Page:An Exposition of the Old and New Testament (1828) vol 3.djvu/225

Rh righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day. 12. If he turn not, he will whet his sword; he hath bent his bow, and made it ready. 13. He hath also prepared for him the instruments of death; he ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors. 14. Behold, he travaileth with iniquity, and hath conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood. 15. He made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made. 16. His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate. 17. I will praise the according to his righteousness; and will sing praise to the name of the most high.

David, having lodged his appeal with God by prayer and a solemn profession of his integrity, in the former part of the psalm, in this latter part does, as it were, take out judgment upon the appeal, by faith in the word of God, and the assurance it gives of the happiness and safety of the righteous, and the certain destruction of wicked people that continue impenitent.

I. David is confident that he shall find God his powerful Protector and Saviour, and the Patron of his oppressed innocency; (v. 10.) "My defence is of God. Not only, God is my Defender, and I shall find him so, but I look for defence and safety in no other; my hope for shelter in a time of danger is placed in God alone; if I have defence, it must be of God." My shield is upon God, so some read it; there is that in God which gives an assurance of protection to all that are his. His name is a strong tower, Prov. xviii. 10. Two things David builds this confidence upon. 1. The particular favour God has for all that are sincere; He saves the upright in heart, saves them with an everlasting salvation, and therefore will preserve them to his heavenly kingdom; he saves them out of their present troubles, as far as is good for them; their integrity and uprightness will preserve them. The upright in heart are safe, and ought to think themselves so, under the divine protection. 2. The general respect he has for justice and equity; God judgeth the righteous; he owns every righteous cause, and will maintain it in every righteous man, and will protect him. God is a righteous Judge, so some read it, who not only doeth righteousness himself, but will take care that righteousness be done by the children of men, and will avenge and punish all unrighteousness.

II. He is no less confident of the destruction of all his wicked persecutors, even as many of them as would not repent, to give glory to God. He reads their doom here, for their good, if possible, that they might cease from their enmity; or, however, for his own comfort, that he might not be afraid of them, nor aggrieved at their prosperity and success for a time. He goes into the sanctuary of God, and there understands, 1. That they are children of wrath; they are not to be envied, for God is angry with them, is angry with the wicked every day. They are every day doing that which is provoking to him, and he resents it, and treasures it up against the day of wrath. As his mercies are new every morning toward his people, so his anger is new every morning against the wicked, upon the fresh occasions given for it by their renewed transgressions. God is angry with the wicked, even in the merriest and most prosperous of their days, even in the days of their devotion: for if they be suffered to prosper, it is in wrath; if they pray, their very prayers are an abomination. The wrath of God abides upon them, (John iii. 36.) and continual additions are made to it. 2. That they are children of death, as all the children of wrath are; sons of perdition, marked out for ruin. See their destruction:

(1.) God will destroy them; the destruction they are reserved for is, destruction from the Almighty, which ought to be a terror to every one of us, for it comes from the wrath of God, v. 13, 14. It is here intimated, [1.] That the destruction of sinners may be prevented by their conversion, for it is threatened, with that proviso; If he turn not from his evil way, if he do not let fall his enmity against the people of God, then let him expect it will be his ruin; but if he turn, it is implied that his sins shall be pardoned, and all shall be well. Thus even the threatenings of wrath are introduced with a gracious implication of mercy, enough to justify God for ever in the destruction of them that perish; they might have turned and lived, but they chose rather to go on and die, and their blood is therefore upon their own heads. [2.] That if it be not thus prevented by the conversion of the sinner, it will be prepared for him by the justice of God. In general, (v. 13.) He has prepared for him the instruments of death, of all that death which is the wages of sin. If God will slay, he will not want instruments of death for any creature; even the least and weakest may be made so when he pleases. First, Here is a variety of instruments, all which breathe threatenings and slaughter. Here is a sword which wounds and kills at hand, a bow and arrows which wound and kill at a distance, those who think to get out of the reach of God's vindictive justice. If the sinner flies from the iron weapon, yet the bow of steel shall strike him through, Job xx. 24. Secondly, These instruments of death are all said to be made ready; God has them not to seek, but always at hand; judgments are prepared for scorners; Tophet is prepared of old. Thirdly, While God is preparing his instruments of death, he gives the sinners timely warning of their danger, and space to repent and prevent it. He is slow to punish, and long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish. Fourthly, The longer the destruction is delayed to give time for repentance, the sorer will it be, and the heavier will it fall, and lie for ever, if that time be not so improved, while God is waiting; the sword is in the whetting, and the bow in the drawing. Fifthly, The destruction of impenitent sinners, though it come slowly, yet comes surely; for it is ordained, they are of old ordained to it. Sixthly, Of all sinners, persecutors are set up as the fairest marks of divine wrath; against them, more than any other, God has ordained his arrows. They set God at defiance, but cannot set themselves out of the reach of his judgments.

(2.) They will destroy themselves, v. 14··16. The sinner is here described as taking a great deal of pains to ruin himself, more pains to damn his soul than, if directed aright, would save it. [1.] It is described by the pains of a labouring woman that brings forth a false conception, v. 14. The sinner's head with its politics conceives mischief, contrives it with a great deal of art, lays the plot deep, and keeps it close; the sinner's heart with its passions travails with iniquity, and is in pain to be delivered of the malicious projects it is hatching against the people of God. But what does it come to when it comes to the birth? It is falsehood, it is a cheat upon himself, it is a lie in his right hand; he cannot compass what he intended; nor, if he gain his point, will he gain the satisfaction he promised himself; he brings forth wind, (Isa. xxvi. 18.) stubble, (Isa. xxxii. 11.) .—2 E