Psalm 72

The temptation of the weak, upon seeing the prosperity of the wicked, is overcome by the consideration of the justice of God, who will quickly render to every one according to his works.

1 How good is God to Israel, to them that are of a right heart!

2 But my feet were almost moved; my steps had well nigh slipt.

3 Because I had a zeal on occasion of the wicked, seeing the prosperity of sinners.

4 For there is no regard to their death; nor is there strength in their stripes.

5 They are not in the labour of men: neither shall they be scourged like other men.

6 Therefore pride hath held them fast: they are covered with their iniquity and their wickedness.

7 Their iniquity hath come forth, as it were from fatness: they have passed into the affection of the heart.

8 They have thought and spoken wickedness: they have spoken iniquity on high.

9 They have set their mouth against heaven: and their tongue hath passed through the earth.

10 Therefore will my people return here: and full days shall be found in them.

11 And they said: How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the Most High?

12 Behold, these are sinners; and yet oe in the world they have obtained riches.

COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.

13 And I said: Then have I in vain justified my heart, and washed my hands among the innocent.

14 AndI have been scourged all the day: and my chastisement hath been in the mornings.

15 If I said: I will speak thus; behold, I should condemn the generation of thy children.

16 I studied that I might know this thing, it is a labour in my sight:

17 Until I go into the sanctuary of God, and understand concerning their last ends.

18 But indeed for deceits thou hast put it to them: when they were lifted up, thou hast cast them down.

19 How are they brought to desolation! they have suddenly ceased to be: they have

erished by reason of their iniquity.

20 As the dream of them that awake, O Lord; so in thy city thou shalt bring their image to nothing.

21 For my heart hath been inflamed, and my reins have been changed :

22 And I am brought to nothing, and I knew not.

23 I am become as a beast before thee: and I am always with thee.

24 Thou hast held me by my right hand: and by thy will thou hast conducted me, and with thy glory thou hast received me.

25 For what have I in heaven? and be: sides thee what do I desire upon earth?

26 For thee my flesh and my heart hath fainted away; thou art the God of my heart and the God that is my portion for ever.

27 For behold, they that go far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed all them that are disloyal to thee. ;

28 But it is good for me to adhere to my God, to put my hope in the Lord God: that I may declare all thy praises, in the gates of the daughter of Sion.

EXPLANATION OF THE PSALM.

1 “* How good is God to Israel, to them that are of a right heart!”

David, speaking in the person of the weak and the infirm, whose temptations and troubles he undertook to explain, first lays’ a foundation of true faith, that we may understand, that neither he nor they whom he represented had suffered in their faith in the divine providence. Jeremias did the same, for in chap. xii. he first says, “ Thou indeed, O Lord, art just, if I plead with thee;” and having laid so much down as a foundation, he adds, ‘‘ But yet I will speak what

COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.

‘ts just to thee. Why doth the way of the wicked ‘prosper? Why ts tt well with all them that transgress?” Tn like manner, David first affirms here _that God is good, and therefore just, but that it is only those who are endowed with sound judgment that see his goodness, while the wicked look upon him as perverse. He says then, not by way of interrogation, but of affirmation, “ How good is God to Israel, to them that are of a right heart;” that is to say, God is exceedingly good to the Israelites, to those that are of a right heart. Thus God, who in himself is always good, upright, and just, is so in the opinion of Israel; still not of all Israel, but of those in Israel who have a pure heart, unclouded by passion, so that they can form a correct judgment; or, perhaps, “‘ are of a right heart” means those whose heart is conformable to God’s righteousness, for those who have a crooked heart look upon every thing straight as crooked.

2 ‘* But my feet were almost moved ; my steps had well nigh slipt.”

He now begins to explain the temptations to which the weak are subject, speaking in their person, as we observed already. He says, the pious faithful, who have a pure and upright heart, have no doubt in God’s justice and goodness, in any position he may place them; but I am not so, for with a heart by no means pure and upright, I nearly fell into doubting God’s justice. Such doubt he expresses figuratively by the movement of the bands and feet. When the feet begin to grow weak, and when one slips in walking, itis a sign of infirmity and weakness; and so with him who is tormented with doubts about the truth, he too begins to totter, and, as it were, fall from the faith. ‘ But my feet were almost moved.” I began to totter, though | did not fall entirely. “JZy steps had well nigh slipt.” I began to trip in my walking without coming to the ground, giving us to understand that he all but fell into doubt of God’s justice and providence.

3 ‘* Because [ had a zeal on occasion of the wicked, secing the prosperity of sinners.”

He tells us now whence those temptations proceeded, and says it arose from seeing the wicked, who should have been punished by God, enjoying the most profound peace, and many other. blessings.

4. ‘* For there is no regard to their death ; nor ts there strength in their stripes.”

He goes on recounting the various blessings of the wicked. They enjoy all manner of peace and prosperity, because such is their health that they never think of death, they fancy that they are to live for ever ; and though they may now and then be'struck by sickness, it is one of no great duration, but quickly passes away. “* There is no regard to their death.” They never think of death themselves, nor do others think of it, when they see them always so robust, so happy, so healthy. “ Nor is there strength in their stripes.” When they do suffer any stripes of tribu-

lation, there is no strength in such’stripes, for they quickly disappear, leaving the wicked at once just as happy as ever.

5 '* They are not in the labour of men: neither shall they be scourged like other men.”

To add to the happiness enjoyed by the wicked, in exemption from disease and bodily afflictions, they enjoy beside an abundance of all manner of things, so that they have not to contend with want, fatigue, litigation, griefs, and other troubles, the lot of man in general, ‘‘ who eat their bread in the sweat of their brow,” and are oppressed by the stronger. But St. Bernard justly observes that the case will be otherwise with them in hell; for, the saying of the Apostle, “ All who wish to live piously in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution,” 2 Tim. iii.; and, “ For whom the Lord loveth he chastiseth ; and he scourgeth every son whom he receiveth,” Heb. xii.

6 “ Therefore pride hath held them fast: they are covered with their iniquity and their wickedness.”

The prophet now tells us the fruit produced in the wicked by prosperity—pride, and a mass of iniquity. For they spend their superfluities in gratifying their lust and oppressing the poor ; while, on the contrary, very pious people are full of fear, and tremble in thedays of their prosperity ; they are afraid of prosperity, for fear it may be their reward, instead of the eternal reward they so ardently long for. ‘* Pride hath held them ;” instead of their holding pride, it holds them as if with a chain. ‘ For he that committeth sin is the slave of sin.” “‘ They are covered with their iniquity and thew wickedness;” implying that the wicked, in their prosperity, commit sin, not only in private, that is, in their heart, as do the poor and wretched sinners who, in thought, are guilty of theft, adultery, vanity, which they commit not, not from want of will, but from want of means; (and thus, their sins are all interior ;) but the wicked alluded to in this verse, who have the wealth of this world at their command, are so steeped in iniquity that they sin not only in thought and desire, but they use their eyes, hands, tongue, feet, and all the members of the body, to transgress in word aud deed.

7“ Their iniquity hath come forth, as it were from Satness: they have passed into the affection of the heart.”

He now shews that their iniquity arose from the bad-use of the temporalities so abundantly bestowed on them by God. They did not share them with the poor, as they should have done; they kept all to themselves, and, becoming fat in consequence, they oppressed the poor like so many untamed horses or bulls. St. Augustine appositely remarks, that the poor become wicked from leannegss, the rich from fat. Ask the poor why they steal, and they will tell you want drove them to it; ask the rich why they unjustly seize another’s land, and they will answer, if they will condescend to give an explanation at all, that they have land adjoining, which absolutely requires the addition of that of their neighbour. Thus,

Achab took away Naboth’s vineyard, not because he wanted it, but because it bounded his palace. And that the wealth of this world, when not shared with our needy neighbours, is the cause of much wickedness, we read in Ezechiel xvi., where he says, “‘ Behold, this was the iniquity of Sodom;” that is, the iniquity that brought fire from heaven on it, ‘‘ Pride, Sulness of bread, and abundance, and the idleness of her and of her daughters : and they did not put forth their hand to the needy and to the poor. And they were lifted up, and committed abominations before me, and I took them away, as thou hast seen.” “ They have passed into the affection of the heart.” A difficult passage, and variously explained. My opinion is, that “‘ passing into the affection of the heart” means to be so transformed and possessed by carnal desires that the whole man becomes animal; as St. Paul says, when ‘‘ God gave them up to the desires of their heart;” and in the end of the same chapter, where he says, ‘ For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections,’ Rom. i.; for the thoughts and the affections are most united, and taken for the same. Man desires nothing but what he thinks on and what he knows. Thus, the adulterer, who places all his affections on a woman, and prefers her even to eternal happiness, is not actuated by the fact of her being the fairest and most beautiful person in existence, but because he thinks she is, and paints her to himself as such ; thus, the sinners, in the abundance of the goods of this life, “* passed into the affections,” and thoughts, and pictures of their own heart, because they have devoted themselves entirely to the creations and the concupiscences of their hearts. .

8 ‘They have thought and spoken wickedness: they have spoken iniquity on high.”

He goes on to shew the perversity of the wicked» who enjoyed so much prosperity, says they entertaiued blasphemous thoughts against God and man, were not afraid to proclaim it publicly, and derided God’s majesty and his servants; and those who “were on high,” were most forward in doing so; that is, those who were in the highest positions

9 “* They have set their mouth against heaven: and their tongue hath passed through the earth.”

Such was the wickedness of theimpiousthattheywere not afraid to blaspheme, to open their mouth against heaven, fearing neither God nor Angels; and their tongue bath passed through the earth, detracting, deriding God’s servants, as if their “‘ hope were vain.”

10 “ Therefore will my people return here : and full days shall be found in them. ~ ;

11 ‘‘ And they said: How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the Most High 2”

The prophet again speaks in the person of those weak in faith, to explain the temptations that assail them, in consequence of the happiness enjoyed by sinners. ‘‘ Therefore will my people return here.” In

COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.

consequence of the crimes and the prosperity of the wicked, my people, a faithful and God-fearing people, ‘ will return here,” to reflect and consider on those matters, ‘And full days shall be found in them;” which means, they will find that the wicked are truly happy, and they even enjoy the longest life, so that their days are full when they come to old age. “* And they said: How doth God know ? and ts there knowledge in the Most High?” Those wavering in the faith said, how can God know and permit such things? IJas God on high any knowledge? or, which is he ignorant of, or does not reflect on such things?

12 ‘* Behold, these are sinners ; and yet abounding in the world they have obtamed riches.

13 ** And I said: Then have [in vain justified my heart, and washed my hands among the innocent.

14 “ And I have been scourged all the day: and my chastisement hath been in the mornings.”

He assigns his reason for doubting in God’s knowledge of what happens on earth, and still speaks in the person of one of the infirm, but with a view to the easier relief of them. ‘* Behold, these are sinners; and yet, abounding in the world, they have obtained riches.” The reason for my doubts in God’s providence were, that sinners, who deserved tu be afflicted, have all the good things of the world and abound in riches. ‘‘ And J said,” turning the thing in my mind, “then have I in vain justified my heart;” in vain havel kept my heart free from sin, and in vain have I “washed my hands among the innocent ;” leading a life of innocence in vain, I say, for God favours the siuner, and not the just; nay, more, he afflicts them; for I, always desirous of justice, * have been scourged all the day ;” have been always in trouble ; “ and my chastisement hath been in the mornings;” begins at dawn of day, and never stays or allows me a moment’s rest,

15 “If I said: Twill speak thus; behold, I should condemn the generation of my children.”

He now begins to administer medicine, as it were, to the infirm. Hitherto he entered into their complaints, and their cause of being scandalized by reason of the prosperity of the sinner, and the adversity of the just ; and now, as if in a spirit of compunction and penitence, he says, “ if J said” to myself, I wil speak thus ;” T will go to shew how unjustis the prosperity of the wicked, and I will charge God with it. ‘ Behold, I should condemn the generation of thy children;” by that very fact I should condenin and reprobate all thy children, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and the rest of thy servants; for all those acknowledged that God directed all the affairs of men, and by a just judgment permitted the wicked sometimes to prosper, and the just to be afflicted. Or the meaning may be, I have condemned all the children of God as so many fools, who idly seek to lead a righteous life. Or another interpretation. I have condemned the generation of thy children, because I looked upon them all as abandoned by God, which was most false and worthy of censure, Aud

COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.

this is the first reason the prophet assigns, to persuade the infirm to have no doubt in God’s providence, that they may not be setting themselves up against all the children of God, the saints, prophets, and patriarchs ; nor imagine that they were either foolish ‘or deserted by God.

16 “I studied that I might know this thing, it ts a labour in my sight:

17 ‘* Until I go into the sanctuary of God, and understand concerning their last ends.”

To the first reason he now adds a second, taken

from the difficulty of the question, which should make people be slow in condemning things they do not understand. “I studied that I might know this thing.” I thought within myself that by investigation I might come at the bottom of this matter ; but “it is a labour in my sight; a great difficulty presented itself, ‘* wnt Igo into the sanctuary of God;” and through prayer obtain light from him, and by that light “* understand concerning their last ends,” get a view of the last end of those wicked people ; for then, only, will it clearly appear that they had by no means all the happiness they appeared to have.

18 “ But indeed for deceits thou hast put it to them : when they were lifted up, thou hast cast them down.”

The prophet now shews that the last end of the wicked proves they could not have been happy io this world, and that God is a just judge. The very snares and artifices those wicked people employed to injure their neighbours, and get possession of their - substance, have been, through your divine providence, O Lord, turned back upon themselves with a vengeance ; for, though they may have got hold of their neighbours’ money by such schemes, they lost eternal life to them. .“ When they were lifted up, thou hast cast them down;” when they rose to the enjoyment of honours and dignities, they were the cause of their being, through your just judgment, hurled down the precipice of everlasting death.

19 ** How are they brought to desolation! they have suddenly ceased to be: they have perished by reason of their iniquity.”

He now explains what he had just rather obscurely expressed ; and, in astonishment at the rapid destruction of the wicked, whose happiness had only begun when it ended; had only just shot forth, when it died away ; he exclaims, ‘ How are they brought to desolation!’ They who had such an abundance of all things, are become like a desolate city, where nothing bat ruins are to be seen; ‘‘ they have ceased to be.” though they thought they were to live for ever.

20 ‘* As the dream of them that awake, O Lord; so in thy city thou shalt bring their image to nothing.”

He most happily compares the prosperity of the wicked to a dream. Dreams are merely the appearance, not the reality. The dreamer who fancied himself in possession of a large sum of money finds, on his waking, that he was deluded by an empty phantom ; so with the wicked in this world, who abound

in its riches, they think themselves happy, but when the night of this world shall have passed away, then they will understand that they were not truly happy, and then “ their image,” their imaginary happiness, “ shall be brought to nothing ;” for that imaginary and momentary happiness, derived from gold and silver, servants and horses, palaces and gardens, honours and dignities, feasting and luxury, has no room in heaven, for all these things will perish, and leave their wretched votaries most unhappy. Justly, then, does the Apostle admonish us, “* That they who have the good things of this world should be as if they had them not, that they should not glory nor confide in them, for the fashion of this world passeth away.” “As the dream of them that awake,” which vanishes on awaking, “so in thy city, O Lord,” which will be made visible and manifest on the last day, “‘thow shalt bring their image to nothing;” prove all their happiness to have been baseless and imaginary ; for then will appear in what true happiness consists. Justly, says St. Augustine, will God in his heavenly kingdom reduce to nothing the image of those wicked beings, who on earth sought to reduce his image to nothing.

21 “* For my heart hath been inflamed, and my reins have been changed :

22 * And I am brought to nothing, and I knew not.

23 “‘ I am become as a beast before thee: and I am always with thee.

24 “* Thou hast held me by my right hand: and by thy will thou hast conducted me, and with thy glory thou hast received me.”

He now explains how he got at the solution of the question, and made great proficiency with God. The causative particle, “for,” does not refer to the preceding, it refers to the 24th verse. “ For my heart hath been inflamed” towards God, ‘‘ and my reins have been changed,” my carnal affections changed into spiritual ones. “ And I am brought to nothing, and I knew not.” J have been humbled, and confessed my ignorance; nay, more, like a fool, ‘* Jam become as a beast before thee,” determined to obey without a single murmur, and like a beast to submit to any burden, however grievous. ‘ And J am always with thee;” from your faith and charity I will

‘never depart, and for all these my virtues, gifts, of

yours, “thou hast held me by my right hand,” for fear those grievous temptations may cause me to stray from you; ‘ and by thy will,” in the spirit of your great kindness, “ thow hast conducted me” in the right path ; “and with glory hast thou received me” into your city, in hope here, and in reality hereafter.

25 ‘* For what have I in heaven? and besides thee what do I desire upon earth 2”

Having said, “* With glory thou hast received me,” he now, with his mind’s eye fixed on that glory, is so wrapt in spirit as to despise all created things. “ For what have I in heaven?’ what is there beautiful? what is there precious? that I could desire in heaven; ‘‘and besides thee what do I desire on

earth ?” what is there beautiful or precious that I could ask or desire upon earth? Nothing, positively nothing, I find nothing created to satisfy me, nothing with which my heart can rest perfectly content, either in heaven or on earth.

26 ‘ For thee my flesh and my heart hath fainted away, thou art the Godofmy heart, and the God that ts my portion for ever.”

He assigns a reason for desiring nothing but God, because, wherever he may place his heart or his flesh, they will rot and moulder, if not placed on God. “ My flesh and heart have fainted away.” They have become corrupted and rotten whenever I allowed them to rest on created things. ‘ The God of my heart, and the God that is my portion for ever.” The Hebrew makes it “ the rock of my heart;” as much as to say, God alone is the rock on which my heart can securely rest, so that it can neither sink nor fall; he is the centre of all my desires, he is my portion, my lot, my inheritance, the only thing I can hold for all eternity ; let others have other portions, be they gold or silver, be they carnal desires or stately pa- Jaces, be they empires or kingdoms; God will suffice for me both for this world and for the next.

27 “* For behold, they that go far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed all them that are disloyal to thee.”

He made a good choice in standing on God as his rock, because all who are separated.by sin from him will perish altogether ; just as the body perishes when the spirit leaves it, or as a house tumbles when the foundation is taken from it. “ Thou hast destroyed all them that are disloyal to thee;” not only will those who estrange themselves from God perish, for want of that grace that is the life of the soul, but, with that, God having espoused those souls to himself, and being essentially a jealous God, he, therefore, most grievously punishes with eternal death those who are unfaithful to a spouse of such power and goodness.

28 “ But it is good for me to adhere to my God, to put my hope in the Lord God: that I may declare all thy praises, in the gates of the daughter of Sion.”

He concludes the Psalm by saying, “ Jt ts good Sor me to adhere to my God.” Let others judge as to what may be good for themselves, for me it certainly is good, useful, and honourable to stick close to my God; and, as I cannot embrace him, or lay hold of him in this life, it is good also, now “to put my hope in him;” to stick to him through hope, and, meantime, to rejoice in the hope of perfect adhesion to him. “ That I may declare all thy praises in the gates of Sion.” That, having been freed from all earthly desires by such perfect adhesion to God, I may be totally taken up in praising him, and that, “in the gates of the daughter of Sion,” before the multitude of the faithful, I may teach the many how idle, nay, even hurtful it is to

cling to the things of this world, and how good it is. ‘19 adhere” to God, and to put their hopes in the Lord their God.

PSALM LXXIII. A prayer of thé church under grievous persecutions.

1 O God, why hast thou cast us off unto the end? why is thy wrath enkindled against the sheep of thy pasture?

2 Remember thy congregation, which thou hast possessed from the beginning; the sceptre of thy inheritance which thou hast redeemed; mount Sion in which thou hast dwelt.

3 Lift up thy hands against their pride unto the end: sce what things the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary.

4 And they that hate thee have made their boasts, in the midst of thy solemnity. They have set up their ensigns for signs:

5 And they knew not both in the going out, and on the highest top. As with axes in a wood of trees,

6 They have cut down. at. once the gates. thereof: with axe and hatchet they have brought it down.

7 They have set fire to thy sanctuary: they have defiled the dwelling-place of thy name on the earth.

8 They said in their heart, the whole kindred of them together: Let us abolish all the festival days of God from the land.

9 Our signs we have not seen, there is now no prophet: and he will know us no more.

10 How long, O God, shall the enemy reproach? is the adversary to provoke thy name for ever?

11 Why dost thou turn away thy hand? and thy right hand out of the midst of thy bosom for ever?

12 But God is our king before ages; he hath wrought salvation in the midst of the earth.

13 Thou by thy strength didst make the sea firm: thou didst crush the heads of the dragons in the waters.

14 Thou hast broken the heads of the dragon: thou hast given him to be meat for the people of the Ethiopians.

15 Thou hast broken up the fountains and the torrents: thou hast dried up the Ethan rivers.

16 Thine is the day, and thine is the night: thou hast made the morning light and the sun.

COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.

17 Thou hast made all the borders of the earth: the summer and the spring were formed by thee.

18 Remember this, the enemy hath reproached the Lord: and a foolish people hath provoked thy name.

19 Deliver not up to beasts the souls that confess to thee: and forget not to the end the souls of thy poor.

20 Have regard to thy covenant: for they that are the obscure of the earth have been filled with dwellings of iniquity.

21 Let not the humble be turned: away with confusion: the poor and needy shall praise thy name.

22 Arise, O God, judge thy own cause: remember thy reproaches with which the foolish man hath reproached thee all the day.

23 Forget not the voices of thy enemies: the pride of them that hate thee ascendeth continually.

EXPLANATION OF THE PSALM.

1 “*O God, why hast thou cast us off unto the end ? why is thy wrath enkindled against the sheep of thy pasture 2”

The holy prophet, speaking in the person of the Jewish people, deplores that universal calamity that was inflicted on them by the gentiles, under king Antiochus, who was called Epiphanes, ‘“ O God,

-why hast thou cast us off,’ us thy people, ‘ to the end?” as if you were never more to care for or to regard us; “ why is thy wrath enkindled,” is thy anger excited, “ against the sheep of thy pasture ?” against that people you were wont to protect with as much care as a shepherd does his flock. The words, “‘ thou hast cast us off unto the end,” do not imply that God, in reality, by a fixed decree, cast off his people for ever; but that the people thought he had done so, and were fearful for the consequence; and, therefore, in a pitiable voice, exclaimed, “* Why have you cast us off for ever 2” that is, you deal with us as if you had cast us off; for, when he says in a subsequent verse of this same Psalm, ‘ and forget not the souls of thy poor,” he shews that he was not at all so sure of their having been cast off.

2 ‘ Remember thy congregation, which thou hast possessed from the beginning ; the sceptre of thy inheritance which thou hast redeemed ; mount Sion in which thou hast dwelt.”

They now pray to God not “to cast them off,” inasmuch as they are the people he formerly brought out of Egypt, formed them into a peculiar congregation, by giving them magistrates, laws, and rites, and, therefore, that it would seem incongruous that he who had so formed and established them should now desert them. “ Remember thy congregation,” the people you congregated, “ which thou hast pos-

sessed from the beginning; who acknowledged no king or lord before you ; you were the first to possess it as its Lord and Master. ‘* The sceptre of thy inheritance which thou hast redeemed, mount Sion, in which thou hast dwelt.” Another argument to prove it was not right that God should cast them off ; because he not only first called them as his congregation together, and possessed them ; but he also raised them into a kingdom, turned the Chananeans out of the land of promise for them, and gave the land to them as being his people. ‘* The sceptre of thy inherttance which thou hast redeemed.” The sceptre of the kingdom of the land of promise, which you have acquired by right of war, having ejected the unlawful possessors of it from the land you promised to Abra» ham and his descendants, the children of Israel. He calls it ‘‘the sceptre of his inheritance,” because God took that sceptre, that kingdom of the land of promise as his own, for his inheritance, as it were, to indicate they were his own peculiar people. “* Mount Sion, in which thou hast dwelt;”’ Sion being the capital of the kingdom you have thus chosen.

3“ Lift up thy hands against their pride unto the end: see what things the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary.”

For the reasons aforesaid, God’s people now pray that he may turn his hand against their enemies, and so confound their pride for ever, that they would never again dare to rise up against God’s. servants, The extravagance of Antiochus’s pride appears from Mac. i., where we read, “ He proudly entered into the sanctuary ;” and in a few verses after, “ that he spoke with great pride.” ‘* See what things the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary.” Assigning a reason for the justice of God’s punishing the pride of the enemy, because he had offered. grievous injuries to the sanctuary of God, which is most applicable to king Antiochus, who, as we read in Machabees, “* despoiled and profaned the sanctuary.”

4 “* And they that hate thee have made their boasts, in the midst of thy solemnity. They have set up their ensigns for signs ;”

Antiochus, to whom only this passage can apply, hated the Jews and their God, and the ceremonies of the law, and did every thing in his power to induce the Jews to worship idols; and, therefore, to him and his soldiers properly applies the expression, ** that they made their boasts,” and that like so many barbarians, for such is the force of the word in Hebrew ; ‘they that hate thee,” who hated your sacred rites and the ceremonies of your law ; ‘‘ zn the midst of thy solemnity,” who, while public worship was going on in yoursanctuary, entered, profaned, and despoiled it, and in triumph carried off the spoils, like so many conquerors after seizing their booty. ‘ They have set up their ensigns for signs.” They erected their own banners in the most conspicuous parts of the city, to shew they had conquered and taken it.

5 “ And they knew not both in the going out, and on the highest top. As with axes in a wood of trees.

6 “They have cut down at once the gates thereof: with axe and hatchet they have brought it down.”

The words, “and they knew it not,” should be read as if in‘a parenthesis ; that is, while they were so profaning the sanctuary, they knew not what wrath they were stirring up for themselves. The words, “ both in going out, and on the highest top,” refer to the 4th verse, shewing that their ensigns were most conspicuous, on the highest towers and the most public passages. ‘As with axes in a wood of trees.” He goes on to recount the injuries offered to the city by its enemies. They tumbled its gates, as if they were cutting down so many trees with axes, and that “ at once” they were all ready, willing, and egged each other on to the work. ‘“ With axe and hatchet they have brought it down;” the very thing we read of king Antiochus, who levelled the gates and walls of the city.

7 ‘' They have set fire tothy sanctuary : they have defiled the dwelling-place of thy name on earth.”

This seems to be the only passage forbidding the application of this Psalm to the persecution of Antiochus, which, however, in my opinion, can be ex-

plained in accordance with it ; for, though the entire temple was burnt and razed down by Nabuchodonozor and by Titus, and was not burnt by Antiochus ; still the gates of the temple were burned by him, so we read in] Mac. iv., ‘‘ And they saw the sanctuary desolate, and the altar profaned, and the gates burned, and shrubs growing up in the courts, as in a forest or on the mountains, and the chambers adjoining to the temple thrown down ;” and immediately after, in speaking of the renewal of the temple, he says, “ and they renewed the yates and the chambers, and hanged doors upon them.” ‘The expression, then, * They have set fire to thy: sanctuary,” may be understood of a part of it, and not of the entire, which seems likely too, from the following; for, if they had burned the whole of the sanctuary, David could not say, as he does say, in the same verse, ‘they have defiled the name of thy dwelling place on earth;” for, what had been burned could not be defiled. They burned the gates, then, and they defiled the temple and the tabernacle, by placing therein the idol of abomination, and sacrificing to it, as we read in Machabees.

8 “* They said in their heart, the whole kindred of them together: Let us abolish all the festival days of God from the land.”

This seems to apply to the pagans, who, in the time of Antiochus, endeavoured with all their might to extinguish the religion of the true God, as appears from Machabees. “ They said in their heart:’ the whole nation of the gentiles subject to Antiochus came to a resolution, saying, ‘* Let us abolish all the festival days of God from the land;” that is, let us contaminate the sanctuary, fill every place with idols, remove all signs of religion, and thus we will abolish ; that is, we will put an end to, and stop all the festivals of God in the land of Israel.

COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.

9 ‘+ Our signs we have not seen, there is now no prophet : and he will know us no more.”

He gives us now the expressions of a faithful, though desponding people, under such afflictions, These are most applicable to the days of Antiochus, when the old miracles and the voice of the prophets were so lost that God would seem to have deserted his people entirely.

10 ‘* How long, O God, shall the enemy reproach ? is the adversary to provoke thy name for ever ?”

God’s people go on to implore God’s clemency, that, mindful of them, he may turn his anger on hie enemies, who reproached him with infirmity, as if he were not able to save his people. He seems to have Nicanor in view, ‘‘ who mocked and despised God's people;” and also king Antiochus and king Demetrius, and their generals, who were so hostile to God and. his people, as may be seen in the first book of Machabees.

11 ‘* Why dost thou turn away thy hand? and thy right hand out of the midst of thy bosom for ever ?”

The people having prayed to God to turn his anger against his enemies, they now pray to him to embrace his people, as he was wont to do, and not to exclude his children from the bosom of their Father. Why do you keep your hands to yourself ; keep them in your bosom, instead of extending them to embrace your children.

12 “ But God is our king before ages; he hath wrought salvation in the midst of the earth.”

The general explanation of this and the five following verses is the literal one, in which the power of God is explained, both in the case of the children of Israel, who were delivered, as well as the creation of the world; in order to shew that he can, if he will, now free the children of Israel from the present calamity. ‘‘ But God is our king, before ages he hath wrought salvation;’ namely, of the Jews, ‘in. the midst of the earth,” in the land of promise, to which he introduced them, after delivering them from Pharao. “ In the midst of the earth;’ some interpret this to mean, publicly, openly, which I would not condemn. It is true, however, to say, Palestine was ‘in the midst of the earth;’ it was in the midst of the habitable world, then known, being quite contiguous to Europe, Asia, and Africa; and it was for such reason our Saviour selected it for the spread of his Gospel, as being the most central place from whence it may be promulgated.

13 “ Thou by thy strength didst make the sea firm: . thou didst crush the heads of the dragons in the waters.”

He now explains how God accomplished the salvation of the Jews. ‘“‘ Thou by thy strength didst make the sea firm.” By your power you made the Red Sea stand up like a wall, to afford a dry passage through to the children of Israel; and by the same power you brought the same waters back in a heap on the heads of the Egyptains, who, like so many dragons, pursued the children of Israel.

COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.

14 “ Thou hast broken the heads of the dragon : thou hast given him to be meat for the people of the Ethiopians.”

Nearly all commentators say that Pharao is alluded to in this verse; for the Hebrew for dragon in this verse, is vot the same as for it as in the preceding verse ; here it implies a great chief, or prince of dragons. Thou hast given him to be meat for the people of the Ethiopians. Some say that upon Pharao’s being.drowned. his kingdom was plundered by the Ethiopians. Some say that the bodies of Pharao and his army were cast ashore on the coast of the Arabs, who are also called Ethiopians, and stripped by them ; while others say that the crows, who, from their colour, may be called Ethiopians, fed on the carcasses of the drowned Egyptians; but it matters not which, when it is clear that signal punishment was inflicted on Pharao.

15 ‘* Thou hast broken up the fountains and the torrents: thou hast dried up the Ethan rivers.”

He now describes God’s power, who, shortly after made a stream of water to gush from the rock, widened a rivulet to the breadth of a river, and then, dried up the Jordan to pass the people over to the land of promise. ‘‘ Thou hast broken up the fountains;” you broke the rocks aud made fountains and torrents of pure water to issue from them. “ Thou hast dried up the Ethan rivers;” the river Jordan, a very large river, as the word “ Hthan’’ signifies.

16 “ Thine is the day, and thine is the night: thou hast made the morning light and the sun.”

He now passes to the power displayed by God in -€reation, and as creation comprises two principal divisions, the heavens and the earth, according to Genesis ; “* In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” He speaks here of the two only, saying, “ Thine ts the day, and thine ts the night;” and he assigns a reason for calling them his, when he says, “ Thou hast made the moon and the sun,” the one to light the night, the other the day.

17 ‘ Thou hast made all the borders of the earth: the summerand the spring were formed by thee.”

He touched upea the ereation of heaven by speaking of the light and of the sun; and now he alludes

to the creation of the earth, by sayiig, ‘* Thou hast made all the borders of the earth;’ you have created the whole earth, even to its remotest bounds, from east to west, from north to south. “* Zhe summer and the spring were formed by thee ;” you established the changes in the seasons by virtue of which the earth now conceives, and then brings forth her fruit; and no sooner does she yield her fruit, than, by such changes in the seasons, she is prepared for another yield.

18 ‘‘ Remember this, the enemy hath reproached the Lord: and a foolish people hath provoked thy name.”

Having dilated on Ged’s power, he now returns to prayer, asking of God to remember how h‘s enemy blasphemed hin, as if he were impotent and infirm.

foot; such was the haughtiness of his mind.”

225 This, and the following verses, seem to allude to the pride of Antiochus, of which Machabees says, that “ TTe spoke with great pride; and in 2 Mac. v., having said that Antiochus “ took tn hts wicked hands the holy vessels, and unworthily handled and pro-

faned them;” he afterwards adds, “ So when Antio-

chus had taken away out of the temple a thousand and eight hundred talents, he went back in ali haste to Antioch, thinking through pride, that he might make theland now navigable, and the sea passable on The Psalmist, therefore, says, ‘Remember this ;’ remember, O Lord, what Iam about to say, “the enemy hath reproached the Lord;” has reproached him with impotence to save his people; ‘and a foolish people hath provoked thy name,” by blaspheming it.

19 “ Deliver not up to beasts the souls that confess to thee : and forget not to the end the souls of thy poor.”

This verse should decide on Antiochus beiag the oue the Psalmist had in view. It was in the porsecution of Antiochus that such prayer was most appropriate ; because he never.succeeded in entirely annihilating them, as did Nabuchodonosor, Titus, and Vespasian. ‘‘ Deliver not up to beasts,” to cruel men as ferocious as beasts, ‘the souls that confess to thee ;” ‘who worship thee and chant thy praises; “and furget not, to the end, the souls of thy poor;” forget not to defend and deliver the souls of your poor, who daily beg at the gate of your mercy.

20 “* Have regard to thy covenant: for they that are the obscure of the earth have been filled with dwellings of iniquity.”

He brings forward two other arguments to appease God; one from the covenant entered into with the fathers ; the other drawn from the iniquity of their adversaries, who, though of the vilest of the vile, had unjustly gotten possession of their mansions. “ [Zave regard to thy covenant.” If you will not regard us, regard, at least, thy covenant or testament which you made with our fathers, that you would bea God to us, and that you would protect and defend us in the land you gave us; “fur they that are the obscure of the earth,” an obscure, wretched set of barbarians, “ have been filled with dwellings of iniquity; have au abundance of the houses and palaces they have most i iquitously deprived us of.

21 “Let not the humble be turned away with confusion : the poor and needy shall praise thy name.”

He follows up his prayer, and begs that a prostrate people may not be obliged to retire in confusion at not having their prayer attended to. “ Let not the humble be turned away with confusion” at his prayer being rejected ; ‘‘ the poor and the needy shall praise thy name;” that is, those despised by the rich and the proud.

22 “Arise, O God, judge thy own cause: remember thy reproaches with which the foolish man hath reproached thee all the day.”

He now assigns a fresh reason, because the peo-

226 ple’s cause is God’s cause, for the reproaches heaped upon them actually fall on God himself. ‘ Arise, O God, judge thy own cause,” defend it; the Hebrew has, plead your own cause; ‘remember thy reproaches” that ave daily heaped upon you by your enemies, this proud ignorant people,

23 “ Forget not the voices of thy enemies: the pride of them that hate thee ascendeth continually.”

He concludes by asking God not to forget punishing his enemies, because they do not forget to punish him. Do not let the blasphemies of your enemies go unpunished, for “* the pride of them that hate thee, ascendeth continually,” the proud voices of your enemies will never cease, but daily ascend from their tongues, like sparks from the furnace of their malignant hearts.