Page:An Exposition of the Old and New Testament (1828) vol 3.djvu/574

566 take up with nothing short of it. "Thy salvation, thy word, thy comfort, are what my heart is still upon."

2. Waiting for that help; assured that it will come, and tarrying till it doth come; But I hope in thy word; and, but for hope, the heart would break. When the eyes fail, yet the faith must not; for the vision is for an appointed time, and at the end it shall speak, and shall not lie.

83. For I am become like a bottle in the smoke, yet do I not forget thy statutes.

David begs God would make haste to comfort him.

1. Because his affliction was great, and therefore he was an object of God's pity; Lord, make haste to help me, for I am become like a bottle in the smoke, a leathern bottle, which, if it hung any while in the smoke, was not only blackened with soot, but dried, and parched, and shrivelled up. David was thus wasted by age, and sickness, and sorrow. See how affliction will mortify the strongest and stoutest of men! David had been of a ruddy countenance, as fresh as a rose; but now he is withered, his colour is gone, his cheeks are furrowed. Thus does man's beauty consume under God's rebukes, as a moth fretting a garment. A bottle, when it is thus wrinkled with the smoke, is thrown by, and there is no more use of it. Who will put wine into such old bottles? Thus was David, in his low estate, looked upon as a despised, broken, vessel, and as a vessel in which there was no pleasure. Good men, when they are drooping and melancholy, sometimes think themselves more slighted than really they are.

2. Because, though his affliction was great, yet it had not driven him from his duty, and therefore he was within the reach of God's promise; Yet do I not forget thy statutes. Whatever our outward condition is, we must not cool in our affection to the word of God, nor let that slip out of our minds; no care, no grief, must crowd that out. As some drink and forget the law, (Prov. xxxi. 5.) so others weep and forget the law; but we must, in every condition, both prosperous and adverse, have the things of God in remembrance; and, if we be mindful of God's statutes, we may pray and hope that he will be mindful of our sorrows, though for a time he seems to forget us.

84. How many are the days of thy servant? when wilt thou execute judgment on them that persecute me?

Here, 1. David prays against the instruments of his troubles, that God would make haste to execute judgment on those that persecuted him. He prays not for power to avenge himself, (he bore no malice to any,) but that God would take to himself the vengeance that belonged to him, and would repay, (Rom. xii. 19.) as the God that sits in the throne, judging right. There is a day coming, and a great and terrible day it will be, when God will execute judgment on all the proud persecutors of his people; tribulation to them that troubled them; Enoch foretold it, (Jude 14.) whose prophecy perhaps David here had an eye to; and that day we are to look for, and pray for the hastening of; Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.

2. He pleads the long continuance of his trouble; "How many are the days of thy servant? The days of my life are but few;" so some; "therefore let them not all be miserable; and therefore make haste to appear for me against my enemies, before I go hence, and shall be seen no more." Or rather, "The days of my affliction are many, thou seest, Lord, how many they be; when wilt thou return in mercy to me? Sometimes, for the elects'elect's [sic] sake, the days of trouble are shortened. Oh let the days of my trouble be shortened; I am thy servant; and therefore, as the eyes of a servant are to the hand of his master, so are mine to thee, until that thou have mercy on me."

85. The proud have digged pits for me, which are not after thy law. 86. All thy commandments are faithful: they persecute me wrongfully; help thou me. 87. They had almost consumed me upon earth: but I forsook not thy precepts.

David's state was herein a type and figure of the state both of Christ and Christians, that he was grievously persecuted: as there are many of his psalms, so there are many of the verses of this psalm, which complain of this, as those here. Where observe,

1. The account he gives of his persecutors, and their malice against him. (1.) They were proud, and in their pride they persecuted him, glorying in this, that they could trample upon one who was so much cried up, and hoping to raise themselves on his ruins. (2.) They were unjust; they persecuted him wrongfully; so far was he from giving them any provocation, that he had studied to oblige them; but for his love they were his adversaries. (3.) They were spiteful; they digged pits for him; which showed that they were deliberate in their designs against him, and that what they did was of malice prepense: it intimates likewise, that they were subtle and crafty, and had the serpent's head as well as the serpent's venom; that they were industrious, and would refuse no pains to do him a mischief; and treacherous, laying snares in secret for him, as hunters do to take wild beasts, xxxv. 7. Such has been the enmity of the serpent's seed to the seed of the woman. (4.) They herein showed their enmity to God himself; the pits they digged for him were not after God's law; he means, they were very much against his law, which forbids to devise evil to our neighbour, and has particularly said, Touch not mine anointed. The law appointed, that if a man digged a pit which occasioned any mischief, he should answer for the mischief, (Exod. xxi. 33, 34.) much more, when it was digged with a mischievous design. (5.) They carried on their designs against him so far, that they had almost consumed him upon earth; they went near to ruin him and all his interests. It is possible that those who shall shortly be consummate in heaven, may be, for the present, almost consumed on earth; and it is of the Lord's mercies, (and, considering the malice of their enemies, it is a miracle of mercy,) that they are not quite consumed. But the bush in which God is, though it burns, shall not be burnt up.

2. His application to God in his persecuted state. (1.) He acknowledges the truth and goodness of his religion, though he suffered; "However it be, all thy commandments are faithful, and therefore, whatever I lose for my observance of them, I know I shall not lose by it." True religion, if it be worth any thing, is worth every thing, and therefore worth suffering for. "Men are false, I find them so; men of low degree, men of high degree, are so, there is no trusting them; but all thy commandments are faithful, on them I may rely." (2.) He begs that God would stand by him, and succour him; "They persecute me, help thou me; help me under my troubles, that I may bear them patiently, and as becomes me, and may still hold fast my integrity, and in due time help me out of my troubles." God help me, is an excellent comprehensive prayer; it is pity that it should ever be used lightly, and as a by-word.

3. His adherence to his duty, notwithstanding all the malice of his persecutors; (v. 87.) But I forsook not thy precepts. That which they aimed at, was,