearly as possible in the order of the original. "Quoth the unrightwise, that he do guilt in himself: is not fear God's at fore eyes his." That is, The unrighteous man saith in himself that he will sin: God's fear is not before his eyes. The old Psalter, in language as well as meaning, comes very near to the Anglo-Saxon: The unrightwis saide that he trespas in hym self: the drede of God es noght before his een. And thus it paraphrases the passage: The unryghtwis, that es the kynde [the whole generation] of wyked men; saide in hym self, qwar man sees noght; that he trespas, that es, he synne at his wil, als [as if] God roght noght [did not care] qwat he did; and so it es sene, that the drede of God es noght by fore his een; for if he dred God, he durst noght so say."
I believe these versions give the true sense of the passage. The psalmist here paints the true state of the Babylonians: they were idolaters of the grossest kind, and worked iniquity with greediness. The account we have in the book of Daniel of this people, exhibits them in the worst light; and profane history confirms the account. Bishop Horsley thinks that the word פשע pesha, which we render transgression, signifies the apostate or devil. The devil says to the wicked, within his heart, There is no fear; i.e., no cause of fear: "God is not before his eyes." Placing the colon after fear takes away all ambiguity in connection with the reading HIS heart, already contended for. The principle of transgression, sin in the heart, says, or suggests to every sinner, there is no cause for fear: go on, do not fear, for there is no danger. He obeys this suggestion, goes on, and acts wickedly, as "God is not before his eyes."
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12 Psa 36:1-2. The transgression of the wicked saith, &c.…
Psa 36:1-2. The transgression of the wicked saith, &c. — When I consider the great and manifold transgressions of ungodly men, I conclude, within myself, that they have cast off all fear and serious belief of the Divine Majesty. For he flattereth himself in his own eyes — He deceiveth himself with vain and false persuasions, that God does not notice or mind his sins, or that he will not punish them. Until his iniquity be found to be hateful — That is, until God, by some dreadful judgment, undeceive him, and find, or make him and others to find by experience, that his iniquity is abominable and hateful, and therefore cannot, and does not, escape a severe punishment. “The last day,” says Dr. Horne, “will show strange instances of this folly.”
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–12 The transgression of the wicked - There is considerable…
The transgression of the wicked - There is considerable difficulty in respect to the grammatical construction of the Hebrew in this verse, though the general sense is plain. The main idea undoubtedly is, that the fair explanation of the conduct of the wicked, or the fair inference to be derived from that conduct was, that they had no fear of God before them; that they did in no proper way regard or fear God. The psalmist introduces himself as looking at the conduct or the acts of the wicked, and he says that their conduct can be explained, in his judgment, or “in his heart,” in no other way than on this supposition. The word “transgression” here refers to some open and public act. What the particular act was the psalmist does not state, though probably it had reference to something which had been done to himself. What is here said, however, with particular reference to his enemies, may be regarded as a general truth in regard to the wicked, to wit, that their conduct is such that the fair interpretation of what they do is, that there is no “fear of God before their eyes,” or that they have no regard for his will.
Saith - This word - נאם ne'ûm - is a participle from a verb, נאם nâ'am, meaning to mutter; to murmur; to speak in a low voice; and is employed especially with reference to the divine voice in which the oracles of God were revealed to the prophets. Compare 1Ki 19:12. It is found most commonly in connection with the word “Lord” or “Yahweh,” expressed by the phrase “Saith the Lord,” as if the oracle were the voice of Yahweh. Gen 22:16; Num 14:28; Isa 1:24; Isa 3:15, “et saepe.” It is correctly rendered here “saith;” or, the “saying” of the transgression of the wicked is, etc. That is, this is what their conduct “says;” or, this is the fair interpretation of their conduct.
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Within my heart - Hebrew: “in the midst of my heart.” Evidently this means in my judgment; in my apprehension; or, as we should say, “So it seems or appears to me.” My heart, or my judgment, puts this construction on their conduct, and can put no other on it.
That there is “no fear of God - No reverence for God; no regard for his will. The sinner acts without any restraint derived from the law or the will of God.
Before his eyes - He does not see or apprehend God; he acts as if there were no God. This is the fair interpretation to be put upon the conduct of the wicked “everywhere” - that they have no regard for God or his law.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 Psalms 36
Psalms 36
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David the servant of the LORD
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1 The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart,
That there is no fear of God before his eyes.
2 For he flattereth himself in his own eyes.
Until his iniquity be found to be hateful.
3 The words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit:
He hath left off to be wise, and to do good.
4 He deviseth mischief upon his bed;
He setteth himself in a way that is not good;
He abhorreth not evil.
5 Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens;
And thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.
6 Thy righteousness is like the great mountains;
Thy judgments are a great deep:
O Lord, thou preservest man and beast.
7 How excellent is thy loving-kindness, O God!
Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings.
8 They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house;
And thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures.
9 For with thee is the fountain of life:
In thy light shall we see light.
10 O continue thy loving-kindness unto them that know thee,
And thy righteousness to the upright in heart.
11 Let not the foot of pride come against me,
And let not the hand of the wicked remove me.
12 There are the workers of iniquity fallen:
They are cast down, and shall not be able to rise.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Its Contents and Title. Respecting the designation of David as servant of Jehovah vid.Psalms 18. By this reference to the position of the speaker as well towards God as the congregation, the reader’s attention is directly called to the meaning of this song as one to be well pondered. It is certainly not a Psalm of lamentation (De Wette), but a didactic Psalm (Luther). First there is a striking description of the wicked man, in which all moral relations and regulations have been perverted into their opposites (Psa_36:1-4): then follows in the tone of a hymn (Psa_36:5-9) the praise of the immeasurable grace, faithfulness and righteousness of God; and the Psalm concludes with a prayer (Psa_36:10-11), for further exhibitions of these attributes towards all upright servants of God and towards the Psalmist with a reference to the ruin of the wicked (Psa_36:12). It is uncertain whether the preterites in this closing clause refer to historical facts which have recently transpired (Hitzig), or are to be taken as prophetical (most interpreters). In favor of the latter view is the absence of any other historical references. The house of God (Psa_36:8) certainly is not used figuratively in order to designate God as a father of a family (De Wette), but refers to the places of worship, yet without giving any reason to suppose that the author was a priest (Paulus). It is moreover entirely unnecessary to think of the temple of Solomon and descend to the period immediately before the exile (Ewald, Olsh., Hitzig). The conjecture of those who put the origin of this Psalm in the period in which Saul still pretended to be the friend of David (Amyrald, et al.), is likewise groundless. We have before us in this and similar Psalms, “reflections from the circumstances of the time and not from particular events” (Delitzsch). This Psalm has its present position in the order of Psalms from the use of “servant of Jehovah” comp. Psa_35:27, the rare word dachah Psa_36:12, comp. Psa_35:5, and many correspondences with Psalms 37.
Str. I. Psa_36:1. The wicked (hath) a prompting of ungodliness within his heart.—All attempts to retain the tex. recept.לִבִּי (my heart) have hitherto failed. For the turn which has been given to the clause by Gesen., De Wette, Stier, Von Hofm., after Symmach., and Luther, in taking the first line as a kind of title as an announcement of the contents, although only of the next verse (=A saying concerning the wickedness of the wicked is in my heart), is inadmissible, because on the one side there follows, not a saying respecting wickedness, but a description of it, on the other side usage does not admit of connecting נְאֻם (stat. const. of the part. pass. of נָאוּם = inspiratum, oraculum) with a gen. obj. The following genitive always designates the person which either imparts the prompting, or utters it as a prophet (Num_24:3), or as an inspired poet (2Sa_23:1; Pro_30:1). That it is entirely different with מַשָּׂא makes no difference. If this is admitted, then the attempt might be made to regard the wicked man himself as speaking, as he in ironical imitation of the well-known tone of the prophet, sounds forth the “Divine word of wickedness to the wicked man.” If then, in order to get the contents of this word, the words “in the interior of my heart” are connected with the following line (Venema), there arises a clause, whose absurdity can be removed only by inadmissible explanations. If this is not done (Hengst.), the following details do not agree with the expectations awakened by such an announcement; and the thought, very proper in itself, that the wicked listen to the promptings of sin as Divine utterances, would be clothed in such an obscure and misleading form, that it could not be understood at all without explanation, as then even Hengst. can not but insert for this purpose the personal pronoun in his translation, “to me the wicked man.” All these difficulties however are set aside by the simple change of לִבִּי into לִבּוֹ, which is likewise in the ancient versions, and even in some manuscripts. The personification of sin is not strange either to the Old Testament or the New Testament (Gen_4:7; Romans 7.); and the unusual idea of an inspiring power is meditated by the wicked spirit which takes the place of the Spirit of God, 1Ki_22:21 sq. and by the lying spirit which inspired the false prophets, Isa_9:14; Jeremiah 23; Mic_2:11 (Hupfeld. Hitzig. Delitzsch, now likewise Böttcher). There is therefore no occasion for the conjecture נָעֵם in order to get the sense: Vice is pleasant (Diestel). And the proposition to transpose the נאם to the proper title after, “by David” (Maurer, formerly likewise Böttcher in part, Tholuck, G. Baur, Thenius), does not agree with the grammatical construction and the place of the word in the syntax, which elsewhere prevail. The Vulgate has literally after the Sept. dixit injustus ut delinquat in semet ipso, which is explained by Schegg: The ungodly speaks to himself, persuades himself to sin.
Psa_36:2. For he flattereth himself in his eyes with reference to the finding of his guilt,—literally he has made smooth towards himself. The אֵלָיו is reflexive, as Gen_8:9; 1Sa_14:52. For the subject is not ungodliness (the Rabbins, Olsh., Camph., Delitzsch), but the wicked man, because the entire section speaks of him and the translation “towards him” would lead to a flattery towards God (most ancient versions, Köster, Maurer, Tholuck), which explanation again would give an entirely different meaning to the clause from that allowed by the following words. For “finding of sin” never denotes the theoretical knowledge of it. Consequently the thought cannot be here, that the wicked man merely lied to God, that he possessed knowledge and hatred of his sins, and that he imagined that he could deceive God. No more does that expression denote the accomplishment of sin, as if the wicked man esteemed himself highly on account of his sins and his hatred of God and Divine things (Kimchi, Geier, J. H. Mich., Köster, Stier) in his flattering imagination against God and in contrast with his guilty fear of God (Rosenm.). It designates only the finding of sin by the avenger, who pursues and reaches it with the design of punishing it, Gen_44:16; Hos_12:9; comp. 1Sa_29:3-6; Psa_17:3. This design of punishing cannot be lost sight of. Accordingly, although the original meaning may be given by assequi, yet the interpretation, that ungodliness directs flattering words to the wicked man in his eyes ( = well pleasing to him) in order to accomplish his guilt, that is in order to obtain, that he may become guilty and hate God and man instead of loving (Delitzsch), is indeed ingenious but not entirely in harmony with usage, according to which the discovery, that is the disclosing of the guilt of another’s sin, has the design of punishment, which in this interpretation disappears entirely behind that of being guilty. For it cannot be said that it is taught here, that personified ungodliness has in view, with its suggestions, the attainment of the purpose, that the wicked man shall constantly become more guilty in order that he may more certainly meet his punishment. Still less can any one be authorized to make Elohim the subject of the entire clause [Perowne]. For first, the interpretation “God has made it smooth, acted softly towards him in his eyes, that is according to his fancy,” gives indeed a good sense and is correct according to the language; but it makes the following clause still more difficult of comprehension. For the translation “to find the corrupt things of the unrighteous so that he must hate them” (find worthy of hatred) (Hofm.), corresponds neither with usage nor the context. And the proposition to put ver 2b in a parenthesis as an explanation of the fancy (Hupf.), is as much a desperate expedient as the ingenious conjecture of Hupfeld, that perhaps the חדל (he has left off), which precedes the two infinitives with ל in the following verse, has here fallen away. Under these circumstances it is most advisable to find the thought expressed, that the wicked man flatters himself with the foolish imagination that he will escape punishment. That it is an imagination or fancy is expressed by the words “in his eyes.” A corresponding expression in the previous line makes it necessary to think of the eyes of the wicked, not those of God, in connection with which interpretation many more ancient interpreters thought of a merely external service, works lying before the eyes, which the wicked man performed hypocritically, without internal reverence of God. But such an interpretation, not to speak of other objections, is not at all suitable to the mention of the eyes of God, which designate above all His Omniscience and Infallibility. Psa_36:2 b refers (Hengst.) to the sphere, in which this self-deception of the audacious villain moves (comp. Deu_29:18; Isa_28:15). Yet it must be conceded, that even this interpretation is not free from the objection that the expression is yet somewhat hard, forced and unusual, especially when it is compared with the other verses, which with all their sublimity and meaning, yet have a clear and flowing style. It is very natural therefore to think of a corruption of the text (Olsh., Hupf.). But although only a slight change in the text would be necessary in order to the ingenious conjecture mentioned above, of a verb which has been omitted (Hupf.), or to gain the sense; it flatters him in his eyes (it tickles his pride), to discover missteps in others and to make them suffer for them (Thenius), these proposals have partly objections in themselves, partly they lead to the unbounded field of mere conjecture. The ancient translators already differed, partly from the Hebrew text, partly from one another, and rendered it in a way which is in part unintelligible. The interpretation of Symmachus has been renewed in part by Clauss, in the interpretation: he acts slippery towards God in his eyes, in order to slip away from the finding out of his misdeed. Here the “making smooth” is changed into a meaning which cannot be proved for the word in question. On the other hand it might be taken in the sense of “coquetting towards God,” and כי be used in the sense of ἐάν, so that Psa_36:3, forms the conclusion. (Hitzig). But if then this coquetting is taken as the hypocritical confession, he has found=become sensible of his sin and hates it, this meaning cannot be regarded as proved by the remark, that where as here the guilty man himself finds the guilt, מצא means knowing, becoming sensible of what was previously obscure or uncertain. The passages cited in favor of this, Eccl. 7:29; 24:27; Job_32:13, have not this connection of “finding” with “sin” on which all depends. Moreover the entire description is not that of the sanctimonious hypocrite, but the real villain (Sachs) who comforts himself by his experience in sinning (Hengst.).—The impersonal interpretation: “it flatters him” (Ewald, Thenius) is likewise contrary to the usual use of the verb. Böttcher maintains (Neue exeget. krit. Æhrenlese Nr. 1092) his previous (Theol. Stud, und Krit. 1850. § 609) interpretation: for he flattereth himself, when he directs his eyes upon himself; to discover his guilt must be odious to him.1
[Str. II. Psa_36:3-4. Perowne: “Psa_36:1-4 describe generally the character of the ungodly: first the sin of his heart (Psa_36:1-2); then the sin of his lips (Psa_36:3); lastly the sin of his hands, the evil schemes which he devises and executes (Psa_36:4). As there is a climax in the whole description of the evil man, so especially is there a progress from bad to worse in Psa_36:3-4. (1) He hath left off to do good; (2) on his bed he meditates evil (Psa_4:4; Mic_2:1); (3) he resolutely sets himself to do evil; (4) his very conscience is hardened, so that he does evil without repugnance or misgiving”—C. A. B.]
Str. III. [Psa_36:5.2Thy mercy Jehovah (reacheth) to the heavens; Thy faithfulness unto the skies.—Most interpreters regard ב in the first clause as equivalent to עַד and interpret it by supplying as in the second clause “reacheth.” In favor of this is the parallel passage, Psa_57:11, comp. Psa_71:19; Psa_103:11; Job_11:8; Job_22:12; Job_35:5. Hengstenberg refers to the pillar of cloud and of fire reaching from earth to heaven and yet prefers the rendering in the heavens which includes the reaching to the heavens. The idea of the passage is to measure the mercy and faithfulness of God as in the passages cited above, and therefore it is better to regard the clauses as parallel as in Psa_57:11. The mercy of God is heaven-high. In the second clause שְׁחָקִים is the vault of heaven, the expanse beaten out like fine dust, best rendered in English by the sky, or plural skies.—C. A. B.]
Psa_36:6. Mountains of God.—These are not as it were the highest mountains, because all that is best in nature or of its kind is distinguished by the addition of the words, “of God” (the Rabbins, Calvin, Geier, J. H. Mich. et al.). This supposition does not accord with the sharp distinction between the natural and the Divine, which prevails in the Biblical view of the world. This designation is used not only where there is an emphatic reference to that which has been produced by God (Hupf.), but likewise that which testifies to the glory of God (His power, goodness, and holiness) and serves to reveal Him. Thus the prophets are frequently called men of God, and Mount Sinai and Zion, mountains of God; so likewise Paradise is called the garden of God, Gen_13:10, comp. Psa_2:8, and the rain in contrast to artificial irrigation is called the brook of God, Psa_65:9; and the cedars of Lebanon are called cedars of God, Psa_80:10; and trees of God, Psa_104:16, not only because He planted them as the aloes (Num_24:6), but because they testify to His creative power, and their consideration gives occasion to worship Him. The tert. compar. in the comparison of righteousness with the mountains of God is therefore, their firmness and unmoveableness (Luther and most interpreters], whether with or without the subordinate idea of the safety of those who seek refuge in them (Stier), rather than their greatness and height (Hengst., Hupf.).—Thy judgments a great flood.—The effects of righteousness, the judgments of God are directly compared with the great flood, not with reference to their depth as contrasted with the height of the mountains (Hupf.), or on account of their unfathomableness and unsearchableness (Aben Ezra Geier, Rosenm., Stier, Delitzsch), or with respect to their unmeasurableness (Hengst.) and comprehensive extent (Calvin), but with reference to their power which none can escape and the certainty with which they reach their ends. For the expression תחום רבה occurs only in Gen_7:11, and therefore points, not to the unfathomable depth or the unmeasurable ocean, but to the flood which overflows all things, which pours over the world judging and delivering according to God’s will. Accordingly the allusion to the deliverance of the animal kingdom with Noah’s family (Venema, Hengst.) in the following clause is not a strange historical reference mixed with the general clause (Hupf.), although it is correct, that the cattle, that is, the animal kingdom, in their needs appear frequently as an object of Divine care and mercy in connection with men. It is likewise to be noticed, that the reference is not directly historical; but is merely an allusion to that historical event, in which the judgments of God actually presented themselves as a great flood (Psa_29:10). So much the easier is the idea of Divine judgments or indeed of severe afflictions in general, from which God delivers the pious, explained under the figure of great overflowings, (Psa_32:6), which yet would have otherwise been far from the mind of the Hebrew owing to the physical character of his land.—There is not the least reference in this Psalm to a victorious war in which men and beasts were delivered from the danger incurred by the inroad of heathen nations (Hitzig), which had broken treaties (Hab_2:17; Hab_3:17).
Psa_36:7. Shadow of Thy wings.—It follows from Psa_61:4, that the shelter under the shadow of the wings of God is connected with dwelling in the tent. It is more natural here to think not of the cherubim but of the hen or the eagle, as Deu_32:11; Psa_17:8; Psa_57:1; Psa_63:7; Psa_91:4; Psa_91:2.
Psa_36:8. Fatness of Thy house.—This is not the gift of the paternal goodness of God abundantly bestowed in the world (De Wette), but first of all the sacrificial meals (Isa_43:24; Jer_31:14), and if we may understand by them thank offerings and peace offerings, the reference is to reconciliation with God, and not to victory over earthly enemies (Psa_65:4). Since however there is no reference to the use of sacrifices as such, but these serve as figurative designations of the enjoyment which those have, who are placed near to God in communion with Him, as Jer_31:14, we may likewise, yet always only on this foundation, think of “rich goods” (Luther) in a wider sense, the spiritual joy and blessings of the entire sphere of the Divine grace.—Stream of Thy pleasures.—In this connection the Hebrew word for pleasures reminds us of Paradise (Eden), but the stream (literally brook) is merely the usual figure of fulness and of blessing. (Hupf.). Further references to the common source of the four arms of that stream or to the stream going forth from Eden to water the garden Gen_2:10 (Hengst., Delitzsch), are not in the text. The figure of receiving drink from a flowing water originates from the idea, that God is the fountain of life and light (Jer_2:13; Jer_17:13; Pro_16:22).
Psa_36:9. For with Thee is the fountain of life, and in Thy light we see light.—The frequent connection of life and light (Ps. 56:14; Job_3:20; Pro_16:15) and the entire context of the present passage show, that here the reference is not to a knowledge of religious truth in the light of revelation (most interpreters), but to an experience which joyously shines through men, when they retain the light of grace (Psa_4:6; Psa_44:3), the light of life proceeding from the face of God; and with this the light of success and of salvation, which threatened to be put out, rises again. Comp. Böttcher de inferis § 96.
[Str. IV. Psa_36:10. Loving-kindness.—Perowne: “For the third time he dwells on this attribute of God, and again associates it as in Psa_36:5-6, with the “righteousness” of God,—loving-kindness (or mercy) and righteousness.”
Psa_36:11. Neither let the hand of the wicked drive me away.—Hupfeld: “Foot and hand are the instruments and figures of violence: the former of treading under foot, of crushing; the latter of thrusting away, hunting away, driving away, namely from the possession of land, thus of banishment.”—C. A. B.]
Str. V. Psa_36:12. There have the evildoers fallen.—Some interpret the preterites in this verse as future and translate, then will fall: this is to be entirely rejected. שׁם does not refer to time, but to place=there; and there is no more reference to a promise than to a prayer (Luther). The thought is most natural, that David here refers to a well known historical example (Venema, Clericus, Olsh., Hitzig, Hupf.) as Psa_14:5, in order to instruct and to comfort, or indeed to strengthen the confidence in the certainty of the Divine judgment. This would be expressed by translating them as perfects (Sept., Chald., Jerome). Yet it is admissible to use the present (Syr., Symmach.) and to take the preterite as prophetic (Calvin, Hengst., Delitzsch), because in the prophetic view that which is mentioned previously as sure, may be treated as something that has already happened.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. If a man hardens himself in his sins by impenitence, so that he becomes a wanton and a villain, it goes so far with him, that the entire interior of his heart is taken possession of by wickedness, and a total perversion of true relations occurs. The place of the voice of God in the conscience is taken by wickedness with its suggestions, as the supernatural power determining the man in his religious and moral relations, and it blinds him to such an extent that God has for him “no objectivity inspiring respect” (Delitzsch); and no thought at all of Divine punishment, especially with reference to himself, comes into his conceited soul, but rather defiance of God’s variance with him is so closely connected with the flattering imaginations of his own security from punishment that he not only speaks wickedly, and devises mischief, but he consciously has departed from rational and good actions, and in bold opposition to the Divine commands, with fearful resoluteness, has taken his position in the way which is not good, because he has killed at once all love to the good with a dead conscience and recognises no longer the blamableness of evil.
2. But if the wicked man is no longer to be terrified by Divine judgments and can be prevented by terror from no wicked act, yet the pious man is not utterly lost. God provides still that the trees should not grow into the heavens. Thither the grace of the Eternal extends, as it comes from thence and the acts of His faithfulness correspond with it. Therefore as the heavens cannot be stormed by the ungodly, no more can they make Him inaccessible to the pious, or prevent the coming of the kingdom of heaven. And still less can they cast down the Divine ordinances in the world. The righteousness of God is as inviolable as the mountains established by Him and His judgments are executed as inevitably as the great flood. But the same God who takes away the wicked in His time, shows Himself to be the Saviour in such a comprehensive sense, that even the irrational beasts, how much more men, stand under His care and Providence.
3. But if the goodness of God is such a precious possession, worth more than all the treasures of the world, the members of the congregation particularly have reason to celebrate it; for although they are indeed poor children of Adam, yet they are not only objects of His care, as all creatures, but they have access to the good things, blessings and joys of His house. The God, who takes His children everywhere with paternal love into the truest protection, and spreads wings over them, the shadow of which protects them against the heat of affliction, here takes His people of priests to His table and provides them with all that they need, not only according to their necessities, but richly and beyond all their prayer and understanding. For in communion with God alone is the true and inexhaustible fountain of life and light. God has not only both in Himself alone in inseparable union, but He alone is at the same time life and light in the highest sense and in everlasting perfection; and from free grace He imparts both in holy interchange in the most blissful perfection (Joh_1:4).
4. He, therefore who desires that the joyful light of everlasting redemption, and a blissful life should rise for him and never be put out, and still further craves that he may be filled more and more with this life and its light, and that it may shine through him to such an extent that he may be glorified by it, must take and keep such a position, that the gracious light of the Divine countenance may shine upon him and the work of grace in imparting life to him from God may be a constant one. The believer may and must pray constantly for the continuance of this work of grace. For it is certain that to be estranged from God is like the darkness of death, and includes loss of salvation and ruin of life. But he who knows God, doubts not of the readiness of God to continue to extend His grace; and he who is of upright heart and just mind, relies upon the work of the Divine righteousness. He may reckon upon it with the confidence of faith, that proud wicked men are yet not supreme and cannot crush him or drive him from the kingdom, house, and inheritance given him by God. But the righteous man with prophetic glance sees them already as lost people, and beholds in spirit their irreparable ruin. They are changed into a “field of corpses without the hope of resurrection” (Delitzsch) Isa_26:14.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The defiance of the ungodly: 1) whence it originates; 2) in what it asserts itself; 3) how it ends.—God’s judgments may be denied but not avoided; it is well for those who have no reason to fear them.—Ungodliness a) in its power, b) in its enormity, c) in its weakness.—What the righteous have to expect from the ungodly and what they have to expect from God.—He who would not fear the defiance of the ungodly must be able a) to conceal himself in the love of God; b) to trust in God’s faithfulness; c) to reckon upon God’s righteousness.—The ungodly may threaten to perplex and overturn the whole world by their doings, but he who knows God, traces in the whole world the testimonies of the Divine government.—The wicked are ruined forever on account of their wickedness, but the pious have in God an inexhaustible fountain of life, whose light never expires.—The refreshments in the house and at the table of God help the pious to overcome all need and anguish in the world.—The wicked doings of the ungodly and the blessed gracious condition of the pious.
Starke: Since believers are servants of God on account of their common and their special calling, they should be the more cheerful and willing to faithfully fulfil their duties; the reward of grace will surely follow.—The purer and more tender the love to God and His honor, the more sensitive the pain where they must see and hear that which is opposed to this.—When men are first brought by the devil to such a state that they put away from them the fear of God; there is no blasphemy too great but that they should be drawn into it.—The two employments which worldlings have learned are to do evil, and speak evil and scorn those who do good.—No sin is too horrid for a godless mind, that he should abhor it—it is all sport to him.—Many men are so hardened, that, although others give them good advice, yet they from evil custom reject the best and choose the worst. We should oppose the wrath of Satan and the enmity of the world with the goodness of God, just as we use God’s truth against Satan’s lies.—Wherever we may be, we are yet surrounded by the goodness of God, as the heavens encompass us.—There is nothing more precious and valuable to the Christian in heaven or on earth, than the goodness and grace of God, whence all his salvation in time and eternity springs.—True Christianity is not a disagreeable thing, but has more joy in it, than can be found in the whole world, although this joy is concealed from the eyes of the world.—God can lift up again the poor man who has been cast down to the ground by the proud man; but who can help that man up again, whom God has cast down into the abyss?—If we are in the way of life, the hand of God must keep us there, and for this, constant prayer is necessary.
Osiander: As we should pray for our adversaries, as long as there is any hope that they may be brought to repentance, so likewise we may pray against them when they give good evidence that they are entirely and utterly hardened and will never come to repentance and conversion; we should yet take care lest we judge too rashly and too soon and not regard our own revengeful feelings as a holy zeal.—Schnepf: The mercy of God is greater than all his works:—Menzel: When God’s word is let go, there is no fear of God left.—Dauderstadt: Not only the ungodly have falls, but likewise the pious; but the latter arise again, the former not.—Bake: When a man leaves off to fear God; no sin is too great for him.—Dietelmair: If God is the fountain whence all our joy springs, nothing can prevent our joy.—Arndt: In all troubles however high or deep or broad or long they may be, God’s grace and truth are still greater and higher.—Tholuck: How gracious must the wing of Divine care be since it includes not only men but even irrational beasts in its broad shadow.—Since all good things which men enjoy come from God, the children of God may in fact be sure that they will not be the last to receive them when they are distributed.—No one has ever found God except through God.—Guenther: When wickedness seems to prevail everywhere, it is only appearance. God’s love and righteousness will rule forever.—Diedrich: Those are the true servants of God, to whom God gives the experience of the mysteries of His kingdom, that they may be able to impart them to others.—He who has known his treasure in God, has no fear of ever losing it.—Taube: The fourfold condition and advance of sin: 1) servitude to sin, 2) security in sin, 3) lying and hypocrisy, 4) hardness and obduracy of heart.
[Matth. Henry: Omissions make way for commissions. When men leave off doing good, leave off praying, leave off their attendance on God’s ordinances, and their duty to Him, the devil easily makes them his agents, his instruments to draw those that will be drawn into sin, and those that will not, to draw them into trouble.—If sinners did not steel their hearts, and brazen their faces with obstinacy and impudence, they could not go on in their evil ways, in such a direct opposition to all that is just and good.—If God’s mercies were not in the heavens, that is, infinitely above the mercies of any creature, He would long ere this have drowned the world again.—Let us not wonder that God gives food to bad men, for He feeds the brute creatures; and let us not fear but that He will provide well for good men.—A gracious soul, though still desiring more of God, never desires more than God.—The pleasures of sense are stinking puddle water; those of faith are pure and pleasant, clear as crystal, Rev_22:1.—Barnes: All away from God is dark; all near Him is light. If therefore we desire light on the subjects which pertain to our salvation, it must be sought by a direct and near approach to Him; and the more we can lose ourselves in the splendors of His throne, the more we shall understand of truth.—Faith often converts the promises into reality; and in the bright anticipations and the certain hopes of heaven sings and rejoices as if it were already in our possession,—anticipating only by a few short days, weeks, or years, what will certainly be ours.—Spurgeon: He hath the devil for his bed-fellow who lies abed and schemes how to sin.—Faith derives both light and life from God, and hence she neither dies nor darkens.—C. A. B.]
Footnotes:
[1][It is better to regard personified ungodliness as the subject of this clause, yet not with the explanation of Delitzsch with regard to the finding, but combined rather with the author’s view of the force of ל and מצא. The translation would then be: He (ungodliness suggesting to him and prompting him) flatters him in his eyes with reference to finding his guilt, to hating (it). That is, ungodliness flatters him that his guilt will not be detected, hated and visited upon him.—C. A. B.]
[2][Perowne: “The transition from this description of the wicked to the praise of God’s goodness and faithfulness, is certainly very abrupt; and we can feel no surprise that Hupfeld should be inclined to doubt an original connection between the two portions of the Psalm. Yet may we not account for the abruptness by a very natural recoil of feeling? No good man can ever delight to portray the workings of a heart al enated from God. If the evil he sees around him force him for a time to trace it to its hidden source or watch its outward development, with the more joy and thankfulness will he find refuge (see Psa_36:7), from its hideous shadow in the faithfulness and goodness of God.”—C. A. B.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 This reflection detailed.
This reflection detailed.
until his iniquity--literally, "for finding his iniquity for hating"; that is, he persuades himself God will not so find it--"for hating" involving the idea of punishing. Hence his words of iniquity and deceit, and his bold rejection of all right principles of conduct. The climax is that he deliberately adopts and patronizes evil. The negative forms affirm more emphatically their contraries.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12 1. Saith within my heart—Instead of the Hebrew suffix…
1. Saith within my heart—Instead of the Hebrew suffix “my,” the Septuagint, Vulgate, Jerome, Syriac, and many other authorities, ancient and modern, have his, which, taking “saith,” נאם, (neum,) in the sense of revelation, oracle, would give, “The wicked hath an oracle of transgression in his heart;” that is, his evil disposition, which he consults rather than the word of God, counsels him wickedly. Others, retaining the present Hebrew form, suppose the theme of the psalm to be here announced, and read, “An oracle concerning the transgression of the wicked is within my heart.” But usage is against this, and the former is preferable. The words “within his heart” are very emphatic, denoting with certainty both the original seat and the force of corruption. Mat_15:18-19.
No fear of God—Contrast with Psa_16:8. See, also, Rom_3:8
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–12 1. As the Psalmist reflects on the conduct of…
1. As the Psalmist reflects on the conduct of the wicked man, it becomes clear to him that practical atheism is the guiding principle of his life. So the reading of the Massoretic Text, followed in the A.V., may be explained. But it is unnatural to regard transgression as uttering its oracle in the Psalmist’s heart; and the reading of the LXX, Vulg., Syr., and Jerome, within his heart, is certainly preferable. The verse may then be rendered either (1), Saith Transgression to the wicked within his heart, (that) there is &c.; the second line giving the words of Transgression’s oracle: or (2) Transgression uttereth its oracle to the wicked within his heart; There is &c.; the second line being the statement of the Psalmist, and hinting at the substance of the oracle.
The word rendered saith, or, uttereth its oracle, is regularly used of solemn divine utterances in the phrase saith the Lord (Gen_22:16; and frequently in the prophets). Occasionally though rarely, it has a human speaker for its subject (Num_24:3 ff.; 2Sa_23:1; Pro_30:1). Transgression—more precisely, rebellion or apostasy,—is here personified (cp. Gen_4:7, R.V.; Zec_5:8; Rom_6:12-13, R.V.). The wicked man has made it his God, and it has become a lying spirit within him (1Ki_22:21 ff.; 2Th_2:11-12).
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no fear of God] Rather, no terror of God. The word pachad denotes terror inspired by God, not reverence for God (Isa_2:10; Isa_2:19; Isa_2:21, R.V.). Transgression persuades the wicked man that there is no need for him to dread God’s judgements. Cp. Psa_10:4-6; Psa_10:11, Psalms 13 : Psa_14:1; and contrast Psa_18:22; Psa_119:120 : Job_13:11; Job_31:23. With these words St Paul sums up his description of the character and condition of fallen man in Rom_3:18.
1, 2. The ground of the godless man’s security in his sin.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12 (1) The transgression of the wicked saith within my…
(1) The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart . . .—The literal rendering of the present Hebrew text is, An utterance of sin to the wicked within my heart. The common phrase rendered in our version, “Thus saith Jehovah,” is here imitated, “Thus saith sin.” “To the wicked” cannot, as some explain, mean “concerning the wicked.” The only possible meaning of the text as it stands is therefore, “Thus saith sin to (me) the wicked man in my heart.” But there can be no question that the psalmist wrote “in his heart,” since ail the ancient versions, with the exception of the Chaldee Paraphrase, followed this reading, and some MSS. still show it. This gives us a very fine sense. Sin is personified as the evil counsellor or prompter sitting in the heart of the wicked to suggest evil thoughts: Sin in the wicked man’s heart is his oracle. Conscience is on the wrong side.
There is no fear . . .—This is not the suggestion of sin just mentioned, but an explanation of the condition into which the wicked man has sunk. Impiety and irreverence have so corrupted his nature, that sin has become his oracle.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–12 THIS short psalm is mainly didactic. It places in…
THIS short psalm is mainly didactic. It places in contrast the extreme wickedness of the wicked and the inexhaustible fulness of love, faithfulness, and righteousness which characterizes the God whom the wicked dare to offend. It ends with a brief but earnest intercessory prayer, that God will favour the righteous and protect them from the assaults of the ungodly, followed by an expression of confidence that the prayer will be granted.
The psalm divides itself into three strophes, corresponding to the division of the subject-matter. Strophe 1 (vers. 1-4) gives the portrait of the wicked man. Strophe 2 (vers. 5-9) paints the Divine goodness. Strophe 3 (vers. 10-12) contains the prayer and the expression of confidence.
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The title ascribes the psalm to David; and the critics generally acquiesce. Some of them point out special Davidical indications; but no one has ventured to assign it to any particular occasion in David"s life. The epithet given to David in the title, "servant of Jehovah," would seem, however, to connect it with Ps 18.
The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart. This is a difficult passage. In the first place, the text is uncertain, since some manuscripts have wbl, "his heart," in the place of ybl, "my heart." And further, whichever reading we prefer, the meaning is far from clear. Dr. Kay translates, "Transgression"s oracle to the wicked is, "In the interior of my own heart; and understands the meaning to be that the sinfulness of the wicked man deludes him into the belief that his wickedness is known to no one but himself it is all safely locked up in the recesses of his own heart. Professor Alexander suggests as possible, "Thus saith depravity to the wicked man, "In the midst of my heart, there is no fear of God before his (i.e. God"s) eyes. Others, preferring wbl to ybl, render, "Transgression speaks to the wicked within his heart; There is no fear of God," etc.; regarding the two clauses as perfectly independent the one of the ether. This is, perhaps, the best explanation. There is no fear of God before his eyes. Either he belongs to the class of "fools, who say in their heart, There is no God", (Psa_14:1) or he agrees with those who cry, "Tush, God hath forgotten: he hideth away his face; he will never see it". (Psa_10:11)
HOMILIES BY C. CLEMANCE Vers. 1-4. God"s revelation of man to himself; or, the transgressors heart turned inside out.
It has been thought by some that this psalm was written about the time when Saul gave his daughter Michal to David with a treacherous design (see Walford, in loc. ); by others, that it is a general description of some of the wicked men such as Saul, Absalom, Ahithophel, etc. with whom David was brought into contact (see Fausset hereon). But there is no clue in the psalm itself to any such specific historical reference. We see a special significance in the title of the psalm, which tells us that it was written by David as a servant of Jehovah, and banded by him to the choirmaster for use in the songs of the sanctuary. We may regard it as a description of the heart of the ungodly, written in the piercing light of Divine revelation (see ver. 9), affording us a striking illustration of Heb_4:12, showing us that "the Word of God is" indeed "living and strong, sharper than any two-bladed sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow," being "a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." We find, too, that the Apostle Paul regards the words, "There is no fear of God before his eyes," as a part of the Divine indictment against a sinful race, whether of Jew or of Gentile origin. (cf. Rom_3:18) Hence the inspection of the human heart, the results of which are here stated, is one that has been carried on under the searching light of Heaven. And a terribly painful discovery it is, to find how much iniquity God sees hidden in the nooks and corners of the heart. For us to be always carrying on this introspection would be more than we could bear. Yet the wicked may well be asked to study their own hearts in the light of this description, that they may see how much they need deliverance from their dark and sinful selves; while the believer may well look into this description again and again, that he may see from how much he has been delivered by the grace of God.
I LET US STUDY THIS SEARCHING INVESTIGATION OF THE SECRETS OF A HUMAN HEART. (Ver. 1)
1. The heart of an ungodly man has an oracle of its own. The Hebrew word translated "saith" is a noun, and means "oracle." Some would regard the phrase as elliptical, and as meaning, "The oracle of God, concerning the transgression of the wicked in his heart, is," etc. (so Cheyne and Olshausen). But it seems to us rather a satirical contrast. The righteous have their oracle, which is Divine. The wicked have their oracle, even transgression. The dislike of being governed by another is the governing principle of their lives. "Our tongues are our own: who is lord over us?". (Psa 12:14 Psa_2:3) Hence their "oracle" is dictated, not by loyalty, but by rebellion against God.
2. There are terrible negations in the godless mans life. (Ver. 1, "There is no fear of God before his eyes.") There is no desire of the Divine approval, nor dread of the Divine displeasure. It was reserved for the nineteenth century, however, to develop the most impious forms of this denial of God. There are not wanting novels, such as George Eliot"s and others, which present model characters in social life on the basis of non-theism, and which depict it as a virtue to be without any fear of God whatsoever. This psalm deals with an evil which is by no means a thing of the past. It is developed to-day in frightful form, and puts on a guise of virtue to hide its ghastliness. There is a second negation (ver. 4): "He hath left off to be wise and to do good." The absence of the fear of God will soon be followed by the loss of respect for man, and the deterioration of general intelligence and of social virtue. There is no sustaining impulse for the highest excellence when God ceases to be enthroned in the heart. For a third negation here specified shows clearly enough the drift of the godless man (ver. 5): "He abhorreth not evil." The issue of a materialistic denial of God, and of a materialistic view of man, must be the denial of evil as evil. Evil cannot exist if atoms of matter be all. For molecules never break the ranks, and can never get out of harness. And he who first abhors not evil, out of senseless bravado, will come to deny evil altogether, and will let his passions hurry him whither they will, on the inward plea that he is "acting according to nature.
3. There are equally terrible positive evils in the godless mans life. First, evils in thought (ver. 3). The psalmist means either that, in spite of his godlessness, he has a very good opinion of himself, or else that he flatters himself his sins will never come out to light, and be found out in all their naked ugliness. Nor is this all. But he positively deviseth mischief upon his bed (ver. 5). Even in the night he is pursuing schemes of serf-gratification, altogether regardless of righteousness or of the good of others. A second form of positive ill is found in his words (ver. 4). Truthlessness will soon follow godlessness. And when in his eye God ceases to be, it will not be long ere right ceases to be right, and truth to be truth. And a third form of ill will develop itself. "He setteth himself in a way that is not good." He plants his feet, he takes a determined stand, in the direction of gratifying self rather than in the direction of pleasing Cod. And will aim at nothing but "utility," in the narrow sense of hedonism. Right as right will have disappeared from the gaze of his eye, and will cease to govern either deed, word, or thought. How terrible a picture is this of unchecked human depravity!
II WHAT PRACTICAL USE SHOULD BE MADE IN OUR DAY OF SUCH A TERRIBLE EXPOSURE OF THE SECRETS OF DEPRAVED HEARTS?
1. It is a very solemn thought that we are thus being inspected, at every moment, by an all-searching gaze. It is only where Divine revelation has been vouchsafed that sin is dealt with so very seriously, and that the heart is thus depicted so minutely.
2. How fearful the descent of sin, and how encroaching are its inroads on character! Yet, after all, we need hot fall into the error of supposing that the Word of God regards all as equally guilty or as equally corrupt. Yet, as the Apostle Paul shows in the second and third chapters of his Epistle to the Romans, where he is handling the indictment which stands in God"s Law against us, we are "all under sin." If the Jew has sinned against a written Law, the Gentile has sinned against an unwritten law. Hence both are "guilty before God;" although the measure of each one"s guilt, and the depth of each one"s corruption, can be judged accurately by God alone.
3. Let us be devout/y thankful that we may know the worst of ourselves by comparing what we are with the pure and holy Law of God. To know the disease is an important step in seeking for a cure.
4. Even if we have not gone such lengths is guilt and maddened sin as are here described, let us thankfully acknowledge that we owe it to the restraining providence of God. For, alas! the germs of all ill are in each of us.
5. We need a deliverance from ourselves. We need forgiveness for guilt, and cleansing from corruption.
6. Since all are under sin, how righteous is the retirement of the gospel! "God commandeth all men everywhere to repent." No man is as good as he ought to be, nor yet as good as be knows he ought to be. And for this he ought to be sorry and to mourn his guilt persistently before God. When he is thus ready to put sin away by repenting of it, God is ready to put it away by forgiving it.
7. It is the glory of the gospel that it takes into account all our needs, from every possible point of view. In Christ we have pardon for the penitent"s sin, and cleansing from the foulest corruption. Yea, through the Spirit of God we may be regenerated, and sanctified, and snatched from the power of darkness to the kingdom of Gods dear Son.
8. It is only in that very Word which looks at sin most seriously that man is regarded most hopefully. Man and his sins are not inseparable They may be parted. And when this blessed effect is brought about, "being made free from sin, and become servants unto God," they will "have their fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. C.
HOMILIES BY W. FORSYTH Vers. 1-12. We have here a terrible picture of, the wicked man.
I HIS HEART IS THE SEAT OF EVIL. It is there as an "oracle." It is enthroned. It speaks with authority. It gives forth its decrees for obedience. The true is opposed by the false. Righteousness gives place to unrighteousness. All counsels of reason and compunctions of conscience are hushed by the cry, "No God!". (2Th_2:3, 2Th_2:4)
II HIS LIFE IS MARKED BY ABANDONMENT TO EVIL. The power that rules the heart rules the life. There is progress in depravity, as in goodness. Gradually the sway of sin extends, till at last it works without check, without remorse, without remedy. You know a servant by the livery he wears, so when you see a man who sins wilfully and habitually, whose words and actions and manner of life are manifestly regulated without any fear of God, you cannot but regard such a man as a servant of sin. (Rom_6:16 Joh_8:34)
III HIS CHARACTER IS FORMED UNDER THE POWER OF EVIL. Acts form habits, and habits character, The process is slow, but certain. What determines character is the power that worketh in us, be it good or be it evil. (Gal_5:17, Gal_5:18) There is evil in all, but when the heart has been won back to God, the evil, though present, has lost its power. There is conflict, but the victory is Fare for good, and not for evil. On the other hand, where evil still rules supreme, the result is of necessity greater and greater degradation and corruption.
IV HIS FUTURE IS DARK WITH THE PROGNOSTICS OF EVIL. To those who are living without God, the prospect in this life is gloomy and painful, but there is still hope. The voice of mercy is ever sounding in their ears, "Why will ye die?" As time passes, things grow darker. Guilt increases, the heart is hardened, and reformation becomes more and more improbable. (Jer_13:23) Again and again signs and warnings are given precursors of the end, foreshadowings of the doom that awaits the impenitent. But they are unheeded. There is a terrible retention of character, and the future has no star of hope to light the gloom. "The wicked is driven away in his wickedness. W.F.
Vers. 1-12. Aspice.
Look around, how distressing is the scene! Look back, it is the fame tale of human care and crime. Look before, little to encourage, or to lead us to believe that things will be better than they are. But look up, and we can take heart, and speak one to another of better times. Clod reigns. Christ is at the right hand of the Father, to carry out his gracious purposes. Though there be much that is dark and depressing, yet we are able still to pray to God as "our Father," to say, a Thy kingdom come," and to assure our hearts of the final victory of love, for "Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory.
I FROM THE FALSEHOOD OF MEN WE MAKE OUR COMPLAINT TO THE FAITHFUL NESS OF GOD. Though men lie and beguile, God is true. His Word is truth. "He is faithful who hath promised" We may trust him utterly. Like him, let us also be faithful.
II FROM THE INJUSTICE OF MEN WE MAY APPEAL TO THE JUSTICE OF GOD. Conscience within and the Law without bear witness that God is righteous. Justice is justice everywhere. Whatever be our lot here, we shall get right yonder. However basely men-may behave to us, God will treat us fairly. The Judge of all the earth will do right. In this faith we can possess our souls in patience. (1Co_4:3, 4 Jam_4:11, Jam_4:12) Come what will, let us ever do that which is just and good to all men.
III FROM THE SELFISHNESS OF MEN WE CAN TAKE REFUGE IN THE LOVE AND MERCY OF GOD. In trade and commerce and all the various businesses of the world, selfishness prevails. The rule is, "Every man for himself;" and the royal law, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," is set at nought. Even in the Churches the leaven of selfishness is sadly operative. But "God is love." He is the great Giver. His delight is to show mercy, to do good and to communicate. He has come nearer than ever in Christ Jesus, and under the strong and loving covert of his wings we find refuge from all the oppressions and ills of life (ver. 7). Let us make it our habit more and more to abide with God. Christ is in the bosom of the Father, and it is as we "live together with Christ" that we abide in the love of God, and are comforted in all our troubles, defended in all our dangers, and strengthened for every good word and work. "Only, O Lord, in thy dear love, Fit us for perfect rest above; And help us, this and every day, To live more nearly as we pray. W.F.
HOMILIES BY C. SHORT Vers. 1-12. The curse of wickedness and the blessedness of fellowship with God.
The psalmist complains of the moral corruption of his generation, and points the character of the time rather than any particular occurrence unless "the foot of pride" in the eleventh verse may possibly refer to some invader that he dreaded. We have here a vivid description of the cursed state of ingrained, deliberate wickedness, and of the supreme blessedness of fellowship with God.
I THE CURSE OF INGRAINED, DELIBERATE WICKEDNESS. (Vers. 1-4) Represented under two main aspects.
1. The utter degeneracy of his thoughts. (Vers. 1, 2) Translate, "The oracle, or voice, of transgression is in the heart of the wicked;" i.e. evil is the sovereign voice that speaks to or commands him. It is the only imperative voice that he hears not the voice of conscience or duty. As a consequence, he does not see or hear God, and, therefore, does not fear to transgress. More than this, he becomes complacent ("flatters himself") in devising evil things as a sign of superior cleverness, and glories in hating rather than in loving. He is a fearful example of the total inversion of the moral order in all his thoughts. As a consequence, we have:
2. The utter degeneracy of his conduct. (Vers. 3, 4) His words are the image of his thoughts mischief and deceit. He has left off, turned from, every wise and good gay of living, as a thing gone out of his esteem, forming no part of his purpose in life. fie meditates only mischief on his bed, where other men remember the evil of the day, and repent; but he sinks to sleep or awakes from it in forming evil designs, setting himself into the direction of no good way, nor abhorring any evil.
II THE SUPREME BLESSEDNESS OF FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD. (Vers. 5-10)
1. God"s goodness makes him infinitely worthy of our trust. (Vers. 5-7) His mercy. faithfulness, righteousness, judgments, preserving providence, are all infinite and perfect, and those who trust in him live in the holiest, safest shelter under the shadow of his wings overspreading the "mercy seat.
2. God will abundantly satisfy all their greatest needs. (Ver. 8) They shall partake of the Divine satisfaction and joy eat of the fatness of his house, and drink of the river of his pleasures. Because he is the Fountain of all life and the Substance of all light, and they who dwell with him shall draw his life into themselves, and see all things in the light of his presence.
3. They became confident of the downfall of those who are unrighteously opposed to them. (Vers. 11, 12) "There! pointing as if to the scene of the ruin of his foes and the foes of God. Those who enjoy fellowship with God and Christ are assured that they too will at length conquer their spiritual foes, and enter fully into the kingdom that awaits them. S.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain On vv1–12 Title. To the Chief Musician, He who had the…
Title. To the Chief Musician, He who had the leadership of the Temple service was charged with the use of this song in public worship. What is everybody's business is never done. It was well to have one person specially to attend to the service of song in the house of the Lord. Of David the servant of the Lord. This would seem to indicate that the Psalm peculiarly befits one who esteems it an honour to be called Jehovah's servant. It is THE SONG OF HAPPY SERVICE; such a one as all may join in who bear the easy yoke of Jesus. The wicked are contrasted with the righteous, and the great Lord of devout men is heartily extolled; thus obedience to so good a Master is indirectly insisted on, and rebellion against him is plainly condemned.
Divisions. From Ps 36:1-4 David describes the rebellious: in Ps 36:5-9 he extols the various attributes of the Lord; in Ps 36:10-11 he addresses the Lord in prayer, and in the last verse his faith sees in vision the overthrow of all the workers of iniquity.
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Ver. 1. The transgression of the wicked. His daring and wanton sin; his breaking the bounds of law and justice. Saith within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes. Men's sins have a voice to godly ears. They are the outer index of an inner evil. It is clear that men who dare to sin constantly and presumptuously cannot respect the great Judge of all. Despite the professions of unrighteous men, when we see their unhallowed actions our heart is driven to the conclusion that they have no religion whatever. Unholiness is clear evidence of ungodliness. Wickedness is the fruit of an atheistic root. This may be made clear to the candid head by cogent reasoning, but it is clear already and intuitively to the pious heart. If God be everywhere, and I fear him, how can I dare to break his laws in his very presence? He must be a desperate traitor who will rebel in the monarch's own halls. Whatever theoretical opinions bad men may avow, they can only be classed with atheists, since they are such practically. Those eyes which have no fear of God before them now, shall have the terrors of hell before them for ever.
Title. To the Chief Musician, has given rise to many conjectures. In the Septuagint the Hebrew word is translated, eiz to telos, to the end; a meaning so utterly vague as to defy all reasonable conjecture. ...The meaning of the term appears to be this: the Psalms in which it occurs were given in charge by their inspired authors to the Chief Musician overseeing some specific band of music, whether harps, psalteries, or wind instruments. John Jebb, A.M., in "A Literal Translation of the Book of Psalms, " 1846.
Title. The servant of the Lord. David only uses this title here and in Psalm eighteen. In both he describes the dealings of God both with the righteous and the wicked, and it is most fit that at the very outset he should take his place with the servants of the Lord. C. H. S.
Whole Psalm. First Part. A character of a wicked man Ps 36:1. 1. He calls evil good Ps 36:2. 2. He continues in it. 3. He is an hypocrite Ps 36:3. 4. He is obstinate. 5. He is studious in wickedness Ps 36:4. Second part. God's patience and mercy Ps 36:5-6. 1. To all, even all creatures.
2. But particularly to his people, which he admires. Upon which the faithful (1) trust, (2) are satisfied Ps 36:7-8. The Third part. He prays that this effect may light, 1. On God's people Ps 36:10. 2. On himself Ps 36:11. 3. His acclimation upon it Ps 36:12. William Nicholson (Bishop), 1662.
Ver. 1. In this Psalm we have a description of sin, especially as it appears in those who have openly broken God's bands. The introduction is very striking; The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes. How could the transgression of the wicked speak within the heart of him who in the inscription of the Psalm declares himself to be the servant of JEHOVAH? These words are generally understood as signifying that the outward conduct of the sinner, as often as he thought of it, naturally suggested this conclusion to his mind, that he was destitute of all fear of God. But they may perhaps admit of another meaning, equally agreeable to the literal reading; wickedness, saith of the wicked, within my heart, etc. According to this view, the psalmist meant that notwithstanding the external pretences of the wicked, and all their attempts to cover their iniquity, he was certain that they had no real sense of the presence of God, that they secretly renounced his authority. How was he assured of this? By a comparison of their conduct with the dictates of the heart. He could not indeed look into their hearts, but he could look into his own, and there he found corruption so strong, that were it not for the fear of God that was implanted within him, he would be as bad as they. John Jamieson.
Ver. 1. It is not the imperfection or shortcoming in the fear of God, but the being destitute of it altogether, that proveth a wicked man: There is no fear of God before his eyes. David Dickson.
Ver. 1. (last clause). Not having the fear of God before his eyes, has become inwoven into proceedings in criminal courts. When a man has no fear of God, he is prepared for any crime.
Total depravity is not too strong a term to describe human wickedness. The sinner has no fear of God. Where that is wanting, how can there be any piety? And if there is no piety, there must be total want of right affections, and that is the very essence of depravity. William S. Plumer.
Ver. 1. Durst any mock God with flourishes and formalities in religion, if they feared him? Durst any provoke God to his face by real and open wickedness, if they feared him? Durst any sin with the judgments of God fresh bleeding before their eyes, if they feared the Lord and his wrath? Durst they sin with heaps of precious mercy before their eyes, if they feared the Lord and his goodness? Durst any flatter either others or themselves with hopes of impunity in their sin, if they feared the Lord and his truth? Durst any slight their own promises, professions, protestations, oaths, or design the entangling of others by them, rather than the binding of themselves, did they fear the Lord and his faithfulness, even the Lord who keepeth covenant and promise for ever? All these and many more transgressions of the wicked (all these ways of transgression are found among the wicked, it were well if none of them were found among those who have a name of godliness; I say, all these transgressions of the wicked) say, There is no fear of God before their eyes. Joseph Caryl.
Ver. 1. The wicked man has no regard to the oracles of God: he had one in his own heart, which dictates nothing but rebellion. Zachary Mudge.
Ver. 1. What is the fear of God? How does it operate? What is the effect of its absence? What should we learn from seeing such evil results?
Or the atheism underlying transgression.
Psalms 36:2*
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart,…
Psa_36:1-12
The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, that there is no fear of God before hill eyes.
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A sharp contrast of sin and holiness
I. the character of the wicked (Verses 1-4). Depravity is the sinners oracle. Its impulses come to him like those responses from superhuman sources which command the reverence and obedience of mankind. He yields to the seductive influence, and presses forward in the delusion that he will Hover be found out. And so, the fear of punishment being dispelled, he becomes thoroughly bad in heart, speech, and behaviour.
II. the divine excellence (Psa_36:5-9). The psalmist begins with Jehovahs loving-kindness and His faithfulness, His fulfilment of promises, even to the undeserving. These fill the earth and reach up to heaven. They transcend all human thought and desire (Eph_3:18). Jehovahs righteousness. His rectitude in general is compared to the mountains of God, mountains which, being produced by Almighty power, are a natural emblem of immensity. Judgments, on the other hand--that is, particular acts of righteousness--are likened to the great deep in its vastness and mystery. How unsearchable are His judgments! (Rom_11:33). The next clause shows one of the most touching characteristics of Hebrew poetry in the instantaneous transition from the consideration of Gods unapproachable excellence to that of His providential care, which extends to every living thing, rational or irrational (Psa_104:1-35; Psa_145:13-16). The thought of these things makes the singer burst forth in devout rapture: How precious is Thy loving-kindness! It is valuable beyond all treasures, since it affords such a sure and ample protection for all who take refuge beneath Jehovahs outstretched wings (Rth_2:12). God is represented as a gracious Host who provides for all who come to His house and His table (Psa_23:5; Psa_34:9). They are sated with the richest food, and drink of the stream of Gods pleasures or Edens (Gen_2:10). To believers, if they enjoy Gods presence and favour, a crust of bread and a glass of water are incomparably better than a royal banquet without such enjoyment. For with Him is the fountain of all life, animal and spiritual. What matters it that all the streams are cut off when one stands near the fountain-head, and has direct access to it? But just as God is the fountain of life, so is He also the fountain of light (Dan_2:22), and apart from Him all is darkness. The believing soul lives in an element of light which at once quickens and satisfies the spiritual faculty, by which heaven and heavenly things are apprehended.
III. The concluding prayer (Psa_36:10-12). To his glowing description of the blessedness resident in God and flowing forth to the objects of His favour, the psalmist appends a prayer that it may be extended or prolonged to the class to which he claims to belong. This class is described, first, as those who know God, and, as a necessary consequence, love Him, since genuine knowledge of the true God is inseparable from right affections toward Him; secondly, as the upright, not merely in appearance or outward demeanour, but in heart. Great as Gods loving-kindness is, it is not indiscriminate, nor lavished upon those who neither appreciate nor desire it. The last verse is a mighty triumph of faith. It is as if David said, There! they have fallen already. The wicked may be swollen with insolence, and the world applaud them, but he descries their destruction from afar as if from a watch-tower, and pronounces it as confidently as if it were an accomplished fact. The defeat is final and irretrievable. What is the carpenters son doing now? was the scoffing question of a heathen in the days of Julian, when the apostate emperor was off upon an expedition which seemed likely to end in triumph. He is making a coffin for the emperor, was the calm reply. Faith that is anchored upon the perfections of the Most High cannot waver, cannot be disappointed. (T. W. Chambers, D. D.)
A diagnosis of sin
The earlier verses of the psalm are concerned with an analysis of the method and destructiveness of sin. The first four verses describe the successful ravages which sin makes in human life. They give us a diagnosis of evil, from its earliest appearance in the germ to its complete and final triumph. Now how does sin begin? I must take some little liberty with the wording of the psalm before me. I suppose it is one of the most difficult of all the psalms to translate. You will find, if you will look at the marginal rendering in the R.V., that for almost every clause the translators have given us an alternative reading which greatly differs from the reading placed in the text. I choose the marginal reading of the first clause, which, I think, gives us the germ, the first appearances, the beginnings of sin in human life. Transgression uttereth its oracle, speaks within himself in tones of imperious authority, lays down certain assurances, interpolates certain suggestions, and clothes them with imperial authority. The devil begins his ministry by oracular suggestions, by mysterious whispers, subtle enticements to sin. That is the germinal work of the devil; a mystic, secret oracle seeking to entice the life into ways of sin. The secret enticement is followed by equally subtle stratagem. He (that is, the oracle) flattereth him in his eyes that his iniquity shall not be found out and be hated. Two things the oracle says, and he says them with imperial authority. First, that sin shall not be found out, and secondly, that therefore there is no fear of reprobation. It is only a repetition of a word with which we are very familiar in the earlier portion of the old Book. Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die? . . . Ye shall not surely die! Now pass to the third step in the great degeneracy. The man has been listening to the secret oracle. He has been flattered by its suggestiveness. He is now persuaded by the enticement, and the moral degradation begins apace. The words--the first things to be smitten--The words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit. The first thing that happens as soon as a man listens to the devil is that the bloom goes off the truthfulness of his life. He now enters the realm of equivocation and deceit, his seduction begins to show its fruit at the lips. He hath left off to be wise; then he loseth sense; he does not now exercise common sense; he shuts one eye! His intelligence is narrowed, contracted and curtailed. But still further: He hath left off to do good. The loss of brotherhood! He may continue to give money; but he has ceased to give self. The claims of philanthropic service no longer appeal to his spirit, they pass by unheeded and ignored. Arid now see what further happens in the stages of moral decay. He deviseth iniquity; his imagination becomes defiled. He setteth himself in a way that is not good. His will becomes enslaved. He adhorreth not evil. He has now reached the plain of moral benumbment; his moral palate has been defiled; the distinction between sweet and bitter is no longer apparent, sweet and bitter taste alike. He has no abhorrence of evil, and he has no sweet pleasure in the good. He has lost his power of moral discernment; he is morally indifferent, and almost morally dead. Such is the diagnosis of sin, beginning in the whispered oracle and proceeding to absolute enslavement, passing through the intermediate stages of deception and delight. That is the moral condition of thousands. It is all round about us, and when we are confronted with its widespread devastation, what can we do? The earlier verses of this psalm, which give what I have called a diagnosis of sin, were never more confirmed than they are in the literature of our own Lime. The literature of our time abounds in analysis of sin. If you turn to Tess of the DUrbervilles, or Jude the Obscure, you will find that Thomas Hardy is just carefully elaborating the first four verses of this psalm. But, then, my trouble is this: that when his mournful psalm comes to an end I close his book in limp and rayless bewilderment. That is where so much of our modern literature leaves me. It gives me a fine diagnosis, but no remedial power. But here is the psalmist contemplating a similar spectacle--the ravages of sin, and he himself is temporarily bewildered; he himself is bowed low in helpless and hopeless mood. What does he do? I am very glad that our Revised Version helps by the very manner in which the psalm is printed. After verse four there is a great space, as though the psalm must be almost cut in two, as though the psalmist had gone away from the contemplation of that spectacle, as indeed he has. And where has he gone? He has gone that he might quietly inquire whether the evil things he has seen are the biggest things he can find. When the psalm opens again after the pause, the psalmist is joyfully proclaiming the bigger things he has found. What are they? Thy loving-kindness, O Lord, is in the heavens. Mark the vastness of the figures in which he seeks to enshrine the vastness of his thought. Thy loving-kindness, O Lord, is in the heavens, bending like a mothers arms, the shining, cloudless sky! Most uncertain of all uncertainties, and yet Thy faithfulness reacheth even unto the clouds! Those apparent children of caprice, coming and going no one knows how, are in Gods loving control, and obey the behests of His most sovereign will. Thy righteousness is like the great mountains. How majestic the figure! The mountains, the symbols of the Eternal, abiding through the generations; looking down upon the habitations of men, undisturbed, unchanged, unmoved. Thy righteousness is like the great mountains! Not that everything becomes clear when a man talks like that; the mystery remains! Thy judgments, Thy ways of doing things, Thy judgments are a great deep, as immense and unfathomable as the incalculable sea. But then one may endure the mystery of the deep when one is sure about the mountain. When you know that His faithfulness even ruleth the clouds, you can trust the fickle sea, Where had he been to discover these wonderful things? He is not recounting a bald catalogue of Divine attributes; he is announcing a testimony born of a deep and real experience. Where has he been? He has been the guest of God. Under the shadow of Thy wings. The security of it! The absolute perfectness of the shelter! The warmth of it! The untroubled peace of it! He has been in Gods house, sheltering there as a chick under its mothers wings. And then he tells us what he received in the house, what he had when he was a guest, when he was hiding under the wings: They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of Thy house. Fatness is the top, it is the cream of all spiritual delicacies. It is the first, the prime thing! They shall be abundantly satisfied with the delicacies of Thy table! Thou shalt make them drink of the river of Thy pleasures. It is not only what there is upon the table; it is the conversation and the fellowship at the board. Thy speech, Thy fellowship, Thy whispers, Thy promises, they just flow out into their souls like a river, and their joy shall be full. With Thee is the fountain of life! He was beginning to feel alive again; he was beginning to feel vitalized and renewed. I am getting inspired again. And then he added: In Thy light, my living God, in Thy light shall we see light to do our work away yonder in the fields of sin I The very two things he wanted: life and light I Inspiration and counsel! Encouragement and hope! As the psalmist turned from the Presence Chamber to confront again the spectacle of depravity, he offered a prayer, and this was his prayer: O continue Thy loving-kindness unto them that know Thee, and Thy righteousness to the upright in heart! And then, as though he was afraid that when he got back to the waste again, and to the sin again, he himself might be overcome, caught up in the terrible drift and carried along, he added this prayer: Let not the foot of pride come against me. Do not let me get into the general tendency of things, and by the general tendency be carried away! He offered a prayer that these cardinal things, the greatest things, might abide with him, and that when he went away into the worlds waste field he might be able to stand. And so this man came out of the secret chamber a knight of God! He goes back, like all men ought to go hack to their work when they have been in the presence chamber of God. We ought to turn to our work singing, always singing, and the songs ought to be, not songs of strife and warfare, but songs of victory. (J. H. Jowett, M.A.)
The character of the wicked and the prayer of the good
I. The character of the wicked.
1. Practical atheism.
2. Self-flattery.
3. Perverse speech.
4. Mischievous devices.
II. The glory of God. Here the Eternal is adored--
1. For what He is in Himself.
(1) His mercy is not a mere sentiment or passion, subject to change, but a principle settled as truth itself.
(2) His rectitude is as settled as the everlasting hills, and the dispensations of His providence are as a trackless, boundless ocean.
2. For what He is to His creatures.
(1) The Preserver of all.
(2) Their loving Guardian.
(3) Their Soul-satisfier. Mans happiness is participation in Gods own happiness.
III. The prayer of the good.
1. The subject of the prayer.
(1) The continuance of Divine favour.
(2) Protection from evil.
2. The answer (Psa_36:12). (Homilist)
The remedy for the worlds wickedness
Consider the estimate here made of mans character and its cause. The language of the text is not that of David only, but of Christ, concerning the world around us. Mans transgression possessed a language which spoke to his heart, and what it said was this, There is no fear of God before their eyes. Christ knew what the fear of God was, for He was heard in that he feared; not, indeed, with the selfish, slavish fear of punishment, which is incompatible with love, and impotent to secure obedience; but that holy, filial fear which is inseparable from love, and which is a comprehensive term for all that constitutes real religion in man. We know the power of this in mans character, its practical power in giving man victory over the world, and therefore when he saw the transgressions of men he knew that the cause was--There is no fear of God. Then he goes to the root of the disease; he puts forward none of the plausible excuses which men make for themselves on the ground of temperament, circumstances, and the like: but he goes to the root, for he knows also the real and only remedy. All others are vain: whether they be secular attempts to improve mans condition or to enlarge his knowledge, or to improve the institutions of civil government. Men believe in these things, and despise that vital religion which can alone help. What man calls wisdom, and wealth, and science, can do but little good, for they all terminate with creatures; they do not rise up to God. There is nothing in them to alter the real character of man. The reason is, that man, practically considered, is under the dominion, not of his intellect, but of his affections. There is no truth, connected with our composition, that requires and demands from wise men a more accurate and painstaking examination than this; because there is a theory of right in mens minds, and they deceive themselves into self-complacency by the admiration of the theory, at the moment that practically they are transgressing it. However strengthened the intellect by natural learning, it is still too weak for the conflict. The attracting object, soliciting the affections, gains the man; and he exhibits another specimen of the acknowledgment of the celebrated heathen, who Knew the best, and yet the worst pursued. What is to be done for him? His transgression saith within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes. There is fear of man; there is a desire to obtain the good opinion of man; but all these are too weak for the conflict. He is still a transgressor, because he is devoid of the fear of God. The next verses of the psalm give a remarkable description of his transgression, and show that it is mainly characterized by self-deception. He flattereth himself in his own eyes until his iniquity be found to be hateful. It is not perceived to be hateful now, because he does as the world does. There are transgressions in which no man can flatter himself that he is right, but there are others for which he does not condemn himself, because society does not. It is concerning these, particularly, that he goes on flattering himself. And where is the remedy? The language of the psalmist, immediately after this, points out the remedy. Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens; and Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds. Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; Thy judgments are a great deep; O Lord, Thou preservest man and beast. How excellent is Thy loving-kindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings. Observe the transition. From this contemplation of mans wickedness, he does not pass to a better class of men, because he was not contemplating that peculiar character of wickedness, in which man differs from man, but he was contemplating the root of mans malady, in which there is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. In immediate contrast, therefore, he refers to the character of God. Here is the only remedy--the character of God as manifested in Jesus Christ. Mercy, . . . faithfulness, righteousness, judgment, . . . loving-kindness--how are these glorious perfections harmonized, but in the Cross of Christ? Here, then, we find the urgency for preaching the Gospel among men. Here we find our stronghold of demand for every effort to promulgate the Gospel amongst our fellow-creatures. They who know the human character best, who have watched most minutely the turning point of mans feelings and his consequent conduct, know full well that it is the manifestation of Gods love that wins the alienated heart and changes the alienated conduct. (Hugh MNeils, M. A.)
For he flattereth himself in his own eyes, until his iniquity he found to he hateful.--
The deceitfulness of sin
The deceits by which the sinner thus imposes on himself may be very different and various, according to the circumstances and the dispositions of the persons by whom they are admitted, and it is not very easy to discover every one of them. There are, however, some capital and leading ones, pointed out in Scripture, or suggested by history and experience.
I. A studied infidelity, and an affected endeavour to despise the evidence on which the belief of the great and fundamental doctrines of religion stands; such as the existence and perfections of Almighty God, His moral government of this world, and a future judgment.
1. It is the height of folly, either to reject these doctrines of religion, or to treat them with contempt, until we can say we have examined the evidence on which they have been received, with the utmost exactness and candour in our power.
2. Without determining the degree of evidence, which is offered in support of the doctrines of religion, we may venture, nevertheless, to affirm, with strong assurance, that it is at least equal to the evidence upon which men constantly proceed, without the smallest hesitation, in all their other interests.
II. A fond imagination of their own innocence, even in the course of an irregular and sinful life. They artfully persuade themselves that there cannot be such malignity or guilt in what they do as that it should expose them to the displeasure of their Maker, or draw after it any great or lasting punishment: they presume, therefore, God will overlook the irregularities and errors of their lives, or find out some merciful expedient whereby they may escape with safety and success.
1. Notwithstanding the ignorance and corruption of our present state, so much of our original rectitude remains, that without any laboured cultivation, the consciences of men do still perceive a very odious deformity in some instances of wickedness; and lead, not only to a strong indignation against the criminal, but to a strong persuasion that Providence will some time or other interpose, and exert its justice, in his punishment.
2. The marks which God has already given, in the administration of His providence, of His displeasure with the sins of men. What extreme distress have some brought upon themselves by their intemperance; some by their dishonesty, and others by their immoderate ambition. It adds greatly to the weight of this consideration, that these expressions of Divine displeasure are made against such iniquities as are usually disguised in the thoughts of men, under the appearance of innocence, or weakness; as being only a compliance with the appetites implanted in our nature, and with the custom of the world, in which a man has no deliberate impiety and malice in his heart, no intention either to affront his Maker, or to hurt his fellow-men.
III. A groundless and presumptuous dependence on the mercy of almighty God.
1. Although the mercy of Almighty God be infinite, as all His other perfections are, yet it can extend only to those persons who are the proper objects of compassion, and to those cases to which it would be worthy of Him to extend mercy.
2. Let it be observed, that abstracting from the displeasure of Almighty God, and supposing that there was to be no positive exertion of His justice in the case, yet the future punishment of sinners will very probably proceed from the nature and influence of wickedness itself (Gal_6:7; Pro_1:31; Isa_3:10).
IV. The sinners hoping, at the end of a guilty life, to be saved, by the merit of the Son of God, and the virtue of that great atonement which he made for the sins of men. If the sinner is not able to convince himself that the mercy of his Maker is sufficient, by itself, to ensure his future safety, he trusts, at least, to the all-sufficient sacrifice and merit of his well-beloved Son. But, according to Scripture, they only can be saved by the sacrifice and intercession of the Son of God, who are persuaded by Him to repent of their iniquities, to believe and obey the Gospel (Act_5:31; Act_3:19; Heb_5:9; Rom_2:6). Were the matter otherwise, were sinners, continuing in their wickedness, permitted to expect salvation through the merits of our Saviour, Jesus would become the minister of sin, an establisher rather than a destroyer of the works of Satan; than which, a more blasphemous reproach could not be thrown upon His character.
V. A precipitant contempt of religion, on account of the weak and wrong representations which have been made of it by some of its mistaken friends. This instance of deceit unhappily prevails, even among those who pretend to superior discernment. But the weakness of it may appear upon a very small attention. Does a wise man conduct himself in this manner in any corer action of his life? Does he despise the truth and usefulness of real science, because of the impertinence and pedantry of mere pretenders to it? Does he despise the useful schemes of commerce, accompanied with the solidest effects, because of the chimerical and idle schemes of mere projectors.
VI. Their hoping and resolving to repent, and turn to God, at some future and more convenient opportunity; at the farthest, in the last period of their lives, or at the approach of death. It is not proposed, at present, to show the extreme absurdity and folly of this conduct, by arguments drawn from the shortness and uncertainty of human life; the hardening influence of a sinful course, which gradually destroys the sensibility of the human conscience. I would only desire ,your attention to the prodigious presumption of the sinner who defers his repentance and return to God to the last period of his life, hoping then to obtain forgiveness from God by his penitence and prayers. What the Creator can do, or what He may have done, independent of the established laws of providence, no man reckons it of importance to inquire; and any person would be deemed a madman or a fool, who directed the measures of his conduct by a regard to such unusual departures from these laws, as the history of the world may possibly furnish some few examples of. That man seems equally foolish and absurd who seeks admission to eternal life otherwise than according to the measures of His mercy, declared and established by the Gospel. (W. Craig, D.D.)
On the deceitfulness of the heart, with regard to the commission of sin
I. Preliminary observations.
1. That all the proofs of the deceitfulness of the heart, which we mean to offer with regard to sin, may not be found in every person, especially in those who are under its power.
2. Many of those things, which are evidences of the deceitfulness of the heart, may be used as temptations by Satan. The wind of Satans temptation commonly blows along with the tide of corruption within, whether by deceit, or by violence. Were not this the case, Satan would be divided against himself, and opposing the interests of his own kingdom.
II. How the deceitfulness of the heart appears.
1. In raising doubts in the mind, with respect to what One is inclined to, whether it really be sin.
2. In trying to persuade him that it is a little sin. If the understanding will not be betrayed into a belief that the matter proposed is no sin at all, the heart will strenuously plead that it scarcely deserves the name.
3. By representing the mortification of sin as affording far less pleasure than the gratification of it. Nay, it will presume to urge, not only the difficulty, but the unreasonableness, the cruelty of attempting totally to subdue sin.
4. Sin is exhibited as far more pleasant than it is really found in the commission. The enjoyments of sin are like the apples of Sodom, which, how fair soever they appear to the eye, when grasped by the hand are said to fall to ashes (Pro_22:8; Rom_6:21).
5. It represents a renewed opportunity of sin, as promising far greater satisfaction than was ever found before.
6. It pleads that one may indulge sin a little, without altogether yielding to the sin particularly in view.
7. It throws a veil of forgetfulness over the whole soul, with respect to all the painful consequences of sin, formerly felt. That loathsomeness of sin, hatred of self on account of it, or fear of Wrath, which the person experienced after a former indulgence, are entirely vanished; and he now appears to himself as one who feared where no fear was.
8. It entices the imagination into its service. This is not only Satans workhouse in the soul; but it may be viewed as a purveyor, which the heart engages in making provision for its lusts.
9. It engages the senses on its side. These are volunteers to the corrupt heart, which it arms in its service, and by which it accomplishes its wicked purposes, when enticing to outward acts of sin. For the voice of the senses will always overpower that of the understanding; if they be not brought into subjection, or presently restrained by grace.
10. In representing sin as properly ones own, as something belonging to ones self.
11. By insinuating that committing such a sin once more cannot greatly increase our guilt.
12. By urging the vanity of attempting to resist the temptation. It will plead for yielding to the present assault, from former instances of insufficiency In opposing one of the came nature.
13. It may sometimes endeavour to persuade a man that the present commission of sin will be an antidote for the future, because he will see more of its hatefulness.
14. The heart sometimes urges the commission of sin, as immediately clearing the way to the performance of some necessary duty (Rom_3:8; Gen_20:11; Gen_27:19; 1Sa_13:11; 1Sa_15:22).
15. By persuading a person to lay the commission of sin to the charge of the flesh, and solacing him with the idea that, although he fall into it, he does not really love it.
16. It dissuades him from prayer. Perhaps it reminds him that he has often tried this exercise before, in like circumstances, when he found an inclination to sin, or was assaulted by a temptation; and that it was attended with no success. Or, it may reason that if God hath determined to permit his fall at this time, prayer will not prevent it.
17. It strives to banish a sense of the presence and omniscience of God.
18. The deceitfulness of the heart about sin eminently appears in its self-hardening influence. Sin is the instrument which it uses in this work (Heb_13:8). The strength of every lust is commensurate with the power of deceit.
19. The heart will even urge Gods readiness to pardon as an excitement to the commission of sin. This is indeed a dreadful abuse of pardoning mercy.
20. By endeavouring to drive one to despair, after the commission of sin, as being beyond the reach of mercy.
III. Means for obtaining victory over the deceits of the heart with respect to sin.
1. In a dependence on the Spirit, resist the first motions of sin within you.
2. Beware of entertaining doubts with regard to what Scripture and conscience declare to be sin. To doubt is to begin to fall, for it implies unbelief of Gods testimony.
3. Carefully avoid light notions of any sin. To think lightly of sin is to think lightly of God.
4. Guard against the solicitations of your hearts. If these promise you honour, profit, or pleasure in the service of sin, believe them not.
5. Beware of tampering or dallying with sin. Temptation is, to the corrupt heart, sharper than a two-edged sword, and if the point once enter, you may be pierced through with many sorrows.
6. Try to get all your senses armed against sin, or rather barred against it; for this is the best mode of defence. Like Job, make a covenant with your eyes. Endeavour to stop your ears against it. Strive for the mastery over your taste. Put a knife to thy throat, lest thou be given to appetite.
7. Seek a constant sense of the Majesty and Omniscience of God.
8. Pray without ceasing against the deceitfulness of the heart.
9. Improve the strength of Christ, and the grace of His Spirit, for the mortification of sin. (John Jamieson, 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 On v1 Psalms 36
Psalms 36
THE supposition that the sombre picture of "the wicked" in Psa_36:1-4 was originally unconnected with the glorious hymn in Psa_36:5-9 fails to give weight to the difference between the sober pace of pedestrian prose and the swift flight of winged poetry. It fails also in apprehending the instinctive turning of a devout meditative spectator from the darkness of earth and its sins to the light above. The one refuge from the sad vision of evil here is in the faith that God is above it all, and that His name is Mercy. Nor can the blackness of the one picture be anywhere so plainly seen as when it is set in front of the brightness of the other. A religious man, who has laid to heart the miserable sights of which earth is full, will scarcely think that the psalmists quick averting of his eyes from these to steep them in the light of God is unnatural, or that the original connection of the two parts of this psalm is an artificial supposition. Besides this, the closing section of prayer is tinged with references to the first part, and derives its raison detre from it. The three parts form an organic whole.
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The gnarled obscurity of the language in which the "wicked" is described corresponds to the theme, and contrasts strikingly with the limpid flow of the second part. "The line, too, labours" as it tries to tell the dark thoughts that move to dark deeds. Psa_36:1-2 unveil the secret beliefs of the sinner, Psa_36:3-4 his consequent acts. As the text stands, it needs much torturing to get a tolerable meaning out of Psa_36:1, and the slight alteration, found in the LXX and in some old versions, of "his heart" instead of "my heart" smooths the difficulty. We have then a bold personification of "Transgression" as speaking in the secret heart of the wicked, as in some dark cave, such as heathen oracle-mongers haunted. There is bitter irony in using the sacred word which stamped the prophets utterances, and which we may translate oracle, for the godless lies muttered in the sinners heart. This is the account of how men come to do evil: that there is a voice within whispering falsehood. And the reason why that bitter voice has the shrine to itself is that "there is no fear of God before" the mans "eyes." The two clauses of Psa_36:1 are simply set side by side, leaving the reader to spell out their logical relation. Possibly the absence of the fear of God may be regarded as both the occasion and the result of the oracle of Transgression, since, in fact, it is both. Still more obscure is Psa_36:2 Who is the "flatterer"? The answers are conflicting. The "wicked," say some, but if so, "in his own eyes" is superfluous; God, say others, but that requires a doubtful meaning for "flatters"-namely, "treats gently"-and is open to the same objection as the preceding in regard to "in his own eyes." The most natural supposition is that transgression, which was represented in Psa_36:1 as speaking, is here also meant. Clearly the person in whose eyes the flattery is real is the wicked, and therefore its speaker must be another. "Sin beguiled me," says Paul, and therein echoes this psalmist. Transgression in its oracle is one of "those juggling fiends that palter with us in a double sense," promising delights and impunity. But the closing words of Psa_36:2 are a crux. Conjectural emendations have been suggested, but do not afford much help. Probably the best way is to take the text as it stands, and make the best of it. The meaning it yields is harsh, but tolerable: "to find out his sin, to hate" (it?). Who finds out sin? God. If He is the finder, it is He who also hates; and if it is sin that is the object of the one verb, it is most natural to suppose it that of the other also. The two verbs are infinitives, with the preposition of purpose or of reference prefixed. Either meaning is allowable. If the preposition is taken as implying reference, the sense will be that the glossing whispers of sin deceive a man in regard to the discovery of his wrong doing and Gods displeasure at it. Impunity is promised, and Gods holiness is smoothed down. If, on the other hand, the idea of purpose is adopted, the solemn thought emerges that the oracle is spoken with intent to ruin the deluded listener and set his secret sins in the condemning light of Gods face. Sin is cruel, and a traitor. This profound glimpse into the depths of a soul without the fear of God is followed by the picture of the consequences of such practical atheism, as seen in conduct. It is deeply charged with blackness and unrelieved by any gleam of light. Falsehood, abandonment of all attempts to do right, insensibility to the hallowing influences of nightly solitude, when men are wont to see their evil more clearly in the dark, like phosphorous streaks on the wall, obstinate planting the feet in ways not good, a silenced conscience which has no movement of aversion to evil-these are the fruits of that oracle of Transgression when it has its perfect work. We may call such a picture the idealisation of the character described, but there have been men who realised it, and the warning is weighty that such a uniform and all-enwrapping darkness is the terrible goal towards which all listening to that bitter voice tends. No wonder that the psalmist wrenches himself swiftly away from such a sight!
The two strophes of the second division (Psa_36:5-6 and Psa_36:7-9) present the glorious realities of the Divine name in contrast with the false oracle of Psa_36:1-2, and the blessedness of Gods guests in contrast with the gloomy picture of the "wicked" in Psa_36:3-4. It is noteworthy that the first and last-named "attributes" are the same. "Lovingkindness" begins and ends the glowing series. That stooping, active love encloses, like a golden circlet, all else that men can know or say of the perfection whose name is God. It is the white beam into which all colours melt, and from which all are evolved. As science feels after the reduction of all forms of physical energy to one, for which there is no name but energy, all the adorable glories of God pass into one, which He has bidden us call love. "Thy lovingkindness is in the heavens," towering on high. It is like some Divine aether, filling all space. The heavens are the home of light. They arch above every head; they rim every horizon; they are filled with nightly stars; they open into abysses as the eye gazes; they bend unchanged and untroubled above a weary earth; from them fall benedictions of rain and sunshine. All these subordinate allusions may lie in the psalmists thought, while its main intention is to magnify the greatness of that mercy as heaven high.
But mercy standing alone might seem to lack a guarantee of its duration, and therefore the strength of "faithfulness," unalterable continuance in a course begun, and adherence to every promise either spoken in words or implied in creation or providence, is added to the tenderness of mercy. The boundlessness of that faithfulness is the main thought, but the contrast of the whirling, shifting clouds with it is striking. The realm of eternal purpose and enduring act reaches to and stretches above the lower region where change rules.
But a third glory has yet to be flashed before glad eyes, Gods "righteousness," which here is not merely nor mainly punitive, but delivering, or, perhaps in a still wider view, the perfect conformity of His nature with the ideal of ethical completeness. Right is the same for heaven as for earth, and "whatsoever things are just" have their home in the bosom of God. The point of comparison with "the mountains of God" is, as in the previous clauses, their loftiness, which expresses greatness and elevation above our reach; but the subsidiary ideas of permanence and sublimity are not to be overlooked. "The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, but His righteousness endures forever." There is safe hiding there, in the fastnesses of that everlasting hill. From character the psalmist passes to acts. and sets all the Divine dealings forth under the one category of "judgments," the utterances in act of His judicial estimate of men. Mountains seem highest and ocean broadest when the former rise sheer from the waters edge, as Carmel does. The immobility of the silent hills is wonderfully contrasted with the ever-moving sea, which to the Hebrew was the very home of mystery. The obscurity of the Divine judgments is a subject of praise, if we hold fast by faith in Gods lovingkindness, faithfulness, and righteousness. They are obscure by reason of their vast scale, which permits the vision of only a fragment. How little of the ocean is seen from any shore! But there is no arbitrary obscurity. The sea is "of glass mingled with fire"; and if the eye cannot pierce its depths, it is not because of any darkening impurity in the crystal clearness, but simply because not even light can travel to the bottom. The higher up on the mountains men go, the deeper down can they see into that ocean. It is a hymn, not an indictment, which says, "Thy judgments are a great deep." But however the heights tower and the abysses open, there is a strip of green, solid earth on which "man and beast" live in safe plenty. The plain blessings of an all-embracing providence should make it easier to believe in the unmingled goodness of acts which are too vast for men to judge and of that mighty name which towers above their conceptions. What they see is goodness; what they cannot see must be of a piece. The psalmist is in "that serene and blessed mood" when the terrible mysteries of creation and providence do not interfere with his "steadfast faith that all which he beholds is full of blessings." There are times when these mysteries press with agonising force on devout souls, but there should also be moments when the pure love of the perfectly good God is seen to fill all space and outstretch all dimensions of height and depth and breadth. The awful problems of pain and death will be best dealt with by those who can echo the rapture of this psalm.
If God is such, what is mans natural attitude to so great and sweet a name? Glad wonder, accepting His gift as the one precious thing, and faith sheltering beneath the great shadow of His outstretched wing. The exclamation in Psa_36:8, "How precious is Thy lovingkindness!" expresses not only. its intrinsic value, but the devout souls appreciation of it. The secret of blessedness and test of true wisdom lie in a sane estimate of the worth of Gods lovingkindness as compared with all other treasures. Such an estimate leads to trust in Him, as the psalmist implies by his juxtaposition of the two clauses of Psa_36:7, though he connects them, not by an expressed "therefore," but by the simple copula. The representation of trust as taking refuge reappears here, with its usual suggestions of haste and peril. The "wing" of God suggests tenderness and security. And the reason for trust is enforced in the designation "sons of men," partakers of weakness and mortality, and therefore needing the refuge which, in the wonderfulness of His lovingkindness, they find under the pinions of so great a God.
The psalm follows the refugees into their hiding place, and shows how much more than bare shelter they find there. They are Gods guests. and royally entertained as such. The joyful priestly feasts in the Temple colour the metaphor, but the idea of hospitable reception of guests is the more prominent. The psalmist speaks the language of that true and wholesome mysticism without which religion is feeble and formal. The root ideas of his delineation of the blessedness of the fugitives to God are their union with God and possession of Him. Such is the magical might of lowly trust that by it weak dying "sons of men" are so knit to the God whose glories the singer has been celebrating that they partake of Himself and are saturated with His sufficiency, drink of His delights in some deep sense, bathe in the fountain of life, and have His light for their organ and medium and object of sight. These great sentences beggar all exposition. They touch on the rim of infinite things, whereof only the nearer fringe comes within our ken in this life. The soul that lives in God is satisfied, having real possession of the only adequate object. The variety of desires, appetites, and needs requires manifoldness in their food, but the unity of our nature demands that all that manifoldness should be in One. Multiplicity in objects, aims, loves, is misery; oneness is blessedness. We need a lasting good and an ever-growing one to meet and unfold the capacity of indefinite growth. Nothing but God can satisfy the narrowest human capacity.
Union with Him is the source of all delight, as of all true fruition of desires. Possibly a reference to Eden may be intended in the selection of the word for "pleasures," which is a cognate with that name. So there may be allusion to the river which watered that garden, and the thought may be that the present life of the guest of God is not all unlike the delights of that vanished paradise. We may perhaps scarcely venture on supposing that "Thy pleasures" means those which the blessed God Himself possesses; but even if we take the lower and safer meaning of those which God gives, we may bring into connection Christs own gift to His disciples of His own peace, and His assurance that faithful servants will "enter into the joy of their Lord." Shepherd and sheep drink of the same brook by the way and of the same living fountains above. The psalmists conception of religion is essentially joyful. No doubt there are sources of sadness peculiar to a religious man, and he is necessarily shut out from much of the effervescent poison of earthly joys drugged with sin. Much in his life is inevitably grave, stern, and sad. But the sources of joy opened are far deeper than those that are closed. Surface wells (many of them little better than open sewers) may be shut up, but an unfailing stream is found in the desert. Satisfaction and joy flow from God because life and light are with Him; and therefore he who is with Him has them for his. "With Thee is the fountain of life" is true in every sense of the word "life." In regard to life natural, the saying embodies a loftier conception of the Creators relation to the creature than the mechanical notion of creation. The fountain pours its waters into stream or basin, which it keeps full by continual flow. Stop the efflux, and these are dried up. So the great mystery of life in all its forms is as a spark from a fire, a drop from a fountain, or, as Scripture puts it in regard to man, a breath from Gods own lips. In a very real sense, wherever life is, there God is, and only by some form of union with him or by the presence of His power, which is Himself, do creatures live. But the psalm is dealing with the blessings belonging to those who trust beneath the shadow of Gods wing; therefore life here, in this verse, is no equivalent to mere existence, physical or self-conscious, but it must be taken in its highest spiritual sense. Union with God is its condition, and that union is brought to pass by taking refuge with Him. The deep words anticipated the explicit teaching of the Gospel in so far as they proclaimed these truths, but the greatest utterance still remained unspoken: that this life is "in His Son."
Light and life are closely connected. Whether knowledge, purity, or joy is regarded as the dominant idea in the symbol, or whether all are united in it, the profound words of the psalm are true. In Gods light we see light. In the lowest region "the seeing eye is from the Lord." "The inspiration of the Almighty giveth understanding." Faculty and medium of vision are both of Him. But hearts in communion with God are illumined, and they who are "in the light" cannot walk in darkness. Practical wisdom is theirs. The light of God, like the star of the Magi, stoops to guide pilgrims steps. Clear certitude as to sovereign realities is the guerdon of the guests of God. Where other eyes see nothing but mists, they can discern solid land and the gleaming towers of the city across the sea. Nor is that light only the dry light by which we know, but it means purity and joy also; and to "see light" is to possess these too by derivation from the purity and joy of God Himself. He is the "master light of all our seeing." The fountain has become a stream, and taken to itself movement towards men; for the psalmists glowing picture is more than fulfilled in Jesus Christ, who has said, "I am the Light of the world; he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."
The closing division is prayer based both upon the contemplation of Gods attributes in Psa_36:5-6, and of the wicked in the first part. This distinct reference to both the preceding sections is in favour of the original unity of the psalm. The belief in the immensity of Divine lovingkindness and righteousness inspires the prayer for their long, drawn out (so "continue" means literally) continuance to the psalmist and his fellows. He will not separate himself from these in his petition, but thinks of them before himself. "Those who know Thee" are those who take refuge under the shadow of the great wing. Their knowledge is intimate, vital; it is acquaintanceship, not mere intellectual apprehension. It is such as to purge the heart and make its possessors upright. Thus we have set forth in that sequence of trust, knowledge, and uprightness stages of growing God-likeness closely corresponding to the Gospel sequence of faith, love, and holiness. Such souls are capaces Dei, fit to receive the manifestations of Gods lovingkindness and righteousness; and from such these will never remove. They will stand stable as His firm attributes, and the spurning foot of proud oppressors shall not trample on them, nor violent hands be able to stir them from their steadfast, secure place. The prayer of the psalm goes deeper than any mere deprecation of earthly removal, and is but prosaically understood, if thought to refer to exile or the like. The dwelling place from which it beseeches that the suppliant may never be removed is his safe refuge beneath the wing, or in the house, of God. Christ answered it when He said, "No man is able to pluck them out of my Fathers hand." The one desire of the heart which has tasted the abundance, satisfaction, delights, fulness of life, and clearness of light that attend the presence of God is that nothing may draw it thence.
Prayer wins prophetic certitude. From his serene shelter under the wing, the suppliant looks out on the rout of baffled foes, and sees the end which gives the lie to the oracle of transgression and its flatteries. "They are struck down," the same word as in the picture of the pursuing angel of the Lord in Psalms 35. Here the agent of their fall is unnamed, but one power only can inflict such irrevocable ruin. God, who is the shelter of the upright in heart, has at last found out the sinners iniquity, and His hatred of sin stands ready to "smite once, and smite no more."
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 This psalm was written by David. From Psa_36:1-4 he…
INTRODUCTION
This psalm was written by David. From Psa_36:1-4 he describes the rebellious; Psa_36:5-9 he extols the various attributes of the Lord; and in Psa_36:10-11 he add see the Lord in prayer.
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THE DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS OF A WICKED LIFE
(Psa_36:1-4.)
We have in these verses a graphic delineation of a wicked life, in every way true, yet abhorrent. The picture of an ungodly man ought to be enough to save others from an imitation of his profane conduct.
I. A wicked life is characterised by practical atheism. “There is no fear of God before his eyes.”
Wicked men are virtually atheistic. They do not in reality recognise the existence of the Supreme Being, and this is evident from the feeling of their inner nature, from their speech, and from their methods of activity. They are without God in the world. They may recognise Him in the form of a creed, but He has no real influence over them; they are entirely led by the impulse of the moment, by the speculation of the hour, or by the passion of the lower nature. They are not influenced by considerations that have reference to God and His government of the universe. Prayer forms no part of their lives. A wicked life is not consistent with a true belief in the Divine existence.
II. A wicked life is characterised by self-adulation. “For he flattereth himself in his own eyes.”
Wicked men are generally guilty of self-flattery, and in this way they endeavour to appease their conscience, and approve their plans. Their lives are sinful, and hence they have to cover them with artificial flowers, and with unreal decorations. They dare not admit the facts and experiences of their own heart even to themselves. Self-flattery is easy. It is common. It sometimes has to serve instead of flattery from others. A wicked life has no cause for self-flattery; it may pride itself upon its cunning, or upon its success, but that will not alter its guilt, or avert the unerring sentence of infinite Justice.
III. A wicked life is characterised by verbal profanity. “The words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit.”
Wicked men are recognised by their perverse and profane speech. They hallow not the great name of God, nor do they reverently allude to the solemn realities of the moral life of the race. But their language is not only profane, it is also deceitful. It is characterised by duplicity. It often gives a misrepresentation of moral character, of events and circumstances, and of the ordinary things of life. Speech is a good index to the soul.
IV. A wicked life is characterised by un-wisdom. “He hath left off to be wise and to do good.”
Wicked men are often gifted as far as secular knowledge and wisdom are concerned. But true wisdom cometh down from above, and of this they are sadly deficient. Hence they lack the wisdom that truly makes men wise. Sin is always evidence of the greatest ignorance and folly. The un-wisdom of a wicked life is seen in the pleasure it seeks, in the study it pursues, in the destiny it selects, and in its hatred of philanthropy.
V. A wicked life is characterised by cunning artifices. “He deviseth mischief upon his bed.”
The wicked man deliberately plans mischief. His late and early thoughts, which ought to be concentrated on God and His mercy, are fixed on schemes of fraud and cunning. Wicked men are generally cunning. For this they educate their faculties, and thus they hope to enrich themselves, to malign their neighbours, and to defeat the purposes of the good. Thus it is not difficult to know the ungodly man when we meet him.
LESSONS:—
1. That a wicked life is hateful to God.
2. That a wicked life is despicable to men.
3. That a wicked life is injurious to society.
4. That a wicked life may be reformed by grace.
A WELCOME REVELATION OF THE CHARACTER OF GOD
(Psa_36:5-12.)
The psalm commences with a description of the character of the wicked man, and, by way of sublime contrast, gives a glad revelation of the character of God. There are grand contrasts in nature; equally so in the inspired volume. Here we have a striking one:—
I. The Divine Being is unspeakable in mercy. “Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens.”
Mercy is a distinguishing attribute of God. He delighteth in mercy, and has ever proved this in His dealings with the human race. This is evident in the temporal gifts He bestows, in the spiritual good He communicates, and in the grand redemption He has provided for the soul, whereby it can be made free and pure. Nature speaks the mercy of God, as with a thousand tongues, and the Bible lends additional emphasis to her already loud voice. The greatest sinner may experience the mercy of God if he will only seek it prayerfully.
II. The Divine Being is immutable in rectitude. “Thy righteousness is like the great mountains.”
And thus, while mercy is an attribute of God, rectitude may also be predicted of Him. The Divine mercy proceeds upon the principle of Divine equity. The mountains are immutable, they are firm, they are majestic, they are imposing and beautiful; and so is the rectitude of God. It is ever the same towards rich and poor; it is worthy the admiration of the intelligent universe, and under its shade men may safely repose. The Divine rectitude should be consoling to the good, and a terror to those who await the unknown tribunal of the future.
III. That the Divine Being invites the confidence of the soul. “Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings.”
The mercy and rectitude of God, as seen in the principle of His government and in the preservation of the material universe, awaken men to confidence in Him. And God protects those who put their trust in Him. The figure of this verse is very beautiful and attractive. The soul of man can rest in God by trusting in Him. Faith is moral repose.
IV. That the Divine Being is the source of all life. “For with Thee is the fountain of life.”
God is the source of all life. The angels derive their existence from Him. Man lives in Him. All mental, moral, and spiritual life is the gift of the Eternal. Earth has no life to bestow; it is a grave. Life, full and free, is the gift of the Infinite Being. We should measure the gift by the Giver.
V. That the Divine Being is the protection of the good from the artifices of the wicked. “And let not the hand of the wicked remove me.”
The wicked often seek to injure the good by cunning artifice and sheer strength: at such a time God is their only protection and refuge. Hence we have here a very glad and welcome representation of the Divine character: full of mercy, firm in justice, inviting the confidence of the soul, the source of life, and the protection of the good. What more can we require?
LESSONS:—
1. We ought to be grateful that God has given such a condescending revelation of Himself.
2. We ought to be consoled and strengthened by the thought that such a revelation is true to human experience.
3. Learn a lesson of trust in the Eternal God.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 Psa 36:5-7
Psa 36:5-7
The chief part of our text sets before us God in the variety and boundlessness of His loving nature, and the close of it shows us man sheltering beneath God’s wings.
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I. We have, first, God in the boundlessness of His loving nature. The one pure light of the Divine nature is broken up in the prism of the Psalm into various rays, which theologians call, in their hard, abstract way, Divine attributes. These are "mercy, faithfulness, righteousness." Then we have two sets of Divine acts: judgments and the preservation of man and beast; and finally we have again "loving-kindness," as our version has unfortunately been misled, by its love for varying its translation, to render the same word which begins the series and is there called "mercy." (1) Mercy and loving-kindness mean substantially this: active love communicating itself to creatures that are inferior and that might have expected something else to befall them. This "quality of mercy" stands here at the beginning and the end. It is last as well as first, the final upshot of all revelation. (2) Next to mercy comes faithfulness. God’s faithfulness is, in its narrowest sense, His adherence to His promises. Not only His articulate promises, but His past actions, bind Him. His words, His acts, His own nature, bind God to bless and help. His faithfulness is the expression of His unchangeableness. (3) The next beam of the Divine brightness is righteousness. The notion of righteousness here is that God has a law for His being to which He conforms, and that whatsoever things are fair, and lovely, and good, and pure down here—these things are fair, and lovely, and good, and pure up there; that He is the archetype of all excellence, the ideal of all moral completeness; that we can know enough of Him to be sure that what we call right He loves, and what we call right He practises. (4) God’s judgments are the whole of the ways, the methods, of the Divine government. They are the expressions of His thoughts, and these thoughts are thoughts of good, and not of evil.
II. Look at the picture of man sheltering beneath God’s wings. God’s loving-kindness, or mercy, is precious, for that is the true meaning of the word translated "excellent." We are rich when we have that for ours; we are poor without it. The last verse tells us how we can make God our own: "They put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings." God spreads the covert of His wing, strong and tender, beneath which we may all gather ourselves and nestle. And how can we do that? By the simple process of fleeing unto Him, as made known to us in Christ our Saviour, to hide ourselves there.
A. Maclaren, A Year’s Ministry, 2nd series, p. 211.
Psa 36:6-8
I. The creatures cannot give God intelligent thanks; in their own way they do it, yet not intelligently. But man can give a voice to it. God preserves the beasts as well as the men, and man comes as the high-priest of creation—a sinner, yet encouraged by the grace of life—and gives thanks in creation’s name to Him from whom all good things come.
II. Mark how from the first step, the preservation of man and beast, the Psalmist ascends. Whoever comes near to God in any way must come near to all that is in God; for he comes near to Himself. He comes near to the Preserver, but the Preserver has other characters as well. Thus the Psalmist is led from the consideration of the food which supports temporal life to that which supports spiritual, everlasting life. The loving-kindness of the Lord—on that a soul can feed.
III. "They shall be abundantly satisfied." In order to satisfaction there are two things needful: that things be satisfying in their nature and that they be satisfying in their quantity. The assurance is here given as regards the house of God that the things are not only of a satisfying nature, but of a satisfying quantity. God is bountiful in the provisions of His providence and in the provisions of His grace.
J. Duncan, The Pulpit and Communion Table, p. 286.
Psa 36:6
(1) Mystery is a necessity. So long as the finite has to do with the infinite, there must be mystery. Every atom in the universe is an ocean into which if you take three steps you are out of your depth. (2) Mystery is more than a necessity. It is a boon. Imagination must have its play, and expectation its scope. And mystery cultivates the two high graces of patience and faith, for you cannot be educated without mystery. (3) Mystery is joy in everything. Half the happiness of life would be gone if we had not always to do with something beyond it.
I. When suffering of mind or body comes, perhaps the first cry of nature is, "Why? Why all this for me? Am I worse than others? Am I made the target of all God’s shafts?" Mystery answers mystery. It is mystery, in great part, for this very end, that you may say, "Why?" and have no answer but "Sovereignty, God’s own absolute, rightful sovereignty!" All the most afflicted servants of God felt great mystery—Abraham when the sun went down, "and lo! an horror of great darkness fell upon him;" and Jacob in that fierce night of supernatural Wrestling; and Moses at the burning bush; and Job in "thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men," etc.
II. Study the Cross. Read all its lessons. Take all its comfortings. In all your suffering, learn to love the mystery which gives you concord with Jesus and all His saints. Do Do not wish to see all. Do not wish to explain all. Stand on the shore of that great sea, and do not try to know all that lies in those depths and all that stretches beyond your little horizon. There are some minds to which mystery is a toil; but as we grow in grace we learn first to bear mystery, then to accept mystery, then to choose mystery.
J. Vaughan, Sermons, 13th series, p. 77.
Psa 36:6
In our text God’s righteousness is declared to be like the great mountains. Notice some of the analogies between them.
I. Like them, it is durable. The mountains of the earth have been often employed as emblems of permanence and stability. It is by them that men have sometimes sworn. Sometimes God compares Himself with the mountains, and then we read that "as the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people from henceforth even for ever." Sometimes He contrasts Himself with the mountains, and then we read that "the mountains may depart, and the hills be removed, but that His kindness shall not depart from His people." (1) The permanence of God’s righteousness follows of necessity from the inherent unchangeableness of God Himself. (2) His righteousness is exposed to none of the circumstances or accidents which bring peril to the righteousness of man.
II. God’s righteousness is like the great mountains in its mysteriousness. Indeed, it is not only His righteousness, it is Himself, in all the essentiality of His being and perfections, that is a mystery. Faith must come to the aid of reason when we contemplate the righteousness of God as it slowly, but surely, accomplishes its purposes in the government of the world.
III. God’s righteousness is like the great mountains because, like them, it has heights which it is dangerous to climb. We cannot comprehend the higher mysteries of the Gospel; and if we could, it is more than doubtful whether any corresponding benefit could be derived from them. Men can no more live on the high mountains of theology than they can on the high mountains of the earth.
IV. God’s righteousness is like the great mountains because, like them, it is a bulwark and a defence to all who regard it with reverence and faith. While it has heights on which the presumptuous spectator is sure to be lost if he should attempt to climb them, these very heights, if he will remain in the position which God has assigned to him, will be his surest defence and guard. I know of no truth which furnishes a more solid basis for the soul than the righteousness of God as it is revealed in the Scriptures.
E. Mellor, Congregationalist, vol. i., p. 389.
References: Psa 36:6.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. vii., p. 213; E. Mason, A Pastor’s Legacy, p. 145; F. O. Morris, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxix., p. 337; J. Jackson Wray, Light from the Old Lamp, p. 320; J. Budgen, Parochial Sermons, vol. i., p. 184.
Psa 36:7-9
I. In the enjoying of God there is implied a sense of His love and favour. These feelings are not congenial to the mind of fallen man; for he neither loves God, nor places confidence in Him as really interested in the happiness of His creatures. On the contrary, the natural tendency of the human heart is to distrust God and to regard Him as an Enemy. It is only when the soul is enlightened in the knowledge of Christ that the sense of God’s love and favour is shed abroad in the heart and truly realised. The soul, freed from that slavish terror under the influence of which it could only look up to God with suspicion, now rises in affection and desire toward heaven, and the believer regards God as his Father and his Friend.
II. Another element in the enjoying of God is the delightful feeling which His people cherish of His presence with them. The believer not only acknowledges, in the language of the Psalmist, that God compasses his path and is acquainted with all his ways, that there is no escaping from His spirit or fleeing from His presence, but he delights to contemplate Him as present with himself personally, and feels a positive satisfaction in the thought of His presence with him. And the reason is obvious. The presence of God is to him the presence of a Friend.
III. Another element is our being made partakers of a Divine nature. God by His Holy Spirit imparts to His people a resemblance to Himself, working in them all the graces that form the ornament of the Christian character, and bringing their will into a state of conformity to His own blessed will. That is what is usually called having communion with God, and it is the highest glory and happiness of which our nature is susceptible in the present life. In these things lies the chief happiness of man; in these only can the soul find a portion suitable to its immortal nature and its imperishable faculties.
A. D. Davidson, Lectures and Sermons, p. 29.
With God is the well of life; and in His light we shall see light. The first is the answer to man’s hunger after righteousness; the second answers to his thirst after truth.
I. With God is the well of life. In Him is the life thou wishest for. He alone can quicken thee, and give thee spirit and power to fulfil thy duty in thy generation.
II. And so, again, with the thirst after truth. Not by the reading of books, however true, not by listening to sermons, however clever, can we see light, but only in the light of God. Know God. Know that He is justice itself, order itself, love itself, patience itself, pity itself. The true knowledge of God will be the key to all other true knowledge in heaven and earth. As the Maker is, so is His work; if therefore thou wouldest judge rightly of the work, acquaint thyself with the Maker of it, and know first, and know for ever, that His name is love.
C. Kingsley, Town and Country Sermons, No. 2.
References: Psa 36:8.—C. J. Vaughan, Voices of the Prophets, p. 306; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 64.
Psa 36:8-9
In these verses we have a wonderful picture of the blessedness of the godly, the elements of which consist in four things: satisfaction, represented under the emblem of a feast; joy, represented under the imagery of full draughts from a flowing river of delight; life, pouring from God as a fountain; light, streaming from Him as a source.
I. Satisfaction. "They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of Thy house." Now, I suppose, there is a double metaphor in that. There is an allusion, no doubt, to the festal meal of priests and worshippers in the Temple on the occasion of the peace-offering; and there is also the simpler metaphor of God as the Host at His table, at which we are guests. The plain teaching of the text is that by the might of a calm trust in God the whole mass of a man’s desires are filled and satisfied. God, and God alone, is the food of the heart. God, and God alone, will satisfy your need.
II. Notice the next of the elements of blessedness here: joy. "Thou shalt make them drink of the river of Thy pleasures." There may be a possible reference here, couched in the word "pleasures," to the garden of Eden, with the river that watered it parting into four heads; for "Eden" is the singular of the word which is here translated "pleasures" or "delights." The teaching of the text is that the simple act of trusting beneath the shadow of God’s wings brings to us an ever-fresh and flowing river of gladness, of which we may drink. All real and profound possession of, and communion with, God in Christ will make us glad—glad with a gladness altogether unlike that of the world round about us, far deeper, far quieter, far nobler, the sister and ally of all great things, of all pure life, of all generous and lofty thought.
III. We have the third element of the blessedness of the godly represented under the metaphor of life, pouring from the fountain, which is God. The words are true in regard of the lowest meaning of life, "physical existence;" and they give a wonderful idea of the connection between God and all living creatures. Wherever there is life, there is God. The creature is bound to the Creator by a mystic bond and tie of kinship, by the fact of life. But the text does not refer merely to physical existence, but to something higher than that, namely, to that life of the spirit in communion with God which is the true and proper sense of life, the one, namely, in which the word is almost always used in the Bible.
IV. "In Thy light shall we see light." The reference is to the spiritual gift which belongs to the men who "put their trust beneath the shadow of Thy wings." In communion with Him who is the Light as well as the Life of men, we see a whole universe of glories, realities, and brightnesses. (1) In communion with God, we see light upon all the paths of duty. (2) In the same communion with God, we get light in all seasons of darkness and sorrow. "To the upright there ariseth light in the darkness," and the darkest hours of earthly fortune will be like a Greenland summer night, when the sun scarcely dips below the horizon, and even when it is absent all the heaven is aglow with a calm twilight.
A. Maclaren, A Year’s Ministry, 2nd series, p. 227.
Psa 36:9
I. It is quite certain that we see nothing by that which is in the object itself. We see it by that which falls on it from above. And this process of seeing everything by a communicated light must go on and on till we arrive at a primary light, and that light alone shows itself. It cannot be known by anything external to itself; it is its own expositor. Such is God. We can only know God by Himself. The means whereby we see God are within God. "In Thy light shall we see light." The Bible mirrors the Holy Ghost, the Holy Ghost mirrors the Son, the Son mirrors the Father, and we know God. And all through the principle is the same, and the rule is absolute—we know God by Himself. "In the light of Thine own being shall we see light."
II. Take the general law that everything is to us just what God is to us. It is the presence or the absence, the nearness or the distance, of God which makes it happy or unhappy, injurious or beneficial. Its complexion all depends on the God that is in it. There may be much beauty, but we shall not find it out till He makes it known to us. "In Thy light shall we see light."
III. This is specially true in sickness and sorrow. God loves to show what His light is by making it burn where all around is very dark. Watch; if you can only see it, there is already a line upon the cloud. The day-star is risen, and soon it will all come in its own order—a twilight, a breaking, a fleeing away of the shadows, a mounting of the sun in your heart higher and higher, a merry warmth, a meridian splendour.
IV. The power of everything, the soul of everything, is its light. In God’s triple empire it is all one Light, and the Light is Christ. As on that fourth day of creation God gathered up all the scattered particles that played in the new-made firmament and treasured them in the sun, so in the four thousandth year of our world did He concentrate all light into Christ. That is light’s unity, and thence it flows through nature, grace, and glory, and light is trinity.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 10th series, p. 28.
We have in these words the significant declaration that God, the fountain of the true and highest life, is known by men in no other than His own light, as the sun is contemplated in no other resplendence than that which streams forth to us from itself. Faith in the living God as He reveals Himself is the light of all our knowledge.
I. Take, first, the problem of the world. "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God." There is not a truer word than this in the Bible. Believing is not knowing, it is true; but yet belief, duly enlightened and confirmed, leads to a knowledge and science certainly very different in its nature from that which we arrive at by the process of reasoning and observation, but not on that account of a lower degree of certainty; and the science which begins by abandoning this faith is condemned by an inexorable judgment of God, at a certain point, earlier or later, either to be reduced to silence or to enter on the path of error.
II. The conception of God—who shall satisfactorily determine it? or does not your confession ultimately come to this: God is great, and we comprehend Him not? Yet He has written His monogram deep on every conscience, and all the heavens cry aloud of His glory. But nature conceals God as well as reveals Him. The impure conscience compels man to flee from his Maker, and thus leads the darkened intellect upon the path of error. The Son of God has given us understanding that we may know Him that is true; to His disciples it is granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God.
III. The heart of man. Man remains in the end the greatest enigma to himself. The Bible is just as little a handbook of natural science as of the science of man. Yet this memorial of the Divine revelation of salvation has afforded more satisfactory contributions to the solution of this problem also than the varying systems of all philosophers and psychologists together. The key to the mystery of humanity lies within those sacred pages which testify of sin and grace.
IV. But though the great word of reconciliation has been spoken, what avails it so long as the conflict of life continues so terribly to rage, and to demand so many victims? The old proverb is true that man has a warfare upon earth, a warfare which begins with his birth and usually ends only with death. Wondrous fact that He who reconciles man to God reconciles him also to life, to conflict, to the most bitter grief, and teaches him something higher than subjection—teaches him the secret of a joy which sings psalms even in the deepest night!
V. Only one question remains: the question as to the final triumph of the conflict of the ages. God’s world-plan—what know ye of it who place faith as a blind beggar outside the crystal palace of your science? To us it has been made known, this mystery of God’s good pleasure to gather all things together under Christ as Head. To subserve the coming of His kingdom, men’s spirits struggle, and the nations rage, and the ages revolve, and the discords follow each other, but at last to be resolved into one prophetic voice, "Maranatha, Jesus comes."
J. Van Oosterzee, Preacher’s Lantern, vol. iv., pp. 483, 555.
David saw the world all full of seekers after light; he was a seeker after light himself. What he had discovered, and what he wanted to tell men, was that the first step in a hopeful search after light must be for a man to put himself into the element of light, which was God. The first thing for any man to do who wanted knowledge was to put himself under God, to make himself God’s man, because both he who wanted to know and that which he wanted to know had God for their true element, and were their best and did their best only as they lived in Him. Notice three or four facts concerning human knowledge which seem to give their confirmation to the doctrine of the old Hebrew singer’s song.
I. First stands the constant sense of the essential unity of knowledge. All truth makes one great whole, and no student of truth rightly masters his own special study unless he at least constantly remembers that it is only one part of the vast unity of knowledge, one strain in the universal music, one ray in the complete and perfect light.
II. A second fact with regard to human knowledge is its need of inspiration and elevation from some pure and spiritual purpose.
III. Another characteristic of the best search after wisdom is the way in which it awakens the sense of obedience.
IV. Closely allied to this fact is the constant tendency which knowledge has always shown to connect itself with moral character. The combination of these consciousnesses makes, almost of necessity, the consciousness of God. As they are necessary to the search for light, so is the God in whom they meet the true Inspirer and Helper of the eternal search.
Phillips Brooks, Sermons Preached in English Churches, p. 89.
Psa 36:9
I. The frequent occurrence of these two images in conjunction, in tacit, unemphatic passages, shows us how deeply the symbols and their meaning too had sunk into the heart of the nation. But they were at last to receive their full, precise, and definite interpretation—an interpretation which should bring the life and light of God home to every man, and show him, not merely that far off in heaven light and life existed, but that they were brought close to every one’s home, not merely that the well of life was with God, as the Psalmist knew, but that it rose and ran close by the ways of man, not merely that "we shall see light" in distant years, but that there is for us One that is the Light of the world, which whoso followeth shall not walk in darkness.
II. Look at what our Lord says about the living water of life. "On the last day, that great day of the feast"—just perhaps after the priest had poured the water from his ewer, while the crowds were still undispersed—"Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink." The water in the Temple was not drunk, only poured out. But Jesus returns at once to the rock which was the meaning of the ceremony, and to the old scene in the desert when the thirsting congregation wished to drink of the clear, outflowing tide. "If any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink." Drink what? That which the ancient water signified: life, and strength, and purity. Innocence restored, strength attained, life assured—all these are in the draught which He places at your lips. Once drink of Christ’s spirit really, and it shall rise and flow from your own lips, full of freshness, full of progress. To the Christian moralist alone of all moralists the lessening of fault, the growth of perfection, can bring no vanity, for he alone knows that it is not of himself he lives, that the life of Christ is his only life.
Archbishop Benson, Boy Life: Sundays in Wellington College, p. 32.
References: Psa 36:9.—J. Vaughan, Old Testament Outlines, p. 109; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, pp. 292, 311; S. Macnaughton, Real Religion and Real Life, p. 97.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v1 The alienation of the wicked from God contrasted with…
The alienation of the wicked from God contrasted with Him in whom the sons of men take refuge.
To the chief musician: [a psalm] of David, the servant of Jehovah.
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The thirty-sixth psalm is a yet more simple one. It is by David, specially marked here as the servant of Jehovah," looking at the condition of those who refuse that pleasant service, and putting in contrast with their infatuation the blessedness of those who find their refuge and satisfaction in His abundant goodness. The last three verses pray for the continuance of this blessedness, and foresee the casting down of the wicked, without power to rise again.
There are twelve verses to the psalm, but quite exceptional in their division as such; nor can I at present give any reason for this.
1. Four verses give us the complete description of the wicked: Godward, self-ward, in his words, and in his ways. His revolt -his lawlessness -is (literally) as a divine utterance, an oracle, within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes. And as, where God is hidden, we may be sure it is self that hides Him, so it is that with the poorest flattery that can be, he flattereth himself; to find surely at last the evil of his success, and the iniquity he has loved, to be really hateful. His words, which are here, as always, the index of the heart, are necessarily therefore vanity and deceit. The wisdom that has become discredited with him he has left off, and with it the well-doing which is its sure accompaniment, and assurance for what it is. The folly he has planned upon his bed -at the very time when naturally there would be most sobriety -he carries out in a way that is not good, but which is good to him, for "he abhorreth not evil." There the description ends: the principles are given of his life; all else would be only detail.
2. All this is the result of departure from God; the psalmist, therefore, turns now to speak of God -this God from whom men depart. What is He, that they should do this? do it so simply and naturally, as a thing of course? God! His mercy is in the heavens, -that is, the bounteous goodness which, for Him, is but what His relationship to His creatures implies, and which sun and moon in the heavens preach of daily. His mercy is His faithfulness, firmer than, while expressed in, those laws which bind those glowing orbs to their constant and beneficent circuit. The mountains and the deep, again, speak variously of His stable righteousness and His judgments which are deep -no wonder: for the care of the whole earth is His; man and beast both He blesses and preserves. But for the sons of men alone there is nearer intimacy, the shadow of fostering wings under which they take refuge, blessed and blessing Him who has thus brought them nigh. With the provision of His house He satisfies them, -the world being but this for those who realize His gracious presence in it, His government of it, the treasures with which He has filled it. He makes them to drink of the river of His own pleasures, lifting them up thus to communion with Himself. For with Him is the fountain of creature life; and the light which gives light as to everything is from Himself alone.
3. In the sense of all this, the psalmist commits himself, and all with whom he is linked, to God. He prays for the continuance of this bounteous mercy to those who know Him, and His righteousness to the upright. In the necessary conflict with evil, he prays for deliverance from the foot of pride and the hand of the wicked. And he foresees the necessary collapse of the workers of vanity; an overthrow as complete as final.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv5, 8 Psa 36:5 - Psa 36:7.
Psalms
SKY, EARTH, AND SEA: A PARABLE OF GOD
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Psa 36:5 - Psa 36:7.
This wonderful description of the manifold brightness of the divine nature is introduced in this psalm with singular abruptness. It is set side by side with a vivid picture of an evildoer, a man who mutters in his own heart his godlessness, and with obstinate determination plans and plots in forgetfulness of God. Without a word to break the violence of the transition, side by side with that picture, the Psalmist sets before us these thoughts of the character of God. He seems to feel that that character was the only relief in the contemplation of the miserable sights of which the earth is only too full. We should go mad when we think of man’s wickedness unless we could look up and see, with one quick turn of the eye, the heaven opened and the throned Love that sits up there gazing on all the chaos, and working to soothe sorrow, and to purify evil.
Perhaps there is another reason for this dramatic and striking swiftness of contrast between the godless man and the revealed God. The true test of a life is its power to bear the light of God being suddenly let in upon it. How would yours look, my friend! if all at once a window in heaven was opened, and God glared in upon you? Set your lives side by side with Him. They always are side by side with Him whether you know it or not; but you had better bring your ‘deeds to the light that they may be made manifest’ now, than to have to do it as suddenly, and a great deal more sorrowfully, when you are dragged out of the shows and illusions of time, and He meets you on the threshold of another world. Would a beam of light from God, coming in upon your life, be like a light falling upon a gang of conspirators, that would make them huddle all their implements under their cloaks, and scuttle out of the way as fast as possible? Or would it be like a gleam of sunshine upon the flowers, opening out their petals and wooing from them fragrance? Which?
But I turn from such considerations as these to the more immediate subject of my contemplations in this discourse. I have ventured to take so great words for my text, though each clause would be more than enough for many a sermon, because my aim now is a very modest one. I desire simply to give, in the briefest way, the connection and mutual relation of these wonderful words; not to attempt any adequate treatment of the great thoughts which they contain, but only to set forth the meaning and interdependence of these manifold names for the beams of the divine light, which are presented here. The chief part of our text sets before us God in the variety and boundlessness of His loving nature, and the close of it shows us man sheltering beneath God’s wings. These are the two main themes for our present consideration.
I. We have, first, God in the boundlessness of His loving nature.
The one pure light of the divine nature is broken up, in the prism of the psalm, into various rays, which theologians call, in their hard, abstract way, divine attributes. These are ‘mercy, faithfulness, righteousness.’ Then we have two sets of divine acts-’judgments,’ and the ‘preservation’ of man and beast; and finally we have again ‘lovingkindness,’ as our version has unfortunately been misled, by its love for varying its translation, to render the same word which begins the series and is there called ‘mercy.’
Now that ‘mercy’ or ‘lovingkindness’ of which my text thus speaks, is very nearly equivalent to the New Testament ‘love’; or, perhaps, still more nearly equivalent to the New Testament ‘grace.’ Both the one and the other mean substantially this-active love communicating itself to creatures that are inferior and that might have expected something else to befall them. Mercy is a modification of love, inasmuch as it is love to an inferior. The hand is laid gently upon the man, because if it were laid with all its weight it would crush him. It is the stooping goodness of a king to a beggar. And mercy is likewise love in its exercise to persons that might expect something else, being guilty. As a general coming to a body of mutineers with pardon and favour upon his lips, instead of with condemnation and death; so God comes to us forgiving and blessing. All His goodness is forbearance, and His love is mercy, because of the weakness, the lowliness, and the ill desert of us on whom the love falls.
Now notice that this same ‘quality of mercy’ stands here at the beginning and at the end. All the attributes of the divine nature, all the operations of the divine hand lie within the circle of His mercy-like diamonds set in a golden ring. Mercy, or love flowing out in blessings to inferior and guilty creatures, is the root and ground of all God’s character; it is the foundation and impulse of all His acts. Modern science reduces all modes of physical energy to one, for which it has no name but-energy. We are taught by God’s own revelation of Himself-and most especially by His final and perfect revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ-to trace all forms of divine energy back to one which David calls ‘mercy,’ which John calls ‘love.’
It is last as well as first, the final upshot of all revelation. The last voice that speaks from Scripture has for its special message ‘God is Love.’ The last voice that sounds from the completed history of the world will have the same message, and the ultimate word of all revelation, the end of the whole of the majestic unfolding of God’s purposes will be the proclamation to the four corners of the universe, as from the trump of the Archangel, of the name of God as Love. The northern and the southern poles of the great sphere are one and the same, a straight axle through the very heart of it, from which the bounding lines swell out to the equator, and towards which they converge again on the opposite side of the world. So mercy is the strong axletree, the northern pole and the southern, on which the whole world of the divine perfections revolves and moves. The first and last, the Alpha and Omega of God, beginning and crowning and summing up all His being and His work, is His mercy, His lovingkindness.
But next to mercy comes faithfulness. ‘Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.’ God’s faithfulness is in its narrowest sense His adherence to His promises. It implies, in that sense, a verbal revelation, and definite words from Him pledging Him to a certain line of action. ‘He hath said, and shall He not do it?’ ‘He will not alter the thing that is gone out of His lips.’ It is only a God who has actually spoken to men who can be a ‘faithful God.’ He will not palter with a double sense, ‘keeping His word of promise to the ear, and breaking it to the hope.’
But not only His articulate promises, but also His own past actions, bind Him. He is always true to these; and not only continues to do as He has done, but discharges every obligation which His past imposes on Him. The ostrich was said to leave its eggs to be hatched in the sand. Men bring men into positions of dependence, and then lightly shake responsibility from careless shoulders. But God accepts the cares laid upon Him by His own acts, and discharges them to the last jot. He is a ‘faithful Creator.’ Creation brings obligations with it; obligations for the creature; obligations for the Creator. If God makes a being, God is bound to take care of the being that He has made. If He makes a being in a given fashion, He is bound to provide for the necessities that He has created. According to the old proverb, if He makes mouths it is His business to feed them. And He recognises the obligation. His past binds Him to certain conduct in His future. We can lay hold on the former manifestation, and we can plead it with Him. ‘Thou hast been, and therefore Thou must be.’ ‘Thou hast taught me to trust in Thee; vindicate and warrant my trust by Thy unchangeableness.’ So His word, His acts, and His own nature, bind God to bless and help. His faithfulness is the expression of His unchangeableness. ‘Because He could swear by no greater, He sware by Himself.’
Take, then, these two thoughts of God’s lovingkindness and of God’s faithfulness and weave them together, and see what a strong cord they are to which a man may cling, and in all His weakness be sure that it will never give nor break. Mercy might be transient and arbitrary, but when you braid in ‘faithfulness’ along with it, it becomes fixed as the pillars of heaven, and immutable as the throne of God. Only when we are sure of God’s faithfulness can we lift up thankful voices to Him, ‘because His mercy endureth for ever.’ A despotic monarch may be all full of tenderness at this moment, and all full of wrath and sternness the next. He may have a whim of favour to-day, and a whim of severity to-morrow, and no man can say, ‘What doest thou?’ But God is not a despot. He has, so to speak, ‘decreed a constitution.’ He has limited Himself. He has marked out His path across the great wide region of possibilities of the divine action; He has buoyed out His channel on that ocean, and declared to us His purposes. So we can reckon on God, as astronomers can foretell the motions of the stars. We can plead His faithfulness along with His love, and feel that the one makes sure that the other shall be from everlasting to everlasting.
The next beam of the divine brightness is righteousness. ‘Thy righteousness is like the great mountains.’ Righteousness is not to be taken here in its narrow sense of stern retribution which gives to the evildoer the punishment that he deserves. There is no thought here, whatever there may be in other places in Scripture, of any opposition between mercy and righteousness, but the notion of righteousness here is a broader and greater one. It is just this, to put it into other words, that God has a law for His being to which He conforms; and that whatsoever things are fair and lovely, and good, and pure down here, those things are fair, and lovely, and good, and pure up there; that He is the Archetype of all excellence, the Ideal of all moral completeness: that we can know enough of Him to be sure of this that what we call right He loves, and what we call right He practises.
Brethren! unless we have that for the very foundation of our thoughts of God, we have no foundation to rest on. Unless we feel and know that ‘the Judge of all the earth doeth right,’ and is right, and law and righteousness have their home and seat in His bosom, and are the expression of His inmost being, then I know not where our confidence can be built. Unless ‘Thy righteousness, like the great mountains,’ surrounds and guards the low plain of our lives, they will lie open to all foes.
Then, next, we pass from the divine character to the divine acts. Mercy, faithfulness, and righteousness all converge and flow into the great river of the divine ‘judgments.’
By judgments are not meant merely the acts of God’s punitive righteousness, the retributions that destroy evildoers, but all God’s decisions and acts in regard to man. Or, to put it into other and briefer words, God’s judgments are the whole of the ‘ways,’ the methods of the divine government. So Paul, alluding to this very passage when he says ‘How unsearchable are Thy judgments!’ adds, as a parallel clause, meaning the same thing, ‘and Thy ways past finding out.’ That includes all which men call, in a narrower sense, judgments, but it includes, too, all acts of kindness and loving gifts. God’s judgments are the expressions of His thoughts, and these thoughts are thoughts of good and not of evil.
But notice, in the next place, the boundlessness of all these characteristics of the divine nature.
‘Thy mercy is in the heavens,’ towering up above the stars, and dwelling there, like some divine ether filling all space. The heavens are the home of light, the source of every blessing, arching over every head, rimming every horizon, holding all the stars, opening into abysses as we gaze, with us by night and by day, undimmed by the mist and smoke of earth, unchanged by the lapse of centuries; ever seen, never reached, bending over us always, always far above us. So the mercy of God towers above us, and stoops down towards us, rims us all about and arches over us all, sheds down its dewy benedictions by night and by day; is filled with a million stars and light-points of duty and of splendour; is near us ever to bless and succour and help, and holds us all in its blue round.
‘Thy faithfulness reacheth to the clouds.’ Strange that God’s fixed faithfulness should be compared to the very emblems of mutation. The clouds are unstable, they whirl and melt and change. Strange to think of the unalterable faithfulness as reaching to them! May it not be that the very mutability of the mutable may be the means of manifesting the unalterable sameness of God’s faithful purpose, of His unchangeable love, and of His ever consistent dealings? May not the apparent incongruity be a part of the felicity of the bold words? Is it not true that earthly things, as they change their forms and melt away, leaving no track behind, phantomlike as they are, do still obey the behests of that divine faithfulness, and gather and dissolve and break in brief showers of blessing, or short, sharp crashes of storm, at the bidding of that steadfast purpose which works out one unalterable design by a thousand instruments, and changeth all things, being in itself unchanged? The thing that is eternal, even the faithfulness of God, dwells amid, and shows itself through, the things that are temporal, the flying clouds of change.
Again, ‘Thy righteousness is like the great mountains.’ Like these, its roots are fast and stable; like these, it stands firm for ever; like these, its summits touch the fleeting clouds of human circumstance; like these, it is a shelter and a refuge, inaccessible in its steepest peaks, but affording many a cleft in its rocks, where a man may hide and be safe. But, unlike these, it knew no beginning, and shall know no end. Emblems of permanence as they are, though Olivet looks down on Jerusalem as it did when Melchizedek was its king, and Tabor and Hermon stand as they did before human lips had named them, they are wearing away by winter storms and summer heats. But, as Isaiah has taught us, when the earth is old, God’s might and mercy are young; for ‘the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but My kindness shall not depart from thee.’ ‘The earth shall wax old like a garment, but My righteousness shall not be abolished.’ It is more stable than the mountains, and firmer than the firmest things upon earth.
Then, with wonderful poetical beauty and vividness of contrast, there follows upon the emblem of the great mountains of God’s righteousness the emblem of the ‘mighty deep’ of His judgments. Here towers Vesuvius; there at its feet lie the waters of the bay. So the righteousness springs up like some great cliff, rising sheer from the water’s edge, while its feet are laved by the sea of the divine judgments, unfathomable and shoreless. The mountains and the sea are the two grandest things in nature, and in their combination sublime; the one the home of calm and silence, the other in perpetual motion. But the mountain’s roots are deeper than the depths of the sea, and though the judgments are a mighty deep, the righteousness is deeper, and is the bed of the ocean.
The metaphor, of course, implies obscurity, but what sort of obscurity? The obscurity of the sea. And what sort of obscurity is that? Not that which comes from mud, or anything added, but that which comes from depth. As far as a man can see down into its blue-green depths they are clear and translucent; but where the light fails and the eye fails, there comes what we call obscurity. The sea is clear, but our sight is limited.
And so there is no arbitrary obscurity in God’s dealings, and we know as much about them as it is possible for us to know; but we cannot see to the bottom. A man on the cliff can look much deeper into the ocean than a man on the level beach. The higher you climb the further you will see down into the ‘sea of glass mingled with fire’ that lies placid before God’s throne. Let us remember that it is a hazardous thing to judge of a picture before it is finished; of a building before the scaffolding is pulled down, and it is as hazardous for us to say about any deed or any revealed truth that it is inconsistent with the divine character. Wait a bit; wait a bit! ‘Thy judgments are a great deep.’ The deep will be drained off one day, and you will see the bottom of it. ‘Judge nothing before the time.’
But as an aid to patience and faith hearken how the Psalmist finishes up his contemplations: ‘O Lord! Thou preservest man and beast.’ Very well then, all this mercy, faithfulness, righteousness, judgment, high as the heavens, deep as the ocean, firm as the hills, it is all working for this-to keep the millions of living creatures round about us, and ourselves, in life and well-being. The mountain is high, the deep is profound. Between the mountain and the sea there is a strip of level land. God’s righteousness towers above us; God’s judgments go down beneath us; we can scarcely measure adequately the one or the other. But upon the level where we live there are the green fields where the cattle browse, and the birds sing, and men live and till and reap and are fed. That is to say, we all have enough in the plain, patent facts of creation and preservation of man and animal life in this world to make us quite sure of what is the principle that prevails up to the very top of the inaccessible mountains, and down to the very bottom of the unfathomable deep. What we know of Him, in the blessings of His love and providence, ought to interpret for us all that is perplexing. What we understand is good and loving. Let us be sure that what we do not yet understand is good and loving too. The web is of one texture throughout. The least educated ear can catch the music of the simpler melodies which run through the Great Composer’s work. We shall one day be able to appreciate the yet fuller music of the more recondite parts, which to us at present seem only jangling and discord. It is not His melody but our ears that are at fault. But we may well accept the obscurity of the mighty deep of God’s judgment, when we can see plainly that, after all, the earth is full of His mercy, and that ‘the eyes of all things wait on God, and He giveth them their meat in due season.’
II. So much, then, for the great picture here of these boundless characteristics of the divine nature. Now let us look for a moment at the picture of man sheltering beneath God’s wings.
‘How excellent is Thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings.’ God’s lovingkindness, or mercy, as I explained the word might be rendered, is precious, for that is the true meaning of the word translated ‘excellent.’ We are rich when we have that for ours; we are poor without it. Our true wealth is to possess God’s love, and to know in thought and realise in feeling and reciprocate in affection His grace and goodness, the beauty and perfectness of His wondrous character. That man is wealthy who has God on his side; that man is a pauper who has not God for his.
‘How precious is Thy lovingkindness, therefore the children of men put their trust.’ There is only one thing that will ever win a man’s heart to love God, and that is that God should love him first, and let him see it. ‘We love Him because He first loved us,’ is the New Testament teaching. Is it not all adumbrated and foretold in these words: ‘How precious is Thy loving-kindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust’?
We may be driven to worship after a sort by power; we may be smitten into some cold admiration, into some kind of reluctant subjection and trembling reverence, by the manifestation of divine perfections. But there is only one thing that wins a man’s heart, and that is the sight of God’s heart; and it is only when we know how precious His lovingkindness is that we shall be drawn towards Him.
And then this last verse tells us how we can make God our own: ‘They put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings.’ The word here rendered, and accurately rendered, ‘put their trust,’ has a very beautiful literal meaning. It means to flee for refuge, as the manslayer might flee into the strong city, or as Lot did out of Sodom to the little city on the hill, or as David did into the cave from his enemies. So, with such haste, with such intensity, staying for nothing, and with the effort of your whole will and nature, flee to God. That is trust. Go to Him for refuge from all evil, from all harm, from your own souls, from all sin, from hell, and death, and the devil.
Put your trust under ‘the shadow of His wings.’ That is a beautiful image, drawn, probably, from the grand words of Deuteronomy, where God is likened to the ‘eagle stirring up her nest, fluttering over her young,’ with tenderness in her fierce eye, and protecting strength in the sweep of her mighty pinion. So God spreads the covert of His wing, strong and tender, beneath which we may all gather ourselves and nestle.
And how can we do that? By the simple process of fleeing unto Him, as made known to us in Christ our Saviour; to hide ourselves there. For let us not forget how even the tenderness of this metaphor was increased by its shape on the tender lips of the Lord: ‘How often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings!’ The Old Testament took the emblem of the eagle, sovereign, and strong, and fierce; the New Testament took the emblem of the domestic fowl, peaceable, and gentle, and affectionate. Let us flee to that Christ, by humble faith with the plea on our lips-
‘Cover my defenceless head
With the shadow of Thy wing’;
and then all the Godhead in its mercy, its faithfulness, its righteousness, and its judgments will be on our side; and we shall know how precious is the lovingkindness of the Lord, and find in Him the home and hiding-place of our hearts for ever.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 This Ps. consists of two strongly contrasted pictures, one…
This Ps. consists of two strongly contrasted pictures, one of the wickedness of the wicked man (Psa_36:1-4), and one of the goodness of God (Psa_36:5-9), followed by a prayer that the Psalmist may continue to enjoy God's blessing (Psa_36:10-11), and by a confident assurance of the final overthrow of the wicked (Psa_36:12). The Ps. seems to reflect the social conditions of a later age than David's.
1. The transgression of the wicked saith] Sin is personified as an oracle to whose voice the wicked man listens. Within my heart] A better reading is, 'within his heart.' There is no fear of God, etc.] quoted in Rom_3:18.
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2. Until, etc.] RV 'that his iniquity shall not be found out and be hated.'
3, 4. A description of the character and conduct of the man who is deceived by sin.
5. There is an abrupt transition here to an infinitely nobler theme.
6. Great mountains] RV 'mountains of God.' In these vv. all that is infinite, sublime, and unfathomable in nature is made emblematic of the perfections of Jehovah. 8. God is host as well as protector. The figure is perhaps taken from the sacrificial meals eaten by the worshippers in the Temple (Lev_7:15).
9. A highly spiritual conception of the nature of man's fellowship with God, anticipating some of the loftiest teaching of the NT.
12. There] The overthrow of the wicked is already a visible fact for the Psalmist's faith.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v7 (See Scofield "Psa 2:12").
trust
(See Scofield "Psa 2:12").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 Psalm 36
Psalm 36
Contrasts
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1. What the wicked is and does (Psa 36:1-4)
2. What Jehovah is and does (Psa 36:5-9)
3. Prayer and trust in His loving kindness (Psa 36:10-12)
The wicked are described in their wickedness, with sin in the heart, no fear of God; filled with pride and flattery, speaking evil and doing evil. “But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived” (2Ti 3:13). This is the divine forecast for the last days and these opening verses of this psalm show the wicked of the last days. But what a Lord He is whom they do not fear! What a contrast! And the righteous know His mercy, His faithfulness, His righteousness and His judgment. Only good is in store from His side for those who trust in Him. His lovingkindness is excellent, He covers them with the shadow of His wings, He satisfies them abundantly with the fatness of His house. Such will be the hope and comfort of the godly when the wicked wax worse and worse, till the day comes when the workers of iniquity shall fall, unable to rise again.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 The Curse of Estrangement from God and the Blessing…
The Curse of Estrangement from God and the Blessing of Fellowship with Him.
To the chief musician, for use in the liturgical services of the Temple, a psalm of David, the servant of the Lord, who here pictures to all other servants of Jehovah the darkness in which the ungodly dwell, and then the light in which the believers have their being.
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v. 1. The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, rather, "A prompting of wickedness to the evil within the confines of his heart," that there is no fear of God before his eyes. That is the condition as David sees it: There is nothing but promptings to evil in the heart of the wicked and no evidence of fear and dread of God before their eyes.
v. 2. For he flattereth himself in his own eyes, until his iniquity be found to be hateful; that is, vice, wickedness, evil, flatters the godless person in his own eyes, making sin pleasant and attractive, in order to plunge him into guilt by his hatred of the righteous, for that is the climax of his wickedness.
v. 3. The words of his mouth, in the expression of this hatred against the godly, are iniquity and deceit, full of falsehood and lying; he hath left off to be wise and to do good, rejected all right principles of conduct.
v. 4. He deviseth mischief upon his bed, using even the night for these meditations of wickedness; he setteth himself in a way, deliberately choosing a course, that is not good; he abhorreth not evil, the strongest way of saying that he delights in it. Such is the spiritual darkness of the ungodly. The psalmist now, by way of contrast, pictures Jehovah and those that believe in Him.
v. 5. Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens, rather, reaches up to the heavens; and Thy faithfulness, with which He keeps His promises of mercy, reacheth unto the clouds, filling the whole world.
v. 6. Thy righteousness is like the great mountains, huge, massive, and certain; Thy judgments are a great deep, a mighty and powerful flood. O Lord, Thou, with such unbounded qualities of power, preservest man and beast, all creatures being included in His providence.
v. 7. How excellent is Thy loving-kindness, how precious His mercy, O God! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings, the believers finding full shelter in His protection, Deu 32:11; Psa 91:1.
v. 8. They shall be abundantly satisfied, to the point of intoxication, with the fatness of Thy house, in connection with the sacrificial meals of the thank and peace-offerings; and Thou shalt make them drink of the river of Thy pleasures, in a plentiful supply, as in anew, spiritual Eden, for God is the Fountainhead of richest blessings.
v. 9. For with Thee is the fountain of life, the source of all true life, both physical and spiritual; in Thy light shall we see light, the light of everlasting grace from the countenance of God. The frequent connection of life and light in Scripture, Psa 56:13; Job 3:20, also with reference to the coming of Christ, Joh 1:4, shows that the redemption of salvation is meant. The believers, even here in time, are enjoying the benefits of the salvation gained through the work of Christ, and in yonder life they shall have it in joyful fullness, without any admixture of this earth’s misery. Therefore the psalmist closes with a fervent prayer.
v. 10. O continue Thy loving-kindness unto them that know Thee, letting them enjoy His merciful kindness also in the future, and Thy righteousness to the upright in heart, to act as a protective cover over them.
v. 11. Let not the foot of pride, in an act of violence, come against me, and let not the hand of the wicked remove me, driving him away into banishment from the land of God’s inheritance.
v. 12. There are the workers of iniquity, the evil-doers, fallen, in the very act of violence they are overthrown; they are cast down and shall not be able to rise, so that the triumph of the righteous is complete. Such is ever the victory of faith, for it derives both light and life from God.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 5, 7, 10 General Information:
General Information:
Parallelism is common in Hebrew poetry. (See: Poetry and Parallelism)
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For the chief musician
"This is for the director of music to use in worship."
A psalm of David the servant of Yahweh
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.
An evil man
This does not refer to a specific man, but to evil people in general. AT: "Evil people" (See: Generic Noun Phrases)
from deep in his heart
Here "heart" refers to the inner being of a person. AT: "from his inner being" (See: Metonymy)
in his eyes
Here "eyes" refers to the wicked person. AT: "in him" (See: Synecdoche)
he comforts himself, thinking
"he prefers to believe" or "he wants to think"
his sin will not be discovered and be hated
This can be stated in active form. AT: "God will not discover and hate his sin" (See: Active or Passive)
translationWords
psalm
David
servant
Yahweh
sin
heart
evil
fear
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12 Ps 36 This lament contrasts the world of folly…
Ps 36 This lament contrasts the world of folly devised by the wicked with the world of wisdom created and sustained by the Lord. The wicked care only about themselves, whereas the Lord cares for all of creation. He will intervene to bring about justice in his world. The righteous will enjoy his protection, but the wicked will perish.
36:1-4 Fools despise what is wise and good as they pursue evil.
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36:1 no fear of God: Paul includes this phrase in his description of the depravity of all people (Rom 3:18).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.