Tremble therefore and be afraid, if not of me, yet at least of God, who hath engaged himself in my cause or quarrel, and will be an adversary to my adversaries. Or, be angry, as this word is here rendered by all the ancient and some modern translators, and, as it is thought, by the apostle, Eph 4:26. Or, are you angry? for it may be taken interrogatively. Admit you be angry or displeased that God hath preferred me, an obscure person, and of a mean family, before so many noble and mighty men; yet, or but, (as it follows,)

sin not, i.e. do not so far indulge your anger as to break forth into murmuring against God, or rebellion against me; but seasonably suppress and mortify your unadvised and sinful passion, lest it break forth to your own ruin. This Hebrew word signifies in general a vehement commotion of the mind or heart, whether through grief, as 2Sa 18:33; or fear, as Exo 15:14; Deu 2:25; or anger, as Gen 45:24; 2Ki 19:27,28; Pr 29:9; Eze 16:42.

And sin not, by cherishing and prosecuting your anger and malice against me, and your rebellion against Gods authority.

Commune with your own heart upon your bed; calmly and deeply consider these things in your own breasts in the silent night, when you are at leisure from the crowd of distracting business, and free from the company of crafty and daubing parasites.

And be still; either,

1. As to your outward actions; for this verb oft signifies a cessation of actions, as Jos 10:13; Job 20:27. Proceed no further in your wicked speeches and contrivances against me. Or rather,

2. As to your inward passions. Compose your tumultuous minds; as this verb is used, Psa 37:7; 62:2; 137:2. Suppress your anger and rage, which though directed against me only, yet is indeed against God, and against his counsel and providence.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

4. Stand in awe (Eph4:26), from Septuagint, “be angry.” Both clausesare qualified by “not.”

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Stand in awe, and sin not,…. That is, stand in awe of God, and his righteous, judgments; be afraid of him, and tremble before him; make him your fear and your dread, and go on no longer and proceed no further in sinning against him. The Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions, render it, “be ye angry, and sin not”: which are the words of the apostle, Eph 4:26; referring to this place; and which doubtless is the reason of these versions. There is an anger that is sinful, when it is without a cause, or exceeds due bounds, and is not directed to a good end, and is productive of bad effects, by words or deeds; and when it is soon raised, or long continued; and there is an anger that is not sinful; when it arises from a true zeal for God and religion; when it is kindled, not against the persons, but sins, of men; and when it is continued to answer good purposes; as the good of those with whom we are angry, and the glory of God, and the promoting of the kingdom and interest of Christ;

commune with your own heart upon your bed: when retired from men and business, and you are at leisure to think and meditate then reflect upon your actions, seriously consider them; ask your heart some proper and close questions; examine narrowly and thoroughly the principles on which, and the views with which, you act;

and be still; cease from all your rage and fury against me, against the Lord, and against his people; or “say in your own hearts” q, as follows.

Selah; on this word, [See comments on Ps 3:2].

q “dicite in corde vestro”, Montanus, Cocceius, Gussetius; “loquimini”, Pagninus, Piscator.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(Heb.: 4:5-6) The address is continued: they are to repent and cleave to Jahve instead of allowing themselves to be carried away by arrogance and discontent. The lxx has rendered it correctly: (cf. Eph 4:26): if ye will be angry beware of sinning, viz., backbiting and rebellion (cf. the similar paratactic combinations Psa 28:1; Jos 6:18; Isa 12:1). In connection with the rendering contremiscite we feel to miss any expression of that before which they are to tremble (viz., the sure punishment which God decrees). He warns his adversaries against blind passion, and counsels them to quiet converse with their own hearts, and solitary meditation, in order that they may not imperil their own salvation. To commune with one’s own heart, without the addition of the object, is equivalent to to think alone by one’s self, and the bed or resting-place, without requiring to be understood literally, points to a condition of mind that is favourable to quiet contemplation. The heart is the seat of the conscience, and the Spirit of God (as Hamann, Werke i. 98, observes on this subject) disguises itself as our own voice that we may see His exhortation, His counsel, and His wisdom well up out of our own stony heart. The second imper. continues the first: and cease, prop. be still ( from the sound of the closed mouth checking the discourse), i.e., come to your right mind by self-examination, cease your tumult-a warning coming with the semblance of command by reason of the consciousness of innocence on his part; and this impression has to be rendered here by the striking in of the music. The dehortation passes over into exhortation in Psa 4:6. Of course the sacrifices were continued in the sanctuary while David, with his faithful followers, was a fugitive from Jerusalem. Referring to this, David cries out to the Absolomites: offer . Here at least these are not offerings consisting of actions which are in accordance with the will of God, instead of slaughtered animals, but sacrifices offered with a right mind, conformed to the will of God, instead of the hypocritical mind with which they consecrate their evil doings and think to flatter God. In Ps 51:21, Deu 33:19 also, “the sacrifices of righteousness” are real sacrifices, not merely symbols of moral acts. Not less full of meaning is the exhortation . The verb is construed with as in Psa 31:7; Psa 56:4; Psa 86:2, combining with the notion of trusting that of drawing near to, hanging on, attaching one’s self to any one. The Arabic word bth , expandere , has preserved the primary notion of the word, a notion which, as in the synon. Arab. bst , when referred to the effect which is produced on the heart, countenance and whole nature of the man by a joyous cheerful state of mind, passes over to the notion of this state of mind itself, so that (like the Arab. inbasata to be cheerful, fearless, bold, lit., expanded [cf. Isa 60:5] = unstraitened) consequently signifies to be courageous, confident. They are to renounce the self-trust which blinds them in their opposition to the king who is deprived of all human assistance. If they will trustingly submit themselves to God, then at the same time the murmuring and rancorous discontent, from which the rebellion has sprung, will be stilled. Thus far the address to the rebellious magnates goes.

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

4. Tremble then. Now he exhorts his enemies to repentance, if peradventure, their madness was not wholly incorrigible. In the first place, he bids them tremble, or be troubled; a word by which he rebukes their stupidity in running headlong in their wicked course, without any fear of God, or any sense of danger. And certainly the great presumption of all the ungodly in not hesitating to engage in war against God, proceeds from their being hardened through an infatuated security; and by their thoughtlessness, they render themselves stupid, and become more obdurate by forgetting both God and themselves, and following whithersoever lust leads them. He tells them that the best remedy to cure their rage, and prevent them from sinning any longer, would be to awaken from their lethargy and begin to be afraid and tremble; as if he had said, As soon as you shall have shaken off your drowsiness and insensibility, your desire of sinning will abate; for the reason why the ungodly are troublesome to the good and the simple, and cause so much confusion, is because they are too much at peace with themselves.

He afterwards admonishes them to commune with their own heart upon their bed, that is, to take an account of themselves at leisure, and as it were, in some place of deep retirement; (54) an exercise which is opposed to their indulgence of their unruly passions. In the end of the verse he enjoins them to be still. Now, it is to be observed, that the cause of this stillness is the agitation and trembling, of which he before made mention. For if any have been hurried into sin by their infatuated recklessness, the first step of their return to a sound mind is to awaken themselves from their deep sleep to fearfulness and trembling. After this follows calm and deliberate reflection; then they consider and reconsider to what dangers they have been exposing themselves; and thus at length they, whose audacious spirits shrink at nothing, learn to be orderly and peaceable, or, at least, they restrain their frantic violence.

To commune upon one’s bed, is a form of expression taken from the common practice and experience of men. We know that, during our intercourse with men in the day time, our thoughts are distracted, and we often judge rashly, being deceived by the external appearance; whereas in solitude, we can give to any subject a closer attention; and, farther, the sense of shame does not then hinder a man from thinking without disguise of his own faults. David, therefore, exhorts his enemies to withdraw from those who witnessed and judged of their actions on the public stage of life, and to be alone, that they may examine themselves more truthfully and honestly. And this exhortation has a respect to us all; for there is nothing to which men are more prone than to deceive one another with empty applause, until each man enter into himself, and commune alone with his own heart. Paul, when quoting this passage in Eph 4:26, or, at least when alluding to the sentiment of David, follows the Septuagint, “Be ye angry and sin not.” And yet he has skilfully and beautifully applied it to his purpose. He there teaches us that men, instead of wickedly pouring forth their anger against their neighbors, have rather just cause to be angry with themselves, in order that, by this means, they may abstain from sin. And, therefore, he commands them rather to fret inwardly, and be angry with themselves; and then to be angry, not so much at the persons, as at the vices of others.

(54) “ Et estans retirez a part pour sonder leurs consciences.” — Fr. And being retired by themselves to probe or examine their consciences.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(4) Stand in awe.Literally, tremble, whether with fear or anger. But the rendering of the LXX., be angry, quoted in Eph. 4:26, though etymologically correct, is plainly inadmissible here. (See New Testament Commentary.)

Communei.e., reflect on your conduct, let the still hours of the night bring calmer and wiser thoughts with them. The LXX. and Vulg. translate repent instead of be still. This supposes the words to be addressed to the enemies. But the next verse makes this doubtful. Probably the clause is a general reflection on the proper conduct of Israelites when in trouble.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

4. David now turns from the leading spirits of the rebellion to those who are yet loyal in heart, but bewildered and doubtful as to what should be done.

Stand in awe, and sin not The words “stand in awe” are simply a translation of the imperative form of the verb , ( rahgaz,) which signifies to be troubled, disquieted, agitated, from any cause, whether of anger, fear, grief, or even joy: (for the last see Jer 33:9: “They shall fear and tremble [be agitated ] for all the goodness,” etc.) The kingdom was now in commotion, and most minds were filled with doubt, perplexity, and fear. In this state the king calmly admonishes, “Sin not:” be not moved to rash or sinful acts, while you partake of the common disquietude and alarm. The Septuagint reads, “Be ye angry, and sin not,” which the apostle copies verbatim, (Eph 4:26😉 a clear instance, it would seem, where anger is not used to express a malignant or vengeful passion, but, by metonomy, signifies the cause or occasion of such passion, namely, high provocation, or agitation of mind under a deep sense of injury. It is the danger of abiding in this disquieted state of mind, not the sinfulness of it per se, which is the object of the admonition both of the psalmist and the apostle. And so, “Let not the sun go down upon your wrath,” is a reiterated warning not to delay escape from so imminent spiritual danger.

Commune with your own heart Literally, speak in your heart; a beautiful idea of meditation. The selah, pause, comes in here and at Psa 4:2 with emphasis.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘Stand in awe and do not sin,

Commune with your own heart on your bed and be still, Selah

Offer the sacrifices of righteousness,

And put your trust in YHWH.’

In view of whom they are dealing with they should pause and stand in awe. They are touching YHWH’s anointed. Let them therefore fear before God and beware of incurring His anger, for such fear will prevent them from sin. Let them wait for the quietness of their beds, away from the incitement of others who are just as foolish, then let them talk to themselves sensibly and thus they will cease from what they are doing. They will cease to sin.

Then they can be true to YHWH and offer true sacrifices, sacrifices which are offered from a true heart (Deu 33:19; Psa 51:19; Isa 1:11 with Isa 1:16-18). Thus can they put their trust in YHWH. For to offer sacrifices truly was to come to God in trust and love, depending on His promises of mercy. This once again strongly reminds us that sacrifices alone were insufficient to turn away God’s wrath. They had to be offered from a true heart and with the intention in the future of living a righteous life (1Sa 15:22). And must be accompanied by trust in YHWH Himself.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Psa 4:4. Stand in awe, &c. The LXX, Vulgate, Syriac, Ethiopian, and Arabic, render it, Be ye angry, &c.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

DISCOURSE: 498
A PRACTICAL EXHORTATION

Psa 4:4-5. Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness and put your trust in the Lord.

IN the Psalms of David there is a great diversity; some being expressive of his own experience, and abounding in petitions or thanksgivings, as the occasion required; others being simply historical, for the information of the Church; others prophetic of Christ and his kingdom in the world; and others again being merely instructive, for the benefit of mankind. Of this last kind is the psalm before us; in which, after declaring the comfort he had found in God, and offering a petition for the continuance of it (v. 1.), he reproves those who derided religion, and sought happiness in the world (v. 2.). He assures them, that God is the friend and portion of all who seek him (v. 3.); and recommends them to seek him in a becoming manner (v. 4, 5.); and from his own experience attests, that no increase of worldly prosperity can ever afford them so rich a recompence as His presence (v. 6, 7.), in which all who enjoy it find perfect rest (v. 8.).

As there is no certainty respecting the occasion on which it was written, we may take the text in a general view, and found upon it a general exhortation. Nor will there be any occasion for an artificial arrangement of it, because the different parts of the exhortation lie in an easy and natural order, and may be most profitably noticed as they arise in the text.
Beware, then, of sin; or, as the text expresses it, Stand in awe, and sin not
[The words Stand in awe are, in the Septuagint Translation, rendered, Be ye angry. and it seems that the Apostle Paul referred to them, when he said, Be ye angry, and sin not [Note: Eph 4:26.]. The original imports a violent commotion of the mind; and Bishop Home translates it, tremble. Certainly sin ought to be an object of extreme fear and dread: we can never stand in awe of it too much. See what it has done in the world, how it has deformed the whole face of nature, and more especially the soul of man, which was originally made in the image of God himself! See what was necessary for the expiation of it! Could nothing but the blood of Gods co-equal, co-eternal Son make an atonement for it, and shall it appear a light matter in our eyes? Go, take a new of the Saviour in Gethsemane and on the cross; and then say, whether sin be not a formidable evil: or go down to those regions where myriads of our unhappy fellow-creatures are suffering the penalty due to it, and then announce to us your sentiments respecting it. One glimpse of it, in its true character, would be abundantly sufficient to convince you, that death, in its most terrific shapes, has no terror in comparison of sin.

How, then, should you stand in awe of it, even when presented to you in its most flattering dress! What if men tell you that it is harmless, and will bring with it no painful consequences? Will you listen to their delusions? Will you, through fear of their derision, or from a hope of their favour, give way to sin, and subject yourselves thereby to the wrath of an offended God? O! sin not, either in a way of commission, or of omission: and if a fiery furnace, or a den of lions, be set before you as the only alternative with sin, hesitate not to choose death in its most tremendous forms, rather than accept deliverance on the condition of committing any wilful transgression.]
That you may not be unwittingly offending God, be careful to live in habits of daily self-examination
[Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Persons, at the moment that they are acting, are not always able to form a correct estimate of their conduct: they are blinded by self-love, and deceived by a partial view of the things in which they are engaged: and often find, on reflection, that they have reason to be ashamed of actions which, at the time of doing them, they conceived to be right. Not only did Paul, in his unconverted state, err, when he thought he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus, but all the Apostles of our Lord erred in matters which, at the time, appeared to them to be highly commendable. Who can doubt but that Peter, when he dissuaded his Lord from submitting to his approaching sufferings, and when he cut off the ear of Malchus, took to himself credit for his zeal and love? and that afterwards, when accommodating himself to the wishes of his Jewish brethren, in requiring from the Gentiles the observance of the Law, he supposed himself to be actuated by a condescending regard to the prejudices of his less-instructed brethren? Yet, on all these occasions he acted a part most displeasing to God, and was no other than an agent of the devil himself. In like manner, when James and John would have called fire from heaven, to consume a Samaritan village, they little knew what spirit they were of. And all the Apostles, when they joined with Judas in condemning the extravagance of her who poured a box of ointment on their Masters feet, imagined that their regard for the poor was highly seasonable and praise-worthy. And at is probable that Thomas, too, considered his pertinacity, in requiring more substantial proofs of his Lords resurrection, far preferable to the less cautious credulity of his fellow Apostles.
Thus it is, more or less, with all of us: we need reflection; we need instruction; we need to have the film removed from before our eyes: we need a more thorough knowledge of the motives and principles by which we are actuated. Things may be substantially right, yet wrong in the time and manner in which they are carried into effect: or they may be essentially wrong, and yet, through the blindness of our minds, appear to us highly commendable. This is particularly the case with many who spend their time in prosecuting offices which do not belong to them, whilst they overlook and neglect the duties which are proper to their calling. We are not to set one table of the Law against the other; or to trample upon acknowledged duties for the purpose of augmenting what we may fancy to be our religious advantages. Doubtless, where unreasonable men reduce us to the alternative of offending God or man, we must make our stand against the usurped authority, and be content to bear the consequences: but if we were more willing to exercise self-denial for the Lords sake, we should find that the path of duty would in many instances be more clear, and that we should on many occasions have less ground for self-reproach.
Let us, then, at the close of every day, review with candour the events in which we have been engaged, and the dispositions we have exercised: and, not content with examining ourselves, let us beg of God to search and try us, and to shew us whatever there has been in our conduct that was sinful, or erroneous, or defective; that so we may be humbled for the past, and be more observant of our duty for the future.]
Yet must we not so lean to the side of contemplation as to become remiss in action
[We are to offer, and that with ever-increasing diligence, the sacrifices of righteousness. We are all a holy priesthood, who are to offer up spiritual sacrifices, which are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Under the Law, there was a great variety of sacrifices; some for humiliation and others for thanksgiving. But, under the Gospel, every thing becomes a sacrifice, when it is done for God, and presented to him in the name of his dear Son. Doubtless the first offering which we are to present to God is our own heart [Note: 2Co 8:5.]. Without that, no other can come up with acceptance before him. But, when we have presented ourselves to him as a living sacrifice [Note: Rom 12:1.], there is not any service which we can offer, which will not be pleasing in his sight. Let us then abound in every good work, and seek to be filled with all the fruits of righteousness, which are, by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. The duties of the closet demand our attention in the first place: for, if they be neglected, nothing can go well: the soul will be left to its own resources, and will of necessity fall a prey to sin and Satan. Then come the duties of our place and station, whether in social or civil life. To neglect these, is to sin grievously against God, and to bring great disgrace upon religion. Every person in the family has his proper office, which he is bound to fill, not from necessity only, but for the honour of his God. Whilst the head of it is prosecuting his proper business, the mistress is to be superintending the concerns of her family; and, whether occupied with her children or domestics, is to be discharging her duties with care and diligence; whilst the servants, each in his proper place, are to be executing their part with fidelity and zeal. The time that can be spared from these more appropriate avocations may well be devoted to the service of the public, in any line that may be thought most conducive to the welfare of mankind. But it is possible for men to be so engaged in cultivating the vineyards of others as to neglect their own. And this, in the present day especially, when so much time is consecrated to the maintenance of religious or benevolent societies, is a danger to which many are exposed. Care must be taken, that none who are entitled to our services be neglected; and that, whilst some rejoice in what we do, none have reason to complain of what we leave undone. The public assemblies, too, must not be neglected: they are the appointed means of honouring God, and of bringing his blessing on our own souls. In a word, our duties both to God and man are to be harmoniously and diligently performed: and it must be the labour of all, according to their respective abilities, to abound in every good word and work.]

But, in whatever way our own efforts are directed, we must put our trust in the Lord
[It is to his grace alone that we must be indebted for strength; to his mercy must we look for acceptance before him; and on his truth and faithfulness must we rely for our ultimate reward.

Of ourselves we can do nothing. In vain will be all our efforts to escape from sin, or to fulfil our duty, if God do not strengthen us with might by his Spirit in our inward man.
We must look to God to work all our works in us: all our fresh springs must be in him. To rely simply on God is the only way of being really strong; as the Apostle says, When I am weak, then am I strong; and the more entire our reliance is on him, the more will his strength be perfected in our weakness.
At the same time, we must bear in mind how exceedingly defective our best services are; and must renounce all hope in our own righteousness, as being in itself no better than filthy rags. If St. Paul, with all his transcendent excellencies, desired to be found in Christ, not having his own righteousness, but that which is of God by faith in Christ, much more must we do so, whose righteousness falls so far short of his. Our constant and grateful acknowledgment must be, In the Lord have I righteousness and strength. Yes; in the Lord must all the seed of Israel be justified, and in him alone must they glory.
Yet we must not imagine that our services shall go unrewarded: for, though our works shall not go before us to heaven, to supersede the office of a Saviour, they shall follow us, to attest our love to him, and shall be acknowledged by him as worthy of a gracious recompence. Not even a cup of cold water given to one of his disciples shall lose its reward. God would even consider himself as unrighteous, if he were to forget our works and labours of love, which we have shewed towards his name. Be assured, therefore, that he will bring forth, at the last day, whatever you have done for him, and will both applaud and recompense it before the assembled universe.
Here, then, you have abundant encouragement to exercise yourselves with all diligence in the preceding duties of fear and vigilance, of piety and affiance. And know, that the more you endeavour to approve yourselves to God, the more shall you be approved by him in the day of judgment.]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

Nothing can be more gracious than what is here recommended. It is as if the Holy Ghost commanded the sinner to pause over the view of his own nothingness, and then to come by faith, with Jesus and his righteousness in his arms, and to say, Lord, here is my sole trust and dependence.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Psa 4:4 Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah.

Ver. 4. Stand in awe, and sin not ] Be stirred, or commoved, or troubled. Tremble and sin not. But today the word and the world too is altered; for men sin and tremble not; being arrived at that dead and dedolent disposition of those heathens who were past feeling, Eph 4:18-19 . St Paul rather alludeth to this text, Eph 4:6 , than citeth it, as some think.

Commune with your own heart upon your bed ] Advise with your pillow what you have to do in a business so important as the practice of repentance, whereunto I am now exhorting you. Here, then, examine yourselves, prove your ownselves, as 2Co 13:5 . Sift you, sift you, Zep 2:2 . Recoil, turn short again upon yourselves, thrust your hands into your bosoms, as Moses did, and took it out again leprous, white as snow. Take a review of your hearts and lives, converse with yourselves; a wise man can never want with whom to discourse, though he be alone. But as it is a sign that there are great distempers in that family where husband and wife go several days together and speak not the one to the other; so in that soul that flieth from itself, and can go long without examination of self. A good man’s business lieth most within doors, and he taketh the fittest time (night or day) for the better despatch of it, though thereby he abridge himself of his natural rest. Mr Bradford, the young Lord Harrington, and sundry others, kept journals, or day books, and oft read them over, for a help to humiliation.

And be still. Selah ] Or, make a pause, dwell upon the work of self-examination till you have made somewhat of it, till you have driven it up to a reformation, as Lam 3:39-40 , Let us try, and turn. The word signifieth be dumb and hereupon all our silentiaries have founded their superstitious opinions and practices; such as were those old monks of Egypt, who, saith Cassian, were umbrarum more silentes et , as speechless as ghosts. So the Carthusian monks at this day, who speak together but once a week. Some kind of Anabaptists also will not speak a word to any but those of their own sect.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Psa 4:4-5

4Tremble, and do not sin;

Meditate in your heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah.

5Offer the sacrifices of righteousness,

And trust in the Lord.

Psa 4:4-5 There is a series of commands whereby the psalmist suggests how his opponents (i.e., sons of men, Psa 4:2) should live.

1. tremble BDB 919, KB 1182, Qal imperative

2. do not sin BDB 306, KB 305, Qal imperfect used in a jussive sense

3. meditate (lit. speak) BDB 55, KB 65, Qal imperative, cf. Psa 77:6

4. be still BDB 198, KB 226, Qal imperative

5. offer sacrifices BDB 256, KB 261, Qal imperative

6. trust in YHWH BDB 105, KB 120, Qal imperative, cf. Psa 37:3; Psa 62:8

Psa 4:4 Number 2 above is quoted by Paul in Eph 4:26 in combination with Deu 24:15, as be angry, and yet do not sin, which is from the LXX. The MT has tremble which denotes fear (cf. Isa 32:11; Mic 7:17; Hab 3:16), not anger.

be still The word (BDB 198, KB 226) has several usages.

1. fear in battle Exo 15:14-16

2. speechless in judgment 2Sa 2:9

3. silence in death Psa 31:17; Psa 94:17; Jer 48:2; Jer 49:26

4. shocked silence at destruction Jer 25:37

5. silence of wisdom in an appropriate moment Psa 4:4; Psa 62:5; Psa 131:2; Amo 5:13

Selah See notes at Psa 3:2.

Psa 4:5 trust in the Lord This is a recurrent theme (BDB 105, KB 120).

1. a call to sinners Psa 4:5

2. a call to the faithful Psa 9:10; Psa 32:10; Psa 37:3; Psa 37:5; Psa 40:3; Psa 55:23; Psa 56:4; Psa 56:11; Psa 84:12; Psa 91:2; Psa 112:7; Psa 115:11; Psa 125:1; Psa 143:8; Pro 16:20; Pro 29:25; Isa 26:3-4

3. the king Psa 21:7; Psa 25:2; Psa 26:1; Psa 28:7

4. the fathers Psa 22:4-5

5. O people Psa 62:8; Psa 115:9

6. priests Psa 115:10

It is trust in YHWH and His word that brings hope (cf. Psa 4:3), joy (cf. Psa 4:7), and peace (cf. Psa 4:8) in this fallen world.

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

Stand in awe, &c. = Stand in awe and [so] sin not. sin. Hebrew. chata’

still = silent.

Selah. Connecting their sin with its being put away. See App-66.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

The Four Acts of Religion

Stand in awe, and sin not:

Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still.

Offer the sacrifices of righteousness,

And put your trust in the Lord.Psa 4:4-5.

1. The Fourth Psalm is an evening petition, emanating from the same period in Davids life as the morning petition which precedes it. Both may reasonably be referred to the occasion of Absaloms rebellion. The present Psalm is slightly different from its predecessor in tone, inasmuch as it assumes in part the form of a gentle loving expostulation with the enemies, and seeks for their conversion rather than their overthrow. A quieter tone prevails. There is less of complaint, more of joyous confidence. The difference is just that between a man rising to encounter a day of trial by faith in Jehovah and a man seeking rest in the conviction that all things work together for the good of the righteous, and that even for the most hardened sinner there is hope of repentance.

This is the evening psalm of Christendom. A great body of devout and homiletic literature has gathered round this Psalm, particularly among our people, on the fourth and sixth verses. The Vulgate version of the former is, Irascimini et nolite peccare: quae dicitis in cordibus vestris, et in cubilibus vestris compungimini. This was explained commonly as, Be wroth (with yourselves) and sin not (further); say in your hearts whatever you say; repent in your beds. The seventh verse is, Signatum est super nos lumen vultus tui DomineThere is stamped on us the light of Thy countenance, O Lord. This verse was a text for Charlemagne in his struggle against images in churches. His Capitulare on the subject is almost a series of sermons, pleading against things which dim instead of reveal the light of Gods countenance.1 [Note: C. L. Marson, The Psalms at Work, 9.]

2. The fourth and fifth verses contain four acts, those four acts which belong to the birth of the religious lifeself-awakening, self-communion, self-confession, and self-abandonment. There is, first, the awakening of self-life to the presence of another law, a moral law which says, Stand in awe, and sin not. There is, secondly, the communing of the soul with itself, the asking of that momentous question, Am I in harmony with this moral law? There is, thirdly, the recognition of righteousness and the unreserved confession of sin and weakness. Lastly, there is the perception that the consciousness of merit is itself a want of harmony with law, and the soul by an act of self-forgetfulness loses its sense alike of merit and of demerit in the trust of the living God.

My soul, wouldst thou reach this blessed conclusion? Wouldst thou arrive at this final haven of moral peace where thy weakness shall itself become thy strength? Thou mayest arrive at it, but it must be after a storma storm whose peculiarity shall be its inaudibleness to any ear but thine. Ere thou canst reach the final rest thou must enter into communion with thyself, must examine thine old nature in the stillness of solitude. Thine must be a struggle with thine own thoughtsa struggle where there is no clang of arms, but whose soreness lies in its very silence. How still is that communion which thy God requires of thee! Commune with thine own heart; what converse so silent as that? Thine own heart; not the heart of another. The heart of another would give more companionship, but it would give less test of truth. Thou mightest compare thy righteousness with the righteousness of thy brother, and go down to thy house rejoicing, and yet all the time thou mightest be in discord with the moral law of God. Only in thine own heart canst thou see thyself truly reflected, therefore it is with thyself that thy Father bids thee commune. Commune upon thy bed; not alone with thine own heart, but with thine own heart in the stillest localityin the silence of the midnight hour, where there is no distraction, and where there is no deception. There thou shalt learn what it is to be an individual soul. In the world thou art taught to forget this; thy little life is swallowed up in the crowd, and thy moral good or ill seems an indifferent thing. But here the worlds judgment is reversed. When thou art alone with God the crowd melts away, and thou art to thyself an universe. Thy very sense of sin reveals to thee the infinitude of thy being. Thy very moral struggle tells thee that in spite of thyself thou art an immortal. Commune with thine own heart, O my soul.1 [Note: G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, 214.]

In Angelica, you have the entirely spiritual mind, wholly versed in the heavenly world, and incapable of conceiving any wickedness or vileness whatsoever.

In Salvator, you have an awakened conscience, and some spiritual power, contending with evil, but conquered by it, and brought into captivity to it.

In Drer, you have a far purer conscience and higher spiritual power, yet, with some defect still in intellect, contending with evil, and nobly prevailing over it; yet retaining the marks of the contest, and never so entirely victorious as to conquer sadness.

In Giorgione, you have the same high spiritual power and practical sense; but now, with entirely perfect intellect, contending with evil; conquering it utterly, casting it away for ever, and rising beyond it into magnificence of rest.2 [Note: Ruskin, Modern Painters (Works, vii. 373).]

I.

Self-Awakening

Stand in awe, and sin not.

1. Stand in awe, and sin not. This seems to be a little remote from the phraseology of modern religious life. Our vocabulary is of a different type and order. Words like awe, fear, trembling, appear to be almost obsolete. Our speech finds its emphasis in such words as happiness, joy, peace, comfort. The Psalmist throws us back to quite a different plane. Stand in awe, and sin not! This man has had a vision of the great white Throne. He has been contemplating the terrors of the Lord. He has listened to the awful imperatives. He has had a glimpse of the midnight of alienation. He spent his days in levity, as though God and duty were distant and irrelevant trifles. But now his eyes have come upon the whiteness of the Eternal, the unsullied sovereignty, the holiness that would not be trifled with, and his careless walk is sharply arrested. His levity is changed into trembling. His indifference is broken up in awe.

We have seen the experience in miniature, even in the fellowship of man with man. One man has introduced a piece of indecent or questionable foolery in the presence of another man, and he has been immediately confronted with a face which chilled his blood and froze his levity into a stilled and wondering silence. No mans life will ever be deepened into fruitful awe if he has not seen similar features confronting him in the countenance of God. The face of the Lord is against them that do evil. Woe is me, for mine eyes have seen the King. We have to see the Face if we are to be checked in our frivolity, and if we are to feel our indecencies blazing within us like a destructive fire.

We do not like the hymns in which the whirlwind sweeps and drives. We prefer the hymns that are just filled with honey. And so the sweet hymns are the favourites, and the sweeter they are the more welcome they are to our palates. We have partially dropped the hymns which harrow and alarm, and which minister to our fear. Some of us have what we sometimes call a sweet Jesus. We know Him only as the Speaker of gentle and condescending speech, and of tender, winsome invitation. We have not a Jesus before whom we frequently stand in awe. We glide on in the religious life heedlessly, and at no moment do we stand appalled.1 [Note: J. H. Jowett, Thirsting for the Springs, 131.]

Men do not feel the power of the Gospel when in Christ they discern nothing to fear. Many men are lost because they do not see the great white Throne. Thomas Boston said that the net of the Gospel needed to be weighted with the leads of the terrors of the law, or it would lightly float on the surface and no fish be caught. We must steadily keep in view the sterner patches of the New Testament teaching. We must contemplate the whiteness of the Eternal, and stand in awe.2 [Note: Ibid., 133.]

2. Stand in awe, and sin not. If we do not stand in awe, we are likely to sin, and to think lightly of it. There are various interpretations that we can put upon sin. We can treat a sin as being merely a moral mistake. We can regard it as being only an irresponsible legacy from a sinful parentage. We can think of it as being nothing more than the legitimate outcropping from our animal nature, the warranted self-assertion of the material side of our complex being and therefore not exactly sinful, but rather the natural tone sounded by one of the lower vibrating strings of our humanity. Or we can, without committing ourselves to any doctrine bearing upon us with uncomfortable pressure, contemplate our sin as being a violation of the conventional ideas of the more respectable element of society; or go so far even as to think of it as being a transgression of the moral lawattaching to the phrase moral law, however, no signification over-earnest in its exactions; for a mere law, if carelessly thought of, becomes that impersonal and visionary thing that touches no sensitive spot in our deeper nature.

Christs teaching concerning sin has been before the Church and the world for many centuries, but neither the world nor the Church has fully accepted it. The old practice of straining out gnats and swallowing camels still prevails; and, if the sins which the Jews considered great have been recognized in their extreme littleness, still, those which they regarded as too small to deserve notice are looked upon very much as the Jews looked upon them in our Saviours day; and, on the whole, sin, according to the world and according to the Church too, is more what the Scribes and Pharisees pronounced it to be than what Jesus Christ said it was.1 [Note: Life of Hugh Stowell Brown, 390.]

There is a pathetical story of Origen,that when he had fallen into a foul apostasy, and, after some recovery from it, came into a congregation, and was desired to preach; he took the Bible, and opened it accidentally at the Fiftieth Psalm, and his eye fell first to read these words in the sixteenth and seventeenth verses of it:But unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth? Seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my words behind thee. Upon reading the words, he remembered his own fall; and, instead of preaching, he fell a weeping, and wept so bitterly, that he caused all the congregation to weep with him.2 [Note: J. Lightfoot, Works, vi. 111.]

II.

Self-Communion

Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still.

When we have gazed upon the undefiled heights, upon the holiness of God, we are then to hold a soliloquy with ourselves. In his Saints Everlasting Rest, Richard Baxter says that every good Christian is a good preacher in his own soul. The very same methods that a minister uses in his preaching to others every Christian should endeavour after in speaking to himself. Having seen the Throne, let us hold converse with our own hearts.

Central Africa was to Stewart what Arabia was to Paula retreat in which he examined his own heart, revised his life, developed the self-reliance which is based upon the reliance of faith, and sought complete consecration to Christ and His service. In these great solitudes he had his musing times and sessions of sweet thought, and heard the voice of God more distinctly than elsewhere. His faith in God, always strong, Dr. Wallace writes, though not effusive, was strengthened by his experiences of the solitary life in the heart of Africa, entirely cut off from Christian fellowship. In a letter written to me, when his only companion was a native boy, he said that he had never felt so near heaven, and added that now to him, God, holiness and heaven are the only things worth living for. 1 [Note: J. Wells, The Life of James Stewart of Lovedale, 93.]

1. The heart is the seat, not only of the desires and emotions, but also of the conscience and the intellect. The Psalmist appeals, in these words, to the conscience and reason of his hearers. He would have them collect their thoughts, and say in their heart something like those words of Isaiah, Come ye, and let us walk in the light of Jehovah.

There is the belief of the head and the belief of the heart. And these two blend together in one. As the heart believes, the objects of belief gradually clear and become definite to us. We no longer use words merely: we feel within us that they have a meaning; but our inward experience becomes the rock on which we stand: it is like the consciousness of our own existence. Can I doubt that He who has taught me to serve Him from my youth upwardHe who supported me in that illness, who brought me near to the gates of death and left me not alone, is none other than God Himself? Can I doubt that He who gave me the impulse to devote myself to His work and to the good of mankind, who in some way inexplicable to me enables me to calm the violence of passion, the thought of envy, malice, impurity, to whom I go to lay open my breast and cleanse the thoughts of my heart, can be none other than the true God? Can it be that that example which He has given me in the life of His Son is other than the truth for me and for all mankind? Here we seem to have found the right starting-point. Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.1 [Note: Benjamin Jowett, College Sermons, 21.]

In Psa 77:6 we read: I commune with mine own heart; and my spirit maketh diligent search. Here David and his heart are talking together; and see what his heart saith unto him in Psa 16:7 : My reins instruct me in the night seasons. For that the heart and reins do signify the same thing, when they are taken in a spiritual sense, and that they, so taken, do signify the conscience,is a matter so copiously evident in Scripture that I need not to use any instances to prove it. And so in Joh 8:9, when our Saviour bids, Whosoever is without sin, cast the first stone at the woman taken in adultery, it is said of the company present, that they were convicted of their own conscience. The word in the Greek doth properly signify a conviction by argument: there was something within them that over-argued them, and talked and disputed them clean away. And so in Rom 2:15 : The consciences of the very heathen spake, as it were, within them, and gave in evidence either for them or against them, their thoughts either accusing or excusing, inter se invicem, as the Vulgar Latin,as in a discourse among themselves.2 [Note: J. Lightfoot, Works, vi. 101.]

Commune with thine own heart!no need

To wander the wide earth around;

If but in thine own breast thou read

Arightthy God thou wilt have found;

Who habiteth Eternity

There condescends to dwell with thee.

Commune with thine own heart! for there

The Heaven-ascending ladder lies,

A pathway into purer air,

A window giving on the skies;

Through which thou mayest wing thy flight,

And mingle with the Infinite.

Commune with thine own heart!for there

The better, nobler self resides,

That in the life Divine doth share,

And ever in the Presence bides;

The self with Deity at one,

As with its beam the central sun.

Therefrom the world of sense aloof

Such insight shall be granted thee

As shall afford thee ample proof

Of thine august paternity;

The Spirit witnessing with thine

That thou art sprung from seed Divine.1 [Note: William Hall, Via Cruris.]

2. Upon your bed.To commune upon ones bed is a form of expression taken from the common practice and experience of men. We know that, during our intercourse with men in the daytime, our thoughts are distracted, and we often judge rashly, being deceived by the external appearance; whereas in solitude, we can give to any subject a closer attention; and, further, the sense of shame does not then hinder a man from thinking without disguise of his own faults. David, therefore, exhorts his enemies to withdraw from those who witnessed and judged of their actions on the public stage of life, and to be alone, that they may examine themselves more truthfully and honestly. And this exhortation has respect to us all; for there is nothing to which men are more prone than to deceive one another with empty applause, until each man enters into himself, and communes alone with his own heart. Paul, when quoting this passage in Eph 4:26, or, at least, when alluding to the sentiment of David, follows the Septuagint, Be ye angry, and sin not. And yet he has skilfully and beautifully applied it to his purpose. He there teaches us that men, instead of wickedly pouring forth their anger against their neighbours, have rather just cause to be angry with themselves, in order that, by this means, they may abstain from sin. And, therefore, he commands them rather to fret inwardly, and be angry with themselves; and then to be angry not so much at the persons, as at the vices of others.2 [Note: Calvin, Psalms, i. 44.]

Whoso goeth to his bed as to his grave, may go to his grave as to his bed.3 [Note: Bishop Horne.]

3. The familiar maxim, Know thyself, shows that self-knowledge has for ages been considered desirable. In the ethical codes of the wiser moralists of the ancient world, the duty of self-analysis was prominent. As it was recommended and practised by them, however, it was quite different from the duty which is enforced here. Goethe, again, was an eager student of his own nature, and he was incessant and triumphant in his devotion to that study; but his one aim was to know his art, by knowing that on which it was to tell; and, to reach it, he was ready to sacrifice himself. Or, a man may seek acquaintance with his own nature for the worst as well as for the best of purposes. With a view to ends altogether unworthy of him, he may study the habits of his soul with the utmost care.

It is with the heart in its relation to things unseen and eternal that we are to commune. This is a duty which is strictly specific in its relation to certain objects. These are the habits of a mans nature in reference to Gods truth, and immortality, and to whatever else constitutes us moral and responsible beings. What are our relations to God? What are our feelings towards Him? In what spirit and manner do we fulfil the obligations which He has laid on us? These are the questions which it is our highest interest to ask, and which we can answer only when we know our hearts and know them well. While this is our object, it often happens that by observing our dispositions towards what is external we are able to see most clearly into the inner man. We cannot take a purely abstract view of our own character. We must test ourselves by what tests us. We have to look out at times that we may look in. When we comprehend the influence which business and pleasure, our companions and our pursuits, exert on our moral nature, we see also how it stands affected towards what is higher and better. Our purpose, however, in all this must be to judge ourselves spiritually. Our aim is not simply to become masters of our own thoughts and feelings. Neither is it a desire to control the minds of others. We commune with our hearts that we may know what we are morally, and how we stand related to things that are unseen and eternal.

I had a treasure in my house,

And woke one day to find it gone;

I mourned for it from dawn till night,

From night till dawn.

I said, Behold, I will arise

And sweep my house, and so I found

What I had lost, and told my joy

To all around.

I had a treasure in my heart,

And scarcely knew that it had fled,

Until communion with my Lord

Grew cold and dead.

Behold, I said, I will arise

And sweep my heart of self and sin;

And so the peace that I have lost

May enter in.

O friends, rejoice with me! Each day

Helps my lost treasure to restore;

And sweet communion with my Lord

Is mine once more.1 [Note: Caroline A. Mason.]

(1) This communing must be marked by uncompromising fidelity. It were better not to take this trust in hand than to be faithless to it. Honesty and impartiality should characterize our inquiries. We must not desist from them when they become painful, because they awaken a slumbering conscience, or are at war with some dearly loved indulgence.

(2) In our self-communings Scripture should be our guide. Its aim is to lead the man who communes with himself to seek communion with Him by whom he can be transformed into the image of God. The Spirit of holiness, which alone can purify mans nature, is made known in the Word of truth. As a mere duty, the habit to which the text exhorts us would fail to do us good; but when we engage in it aright, it gives us trust and desire, bringing us into the presence of our best Friend. It first casts us down, and then raises us up. It declares to us the plague of our own hearts, that we may repair to Him who is the great and good Physician of souls.

Never yet did there exist a full faith in the Divine Word which did not expand the intellect, while it purified the heart; which did not multiply and exalt the aims and objects of the understanding, while it fixed and simplified those of the desires and feelings.2 [Note: S. T. Coleridge.]

4. We should distinguish heart-communion from some things from which it differs. Thus we are not to identify the exercise with religious contemplation, that higher form of intellectual homage which the mind, when elevated above the level of earthly things, pays to the wisdom of God. Neither is meditation to be confounded with the exercise of reading, even though it be thoughtful, prayerful, scriptural reading. This may be helpful to heart-communion, but it is not the same, and is not a substitute for it. In all reading we have a view to the acquirement of some new truth, or at all events, to more deepened impressions of truths already known, in the hope that these truths, apprehended by the understanding more perfectly, may appeal with more power to the conscience and the heart. But in meditation we are not learning truths, but applying them. We are reducing what we have acquired to practice; our business lies directly with the affections and the will, which on the admitted sufficiency of present light, and under the felt force of present convictions are urged forward to greater attainments in practical holiness, to resolutions of higher aim, and victories more prominent, sanctified, and complete over all the desires of the flesh and of the mind.

It is not every speaking in the heart [the literal translation of the words] that the Psalmist here engageth to; for the fool speaks in heart, and saith in his heart, There is no God: the epicure speaks in his heart, and saith, I shall never be moved: the atheist speaks in his heart, and saith, Tush, God hath forgotten, he will never see it. And these persons to whom David speaketh, if we hit the occasion of the Psalm aright, were ready enough to say in their heart, We will none of David, and nothing to do with the son of Jesse: but the text enjoineth such a conference in the heart, as that the matters betwixt a man and his own heart may be debated to the very utmost,that the heart may be so put to it in communing with it, as that it might speak its very bottom.1 [Note: J. Lightfoot, Works, vi. 99.]

Behold, beloved, among yourselves, and regard and wonder marvellously; for I can tell you a sad story in your ears, which ye will not believe, though it be told you. I have lived these forty years, and somewhat more, and carried my heart in my bosom all this while, and yet my heart and I are as great strangers, and as utterly unacquainted, as if we had never come near one another. And is there none, in this congregation, that can say the like? He spake very good sense, and much piety in it, that complained that he had lived so many years above threescore, and had been a student in the Scripture all his time, and yet could never attain to take out that lesson in the first verse of the nine-and-thirtieth Psalm,That he should not offend with his tongue. But it is to speak a thing of monstrousness and amazement, to say that a man should live so long a time as I have done,nay, as some do, to threescore, to fourscore years,and yet never to get into acquaintance and to communication with their own hearts! who could believe such a report? and yet, how common is this amongst men!1 [Note: J. Lightfoot, Works, vi. 111.]

5. It is not mere worldly self-communion that the Psalmist recommends. It is not the far-seeing prudence of the man of the world, meditating upon his pleasures and his gains. It is not the self-complacency of the self-righteous, seeking out grounds for trusting in himself that he is righteous, and despising others. It is not the morbid self-contemplation of one merely gazing upon the workings of his own mind as he would watch some delicate machinery, without earnest resolves of self-amendment.

Self-anatomy may surely be either good or evil; to be free from it altogether, as is the case with many of the noblest women, is no doubt a blessing, and suited to their nature. I much doubt whether it be the same with men; a more distinct introspection of our own motives and feelings seems natural to us, and we are likely to go wrong without it. On the other hand, it is apt to become a dangerous and morbid trick, when its predominance makes the judgment chiefly analytical; then we come practically to look upon ourselves as a collection of wheels and springs, moved mechanically by motives, and we are suspicious and jealous of ourselves in a way the reverse of true Christian humility and watchfulness, misinterpreting our best and noblest impulses, either by persuading ourselves that they are merely imaginary or by resolving them into corrupt wishes. We then act in the same way towards others, especially those who may be in, or may be brought into, any near relation to ourselves, mistrusting in them all that is not comprehensible. Yet I doubt not that self-anatomy is in some form needful to deliver us from carnal delusions; and wisely-tempered self-consciousness, if it has its miseries, may also bring blessings unspeakable both on ourselves and on those who have it not.2 [Note: Life of F. J. A. Hort, i. 166.]

(1) It is, first, the effort of the mind by grace to draw away its thoughts and its affections from earth to heaven; from the things which are seen to realities unseen except by faith. It is surely not by mere accident that the sin which ruins souls is so often described in Scripture as the forgetfulneas of God. The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God. They cannot indeed finally and for ever banish the remembrance of God completely from their minds. They only wish they could. But they do their best. And so they set their affections on things below. They drown the remembrance of heaven and hell and death and judgment by the never-ceasing clamour of earthly cares and carnal lusts, in which they plunge themselves day by day, and all day long. He, then, that would avoid their sin and danger must have his seasons of stated religious self-communion; when he may close his eyes upon the things of time and sense, and suffer the Spirit of God to draw up his mind to thoughts of the things eternal: when he may renew his strength to use this world, as not abusing it by secret acts of communion with that God who is a Spirit.

(2) Secondly, the Psalmists self-communion is for the trial of a mans spiritual condition. Examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. And the questions to be asked by one who sets about it are not merely concerning what he does, or what he feels, or what he fancies. The inquiry is not what he once was, or what he hopes to be, but what he is. What is the prevailing tone and bias of his mind? What does he take most pleasure in? From what motive does he act? What are his friendships, and his favourite haunts? What is he in the unrestrained intercourse of private life? For many are the self-deceits that men put upon themselves. Scarcely any danger indeed is more earnestly exposed in Scripture than the danger of thinking we are safe when we are not: the danger of fancying ourselves accepted sons of God whilst unmortified passions proclaim us children of the wicked one: the danger of speaking and thinking confidently of our religious hopes, whilst the entire or partial absence of the Spirits fruits declares our hopes a lie. And when the Psalmist calls us to self-communion, he would have us use it to test ourselves, by sound Scripture rules, whether the Spirit of Christ have real possession of us or not.

If thou canst not continually recollect thyself, yet do it sometimes, at the least once a day, namely, in the morning or at night. In the morning fix thy good purpose, and at night examine thyself what thou hast done, how thou hast behaved thyself in word, deed, and thought; for in these, perhaps, thou hast oftentimes offended against God and thy neighbour. Examine me, O Lord, and prove me; try my reins and my heart.1 [Note: Thomas Kempis.]

If, after a serious retrospect of your past lives, of the objects you have pursued, and the principles which have determined your conduct, they appear to be such as will ill sustain the scrutiny of a dying hour, dare to be faithful to yourselves, and shun with horror that cruel treachery to your best interests which would impel you to sacrifice the happiness of eternity to the quiet of a moment.2 [Note: Robert Hall, Funeral Sermon for the Princess Charlotte.]

(3) And thus, thirdly, its proper office is to convince us of sin, and to humble us in remorse and shame for it. Humility, says onegenuine humilityis almost the last virtue man learns upon earth. All that lies around us is framed as if to teach us pride. And the only remedy is the consciousness of sin. To produce in us through grace this consciousness of sin, we are exhorted to self-communion. For genuine humility, observe, is not the mere vague self-condemnatory tone of a man merely lamenting his fallen nature. Many will confess their sinfulness who give no heed to their daily sins. Many will be heard to speak in the most exaggerated language of the depravity of their human nature who have no idea whatever of their own specific faults. They call themselves the worst of sinners, but they do not search out and confess their sins. And hence it often happens that no men slight the Churchs calls to self-discipline so contemptuously as those who need them most.

Although I had long known and admired Dr. McLaren in his preaching and his writings, it was only during the later years of his life that I became personally acquainted with him. My first introduction to him took place in Aberdeen in the house of my friend Sir George Reid, to whom he was sitting for his portrait. After this he was frequently under my medical care on his visits to Edinburgh, and especially during the year preceding his death. From the first of this acquaintance I was deeply impressed with his remarkable personality. While my interviews with him mainly bore reference to matters concerning his health, there soon began to grow up a feeling of something more than professional relationship, namely, a true and firm friendship.

Of Dr. McLaren it might truly be said he was clothed with humility. Who could have known from anything he said of himself that this man was one of the foremost preachers and expositors of the age, whose name was a household word throughout Christendom? Yet who could be for any time in his company without feeling that his presence and his words were at once an inspiration and a benediction?1 [Note: Sir James Affleck, in Dr. M Laren of Manchester, 263.]

(4) But, fourthly, the believers self-communion is no mere idle and fruitless habit of morbid self-contemplation. Its use is, that it is the handmaid of real repentance. It is the healthy self-scrutiny of one earnestly desirous of amendment: whose remorse and shame are not the mere sorrow of the world, but the natural outpouring of a heart that God has touched, and awakened to a real longing to be wholly His. He communes with his own heart to see his dangers and through grace to avoid them. He marks how the infinite variety of his passions, feelings, and ideas ripened into words and actions. He breaks up the ground of his heart, to find the seeds of those habits which are ready to spring up and give the colour to his life. He watches how some trivial indulgence strengthens into a criminal necessity; how a momentary thought returns, and becomes rooted in ones bosom, and springs up a plant of iniquity; how an action, which startled him at first, steals silently and rapidly into the train of things committed without hesitation.

The great work is done by men who have in them a Divine dissatisfaction; who are ever striving for something higher, who have not attained, but who press on toward the mark. The decline of this spirit is the beginning of the end. It is told of Thorwaldsen, the great Danish sculptor, that, feeling his freshness of conception decaying, he said to a friend, My power is on the decline. Asked what he meant, he pointed to a statue of Christ. That, said he, is the first piece of work I have ever been satisfied with. Till now my idea has always been far beyond my power to reach it. But it is no longer so. I shall never have a great idea again. In the spiritual life there can be no self-satisfaction. Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

An ingenious artist of our time, says Hazlitt, in his Table-talk, has been heard to declare, that if ever the Devil got him into his clutches he would set him to copy his own pictures. By doing this, he would encourage a self-complacency and satisfaction with what had already been attained, which would render all further advance impossible. Thus, says Hazlitt, the secure, self-complacent retrospect to what is done is nothing; while the anxious, uneasy looking forward to what is to come is everything. We are afraid to dwell upon the past, lest it should retard our future progress; the indulgence of ease is fatal to excellence.1 [Note: J. Burns, Illustrations from Art (1912), 88.]

(5) Once more, our self-communings should lead us up to Christ; to Him who never bends over us with such deep compassion as when we are humbled with the sense and consciousness of sin. For the duty enjoined on us in the text is not an end, but a means. It is the instrument of godliness, not godliness itselfone of the workmans tools and implements with which the goodly fabric is built up. The end of it is Christ: Christ in whom alone the sacrifice of righteousness, which the next verse tells of, is offered up, and through whom alone the believer builds up his trust in God. The whole purpose and object of self-communion is to take away our trust in self, and place it unreservedly on Him; to make us feel our need of pardon, and to tell us where and for what we need it; to impress on us the sense of our own hearts weakness and deceitfulness, that we may go to Him for light and strength. It is to make us, in short, better Christians, and more self-denying and self-watchful men.

To be with God, there is no need to be continually in church. Of our heart we may make an Oratory, wherein to retire from time to time, and with Him hold meek, humble, loving converse. Every one can converse closely with God, some more, others less: He knows what we can do. Let us begin then; perhaps He is just waiting for one generous resolution on our part; let us be brave. So little time remains for us to live. Let us live and die with God: sufferings will be ever sweet and pleasant to us, while we abide with Him; and without Him, the greatest pleasures will be but cruel anguish. May He be blessed for all! Amen.2 [Note: Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God, 41.]

6. Commune with thine own heart upon thy bed, and be still. This brings us to the centre of our subject. We need quiet hours. We are too much in societymuch more, from the necessities of our age partly, than our fathers were. We are too gregarious. We do not listen enough for the quiet tones of truth, as it speaks directly to the soul; but we look for the responsive verdict and the answering nod of our fellow-men. In all right growth there is quietness. The flowers unobserved expand their buds, and with a like noiseless progress the cornfields whiten with the grain of autumn. It is even so in the spiritual world. The heart that communes with itself and with its God makes no display, but steadily and surely the blessed results appear, in ite growing resemblance to the Man Christ Jesus.

Be able to be alone. Lose not the advantage of Solitude, and the Society of thyself, nor be only content, but delight to be alone and single with Omnipresency. He who is thus prepared, the Day is not uneasy nor the Night black unto him. Darkness may bound his Eyes, not his Imagination. In his Bed he may lie, like Pompey and his Sons, in all quarters of the Earth, may speculate the Universe, and enjoy the whole World in the Hermitage of himself. Thus the old ascetick Christians found a paradise in a Desert, and with little converse on Earth held a conversation in Heaven; thus they astronomized in Caves, and, though they beheld not the Stars, had the Glory of Heaven before them.1 [Note: Sir Thomas Browne.]

III.

Self-Confession

Offer the sacrifices of righteousness.

1. What are sacrifices of righteousness? It is probable that in this Psalm they are not sacrifices which, instead of consisting in slaughtered animals, consist in actions which are in accordance with Gods will; they are sacrifices that are offered in the right disposition, in the disposition that is in conformity with the mind of God, and not in a hypocritical spirit.

2. But whatever these words may have meant to the Psalmist, they can mean only one thing for us who live in the light of the Gospel day. When a man has contemplated the dazzling holiness of God, and in self-communion has discovered his own dark appalling need, and, full of trembling, turns again to the Father, he has only one resource. He must offer the sacrifice of righteousness. Christ Jesus is our Righteousness. Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.

(1) When the Israelites brought their sacrifices, the first thing they did was to lay their hand on the victim, and make a confession of sin. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. Let us own our shortcomings and transgressions. Let us not cloak or excuse our sins. Let us go to our chamber, and tell the Lord what we have done, pouring out our hearts before Him. Let us confess our pride and unbelief, our dishonesty, our falsehood, our disobedience to parents, our every breach of the Divine law; whatsoever we have done amiss; let us confess it before Him, and thus go to Him in the only way in which He can receive us, even as sinners owning our guilt.

Out of the gulf into the glory,

Father, my soul cries out to be lifted.

Dark is the woof of my dismal story,

Thorough thy sun-warp stormily drifted!

Out of the gulf into the glory,

Lift me, and save my story.

I have done many things merely shameful;

I am a man ashamed, my Father!

My life is ashamed and broken and blameful

The broken and blameful, oh, cleanse and gather!

Heartily shame me, Lord, of the shameful!

To my judge I flee with my blameful.

Saviour, at peace in Thy perfect purity,

Think what it is, not to be pure!

Strong in Thy loves essential security,

Think upon those who are never secure.

Full fill my soul with the light of Thy purity;

Fold me in loves security.

O Father, O Brother, my heart is sore aching!

Help it to ache as much as is needful;

Is it you cleansing me, mending, remaking,

Dear potter-hands, so tender and heedful?

Sick of my past, of my own self-aching

Hurt on, dear hands, with your making.

Proud of the form Thou hadst given Thy vessel,

Proud of myself, I forget my donor;

Down in the dust I began to nestle,

Poured Thee no wine, and drank deep of dishonour!

Lord, Thou hast broken, Thou mendest Thy vessel!

In the dust of Thy glory I nestle.1 [Note: George MacDonald, Poetical Works, ii. 358.]

Give me leave to relate unto you a story out of the Turkish history, and to apply it:

Uladislaus, the king of Hungary, having made a league with Amurath, the great Turk, and solemnly covenanted and sealed to articles thereof in the name of Christ, was afterwards persuaded to break it, and to go to war against Amurath. Being in the heat of the fatal battle at Varna, the Turk draws the articles of the league out of his bosom, and spreads them towards the crucifix which he saw in the Christians banner, with these words: Now, Christ, if thou be a God, as they say thou art, revenge the wrong done unto thy name by these thy Christians, who made this league in thy name, and now have thus broken it. And, accordingly, was this wretched covenant-breach avenged with the death of Uladislaus, and almost all his army.

Should Christ spread our covenant before us, upon the same accusing terms as he spread his before Christ, what could we answer? Or, if Satan should spread our covenant before God against us, as Hezekiah did the Assyrians letter, what could we say for ourselves in so horrid and so plain a case? If the Lord should implead us, and speak such bitter things as these against us, You have suffered the solemnest covenant to be thus broken, that ever was sworn unto by men: the horridest heresies and errors have grown amongst you that ever did among a nation: as glorious a church as was under heaven is thus near ruined before your eyes: and the glorious gospel that shone upon earth is almost destroyed,and you look on! How could we answer, or hold up our faces before the Lord? but how must iniquity lay her hand upon her mouth, and not be able to speak a word!2 [Note: J. Lightfoot, Works, vi. 123.]

(2) The main thing, however, is to bring to the Lord the offering which He has divinely appointed and provided. There is one sacrifice of righteousness without which we cannot be accepted. We come to God by faith in Jesus Christ, we plead the precious blood of atonement, and say, My Lord, for His dear sake who died upon the tree, receive Thy wanderer, and now be pleased to grant me that repentance and remission of sins which He is exalted to give.

How monstrous and shameful the nature of sin is, is sufficiently apparent from that great atonement which is necessary to cleanse us from the guilt of it. Nothing less has been required to take away the guilt of our sins than the sufferings and death of the Son of God. Had He not taken our nature upon Him, our nature had been for ever separated from God, and incapable of ever appearing before Him. And is there any room for pride, or self-glory, whilst we are partakers of such a nature as this? Have our sins rendered us so abominable and odious to Him that made us, that He could not so much as receive our prayers, or admit our repentance, till the Son of God made Himself Man, and became a Suffering Advocate for our whole race; and can we in this state pretend to high thoughts of ourselves? Shall we presume to take delight in our own worth, who are not worthy so much as to ask pardon for our sins without the mediation and intercession of the Son of God?1 [Note: William Law, Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, 299.]

There is one only Way

From death to life for me:

It is by Thee, O Crucified!

I, also, in Thy death have died,

And, since Thou livest, live in Thee,

Who art the living Way.

There is one only Way

Of righteousness for me:

O Jesus, risenliving now

My only righteousness art Thou!

I draw my life and strength from Thee,

Who art the living Way.2 [Note: E. H. Divall, A Believers Rest, 154.]

IV.

Self-Abandonment

Put your trust in the Lord.

1. How graciously the passage closes! The awe and the trembling converge in fruitful trust! The discovery of the holy Sovereignty, the discovery of personal defilement, the discovery of a Redeemer, are consummated in the discovery of rest. When I have found my Righteousness my part is now to trust. The awe, the purity of the holy Sovereignty will become mine. Trust keeps open the line of communication between the soul and God. Along that line convoys of blessedness are brought into the heart; manifold gifts of grace for the weak and defenceless spirit. When I trust I keep open the highway of the Lord, and along that road there come to me from the Eternal my bread, my water, my instructions, my powers of defence. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. I can work out my own salvation with fear and trembling.

It seems to me that the great difference between the Christian and the unbeliever is this: the unbeliever says that he cannot lay hold of God, and so believes in himself only. The Christian in proportion as he lays hold of God cannot believe in himself. Now the highest point of the Christian character is that in which we attain forgetfulness of self and act simply as Gods creatures. Such is the temper seen in St. Paul and St. John very clearly. But this self-forgetfulness is the fruit of a long process of training in trust in God. To you and me the pain of life lies in the perpetual contrast between the aspiration of our spirit and the poor realization of our actual life. It is no wonder that people have tried at many times to simplify the problemthat they have sought a special form of life in which they might be free from ordinary temptationsthe monastery, the brotherhood, the ascetic practice; but all in vain, for the difficulty lay not without, but withinnot in the world, but in their own heart.1 [Note: Life and Letters of Mandell Creighton, i. 327.]

Looking back, I can say that the hardest battles of life are those fought with self; this is the one ever-present foe; the great crisis-fights are those which are fought within. Interpret life as we may, there are moments in which we cannot do without God; we must invoke His aid against the foe within. The victory lies in the gift of being ready to meet lifes vicissitudes with calmness. Such a victory is won with the conviction of the presence and providence of the living God, in whom worldly anxieties and ambitions may be vanquished.2 [Note: Bishop Boyd Carpenter, Some Pages of My Life, 173.]

2. How are we to put our trust in the Lord?

(1) First, we are to trust Him as willing to receive us, to forgive us, to accept us, and to bless us. Are we despairing? Do we say, There is no hope? Put your trust in the Lord. Are we saying, I am without strength, and, therefore, cannot be saved? Why not? Put your trust in the Lord. Does the evil one say that God will not receive us? Put your trust in the Lord, who is infinitely gracious, and full of compassion. As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Surely we may trust in Him whose mercy endureth for ever.

For a long time no equivalent could be found in the language of Aniwa for faith, and my work of Bible translation was paralysed for the want of so fundamental and oft-recurring a term. The natives apparently regarded the verb to hear as equivalent to to believe. I would ask a native whether he believed a certain statement, and his reply would be, should he credit the statement, Yes, I heard it; but, should he disbelieve it, he would answer, No, I did not hear it, meaning, not that his ears had failed to catch the words, but that he did not regard them as true. This definition of faith was obviously insufficient. Many passages, such as Faith cometh by hearing, would be impossible of translation through so meagre a channel; and we prayed continually that God would supply the missing link. I spared no effort in interrogating the most intelligent native pundits, but all in vain, none caught the hidden meaning of the word.

One day I was in my room anxiously pondering. I sat on an ordinary kitchen chair, my feet resting on the floor. Just then an intelligent native woman entered the room, and the thought flashed through my mind to ask the all-absorbing question yet once again, if possible in a new light.

Was I not resting on the chair? Would that attitude lend itself to the discovery?

I said, What am I doing now?

Koikae ana, Youre sitting down, the native replied.

Then I drew up my feet and placed them upon the bar of the chair just above the floor, and leaning back in an attitude of repose, asked: What am I doing now?

Fakarongrongo, You are leaning wholly, or, You have lifted yourself from every other support.

Thats it! I shouted, with an exultant cry; and a sense of holy joy awed me, as I realized that my prayer had been so fully answered.

To lean on Jesus wholly and only is surely the true meaning of appropriating or saving faith. And now Fakarongrongo lesu ea anea mouri (Leaning on Jesus unto eternal life, or for all the things of eternal life) is the happy experience of those Christian islanders, as it is of all who cast themselves unreservedly on the Saviour of the world for salvation.1 [Note: John G. Paton, iii. 55.]

(2) Especially are we to trust in the Lord as He reveals Himself in the person of His Son Jesus Christ. In Him we see love written out in capital letters. Put your trust in the Lord as having provided the one sacrifice for sin, whereby He has put away for ever all the sins of those who believe in Him. God is just, and the justifier of him that believeth. We are to believe that the precious blood can make us whiter than snow, scarlet sinners as we are. Let us come with that daring trust which ventures all upon the bare promise of a faithful God. Let us say, I will go in unto the King, and if I perish I perish.

(3) We are to trust in the Lord, next, that by the work of His Holy Spirit He can renew us. The glorious Lord, who made the world out of nothing, can make something out of us yet. If we are given to anger, the Holy Spirit can make us calm and loving. If we have been defiled with impurity, He can make us pure in heart. If we have been grovelling, He can elevate us. He can put heavenly treasure in earthen vessels. He can set us at last among the heavenly choristers, that our voice, sweeter than that of angels, may be heard amongst their everlasting symphonies. He will even here put us among the children, and set us with the princes of His people. Let us believe that the Holy Ghost can create us anew, can raise us from our dead condition, and can make us perfect in every good work to do His will.

A pleasing memory of early church going at Perth was that of the solemn administration of the Lords Supper. In the procession of the elders, the child (as John Watson was then) was specially interested in an old man with very white hair and a meek, reverent face. Some time after he was walking on the road and passed a man breaking stones. The white hair caught his attention, and he looked back and recognized the elder who had carried the cup. Full of curiosity and wonder, he told his father the strange tale. His father explained to him that the reason why the old man held so high a place in the Church was that, although he was one of the poorest men in all the town, he was one of the holiest. Remember, said his father, the best man that ever lived upon this earth was the poorest, for our Lord had not where to lay His head; and he added, James breaks stones for his living, but he knows more about God than any person I have ever met. So he learned that evening, and never departed from the faith, that the greatest thing in all the world is character, and the crown of character is holiness.1 [Note: W. Robertson Nicoll, Ian Maclaren, 21.]

Literature

Benson (E. W.), Boy-Life, 60.

Boston (T.), Complete Works, iv. 262.

Fairbairn (R. B.), Sermons in St. Stephens College, 97.

Garbett (E.), The Souls Life, 1.

Gregg (D.), Our Best Moods, 31.

Hiley (R. W.), A Years Sermons, iii. 1.

Jowett (J. H.), Thirsting for the Springs, 129.

Lightfoot (J.), Whole Works, vi. 96.

Martineau (J.), in The Outer and the Inner World, 1.

Matheson (G.), Moments on the Mount, 213.

Moore (D.), The Golden Lectures, 2nd Ser., No. 3171.

Parkhurst (C. H.), A Little Lower than the Angels, 159.

Simeon (C.), Works, v. 15.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxxiii. (1888), No. 2033.

Voysey (C.), Sermons, xxvii. (1904), No. 2.

Christian World Pulpit, xix. 377 (Statham); xxii. 257 (MacDonald); lxvi. 129 (Rees).

Church of England Magazine, xli. 272 (Pulcher).

Churchmans Pulpit: Ember Days, xv. 433 (Woolmer).

Clergymans Magazine, 3rd Ser., xi. 333 (Youard).

Contemporary Pulpit, 1st Ser., x. 183 (Spurgeon).

Expositors Library: The Psalms, 1:132 (Keble), 137 (Stracey), 140 (MacEwen), 148 (Rees).

Plain Sermons by Contributors to the Tracts for the Times, i. 19.

Twentieth Century Pastor, xxxi. (1912) 315.

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

Stand: Psa 2:11, Psa 33:8, Psa 119:161, Jer 5:22

sin: Job 28:28, Pro 3:7, Pro 16:6, Pro 16:17, Eph 4:26

commune: Psa 63:6, Psa 77:6, 2Co 13:5

be still: Psa 46:10, Hab 2:20

Selah: Psa 3:2, Psa 3:4

Reciprocal: Jdg 5:16 – great 1Ki 10:2 – communed Neh 5:7 – I consulted with myself Psa 8:2 – still Pro 24:32 – considered it Ecc 1:16 – communed Son 3:1 – night Lam 3:40 – search Hab 3:3 – Selah 1Co 15:34 – sin not 1Jo 2:1 – that

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

SELF-COMMUNION

Commune with your own heart.

Psa 4:4

I. Consider, first, the nature of godly meditation, regarded as a distinct exercise of our practical Christianity.We must not identify the exercise with religious contemplation, that higher form of intellectual homage which the mind, when elevated above the level of earthly things, pays to the wisdom of God; neither is meditation to be confounded with the exercise of reading, even though it be thoughtful, prayerful, scriptural reading. We must also distinguish it from the ordinary act of prayer. Godly meditation is the souls soliloquy; it is the heart rehearsing to itself what shall be the manner of its appearing before God, and what it shall say. It is not so much a religious act in itself as a preparation for all other religious acts. It prepares for Holy Communion by accustoming the mind to the deeper and calmer forms of fellowship with God.

II. Notice some practical directions in relation to this holy exercise.It is clear that meditation is not an act to be learned, but a habit to be formed. We must attain to expertness in it, not by the observance of artificial rules so much as by diligent and persevering practice. (1) David intimates to us the desirableness of securing an outward solemnity and seriousness in this exercise, entire seclusion from all human friendships, the hushing of all voices, both from within and from without, that we may be quite alone with God. (2) A close self-scrutiny is also enjoined in the text, Commune with your own heart. We have much to speak to our hearts about: our mercies, our sins, our work. These thoughts demand retirement, a coming by ourselves apart, a calm trial of our own spirits in the presence of the Father of spirits; they demand a set and deliberate compliance with the exhortation of the Psalmist, Commune with your own heart, and in your chamber, and be still.

Rev. D. Moore.

Illustrations

(1) Let communion with your own heart soothe it to perfect peace and repose, calm in the assurance that nothing shall separate it from Gods love, that the government of all worlds and all beings and all things is upon Christs shoulders, that your heavenly Father is causing all things in your individual history to work together for good, and that you may wait with confidence, quietness and cheerful composure the issue of the night of gloom and tears which now enshrouds your soul within its gloomy pavilion.

(2) This is the psalm which Augustine specially quotes and dwells upon, as worthy to be sung aloud before the whole world as a song of Christian courage and a testimony of the peace God can give in outward or inward trouble (Conf., ix. 4).

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

Psa 4:4. Stand in awe Hebrew, , rigzu, Tremble, therefore, and be afraid, if not of me, yet, at least, of God, who hath engaged himself in my cause, and will be an adversary to my adversaries. So said David, and so says the Messiah. Or, Be angry, as the word is here rendered by all the ancient, and by some modern translators, and even by St. Paul, as it is thought, Eph 4:26. Or, Are you angry? for it may be understood interrogatively: as if he had said, Admit you be angry, or displeased, that God hath preferred me, an obscure person, and of mean family, before so many noble and mighty men; yet, or but, (as it follows,) sin not; that is, do not so far indulge your anger as to break forth into murmuring against God, or rebellion against me; but seasonably suppress and mortify your unadvised and sinful passion, lest it break forth to your ruin. But we must observe further, this Hebrew word signifies, in general, a vehement commotion of the mind or heart, whether through fear, or grief, or anger; many instances of all which significations of it occur in the Old Testament. The clause may, therefore, be here properly rendered, Be moved, (namely, in opposition to carelessness and carnal security,) and sin not. And so it is an important and instructive advice or exhortation to all. For one principal mean of preserving us from sin is to have our hearts properly affected with divine things, especially with the fear and love of God, with a holy reverence of his glory, and awe of his majesty, and dread of his justice and wrath. Let but our hearts he deeply and constantly influenced with these affections; and let our love be truly set on God, and we shall not easily provoke him by the commission of any known sin. Commune with your own heart upon your bed Calmly and deeply consider these things in your own breasts; in the silent night, when you are at leisure from the crowd of distracting cares and business, and free from the company of carnal and worldly men; and be still Compose your tumultuous minds, and suppress your disorderly affections and passions; and, having examined yourselves, and inquired into the state of your hearts and lives, silently expect the answer of your consciences. The enemies of Christ, says Dr. Horne, as well as those of David, are here called to repentance; and the process of conversion is described. The above-mentioned consideration of the divine counsel, and the certainty of its being carried into execution, by the salvation of the righteous, and the confusion of their enemies, makes the wicked tremble. It arrests the sinner in his course, and he goes on no further in the way of sin, but stops and reflects upon what he has been doing; he communes with his own heart upon his bed, and is still; his conscience suffers him not to rest in the night, but takes the advantage of solitude and silence to set before him his transgressions, with all the terrors of death and judgment; stirring him up to confess the former and deprecate the latter, with unfeigned compunction and sorrow of heart; to turn unto the Lord, and do works meet for repentance.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

4:4 {g} Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be {h} still. Selah.

(g) For fear of God’s judgment.

(h) Cease your rage.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

David urged his enemies on the basis of his calling by God (Psa 4:3) not to give way to sin in their anger against the king (cf. Eph 4:26). They needed to tremble with fear and stop sinning. They would be wise to remain still as they meditated on their opposition to David, while lying in bed at night, rather than getting up and opposing him. Opposing the Lord’s anointed would constitute sin. It would be better for them to submit to God by submitting to His agent, King David.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)