Prayer for Forgiveness of Sins.

A song of degrees, known of old as De Profundis, from its opening words in the Latin version, a sinner’s cry to Jehovah for forgiveness and mercy.

v. 1. Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O Lord, these depths being those of sin with its resulting distress, calamity, and peril, represented by an abyss of deep waters, whose waves have passed over the writer.

v. 2. Lord, hear my voice, the appeal being to the All-powerful to grant deliverance; let Thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications, in a careful and merciful attention to his pleading.

v. 3. If Thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, observing them, bearing them in mind, imputing them to the sinner, O Lord, who shall stand? No human being could stand up fearlessly before the all-seeing eye of the All-powerful, the great Judge of all the earth, the consciousness of guilt rather causing every person in the world to sink to the ground before the Lord in the most severe self-condemnation. The verse expresses in the strongest possible manner the utter impossibility of any man to stand before Jehovah in his own merit and righteousness.

v. 4. But there is forgiveness with Thee, the unmerited grace and mercy of the Lord being the only hope of sinful mortals, their only chance of deliverance and salvation, that Thou mayest be feared, for the assurance of God’s mercy, far from producing a feeling of smug satisfaction and licentious leanings, rather makes for holiness. It is not that the believers who are assured of the forgiveness of the Lord presume upon His mercy, but that they walk before Him with all the greater awe.

v. 5. I wait for the Lord, in confident expectation of His deliverance and assistance, my soul doth wait, with all the intensity of a painful longing, and in His Word do I hope, relying upon the promises there set forth.

v. 6. My soul waiteth for the Lord, turned in longing toward the All-powerful, more than they that watch for the morning, those unable to rest on account of illness or misery, in whose case the rising of the dawn will be a release from pain; I say, more than they that watch for the morning, the repetition again emphasizing the eager longing of the heart anxious to see the deliverance of the Lord. The psalmist is sure that redemption will be forthcoming, not only for him, but for all the faithful.

v. 7. Let Israel hope in the Lord, waiting for salvation from Him; for with the Lord there is mercy, He is the only One able to dispense redemption, and with Him is plenteous redemption, mercy in all its fullness, enough for the sins of the whole world. Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. Rom 3:20.

v. 8. And He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities, the prophet here looking forward to the propitiation of Christ, whereby He earned and obtained eternal redemption for us, Heb 9:12. Cf Luk 1:68-75; 2Ti 4:18, this redemption being transmitted to us by faith.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION

THE cry of Israel in extreme distressapparently a Captivity song. Israel has sinned and been punished; it now acknowledges its sins, and prays for mercy and forgiveness. Towards the end (Psa 130:7, Psa 130:8)the prayer rises into confident hope. Metrically, the psalm consists of four stanzas, each of two verses.

Psa 130:1

Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord (comp. Psa 69:2, Psa 69:14; Isa 51:10; Eze 27:34). “The depths” are the lowest abysses of calamity. They have not, however, separated Israel from God, but have rather brought him to God.

Psa 130:2

Lord, hear my voice; i.e. “hear and grant my request;” or, as explained in the next clause, let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.

Psa 130:3

If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities. The Prayer-book paraphrase gives the true sense, “If thou, Lord, shouldest be extreme to mark what is done miss.” If thou didst not “hide our transgressions” and “cover up” half our sinsthen, O Lord, who shall stand?.

Psa 130:4

But there is forgiveness with thee (comp. Exo 34:7; 1Ki 8:30, 1Ki 8:34, 1Ki 8:36, 1Ki 8:39. etc.; Psa 25:13; Psa 32:1, etc.; Dan 9:9; 1Jn 1:9, etc.). That thou mayest be feared. Milton makes his Satan say, “Then farewell hope, and, with hope, farewell fear!” (‘Paradise Lost,’ canto 1.). And certainly the true fear of God, which Scripture requires in usa reverential, loving fearcould not exist, unless we had a confident hope in God’s mercy and willingness to forgive us our trespasses, if we turn to him.

Psa 130:5

I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait. “Waiting for the Lord” is patiently bearing our affliction, whatever it may be, and confidently looking forward to deliverance from it in God’s good time. The expression, “my soul doth wait,” is stronger than “I wait;” it implies heart-felt trust and confidence. And in his word do I hope; i.e. his word of promise.

Psa 130:6

My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning; i.e. more eagerly, more anxiously, than even the night watchman, tired with his long vigil. Again the repetition adds force.

Psa 130:7

Let Israel hope in the Lord; or, “O Israel, hope in the Lord;” i.e. continue to hope, even though in the “depths” of calamity (see Psa 130:1). For with the Lord there is mercy (see above, Psa 130:4, and the comment ad loc). And with him is plenteous redemption (comp. Psa 111:9). Enough and to spare for all (see Isa 55:1).

Psa 130:8

And he shall redeem Israel from all his sins (comp. Psa 25:22; Psa 103:3, Psa 103:4).

HOMILETICS

Psa 130:1-8

Penitence and hope.

We have the psalmist hero in

I. THE DEPTH OF SOME GREAT DISTRESS. It may be some severe loss he has sustained, and consequent loneliness of soul; or it may be some great disappointment of his hopes or defeat by the enemy; or it may be the persecution of those who reproach him for serious inconsistency; or it may be peril in which his cause or his life is threatened; or it may be a sad sense of personal unworthiness. Bat, whatever it may have been, it calls forth

II. AN APPEAL TO GOD. When we are in any great distress, we look up to heaven; our appeal is instinctive; even the unbelieving and the profane cry to God “out of the depths.” It may be inarticulate, with little or no foundation of intelligence; it may be nothing more than the outburst of a suffering spirit, making its appeal to Divine power and pity. But it is a relief even to the undevout. It usually and naturally takes the form of

III. A HUMBLE CONFESSION OF SIN.

1. Sometimes the trouble is the direct and palpable consequence of sin, as when vice ends in sickness, or extravagance in straits, or crime in conviction.

2. Sometimes the sorrow is the painful and piercing conviction of moral guilt, of transgression against God, and condemnation by himit may be the publican in the temple bowed down with a sense of sin.

3. Sometimes it is the deep and general conviction that all sorrow is ultimately due to sin, and that when we are in a very pitiful condition it is both proof and reminder that we have sinned against the Lord, and that we deserve whatever kind of distress we may be experiencing. Sorrow proceeds from sin and points to it.

IV. THE HOPE OF THE PENITENT. This is not in God’s justice, but in his mercy. If God were to “mark iniquities,” i.e. to mark them for immediate punishment, according to their desert, no man could “stand in his sight” (Psa 76:7). There must be withdrawal from his presence, banishment from his hand. But our God is a God of patience, of forgiveness; he gives opportunity to the penitent. While unqualified severity would drive us into abject terror and hopeless exile, Divine mercy draws us near in true and manly confession, in hope of restoration, in return to his service. There is forgiveness with him, that he may be feared, that he may be approached, and that we may be restored.

1. With God, as he is revealed to us in Jesus Christ, there is “plenteous redemption.” No guilty man, however deep his stain, need remain in the distance; he may draw nigh with a strong assurance of forgiveness and restoration.

2. The hope of the penitent rests on the sure basis of God’s inviolable Word (Psa 130:5). Heaven and earth may pass away, but not the word of Christ’s promise. “Come unto me, all ye that labor I will give you rest;” “Him that cometh I will in no wise cast out;”these assurances constitute an immovable rock on which the troubled soul may build.

3. The true attitude of the penitent and believing spirit is that of confident expectation. As surely as the morning comes after the night, so surely will God’s delivering grace follow the earnest prayer of the penitent. Let there be the earnestness of the watching sentinel, or of the shipwrecked sailor as he longs for the light of the morning, and there may be perfect confidence that he will not seek or wait in vain.

V. THE BLESSED ISSUE. Not merely recovery from sickness, or removal of trouble, but “redemption from all iniquity” (Psa 130:8; Tit 2:14).

HOMILIES BY S. CONWAY

Psa 130:1-8

De profundis.

This psalm, whose date, authorship, and special reference no one certainly knows, nevertheless presents to us three marked stages in the experience of the writer of the psalm.

I. IN THE DEPTHS. (Psa 130:1-3.) Undoubtedly he knew what these were; and very deep depths they appear to have been.

1. His sad condition seems to have been brought about, not so much by any outward circumstances of his life, as by some inward spiritual distress. His soul was consciously separated from God; some great gulf, into which he had fallen, had opened between him and the God who had once been his delight and exceeding joy. It may have been that the sense of guilt and condemnation lay heavily on him, or that he was in dread of some approaching calamity, or that he was plunged in grief and shame by the might and mastery of some sin. Sin had undoubtedly to do with it, as it has to do with like distressing experiences in our own lives.

2. And it is a matter for deep thankfulness when sin does cast us into such depths. Too many people regard sin as a mere trifle; it never troubles them seriously at all. And the cause of the vapid, feeble, and ineffectual Christian life which so many professed Christians lead is that they have never had any real conviction of sin; they have never been in any “depths” about it. Would to God all had I; for there seems no hope of a real, earnest, and devoted Christian life without it. But the psalmist was in the depths, and this explains the heights to which he afterwards rose.

3. He cries unto the Lord. It is an earnest, self-abasing, yet passionate, appeal. He implores the Lord to be attentive to his supplication. It is only people in such depths that thus cry unto the Lord. Others may say prayers; but these men “cry.”

4. He is filled with fear, lest the Lord should mark his iniquities. If the Lord did that, there could be no hope for him; and, remembering this, he seems to sink down deeper than ever. It is a vivid instance of the Holy Spirit’s conviction of sin.

II. RISING OUT OF THEM. (Psa 130:4-6.)

1. The upward ascent begins by his laying hold of the truth that there is forgiveness with God. Faith has come; and as he believes, he sees that God’s forgiveness can alone ensure that state of heart in him, that fear, which God desires to see in us all. He feels that he will never get right, save as he believes in God’s forgiveness. And this is undoubtedly true.

2. Then he proceeds to put that faith in practice, and to wait on the Lord. And this he does in no half-hearted way. He says, “I wait;” then, “My soul waiteth;” then he stays himself on God’s word of forgiveness, and hopes therein; then he likens his faith to the eager expectation of those who are anxiously, but believingly, watching for the morningyea, with more than their desire and confidence does he wait! Of course, there can be but one response to faith like thisthe man rises out of the depths, as such men ever will.

III. CLEAR ABOVE THEM. (Psa 130:7, Psa 130:8.)

1. He has got what he desiresthe assurance of God’s forgiveness.

2. In the joy of it he turns to others, and exhorts them to hope in the Lord, and testifies that “with the Lord there is,” etc. (Psa 130:7).

3. And then, in the conviction that the love which has so blessed him cannot fail for Israel, he confidently predicts that the Lord “will redeem,” etc. (Psa 130:8). All this earnest witnessing for God is the sure sign that he is now clear up above, and right out of those depths in which he at first was. In the depths we cannot thus witness, but out of them we must and shall.S.C.

Psa 130:4

The assurance of God’s forgiveness.

The psalmist had this, and his history is recorded for our helpfor the help of all those who desire this assurance.

I. NOTE TO WHOM THIS BLESSED ASSURANCE IS GIVEN.

1. Not to every one. For many do not care for itthey think there is no need; they persuade themselves that God is easy, and will readily forgive. But this presumption is not God’s assurance, for it gives them no settled rest; they have awful misgivings at times. It lasts only so long as their light notions of sin last. When they wake up to the reality of sin, then they are in despair. It awakes no love to God (cf. Luk 7:47); it produces no hatred of sin; if it did, it would lead to that which St. John says, “He that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself even as he is pure.” Others there are who will not believe. How hard it is to persuade distressed souls that God does forgive!

2. But this assurance is given to such as are described in this psalm.

(1) They have had a very deep sense of sinhave been in “the depths.”

(2) They have cried earnestly unto the Lord.

(3) They confess that God’s judgment on sin is righteous, and that their condemnation would be just.

(4) They have come to believe that the love of God is deeper than his displeasure with the sinner. And

(5) they have cast themselves in utter faith on that love. These are they to whom God’s assurance comes.

II. THE EVIDENCE ON WHICH IT RESTS.

1. It needs evidence; for conscience is against it; God’s love is against it; the testimony of nature and science is against it; earthly governments do not forgive; we ourselves do not thus forgive. Therefore evidence for it is needed.

2. Such evidence is furnished by many fasts.

(1) God has spared us thus farthat we are able and at times are willing to forgive those who have wronged us. But if we, then yet more God.

(2) Chiefly the plain declarations of God’s Word; the sacrifice of Christ; the experience of those that are forgiven,they feel it in their hearts; they enjoy the peace of God; its influence is all-sanctifying on their own soul,it binds them over to God. Such is the evidence for, etc.

III. THE RESULTS THAT FOLLOW. God will be feared, that is, with the fear which love begets in a dear child. Such fear springs from no other source, but ever from this.S.C.

Psa 130:7

Plenteous redemption.

The text declares that with the Lord there is this, and we observe

I. IT IS UNDOUBTEDLY TRUE.

1. The Scriptures affirm it. It is not alone the declaration of this Scripture, but of many more besides.

2. And experience, that of myriads of believers in all ages, attests the same truth. They will tell us with one accord that they have found it so.

3. And it is plenteous because it is redemption from all evil.

(1) From the guilt and condemnation of sin. Utter and complete forgiveness is ours through the death of Christ our Lord.

(2) From the power and tyranny of sin. The blood of Christ keeps cleansing the soul of the man who walks in the light, and is ever trusting in Christ, from all sin (1Jn 1:7).

(3) From sorrow’s crushing power; for Christ is revealed to us as knowing all our sorrows, sympathizing with us, helping us in them, and for us turning their evil into good. “All things work together for good,” etc. (Rom 8:28).

(4) From the fret and worry of life; the believer is taught-the lesson of continued trust, and so to be anxious for nothing (Php 4:6, Php 4:7).

(5) From the power of death; for the believer does not die in the sense in which of old time death was understood, for he who believes enters no Hades, no intermediate state, but, as Jesus said, he never dieshis body maybut he himself departs, and is at once with Christ, which is far better. Thus is there plenteous redemption.

4. And it is accessible to all. (Isa 55:1.) It is the free gift of God.

II. BUT MANY DO NOT CARE FOR IT. They would like a redemption from pain and distress; but they do not care for a redemption from sinthey love and hold on to it too much; holiness excites no desire in their hearts; they love sin.

III. AND MANY OF THOSE WHO DO DARE CAN HARDLY BE GOT TO BELIEVE IN IT. They cannot realize that it is a free gift. For:

1. They keep thinking that they must do something in the way of righteousness and holiness if they are to be saved. They want to bring something of their own to God, in return for which they shall be saved.

2. And there is much to foster this unbelief.

(1) Free gifts out of pure good will are not the way of the world. You must bring your money and pay the price.

(2) And all other religions demand the due tale of good works and meritorious deeds.

(3) For all excellence -physical, artistic, intellectual, moralwe have to toil and do the needful work.

(4) And our pride protests against an eleemosynary salvation.

3. But such unbelief cannot be true.

(1) For think first of him with whom this redemption is. It is the Lord. But can we imagine him bargaining, haggling, coming to terms, over our salvation, as if he were a seller, and not a giver?

(2) And of ourselves. What have we got that could by any imagination be supposed adequate for the purchase? What is all our righteousness?

(3) Of the gift itself. It is so great that it can only be ours by gift; in no other way could we have it.

IV. BUT THIS GRACE OF GOD, IN BESTOWING ON US FREELY THIS PLENTEOUS REDEMPTION, IS JUSTIFIED BY ITS RESULTS.

1. It wakes up in the recipient an overwhelming gratitude. But this is a mighty incentive to all holy obedience.

2. It enables us to go to the vilest of men and proclaim God‘s mercy waiting for them. We could not do this were it not all of grace.

3. It forbids alike both boasting and despair.

4. It shows a dear path to the fullest salvation the world can know. I can be holy as he is holy, because of this free gift received through faith.

5. It redounds to the glory of God.S.C.

HOMILIES BY R. TUCK

Psa 130:1

The cry of the humbled.

The psalm belongs to the age of true national contrition, when nothing would satisfy but deliverance from sin, as well as from its punishment (comp. Lam 3:55; Jon 2:2). When men are disheartened and depressed, overwhelmed with anxieties and troubles, we familiarly speak of them as “down in the depths.” It is a natural and universal figure. “On the hills” represents excitement and joy; “in the depths” represents depression and anxiety. “This psalm is distinctly a song of ascent, in that it starts from the very lowest point of sell: abasement and consciousness of evil, and rises steadily, and, though it may be slowly, yet surely, up to the tranquil summit, led by a consciousness of the Divine presence and grace.” “The psalmist thinks of himself as of a man at the bottom of a pit, sending up to the surface a faint call, which may easily be unheard. He does not merely mean to express his sense of human insignificance, nor even his sorrows, nor his despondency. There are deeper depths than these. They are the depths into which the spirit feels itself going down, sick and giddy, when there comes the thought, ‘I am a sinful man, O Lord, in the presence of thy great purity.’ Out of these depths does he cry to God.”

I. THE DEPTHS ARE THE PLACE FOR US ALL. Every man amongst us has to go down there, if we take the place that belongs to us.

II. UNLESS YOU HAVE CRIED TO GOD OUT OF THOSE DEPTHS, YOU HAVE NEVER CRIED TO HIM AT ALL. Unless you come to him as a penitent, sinful man, with the consciousness of transgression awakened within you, your prayers are shallow. The beginning of all true personal religion lies in the sense of my own sin and my lost condition. Whenever you find men and women with a Christianity that sits very lightly upon them, that does not impel them to any acts of service and devotion, and never rises into the heights of communion with God, depend upon it the man has never been down into the abyss, and never sent his voice up from it. “Out of the depths” he has not cried unto God.

III. YOU WANT NOTHING MORE THAN A CRY TO DRAW YOU FROM THE PIT. It is not that your crying will lift you out; it is that your crying will bring you help. The “infant crying in the night” does nothing for itself by its crying; but the cry brings its mother. And the cry means that hope of self-help is altogether abandoned, the soul having to say, “Myself I cannot save,” cries after Christ, saying, “Jesu, have mercy on me!” (part Maclaren).R.T.

Psa 130:3

The fears of conscience.

In pleading for her father’s life before the first Napoleon, a poor girl said, “Sire, I do not ask for justice; I implore pardon.” The inward sense of our sin will never permit us to make a claim for anything before God. His love of forgiving, and triumph over all hindrances in the way of forgiving, are our only pleas, and our only grounds of hope. The searching character of the Divine inspection is indicated in Psa 139:1-24, and in Heb 4:12, Heb 4:13. Conscience freely admits that the Divine examination of the life cannot be endured. “If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?” There need be no difficulty in understanding what conscience is. Some, indeed, regard it as a separate and independent power, which acts in a man as a sort of sentinel, giving notice of the approach or presence of evil. But it is altogether simpler to regard it as the ordinary faculty of judgment exercised by a man concerning the quality of his own actions. That self-judgment inevitably brings a man into fears.

I. CONSCIENCE TESTIFIES BOTH THE GOOD AND THE BAD. This is often missed from view. Usually conscience is thought of as concerned only with the evil; and so its power and witness are only dreaded. Conscience ought to be the cheer of life. A man knows when he has done right. Appraising his life, he can sometimes approve. “Conscience makes cowards of us all;” but it is equally true that “Conscience can make brave men of us all.”

II. CONSCIENCE TESTIFIES TO THE BAD IN THE GOOD. And that is the real ground of our fear. Self-esteem may see only good; conscience never does. It finds the sinister mark everywhere, and always has to qualify its approval and praise. “Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee.” A “bar sinister” on every escutcheon.

III. CONSCIENCE TESTIFIES TO THE GOOD IN THE BAD. And this keeps fear from becoming hopeless and despairing. The irretrievably bad is a conception that can only be associated with devils, not with man. And it is not a genuine conscience that judges in a blind, sectarian way, and makes a man accuse himself as hopelessly bad.

IV. CONSCIENCE PUTS BOTH BAD AND GOOD OUT OF THE SELF–LIGHT INTO THE DIVINE LIGHT. According to the sense a man has of God will be his conscience-judgment of his own conduct. Right sense of God will make conscience-estimates induce fear. The conscience of good will bring a reverent and humble fear; the conscience of evil will bring an humiliating and anxious fear. The self-estimate of iniquities is painful enough, but what shall we say of the Divine estimate of those same iniquities?R.T.

Psa 130:4

Forgiveness generating fear.

God’s mercy is, with striking truth to nature, made a ground for godly fear. “In the sense of his mercy we know best the exceeding ‘sinfulness of sin; ‘ so far as we feel that sin is still clinging to us, we must fear with godly fear; so far as we feel its chains are broken, ‘fear is cast out by love.’ Thus the cross is to us at once the secret of penitence and of faith.” These three points may be opened, illustrated, and enforced.

I. GOD‘S FORGIVENESS REVEALS OUR SIN. Here a distinction can be made. God’s denunciations, punishments, and judgments, which we may hear about or observe, bring us what may be called, and what are primarily, intellectual apprehensions of the evil of sin. Very many, indeed, only know sin through the teaching of its consequences. But it is certain that sin cannot be really or worthily known in that way. Its root is not in the intelligence, but in the will; and the atmosphere in which it thrives is not knowledge, but feeling. It is a moral matter, and it is revealed in moral actions. God’s forgiveness touches feeling, and feeling throws its own special light on that which is forgiven. The wrong of it comes to feeling; the peril of it comes to intelligence. No man knows the hatefulness of his sin until he realizes that it is divinely forgiven.

II. GOD‘S FORGIVENESS PRODUCES A WORTHY FEAR. That kind of fear which makes us anxiously watchful lest we should prove unworthy of such forgiveness, and even need that forgiveness again. The sense of forgiveness binds us to God in such thankfulness and love that we fear to grieve him. And the forgiveness makes us so sensible of our own infirmities that we can but walk watchfully, as those who fear to fall. And we can never be quite sure that the sin forgiven was not rooted in a weakness which we still retain, and which is still to us a source of peril. So we fear for ourselves.

III. GOD‘S FORGIVENESS REMOVES OUR FEAR. Because a forgiveness declares and guarantees an interest in us. God’s forgiveness pledges continuous help and blessing. It reveals God to us so that we are able to cherish an absolute confidence in him. And while it puts us upon every endeavor not to sin, it keeps us from all despairing fear by assuring us that, even if we should be overcome by our frailties, “there is forgiveness with him.” His forgivings do not exhaust his mercy, but pledge it for days to come.R.T.

Psa 130:5, Psa 130:6

Our waiting is a watching.

“In the year 1830, on the night preceding the first of August, the day the slaves in our West Indian colonies were to come into possession of the freedom promised them, many of them, we are told, never went to bed at all. Thousands and tens of thousands of them assembled in their places of worship, engaging in devotional duties and singing praises to God, waiting for the first streak of the light of the morning of that day on which they were to be made free. Some of their number were sent w the hills, from which they might obtain the first view of the coming day, and by a signal intimate to their brethren down in the valley the very first moment of breaking dawn.” They “watched for the morning.” The kind of watching that comes home to us is the anxious watching by the sick-beds of loved friends. Night-work is especially trying. Sentinel-watching may be also in mind.

I. A WAITING THAT IS A WEARY COMPULSION. We do not want to wait. We are made to wait. And the watching for the end of the waiting-time is simply a prolonged agony. Man often deals with his fellow-man thus; and God sometimes finds it needful to put his people into this hard discipline. Whether we like it or not, we must wait. Active man who would do somethingmust do nothing. Illust.: waiting for openings in life.

II. A WAITING THAT IS A HOPELESS ENDURANCE. The kind of waiting that belongs to times of uncertainty. We watch vainly, at last almost hopelessly, for the daily post. Tennyson pictures this condition in his ‘Mariana’

“She only said, ‘My life is dreary:

He cometh not,’ she said;

She said, ‘I’m aweary, aweary;

I would that I were dead!'”

Even at such times the hopelessness would pass, though the enduring had to remain, if only the watching had its uplook as well as its onlook. Its calm resting in the infinite wisdom and love that permits, as well as its peering away into the distant east for the first glimpse of morning.

III. A WAITING THAT IS A LOVING EXPECTANCY. And that our waiting may always be if we see it to be our Father-God‘s call to wait. There is his thought in it, his purpose in it. We may be sure of the “end of the Lord.” It is well altogether to dismiss from our minds all such ideas of Divine sovereignty as even suggest that he ever “afflicts willingly.” We seem to be waiting for some change in our earthly circumstances, but we are really waiting for God to change our circumstances; and we may wait with the calm, and even joyous, expectancy that he will.R.T.

Psa 130:7

The final object of hope.

Luther says the redemption is called “plenteous” because such is the straitness of our heart, the slenderness of our hopes, the weakness of our faith, that it far exceeds all our capacity, all our petitions and desires. Lord Bacon says, “Generous and magnanimous minds are readiest to forgive; and it is a weakness and impotency of mind to be unable to forgive.” The point on which we now dwell is the strong demand that Israel shall hope in Jehovah himself. The sense of personality in God is to be most jealously treasured. In India it is conceived that the personality of god is but a step towards the higher realization of him, or it, as an impersonal, uncaused, unrelated, absolute being. But this is an unreal dreamland. No fitting idea of God can fail to include an active, ever-working will, that is influenced by surrounding and swayed by feeling. But that is the characteristic of a person. The Word of God, while refusing to permit any representation of God as a Person, nevertheless insists that we shall always deal with him as a Person.

I. GOD HIMSELF IS THE OBJECT OF A SINNER‘S HOPE. There is a distinction of the utmost importance, which is often missed, and often very imperfectly apprehended. A man can never have absolute confidence based on anything that God has ever done. His confidence must rest in God, who did those things, and has revealed himself as wholly trustworthy in doing them. For the nation to rely on what God did, in delivering it from Egyptian bondage, would be wholly unworthy. For it to rely on God, who then delivered, and so proved himself to be the Deliverer, was worthy and. ennobling. So still, the work of Divine redemption is not the proper object of a sinner’s hope, but God, who in such a glorious and Divine way has redeemed. The hope is in no thing, though it may have the Divine stamp on it. The hope is in the Person who is revealed in and by the thing done. The apprehension of this involves the reformation of very much of the imperfect theology that now prevails.

II. CHRIST HIMSELF IS THE AGENCY FOR REALIZING HIM WHO IS THE OBJECT OF THE SINNER‘S HOPE. St. Peter states this with admirable precision, “Who, by him, do believe in God.” Our faith is demanded, not for Christ’s work, but for Christ himself. And not for Christ other than as a mediary. Our hope as sinners is only rightly fixed on Christ when we apprehend that “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself.”R.T.

Psa 130:8

Redemption only complete in sanctification.

“Plenteous redemption” is here described. It is a redeeming of Israel from all his iniquities. It is not a delivering of Israel out of all his disasters. That might be important enough in its way; but no kind of material redemption can ever be of supreme interest to God. To deliver Israel from his iniquities is the Divine thought. To deliver Israel from all his iniquities is the supreme Divine thought. When is a man saved? The answer depends upon a right idea of what the salvation or redemption of a man is. To save a drowning man and to save a city waif are not the same thing. You have clone saving the drowned man when you have brought him ashore alive. You have not saved the waif when you have got him inside the doors of the Boys’ Home. It needs to be set in the strongest and clearest light possible that the object of God’s redemption is the mannot the man’s circumstances, nor the man’s perils. It is a fiction of man’s theology that God’s salvation is satisfied with removing penalty. When the penalty is gone, we hear the Divine voice saying, “And now what about the man?”

I. REDEMPTION GETS ALL HINDRANCES OUT OF THE WAY OF ITS WORK. Never confuse the preliminary with the real work. Getting hindrances out of the way may be quite necessary; and it may be vigorous and prolonged work, calling for much energy and self-denial; but it is God’s pioneer work. It is God getting his sphere, clearing for himself the sphere in which he may do his true redemptive work. If this had been worthily apprehended, we should never have been worried by being called to believe in a work, in a plan of salvation, in a removing of our penalty. Our faith is demanded for a Redeemer who, having done such and such things, is able to do what he now wants to do in our minds and hearts and lives; i.e. redeem us from our iniquities.

II. REDEMPTION WORKS FREELY IN THE SPACE IT HAS CLEARED. And a plentiful and most glorious work it has in viewdeliverance from the power, fascination, and snare of sin; redemption from all iniquities. Work like getting the threading weed-roots out of the soul, and making a lovely, clean lawn. Work like getting out every tiny fiber of the spreading cancer, and giving a clean and hopeful bill of health. No man is saved as God would save him until he is “clean every whit.”R.T.

HOMILIES BY C. SHORT

Psa 130:1-8

A cry to God for the forgiveness of sin.

I. THE PROFOUND MISERY WHICH THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF SIN PRODUCES. (Psa 130:1-3.) “Out of the depths. If thou shouldest mark,” etc; iniquities, other “depths” than the depths of poverty or bodily affliction.

II. THE STRONGEST MOTIVE TO THE REVERENT FEAR OF GOD. (Psa 130:4.) “God freely forgives sinnot that men may think lightly of sin, but that they may magnify his grace and mercy in its forgiveness. ‘For thy Name’s sake pardon mine iniquity.’ This a more powerful motive than any other to call forth holy fear and love and self-sacrifice.”

III. HIS FAITH WAITS IN THE EXPECTATION OF GOD‘S FORGIVENESS. (Psa 130:5, Psa 130:6.)

1. His faith is full of hopeis expectant, opposed to unbelieving despondency. Hope supposes difficulties and uncertainties melting away or triumphed over.

2. But it is patient and anxious at the same time. More than those who watch for the morning in the sick-roomwhether the sick or those who watch with them. The faith, therefore, is connected with anxious exercises of mind battling with the delay.

IV. HE WHO IS CONSCIOUS OF FORGIVENESS CAN INSPIRE OTHERS WITH HOPE AND TRUST. (Psa 130:7, Psa 130:8.) “Hope””plenteous redemption””will redeem Israel”not this or that favored man, but Israel, the nation”from all his iniquities.” Not merely from the punishment, but from the iniquities themselves.S.

Psa 130:7

Full redemption.

“And with him is plenteous redemption.”

I. THE ORIGIN OF REDEMPTION. “With him”with God. The gospel bears the stamp of its Divine origin:

1. In what it reveals.

2. In what it proposes.

It is not man’s appeal to God, but God’s proposal to man.

II. THE NATURE OF REDEMPTION.

1. The slavery from which we are redeemed.

2. The price of our redemption.

3. The liberty bestowed.

III. THE FULNESS OF THIS REDEMPTION.

1. It is full for each.

2. It is full for all.S.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

Psalms 130.

The Psalmist professeth his hope in prayer, and his patience in hope: he exhorteth Israel to hope in God.

A Song of Degrees.

Title. Shiir hammangaloth.] Bishop Patrick observes, that some think this psalm was composed by David after the affair of Bathsheba (see Psa 130:3-4.); but that in his opinion it was composed by him after the persecution of Saul: nevertheless, it cannot be said to be his with any certainty, and perhaps it may be more applicable to the times soon after the captivity; for it seems rather to relate to the distress of the nation at large, than to that of any one particular person. The Syriac translators understand it so; for in their title of it, they refer it to the times of Nehemiah. Mr. Mudge observes, that the psalm has two states; in the first of which the author prays God to forgive him his sins, and to remit the consequences of them, in strong expectation that pursuant to his word he would grant his prayer. In the second, he has obtained his request, and encourages therefore all his brethren to put their trust in God, for redeeming them from their sins, and the punishment of them.

Psa 130:1. Out of the depths “Out of the deep waters, with which I am almost overwhelmed.” By these is frequently represented, as we have observed, the extremity of affliction. See Psa 69:2; Psa 69:36.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Psalms 130

A Song of degrees

Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.

2Lord, hear my voice:

Let thine ears be attentive
To the voice of my supplications.

3If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities,

O Lord, who shall stand?

4But there is forgiveness with thee,

That thou mayest be feared.

5I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait,

And in his word do I hope.

6My soul waiteth for the Lord

More than they that watch for the morning:

I say, more than they that watch for the morning.

7Let Israel hope in the Lord:

For with the Lord there is mercy,

And with him is plenteous redemption.

8And he shall redeem Israel

From all his iniquities.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Contents and Composition.The distress out of which the Psalmist cries to Jehovah is very deep, and as he feels himself sinking, he sends forth an urgent cry to God that He would hear him (Psa 130:1-2). This supplication rests upon the power to forgive, which is possessed by God alone, and is indispensable to the sinners deliverance (Psa 130:3-4). It flows from the hope cherished in his soul, which turns with longing to God and His word (Psa 130:5-6). It also sympathizingly remembers the need which all Israel has of redemption, and therefore points, on the one hand, with exhortation, to the indispensable waiting upon Jehovah, and, on the other, to the mercy of God which is ready to be imparted (Psa 130:7-8).

It is easily understood how the Church has regarded this as the sixth of the seven Penitential Psalms (6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143) and how Luther reckoned it as one of the Pauline Psalms, which he specified, when asked which were the best of all the Psalms. When asked further which were the Pauline Psalms, he named Psalms 32, 51, 130, 143,

Several expressions which are found besides only in Nehemiah, Daniel, and Chronicles indicate that the Psalm was composed at a late period Yet it preceded the Books of the Chronicles; for the addition to the prayer of Solomon at the dedication of the Temple, 2Ch 6:40-42, is composed of Psa 130:2 and Psa 132:8-10. [As additional evidence of a late origin, it may be remarked that the word meaning: attentive, in Psa 130:2, is found besides only in 2Ch 6:40; 2Ch 7:15, and that rendered: forgiveness, Psa 130:4, only in Dan 9:9; Neh 9:17.J. F. M.]. The conjecture that this Psalm was first sung on the day of general humiliation, Ezr 9:5 f. (Rosenmller) has no support more definite than this. There are many points of similarity with Psalms 86. Does it indicate design that God is named Jehovah four times, Adonai three times, and Jah once?

Psa 130:1. Out of the depths.These are not the depths of the soul, specially those of sorrow on account of the greatness of its sins (Amyrald, J. H. Mich.). Nor are they the depths of sin (Geier); but depths of distress, calamity and peril, represented by the image of deep waters (Psa 69:3; Psa 69:15; Isa 51:10), whose waves (Psa 88:8), have passed over him (Psa 42:8), so that he is pressed down very deep, sunk even unto the gates of death (Psa 9:4; Psa 107:18).

Psa 130:3-4. God regards and marks human iniquities (Psa 90:8; Job 10:14; Job 10:14), but retains them also in remembrance (Gen 37:11), and, as it were, seals them up, keeping them (Job 14:17,) bearing them in mind (Amo 1:11; Jer 3:5); He remembers them in the sense of imputing them (Psa 32:2). The destruction of the sinner would thence follow, if the Divine punitive righteousness, which in its exercise nothing can resist (Isa 51:16; Nah 1:6; Mal 3:2; Ezr 9:15) were not by the mercy of God Himself manifested in such a way that the forgiveness of sins, effected thereby, should serve, on the one hand, to glorify His name as the only Redeemer and Author of salvation (Psa 79:9), and, on the other, to quicken the true fear of Him.

Psa 130:6 ff. the reference is not to those who wait from one watch to another (Sept., Syr., Luther), or to the watchers who hold the morning watch, that is, the last one (Chald., J. H. Mich., Rosenmller). It is the watch, more generally, the morning dawn, when they shall be released from their tedious duty (Aben Ezra, Geier, and most.) [Delitzsch: The repetition of the words gives the impression of painful and long-continued waiting. The anger beneath whose influence the Poet now lies, is the darkness of night, from which he would be transferred to the sunny influence of love (Mal. 3:20); and not he alone, but all Israel also, whose needs are the same, and for whom, as for him, faithful waiting is the way of salvation. With Jehovah, with Him exclusively, and with Him in all its fulness, is the mercy which releases from the guilt of sin and its consequences, and gives freedom, peace, and joy to the heart. And redemption is plenteous with Him, i.e., he possesses in abundant measure the willingness, power, and wisdom, needed in order to effect the redemption, which, like a wall of separation, (Exo 8:19) is placed between the imperilled and ruin. To Him therefore must each one look, if he would obtain mercy; to Him must His people look; and this hope fixed upon Him will not be put to shame. He in the mighty fulness of His free grace, will redeem Israel from all his iniquities, in forgiving them and removing all baleful consequences within and without. The Poet comforts himself with this promise (comp. Psa 25:22). He means complete and final spiritual deliverance from all that holds in bondage, just as in the New Testament.J. F. M.].

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

From the depths of thy distress send thy cry upward to God; from the depths of His compassion He will send help down.A change in our situation would avail nothing without the forgiveness of sins; but the mercy of God effects our redemption.He who waits for the Lord and His deliverance, must know how to wait in faith and patience, with watching and prayer, and learn to strengthen his hope in Gods word.God possesses in fullest measure all that is necessary to our redemption, and from the fulness of His grace He imparts richly what serves to accomplish it. But the fulness of faith is only too often wanting in us.

Starke: The deeper men sink in the waters of temptation, tribulation, and distress, the stronger support do they find in the fathomless mercy of God.Blessed is he who feels the depths of sin in a season of grace, and by cries of repentance to the Lord, is delivered from them; raised above them, he need not feel the depths of hell. The cry of supplication has no greater hindrance than the cries of sin, until they are removed by sincere repentance.No man is so willing to pray to God as He is willing to be entreated; He will give us His benefits and forgive our sins.Right views of Gods mercy do not lead to carnal security, but to a childlike fear and service of Him.Justification is a source of sanctification; before a soul is justified it can have no childlike fear of God.All the reasons which bind us to love God, constrain us also to hope in Him.The Christians hope must be founded upon the word of Gods mercy. For to hope and believe without Gods word, is to tempt God.The best consolation in the night of trial and sorrow is the promise of God that it will be followed by a clear day of rejoicing.The many promises of the conversion of the Jewish people in the last time, urge the true Christian to pray the more fervently for this poor people.

Frisch: There are many depths into which sin plunges us. But, as Luther says, it is well for us, that, though we are all in deep distress, we do not feel it where we are.The grace, long-suffering, and mercy of God, should incite us not to sin, but from sin, not to fall, but from falling, to repentance and conversion.Rieger: It is the nature of the new man ever to manifest a constant waiting, hoping, trusting, and believing in God. But to the natural man such an attachment to Gods word is more difficult than the greatest work of any other kind.Guenther: The distressed believer, in trusting, rises upward from the abyss, and the suppliant draws the Almighty down to him in his compassion. The greater the need the greater the assurance.Engelhardt: The path of sincere repentance leads (1) into the depth of our hearts and is, a) knowledge of sin, b) prayer for gracious aid, c) distrust of our own righteousness; (2) to the paternal heart of God: there alone are to be found, a) compassion and forgiveness, b) certain help even when long delayed, c) final redemption from all sin.Taube: The royal road from the depths of the misery of sin to the Heights of the consolation of redemption.

[Matt. Henry: There is an all sufficient fulness of merit and grace in the Redeemer, enough for all, enough for each; enough for me, saith the believer.Bp. Horne: True repentance is founded upon a sense of our own wretchedness and faith in the Divine mercy. Without the former we should never seek for pardon and grace; without the latter we should despair of finding them.Scott: Faith in His faithful testimony and sure promise, confirmed by experience, form the soul to a holy fear and love of the Lord our God.J. F. M.].

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

DISCOURSE: 722
GODS MERCY AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO PRAYER

Psa 130:1-4. Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.

IN seasons of affliction, it is a great comfort to see how others in similar circumstances, have found relief. It is in this view that biography is peculiarly interesting; and Scripture biography more especially, because it is more authentic in itself, and a surer ground for wise and profitable observations. The Psalms are a rich repository of such instruction. David was a man of deep experience. His afflictions, both temporal and spiritual, were very abundant: and, as they are faithfully related to us, so do we see under them the workings of his mind. In the passage just read we see,

I.

The means he used for deliverance from his distresses

His trials were greatly diversified, and very severe
[Unless it were recorded on divine authority, we should scarcely conceive it possible that a man of Davids character should be an object of such inveterate and envenomed malice as he was in the eyes of Saul: and, after the returns which he made to Saul, we should scarcely think that human malignity could ever arrive at such a height, or rage with such unrelenting fury, as it did in that envious and jealous monarch. Of his troubles under persecution David speaks under the same metaphor as that which is used in our text: Save me, O Lord! for the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying: my throat is dried: mine eyes fail, while I wait for my God. They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head: they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty [Note: Psa 69:1-4.].

It seems, however, that on the present occasion he refers to his spiritual troubles, because it is of his iniquities that he chiefly complains, and of forgiveness that he expresses his chief desire. It might be supposed that so holy a man as he should have no complaints of this kind to make: but the truth is, that the more holy any man is, the more enlarged will be his views of the spirituality of Gods Law, and the more painful his sense of his short-comings and defects: and it should seem that David was permitted to sustain great anguish of mind on this account, that so he might be the better fitted to instruct and comfort Gods tempted people to the very end of time. Hear his complaints under a sense of Gods displeasure: Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps: thy wrath lieth hard upon me; and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves [Note: Psa 88:6-7.]. Sometimes he was so overwhelmed, that he thought himself altogether an outcast from God, and doubted whether he should ever find mercy at his hands: Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will he be favourable no more? Is his mercy clean gone for ever? doth his promise fail for evermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies [Note: Psa 77:7-9.]?]

Under all his trials he had recourse to God in prayer
[Out of the depths he cried unto the Lord, He well knew that none but God could support him under all his temporal afflictions, and that there was no other comforter amidst the troubles of his soul. Hence, on all occasions, he betook himself to God in prayer. Under trials from man he says, I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies [Note: Psa 18:3-6.]. And under the frowns of Almighty God he still sought refuge in the arms of him whose displeasure he feared: The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow. Then called I upon the name of the Lord; O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul [Note: Psa 116:3-4.]! Thus did Jeremiah also, under his extremities: They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me. Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off. I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon. Thou hast heard my voice; hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry [Note: Lam 3:53-56.]! Thus it is that we also, under all our troubles, should approach our God. Nor should we be discouraged because we cannot find enlargement in prayer; our feelings may be too deep for utterance; and our desires may find vent only in sighs, and groans, and tears: but, if only we be sincere, God will hear our very breathing and our cry.]

From the account which David gives us of his prayers, we learn,

II.

The views of God, from whence he derived his chief encouragement

He dared not to plead for any thing on the footing of justice

[He was sensible that he in no respect came up to the perfect demands of Gods Law; and that, if God should mark his iniquities, it would be impossible for him to stand; since there was not an act, or word, or thought in his whole life that could endure so severe a scrutiny. Such is the view which all holy men have of their own infirmities: they know that God charges even his angels with folly [Note: Job 4:18.], and that the very heavens are not clean in his sight: how much less can man be pure, who by nature comes from a corrupt source; and, by practice, drinks iniquity like water [Note: Job 15:14-16.]? Job was the most perfect man of his day: yet he says, If I should say I am perfect, my own tongue would prove me perverse [Note: Job 9:2-3; Job 9:20.]. And every living man must deprecate the being dealt with according to the demands of strict justice, saying, Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord; for in thy sight shall no man living be justified [Note: Psa 143:2.].]

His only hope was founded on the mercy of his God
[Mercy is an essential perfection of the Divine nature, and, consequently, inseparable from God. But the expression, There is forgiveness with thee, intimates, that it is treasured up, as it were, in the Divine bosom, ready to be bestowed on every weeping penitent. We are told, that it has pleased the Father that in Christ should all fulness dwell; and that out of his fulness we are all to receive, according to our respective necessities. This was Davids encouragement. Had he not known this, he would have sat down in utter despair. It is a consciousness of this that emboldens a penitent to draw nigh to God, and to ask for mercy at his hands. A soul that is gone beyond the reach of mercy, hates God with a perfect hatred, and never repents to give him glory [Note: Rev 16:9; Rev 16:11.]: but the soul that hopes in his mercy, feels towards him a filial fear and reverence; and this holy fear is ever augmented in proportion to the hope that is cherished in the soul. Hence, when God says respecting his people, I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against me; and I will pardon all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned, and whereby they have transgressed against me; he adds, And it shall be to me a name of joy, a praise, and an honour before all the nations of the earth, which shall hear all the good that I do unto them. And they shall fear and tremble for all the goodness, and for all the prosperity, that I procure unto it [Note: Jer 33:8-9.].]

In this view of Davids experience we may see,
1.

Our dependence on God

[To whom can we go in a time of trouble? Who can afford us even the smallest help, especially under a sense of sin, and under a dread of Gods displeasure? We may possess all that the world can give, but it will not for a moment soothe the agonies of a guilty conscience. Of all things under the sun, in this view, it must be said, Miserable comforters are ye all! Our help is in God alone. He is the only fountain of life: and in his light alone can we see light [Note: Psa 36:9.].]

2.

Our obligations to him

[When we see so holy a man as David brought into depths where he feels as one ready to perish, what thanks can we render unto God, that we are enabled to pass through life in peaceful tranquillity, and with a cheerful hope of eternal life! None but those who have experienced the hidings of Gods face, and the terrors of his wrath, can have any conception what it is to be reduced to such a state. Does David say, Fearfulness hath taken hold upon me, and an horrible dread hath overwhelmed me? Why, then, is not that the condition of our souls? Who does not deserve it? Who might not well be left to sustain it throughout his whole life? If we were saved from perdition at last, it would be a mercy, for which we should have cause to bless God to all eternity. But to enjoy peace here, and the light of Gods countenance, verily this is a blessing for which we can never be sufficiently thankful.

But there is yet a richer blessing vouchsafed unto us; and that is, that in all our trials, of whatever kind, we have God himself for our refuge. Who need to be afraid of depths, when he has a God to go unto, a God able and willing to deliver him? Look at the heathen, who know not God; or at those who, though in a Christian land, are unacquainted with the great mystery of redemption. They are in a pitiable condition indeed: but the believing penitent, though in darkness, has reason to rejoice; because his heaviness will endure but for a night, and joy will come to him in the morning. He may descend with Jonah to the very precincts of hell; but in due season he shall be brought forth to light and liberty and joy.]

3.

Our true wisdom

[The resolution of David, in the words following our text, should be ours. Whether in trouble or at ease, let us wait on the Lord, and hold us fast by God. The man who has been watching through the night looks with eager desire to the break of day, when he shall be relieved from his toil. But with far greater earnestness, and with sweeter assurance too, should we wait on God, confident that he will appear for us in the hour of need, and grant us that rest which our necessities require. Let us then live in this habit; and then, though the fig-tree should not blossom, nor the fields yield their meat, nor any herd be found in the stalls, we may rejoice in the Lard, and joy in the God of our Salvation [Note: Hab 3:17-18.].]

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

CONTENTS

This most precious psalm contains the deep breathings of the soul under a sense of sin; the holy triumphs of the soul in the view of the propitiary, the redemption by Jesus: and the earnest recommendation of a soul that, having found mercy himself, holds forth encouragement to others.

A Song of Degrees.

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

Deep calleth unto deep, saith one of old. And when a poor brokenhearted sinner, from, the depths of sin, crieth to the depths of divine mercy, sweet is that frame of soul, and sure to be beard. For it is God the Holy Ghost Which convinceth of sin. It is the same almighty Teacher who puts the cry in the heart to seek for mercy. And he that thus leads to the way, leads to the end; and both point to Christ, and bring to Christ, with an assurance of salvation. Numerous are the examples of this kind in the word of God. The Psalmist speaks of the horrible pit out of which he was brought, Psa 40:1-3 ; the Prophet Jeremiah cried from the dungeon, Jer 38:6 . And as our Lord declared this state of Jonah to be typical, may we not make application of it, and say that the people of Jesus, resting in hope of the glorious resurrection, by reason of their oneness with his body as the first fruits, may now be supposed to cry from under the altar, How long, O Lord, holy and true? Rev 6:9-10 .

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

The Sorrows of the Night

Psa 130:6

Few have gone far along life’s way without understanding what it is to watch for the morning. The invalid, helpless, sleepless, every nerve strained, with a great weight of confused woe heavy on his breast, welcomes the chill light, though it brings but little respite though he can only say, ‘Risest thou thus, dim dawn, again?’ Even in full strength, when we lie awake at night, there may come to us all the cruel possibilities of the future, as well as the real anxieties of the present, till there is no more spirit left in us. But when the morning dawns, when we put on the armour of light, we are stronger to meet our foes.

Perhaps the sorrows of the night were never felt so little as now, when people fly to narcotics on the slightest provocation. In other times they were well understood. Whether the pain was of the body or the soul it ached on unallayed. Rousseau has a striking phrase, les frayeurs nocturnes , and the Middle Ages in particular knew those terrors in all their forms. It is this which gives their tenderness to the Provencal songs of the morning.

I. There is another coming desired more eagerly by the Christian heart, and promised by Jesus Christ Himself when He spoke the word, Hereafter ye shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven. This phrase cannot be reduced and tamed into anything short of lunacy if Christ was not Divine. This second advent is continually insisted on by Himself and His Apostles; its solemn note resounds through exhortation, comfort, and warning. Yet in our day it is largely ignored in Christian teaching, and is left as the heritage of comparatively small and obscure companies, who encumber it with false and doubtful interpretations. But the truth itself is independent of all these entanglements. It is simply that Christ is to appear suddenly, and the time may be close upon us; we are to be ready, for in such an hour as we think not the Son of Man may come.

II. What is the significance of this expectation to us? How is it to alter and colour our lives? We do not look for the Appearing in our own life here. As we have parted with the dear ones who, like ourselves, have been partakers of the power of His resurrection, we have felt that we, too, must die, and the clods of the valley have been sweet. We have looked to join our own among the shaded glories under the Altar-Throne, there to wait and pray for the adoption. But we should think of the advent as near, even at the doors, all the days we go out and in. Christ is with us according to His promise, but He stands by us unseen, and in spite of all His gifts there is still a hiding of His power. The meaning of the promise is that the fight will not go on for ever, that the flux and reflux of the tide of battle will at last cease, that a decisive interposition will end the war, and that the Son of Man will purge His kingdom of all things that offend, and them that do iniquity. Since Christ came, all have owned that a new force is astir, but we see not yet all things put under Him.

III. The day and hour we know not Even the angels in heaven know not More wonderful and touching still, this secret was kept from the Son in His humiliation. He consented to be ignorant of the time when His work should reach its term. We may reverently conjecture that this was one drop in His cup, that the tumult and anguish of His soul were not complete without it, that to sympathize with us perfectly He must know the turmoil of our spirits in expecting the end. Perhaps He meant to teach us that the best help for present duty and suffering is always to be expecting the second advent, always to be ignorant of the time. We are to fight as if no new succours were to come, we are to fight knowing that they are coming, it may be in our day, it may be after we have died on the field, but that with them the victory is sure. But the belief that even now the Lord is at hand will ever help to keep us in the earnest purity of the girded loins and the burning lamp, and deliver us from any hope that falls short of God.

W. Robertson Nicoll, Ten Minute Sermons, p. 103.

Psa 130

It was the 130th Psalm, sung in St. Paul’s, May, 1738, and heard by John Wesley with deep emotion, that prepared him for the truth of justification by faith, which he embraced shortly afterwards, through reading Luther on the Galatians. His conversations with Peter Bohlen, of the Moravian Brethren, also aided him greatly, and helped to preserve him from the mystic legalism of Law’s Serious Gall, to which he was at one time inclined. But for this decision, the mighty movement which has sprung from Wesley would have failed in the birth.

J. K.

References. CXXX. J. W. Bardsley, Many Mansions, p. 315. CXXX. 4. J. Keble, Miscellaneous Sermons, p. 441. M. Biggs, Practical Sermons on the Old Testament Subjects, p. 220. CXXX. 7. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vii. No. 351. G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 367. CXXX. H. Woodcock, Sermon Outlines, p. 170. International Critical Commentary, vol. ii. p. 464. A. Maclaren, A Year’s Ministry (2nd Series), p. 31. C. Kingsley, Westminster Sermons, p. 262. CXXXI. 2. J. Keble, Sermons for the Sunday After Trinity, p. 163. J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons (10th Series), p. 234. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxi. No. 1210. CXXXI. F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. ii. p. 135. International Critical Commentary, vol. ii. p. 466. C. Kingsley, Westminster Sermons, p. 280.

Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

PSALMS

XI

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF PSALMS

According to my usual custom, when taking up the study of a book of the Bible I give at the beginning a list of books as helps to the study of that book. The following books I heartily commend on the Psalms:

1. Sampey’s Syllabus for Old Testament Study . This is especially good on the grouping and outlining of some selected psalms. There are also some valuable suggestions on other features of the book.

2. Kirkpatrick’g commentary, in “Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges,” is an excellent aid in the study of the Psalter.

3. Perowne’s Book of Psalms is a good, scholarly treatise on the Psalms. A special feature of this commentary is the author’s “New Translation” and his notes are very helpful.

4. Spurgeon’s Treasury of David. This is just what the title implies. It is a voluminous, devotional interpretation of the Psalms and helpful to those who have the time for such extensive study of the Psalter.

5. Hengstenburg on the Psalms. This is a fine, scholarly work by one of the greatest of the conservative German scholars.

6. Maclaren on the Psalms, in “The Expositor’s Bible,” is the work of the world’s safest, sanest, and best of all works that have ever been written on the Psalms.

7. Thirtle on the Titles of the Psalms. This is the best on the subject and well worth a careful study.

At this point some definitions are in order. The Hebrew word for psalm means praise. The word in English comes from psalmos , a song of lyrical character, or a song to be sung and accompanied with a lyre. The Psalter is a collection of sacred and inspired songs, composed at different times and by different authors.

The range of time in composition was more than 1,000 years, or from the time of Moses to the time of Ezra. The collection in its present form was arranged probably by Ezra in the fifth century, B.C.

The Jewish classification of Old Testament books was The Law, the Prophets, and the Holy Writings. The Psalms was given the first place in the last group.

They had several names, or titles, of the Psalms. In Hebrew they are called “The Book of Prayers,” or “The Book of Praises.” The Hebrew word thus used means praises. The title of the first two books is found in Psa 72:20 : “The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.” The title of the whole collection of Psalms in the Septuagint is Biblos Psalman which means the “Book of Psalms.” The title in the Alexandrian Codex is Psalterion which is the name of a stringed instrument, and means “The Psalter.”

The derivation of our English words, “psalms,” “psalter,” and “psaltery,” respectively, is as follows:

1. “Psalms” comes from the Greek word, psalmoi, which is also from psallein , which means to play upon a stringed instrument. Therefore the Psalms are songs played upon stringed instruments, and the word here is used to apply to the whole collection.

2. “Psalter” is of the same origin and means the Book of Psalms and refers also to the whole collection.

3. “Psaltery” is from the word psalterion, which means “a harp,” an instrument, supposed to be in the shape of a triangle or like the delta of the Greek alphabet. See Psa 33:2 ; Psa 71:22 ; Psa 81:2 ; Psa 144:9 .

In our collection there are 150 psalms. In the Septuagint there is one extra. It is regarded as being outside the sacred collection and not inspired. The subject of this extra psalm is “David’s victory over Goliath.” The following is a copy of it: I was small among my brethren, And youngest in my father’s house, I used to feed my father’s sheep. My hands made a harp, My fingers fashioned a Psaltery. And who will declare unto my Lord? He is Lord, he it is who heareth. He it was who sent his angel And took me from my father’s sheep, And anointed me with the oil of his anointing. My brethren were goodly and tall, But the Lord took no pleasure in them. I went forth to meet the Philistine. And he cursed me by his idols But I drew the sword from beside him; I beheaded him and removed reproach from the children of Israel.

It will be noted that this psalm does not have the earmarks of an inspired production. There is not found in it the modesty so characteristic of David, but there is here an evident spirit of boasting and self-praise which is foreign to the Spirit of inspiration.

There is a difference in the numbering of the psalms in our version which follows the Hebrew, and the numbering in the Septuagint. Omitting the extra one in the Septuagint, there is no difference as to the total number. Both have 150 and the same subject matter, but they are not divided alike.

The following scheme shows the division according to our version and also the Septuagint: Psalms 1-8 in the Hebrew equal 1-8 in the Septuagint; 9-10 in the Hebrew combine into 9 in the Septuagint; 11-113 in the Hebrew equal 10-112 in the Septuagint; 114-115 in the Hebrew combine into 113 in the Septuagint; 116 in the Hebrew divides into 114-115 in the Septuagint; 117-146 in the Hebrew equal 116-145 in the Septuagint; 147 in the Hebrew divides into 146-147 in the Septuagint; 148-150 in the Hebrew equal 148-150 in the Septuagint.

The arrangement in the Vulgate is the same as the Septuagint. Also some of the older English versions have this arangement. Another difficulty in numbering perplexes an inexperienced student in turning from one version to another, viz: In the Hebrew often the title is verse I, and sometimes the title embraces verses 1-2.

The book divisions of the Psalter are five books, as follows:

Book I, Psalms 1-41 (41 chapters)

Book II, Psalms 42-72 (31 chapters)

Book III, Psalms 73-89 (17 chapters)

Book IV, Psalms 90-106 (17 chapters)

Book V, Psalms 107-150 (44 chapters)

They are marked by an introduction and a doxology. Psalm I forms an introduction to the whole book; Psa 150 is the doxology for the whole book. The introduction and doxology of each book are the first and last psalms of each division, respectively.

There were smaller collections before the final one, as follows:

Books I and II were by David; Book III, by Hezekiah, and Books IV and V, by Ezra.

Certain principles determined the arrangement of the several psalms in the present collection:

1. David is honored with first place, Book I and II, including Psalms 1-72.

2. They are grouped according to the use of the name of God:

(1) Psalms 1-41 are Jehovah psalms;

(2) Psalms 42-83 are Elohim-psalms;

(3) Psalms 84-150 are Jehovah psalms.

3. Book IV is introduced by the psalm of Moses, which is the first psalm written.

4. Some are arranged as companion psalms, for instance, sometimes two, sometimes three, and sometimes more. Examples: Psa 2 and 3; 22, 23, and 24; 113-118.

5. They were arranged for liturgical purposes, which furnished the psalms for special occasions, such as feasts, etc. We may be sure this arrangement was not accidental. An intelligent study of each case is convincing that it was determined upon rational grounds.

All the psalms have titles but thirty-three, as follows:

In Book I, Psa 1 ; Psa 2 ; Psa 10 ; Psa 33 , (4 are without titles).

In Book II, Psa 43 ; Psa 71 , (2 are without titles).

In Book IV, Psa 91 ; Psa 93 ; Psa 94 ; Psa 95 ; Psa 96 ; Psa 97 ; Psa 104 ; Psa 105 ; Psa 106 , (9 are without titles).

In Book V, Psa 107 ; III; 112; 113; 114; 115; 116; 117; 118; 119; 135; 136; 137; 146; 147; 148; 149; 150, (18 are without titles).

The Talmud calls these psalms that have no title, “Orphan Psalms.” The later Jews supply these titles by taking the nearest preceding author. The lack of titles in Psa 1 ; Psa 2 ; and 10 may be accounted for as follows: Psa 1 is a general introduction to the whole collection and Psa 2 was, perhaps, a part of Psa 1 . Psalms 9-10 were formerly combined into one, therefore Psa 10 has the same title as Psa 9 .

QUESTIONS

1. What books are commended on the Psalms?

2. What is a psalm?

3. What is the Psalter?

4. What is the range of time in composition?

5. When and by whom was the collection in its present form arranged?

6. What the Jewish classification of Old Testament books, and what the position of the Psalter in this classification?

7. What is the Hebrew title of the Psalms?

8. Find the title of the first two books from the books themselves.

9. What is the title of the whole collection of psalms in the Septuagint?

10. What is the title in the Alexandrian Codex?

11. What is the derivation of our English word, “Psalms”, “Psalter”, and “Psaltery,” respectively?

12. How many psalms in our collection?

13. How many psalms in the Septuagint?

14. What about the extra one in the Septuagint?

15. What is the subject of this extra psalm?

16. How does it compare with the Canonical Psalms?

17. What is the difference in the numbering of the psalms in our version which follows the Hebrew, and the numbering in the Septuagint?

18. What is the arrangement in the Vulgate?

19. What other difficulty in numbering which perplexes an inexperienced student in turning from one version to another?

20. What are the book divisions of the Psalter and how are these divisions marked?

21. Were there smaller collections before the final one? If so, what were they?

22. What principles determined the arrangement of the several psalms in the present collection?

23. In what conclusion may we rest concerning this arrangement?

24. How many of the psalms have no titles?

25. What does the Talmud call these psalms that have no titles?

26. How do later Jews supply these titles?

27. How do you account for the lack of titles in Psa 1 ; Psa 2 ; Psa 10 ?

XII

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF PSALMS (CONTINUED)

The following is a list of the items of information gathered from the titles of the psalms:

1. The author: “A Psalm of David” (Psa 37 ).

2. The occasion: “When he fled from Absalom, his son” (Psa 3 ).

3. The nature, or character, of the poem:

(1) Maschil, meaning “instruction,” a didactic poem (Psa 42 ).

(2) Michtam, meaning “gold,” “A Golden Psalm”; this means excellence or mystery (Psa 16 ; 56-60).

4. The occasion of its use: “A Psalm of David for the dedication of the house” (Psa 30 ).

5. Its purpose: “A Psalm of David to bring remembrance” (Psa 38 ; Psa 70 ).

6. Direction for its use: “A Psalm of David for the chief musician” (Psa 4 ).

7. The kind of musical instrument:

(1) Neginoth, meaning to strike a chord, as on stringed instruments (Psa 4 ; Psa 61 ).

(2) Nehiloth, meaning to perforate, as a pipe or flute (Psa 5 ).

(3) Shoshannim, Lilies, which refers probably to cymbals (Psa 45 ; Psa 69 ).

8. A special choir:

(1) Sheminith, the “eighth,” or octave below, as a male choir (Psa 6 ; Psa 12 ).

(2) Alamoth, female choir (Psa 46 ).

(3) Muth-labben, music with virgin voice, to be sung by a choir of boys in the treble (Psa 9 ).

9. The keynote, or tune:

(1) Aijeleth-sharar, “Hind of the morning,” a song to the melody of which this is sung (Psa 22 ).

(2) Al-tashheth, “Destroy thou not,” the beginning of a song the tune of which is sung (Psa 57 ; Psa 58 ; Psa 59 ; Psa 75 ).

(3) Gittith, set to the tune of Gath, perhaps a tune which David brought from Gath (Psa 8 ; Psa 81 ; Psa 84 ).

(4) Jonath-elim-rehokim, “The dove of the distant terebinths,” the commencement of an ode to the air of which this song was to be sung (Psa 56 ).

(5) Leannoth, the name of a tune (Psa 88 ).

(6) Mahalath, an instrument (Psa 53 ); Leonnoth-Mahaloth, to chant to a tune called Mahaloth.

(7) Shiggaion, a song or a hymn.

(8) Shushan-Eduth, “Lily of testimony,” a tune (Psa 60 ). Note some examples: (1) “America,” “Shiloh,” “Auld Lang Syne.” These are the names of songs such as we are familiar with; (2) “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” and “There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood,” are examples of sacred hymns.

10. The liturgical use, those noted for the feasts, e.g., the Hallels and Hallelujah Psalms (Psalms 146-150).

11. The destination, as “Song of Ascents” (Psalms 120-134)

12. The direction for the music, such as Selah, which means “Singers, pause”; Higgaion-Selah, to strike a symphony with selah, which means an instrumental interlude (Psa 9:16 ).

The longest and fullest title to any of the psalms is the title to Psa 60 . The items of information from this title are as follows: (1) the author; (2) the chief musician; (3) the historical occasion; (4) the use, or design; (5) the style of poetry; (6) the instrument or style of music.

The parts of these superscriptions which most concern us now are those indicating author, occasion, and date. As to the historic value or trustworthiness of these titles most modern scholars deny that they are a part of the Hebrew text, but the oldest Hebrew text of which we know anything had all of them. This is the text from which the Septuagint was translated. It is much more probable that the author affixed them than later writers. There is no internal evidence in any of the psalms that disproves the correctness of them, but much to confirm. The critics disagree among themselves altogether as to these titles. Hence their testimony cannot consistently be received. Nor can it ever be received until they have at least agreed upon a common ground of opposition.

David is the author of more than half the entire collection, the arrangement of which is as follows:

1. Seventy-three are ascribed to him in the superscriptions.

2. Some of these are but continuations of the preceding ones of a pair, trio, or larger group.

3. Some of the Korahite Psalms are manifestly Davidic.

4. Some not ascribed to him in the titles are attributed to him expressly by New Testament writers.

5. It is not possible to account for some parts of the Psalter without David. The history of his early life as found in Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1and 2 Chronicles, not only shows his remarkable genius for patriotic and sacred songs and music, but also shows his cultivation of that gift in the schools of the prophets. Some of these psalms of the history appear in the Psalter itself. It is plain to all who read these that they are founded on experience, and the experience of no other Hebrew fits the case. These experiences are found in Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles.

As to the attempt of the destructive critics to rob David of his glory in relation to the Psalter by assigning the Maccabean era as the date of composition, I have this to say:

1. This theory has no historical support whatever, and therefore is not to be accepted at all.

2. It has no support in tradition, which weakens the contention of the critics greatly.

3. It has no support from finding any one with the necessary experience for their basis.

4. They can give no reasonable account as to how the titles ever got there.

5. It is psychologically impossible for anyone to have written these 150 psalms in the Maccabean times.

6. Their position is expressly contrary to the testimony of Christ and the apostles. Some of the psalms which they ascribe to the Maccabean Age are attributed to David by Christ himself, who said that David wrote them in the Spirit.

The obvious aim of this criticism and the necessary result if it be Just, is a positive denial of the inspiration of both Testaments.

Other authors are named in the titles, as follows: (1) Asaph, to whom twelve psalms have been assigned: (2) Mosee, Psa 90 ; (3) Solomon, Psa 72 ; Psa 127 ; (4) Heman, Psa 80 ; (5) Ethem, Psa 89 ; (6) A number of the psalms are ascribed to the sons of Korah.

Not all the psalms ascribed to Asaph were composed by one person. History indicates that Asaph’s family presided over the song service for several generations. Some of them were composed by his descendants by the game name. The five general outlines of the whole collection are as follows:

I. By books

1. Psalms 1-41 (41)

2. Psalms 42-72 (31)

3. Psalms 73-89 (17)

4. Psalms 90-106 (17)

5. Psalms 107-150 (44)

II. According to date and authorship

1. The psalm of Moses (Psa 90 )

2. Psalms of David:

(1) The shepherd boy (Psa 8 ; Psa 19 ; Psa 29 ; Psa 23 ).

(2) David when persecuted by Saul (Psa 59 ; Psa 56 ; Psa 34 ; Psa 52 ; Psa 54 ; Psa 57 ; Psa 142 ).

(3) David the King (Psa 101 ; Psa 18 ; Psa 24 ; Psa 2 ; Psa 110 ; Psa 20 ; Psa 20 ; Psa 21 ; Psa 60 ; Psa 51 ; Psa 32 ; Psa 41 ; Psa 55 ; Psa 3:4 ; Psa 64 ; Psa 62 ; Psa 61 ; Psa 27 ).

3. The Asaph Psalms (Psa 50 ; Psa 73 ; Psa 83 ).

4. The Korahite Psalms (Psa 42 ; Psa 43 ; Psa 84 ).

5. The psalms of Solomon (Psa 72 ; Psa 127 ).

6. The psalms of the era of Hezekiah and Isaiah (Psa 46 ; Psa 47 ; Psa 48 )

7. The psalms of the Exile (Psa 74 ; Psa 79 ; Psa 137 ; Psa 102 )

8. The psalms of the Restoration (Psa 85 ; Psa 126 ; Psa 118 ; 146-150)

III. By groups

1. The Jehovistic and Elohistic Psalms:

(1) Psalms 1-41 are Jehovistic;

(2) Psalms 42-83 are Elohistic Psalms;

(3) Psalms 84-150 are Jehovistic.

2. The Penitential Psalms (Psa 6 ; Psa 32 ; Psa 38 ; Psa 51 ; Psa 102 ; Psa 130 ; Psa 143 )

3. The Pilgrim Psalms (Psalms 120-134)

4. The Alphabetical Psalms (Psa 9 ; Psa 10 ; Psa 25 ; Psa 34 ; Psa 37 ; 111:112; Psa 119 ; Psa 145 )

5. The Hallelujah Psalms (Psalms 11-113; 115-117; 146-150; to which may be added Psa 135 ) Psalms 113-118 are called “the Egyptian Hallel”

IV. Doctrines of the Psalms

1. The throne of grace and how to approach it by sacrifice, prayer, and praise.

2. The covenant, the basis of worship.

3. The paradoxical assertions of both innocence & guilt.

4. The pardon of sin and justification.

5. The Messiah.

6. The future life, pro and con.

7. The imprecations.

8. Other doctrines.

V. The New Testament use of the Psalms

1. Direct references and quotations in the New Testament.

2. The allusions to the psalms in the New Testament. Certain experiences of David’s life made very deep impressions on his heart, such as: (1) his peaceful early life; (2) his persecution by Saul; (3) his being crowned king of the people; (4) the bringing up of the ark; (5) his first great sin; (6) Absalom’s rebellion; (7) his second great sin; (8) the great promise made to him in 2Sa 7 ; (9) the feelings of his old age.

We may classify the Davidic Psalms according to these experiences following the order of time, thus:

1. His peaceful early life (Psa 8 ; Psa 19 ; Psa 29 ; Psa 23 )

2. His persecution by Saul (Psa 59 ; Psa 56 ; Psa 34 ; Psa 7 ; Psa 52 ; Psa 120 ; Psa 140 ; Psa 54 ; Psa 57 ; Psa 142 ; Psa 17 ; Psa 18 )

3. Making David King (Psa 27 ; Psa 133 ; Psa 101 )

4. Bringing up the ark (Psa 68 ; Psa 24 ; Psa 132 ; Psa 15 ; Psa 78 ; Psa 96 )

5. His first great sin (Psa 51 ; Psa 32 )

6. Absalom’s rebellion (Psa 41 ; Psa 6 ; Psa 55 ; Psa 109 ; Psa 38 ; Psa 39 ; Psa 3 ; Psa 4 ; Psa 63 ; Psa 42 ; Psa 43 ; Psa 5 ; Psa 62 ; Psa 61 ; Psa 27 )

7. His second great sin (Psa 69 ; Psa 71 ; Psa 102 ; Psa 103 )

8. The great promise made to him in 2Sa 7 (Psa 2 )

9. Feelings of old age (Psa 37 )

The great doctrines of the psalms may be noted as follows: (1) the being and attributes of God; (3) sin, both original and individual; (3) both covenants; (4) the doctrine of justification; (5) concerning the Messiah.

There is a striking analogy between the Pentateuch and the Psalms. The Pentateuch contains five books of law; the Psalms contain five books of heart responses to the law.

It is interesting to note the historic controversies concerning the singing of psalms. These were controversies about singing uninspired songs, in the Middle Ages. The church would not allow anything to be used but psalms.

The history in Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles, and in Ezra and Nehemiah is very valuable toward a proper interpretation of the psalms. These books furnish the historical setting for a great many of the psalms which is very indispensable to their proper interpretation.

Professor James Robertson, in the Poetry and Religion of the Psalms constructs a broad and strong argument in favor of the Davidic Psalms, as follows:

1. The age of David furnished promising soil for the growth of poetry.

2. David’s qualifications for composing the psalms make it highly probable that David is the author of the psalms ascribed to him.

3. The arguments against the possibility of ascribing to David any of the hymns in the Hebrew Psalter rests upon assumptions that are thoroughly antibiblical.

The New Testament makes large use of the psalms and we learn much as to their importance in teaching. There are seventy direct quotations in the New Testament from this book, from which we learn that the Scriptures were used extensively in accord with 2Ti 3:16-17 . There are also eleven references to the psalms in the New Testament from which we learn that the New Testament writers were thoroughly imbued with the spirit and teaching of the psalms. Then there are eight allusions ‘to this book in the New Testament from which we gather that the Psalms was one of the divisions of the Old Testament and that they were used in the early church.

QUESTIONS

1. Give a list of the items of information gathered from the titles of the psalms.

2. What is the longest title to any of the psalms and what the items of this title?

3. What parts of these superscriptions most concern us now?

4. What is the historic value, or trustworthiness of these titles?

5. State the argument showing David’s relation to the psalms.

6. What have you to say of the attempt of the destructive critics to rob David of his glory in relation to the Psalter by assigning the Maccabean era as the date of composition?

7. What the obvious aim of this criticism and the necessary result, if it be just?

8. What other authors are named in the titles?

9. Were all the psalms ascribed to Asaph composed by one person?

10. Give the five general outlines of the whole collection, as follows: I. The outline by books II. The outline according to date and authorship III. The outline by groups IV. The outline of doctrines V. The outline by New Testament quotations or allusions.

11. What experiences of David’s life made very deep impressions on his heart?

12. Classify the Davidic Psalms according to these experiences following the order of time.

13. What the great doctrines of the psalms?

14. What analogy between the Pentateuch and the Psalms?

15. What historic controversies concerning the singing of psalms?

16. Of what value is the history in Samuel, 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles, and in Ezra and Nehemiah toward a proper interpretation of the psalms?

17. Give Professor James Robertson’s argument in favor of the Davidic authorship of the psalms.

18. What can you say of the New Testament use of the psalms and what do we learn as to their importance in teaching?

19. What can you say of the New Testament references to the psalms, and from the New Testament references what the impression on the New Testament writers?

20. What can you say of the allusions to the psalms in the New Testament?

XVII

THE MESSIAH IN THE PSALMS

A fine text for this chapter is as follows: “All things must be fulfilled which were written in the Psalms concerning me,” Luk 24:44 . I know of no better way to close my brief treatise on the Psalms than to discuss the subject of the Messiah as revealed in this book.

Attention has been called to the threefold division of the Old Testament cited by our Lord, namely, the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms (Luk 24:44 ), in all of which were the prophecies relating to himself that “must be fulfilled.” It has been shown just what Old Testament books belong to each of these several divisions. The division called the Psalms included many books, styled Holy Writings, and because the Psalms proper was the first book of the division it gave the name to the whole division.

The object of this discussion is to sketch the psalmist’s outline of the Messiah, or rather, to show how nearly a complete picture of our Lord is foredrawn in this one book. Let us understand however with Paul, that all prophecy is but in part (1Co 13:9 ), and that when we fill in on one canvas all the prophecies concerning the Messiah of all the Old Testament divisions, we are far from having a perfect portrait of our Lord. The present purpose is limited to three things:

1. What the book of the Psalms teaches concerning the Messiah.

2. That the New Testament shall authoritatively specify and expound this teaching.

3. That the many messianic predictions scattered over the book and the specifications thereof over the New Testament may be grouped into an orderly analysis, so that by the adjustment of the scattered parts we may have before us a picture of our Lord as foreseen by the psalmists.

In allowing the New Testament to authoritatively specify and expound the predictive features of the book, I am not unmindful of what the so-called “higher critics” urge against the New Testament quotations from the Old Testament and the use made of them. In this discussion, however, these objections are not considered, for sufficient reasons. There is not space for it. Even at the risk of being misjudged I must just now summarily pass all these objections, dismissing them with a single statement upon which the reader may place his own estimate of value. That statement is that in the days of my own infidelity, before this old method of criticism had its new name, I was quite familiar with the most and certainly the strongest of the objections now classified as higher criticism, and have since patiently re-examined them in their widely conflicting restatements under their modern name, and find my faith in the New Testament method of dealing with the Old Testament in no way shattered, but in every way confirmed. God is his own interpreter. The Old Testament as we now have it was in the hands of our Lord. I understand his apostle to declare, substantially, that “every one of these sacred scriptures is God-inspired and is profitable for teaching us what is right to believe and to do, for convincing us what is wrong in faith or practice, for rectifying the wrong when done, that we may be ready at every point, furnished completely, to do every good work, at the right time, in the right manner, and from the proper motive” (2Ti 3:16-17 ).

This New Testament declares that David was a prophet (Act 2:30 ), that he spake by the Holy Spirit (Act 1:16 ), that when the book speaks the Holy Spirit speaks (Heb 3:7 ), and that all its predictive utterances, as sacred Scripture, “must be fulfilled” (Joh 13:18 ; Act 1:16 ). It is not claimed that David wrote all the psalms, but that all are inspired, and that as he was the chief author, the book goes by his name.

It would be a fine thing to make out two lists, as follows:

1. All of the 150 psalms in order from which the New Testament quotes with messianic application.

2. The New Testament quotations, book by book, i.e., Matthew so many, and then the other books in their order.

We would find in neither of these any order as to time, that is, Psa 1 which forecasts an incident in the coming Messiah’s life does not forecast the first incident of his life. And even the New Testament citations are not in exact order as to time and incident of his life. To get the messianic picture before us, therefore, we must put the scattered parts together in their due relation and order, and so construct our own analysis. That is the prime object of this discussion. It is not claimed that the analysis now presented is perfect. It is too much the result of hasty, offhand work by an exceedingly busy man. It will serve, however, as a temporary working model, which any one may subsequently improve. We come at once to the psalmist’s outline of the Messiah.

1. The necessity for a Saviour. This foreseen necessity is a background of the psalmists’ portrait of the Messiah. The necessity consists in (1) man’s sinfulness; (2) his sin; (3) his inability of wisdom and power to recover himself; (4) the insufficiency of legal, typical sacrifices in securing atonement.

The predicate of Paul’s great argument on justification by faith is the universal depravity and guilt of man. He is everywhere corrupt in nature; everywhere an actual transgressor; everywhere under condemnation. But the scriptural proofs of this depravity and sin the apostle draws mainly from the book of the Psalms. In one paragraph of the letter to the Romans (Rom 3:4-18 ), he cites and groups six passages from six divisions of the Psalms (Psa 5:9 ; Psa 10:7 ; Psa 14:1-3 ; Psa 36:1 ; Psa 51:4-6 ; Psa 140:3 ). These passages abundantly prove man’s sinfulness, or natural depravity, and his universal practice of sin.

The predicate also of the same apostle’s great argument for revelation and salvation by a Redeemer is man’s inability of wisdom and power to re-establish communion with God. In one of his letters to the Corinthians he thus commences his argument: “For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? -For after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preach-ing to save them that believe.” He closes this discussion with the broad proposition: “The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God,” and proves it by a citation from Psa 94:11 : “The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.”

In like manner our Lord himself pours scorn on human wisdom and strength by twice citing Psa 8 : “At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight” (Mat 11:25-26 ). “And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children that were crying in the temple and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David; they were sore displeased, and said unto him, Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?” (Mat 21:15-16 ).

But the necessity for a Saviour as foreseen by the psalmist did not stop at man’s depravity, sin, and helplessness. The Jews were trusting in the sacrifices of their law offered on the smoking altar. The inherent weakness of these offerings, their lack of intrinsic merit, their ultimate abolition, their complete fulfilment and supercession by a glorious antitype were foreseen and foreshown in this wonderful prophetic book: I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices; And thy burnt offerings are continually before me. I will take no bullock out of thy house, Nor he-goat out of thy folds. For every beast of the forest is mine, And the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all of the birds of the mountains; And the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee; For the world is mine, and the fulness thereof. Will I eat the flesh of bulls, Or drink the blood of goats? Psa 50:8-13 .

Yet again it speaks in that more striking passage cited in the letter to the Hebrews: “For the law having a shadow of good things to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshipers, once purged should have no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance made of sins year by year. For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, But a body didst thou prepare for me; In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hadst no pleasure: Then said I, Lo, I am come (In the roll of the book it is written of me) To do thy will, O God. Saying above, Sacrifice and offering and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou wouldst not, neither hadst pleasure therein, (the which are offered according to the law), then hath he said, Lo, I am come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second” (Heb 10:1-9 ).

This keen foresight of the temporary character and intrinsic worthlessness of animal sacrifices anticipated similar utterances by the later prophets (Isa 1:10-17 ; Jer 6:20 ; Jer 7:21-23 ; Hos 6:6 ; Amo 5:21 ; Mic 6:6-8 ). Indeed, I may as well state in passing that when the apostle declares, “It is impossible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins,” he lays down a broad principle, just as applicable to baptism and the Lord’s Supper. With reverence I state the principle: Not even God himself by mere appointment can vest in any ordinance, itself lacking intrinsic merit, the power to take away sin. There can be, therefore, in the nature of the case, no sacramental salvation. This would destroy the justice of God in order to exalt his mercy. Clearly the psalmist foresaw that “truth and mercy must meet together” before “righteousness and peace could kiss each other” (Psa 85:10 ). Thus we find as the dark background of the psalmists’ luminous portrait of the Messiah, the necessity for a Saviour.

2. The nature, extent, and blessedness of the salvation to be wrought by the coming Messiah. In no other prophetic book are the nature, fullness, and blessedness of salvation so clearly seen and so vividly portrayed. Besides others not now enumerated, certainly the psalmists clearly forecast four great elements of salvation:

(1) An atoning sacrifice of intrinsic merit offered once for all (Psa 40:6-8 ; Heb 10:4-10 ).

(2) Regeneration itself consisting of cleansing, renewal, and justification. We hear his impassioned statement of the necessity of regeneration: “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts,” followed by his earnest prayer: “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me,” and his equally fervent petition: “Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow” (Psa 51 ). And we hear him again as Paul describes the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputes righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, And whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not reckon sin Psa 32:1 ; Rom 4:6-8 .

(3) Introduction into the heavenly rest (Psa 95:7-11 ; Heb 3:7-19 ; Heb 4:1-11 ). Here is the antitypical Joshua leading spiritual Israel across the Jordan of death into the heavenly Canaan, the eternal rest that remaineth for the people of God. Here we find creation’s original sabbath eclipsed by redemption’s greater sabbath when the Redeemer “entered his rest, ceasing from his own works as God did from his.”

(4) The recovery of all the universal dominion lost by the first Adam and the securement of all possible dominion which the first Adam never attained (Psa 8:5-6 ; Eph 1:20-22 ; Heb 2:7-9 ; 1Co 15:24-28 ).

What vast extent then and what blessedness in the salvation foreseen by the psalmists, and to be wrought by the Messiah. Atoning sacrifice of intrinsic merit; regeneration by the Holy Spirit; heavenly rest as an eternal inheritance; and universal dominion shared with Christ!

3. The wondrous person of the Messiah in his dual nature, divine and human.

(1) His divinity,

(a) as God: “Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever” (Psa 45:6 and Heb 1:8 ) ;

(b) as creator of the heavens and earth, immutable and eternal: Of old didst thou lay the foundation of the earth; And the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure; Yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; As a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed. But thou art the same, And thy years shall have no end Psa 102:25-27 quoted with slight changes in Heb 1:10-12 .

(c) As owner of the earth: The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof; The world, and they that dwell therein, Psa 24:1 quoted in 1Co 10:26 .

(d) As the Son of God: “Thou art my Son; This day have I begotten thee” Psa 2:7 ; Heb 1:5 .

(e) As David’s Lord: The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, Until I make thine enemies thy footstool, Psa 110:1 ; Mat 22:41-46 .

(f) As the object of angelic worship: “And let all the angels of God worship him” Psa 97:7 ; Heb 1:6 .

(g) As the Bread of life: And he rained down manna upon them to eat, And gave them food from heaven Psa 78:24 ; interpreted in Joh 6:31-58 . These are but samples which ascribe deity to the Messiah of the psalmists.

(2) His humanity, (a) As the Son of man, or Son of Adam: Psa 8:4-6 , cited in 1Co 15:24-28 ; Eph 1:20-22 ; Heb 2:7-9 . Compare Luke’s genealogy, Luk 3:23-38 . This is the ideal man, or Second Adam, who regains Paradise Lost, who recovers race dominion, in whose image all his spiritual lineage is begotten. 1Co 15:45-49 . (b) As the Son of David: Psa 18:50 ; Psa 89:4 ; Psa 89:29 ; Psa 89:36 ; Psa 132:11 , cited in Luk 1:32 ; Act 13:22-23 ; Rom 1:3 ; 2Ti 2:8 . Perhaps a better statement of the psalmists’ vision of the wonderful person of the Messiah would be: He saw the uncreated Son, the second person of the trinity, in counsel and compact with the Father, arranging in eternity for the salvation of men: Psa 40:6-8 ; Heb 10:5-7 . Then he saw this Holy One stoop to be the Son of man: Psa 8:4-6 ; Heb 2:7-9 . Then he was the son of David, and then he saw him rise again to be the Son of God: Psa 2:7 ; Rom 1:3-4 .

4. His offices.

(1) As the one atoning sacrifice (Psa 40:6-8 ; Heb 10:5-7 ).

(2) As the great Prophet, or Preacher (Psa 40:9-10 ; Psa 22:22 ; Heb 2:12 ). Even the method of his teaching by parable was foreseen (Psa 78:2 ; Mat 13:35 ). Equally also the grace, wisdom, and power of his teaching. When the psalmist declares that “Grace is poured into thy lips” (Psa 45:2 ), we need not be startled when we read that all the doctors in the Temple who heard him when only a boy “were astonished at his understanding and answers” (Luk 2:47 ); nor that his home people at Nazareth “all bear him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth” (Luk 4:22 ); nor that those of his own country were astonished, and said, “Whence hath this man this wisdom?” (Mat 13:54 ); nor that the Jews in the Temple marveled, saying, “How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?” (Joh 7:15 ) ; nor that the stern officers of the law found their justification in failure to arrest him in the declaration, “Never man spake like this man” (Joh 7:46 ).

(3) As the king (Psa 2:6 ; Psa 24:7-10 ; Psa 45:1-17 ; Psa 110:1 ; Mat 22:42-46 ; Act 2:33-36 ; 1Co 15:25 ; Eph 1:20 ; Heb 1:13 ).

(4) As the priest (Psa 110:4 ; Heb 5:5-10 ; Heb 7:1-21 ; Heb 10:12-14 ).

(5) As the final judge. The very sentence of expulsion pronounced upon the finally impenitent by the great judge (Mat 25:41 ) is borrowed from the psalmist’s prophetic words (Psa 6:8 ).

5. Incidents of life. The psalmists not only foresaw the necessity for a Saviour; the nature, extent, and blessedness of the salvation; the wonderful human-divine person of the Saviour; the offices to be filled by him in the work of salvation, but also many thrilling details of his work in life, death, resurrection, and exaltation. It is not assumed to cite all these details, but some of the most important are enumerated in order, thus:

(1) The visit, adoration, and gifts of the Magi recorded in Mat 2 are but partial fulfilment of Psa 72:9-10 .

(2) The scripture employed by Satan in the temptation of our Lord (Luk 4:10-11 ) was cited from Psa 91:11-12 and its pertinency not denied.

(3) In accounting for his intense earnestness and the apparently extreme measures adopted by our Lord in his first purification of the Temple (Joh 2:17 ), he cites the messianic zeal predicted in Psa 69:9 .

(4) Alienation from his own family was one of the saddest trials of our Lord’s earthly life. They are slow to understand his mission and to enter into sympathy with him. His self-abnegation and exhaustive toil were regarded by them as evidences of mental aberration, and it seems at one time they were ready to resort to forcible restraint of his freedom) virtually what in our time would be called arrest under a writ of lunacy. While at the last his half-brothers became distinguished preachers of his gospel, for a long while they do not believe on him. And the evidence forces us to the conclusion that his own mother shared with her other sons, in kind though not in degree, the misunderstanding of the supremacy of his mission over family relations. The New Testament record speaks for itself:

Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I sought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them. How is it that ye sought me? Knew ye not that I must be in my Father’s house? And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them Luk 2:48-51 (R.V.).

And when the wine failed, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. And Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come. Joh 2:3-5 (R.V.).

And there come his mother and his brethren; and standing without; they sent unto him, calling him. And a multitude was sitting about him; and they say unto him. Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee. And he answereth them, and saith, Who is my mother and my brethren? And looking round on them that sat round about him, he saith, Behold, my mother and my brethren) For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother Mar 3:31-35 (R.V.).

Now the feast of the Jews, the feast of tabernacles, was at hand. His brethren therefore said unto him, Depart hence, and go into Judea, that thy disciples also may behold thy works which thou doest. For no man doeth anything in secret, and himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou doest these things, manifest thyself to the world. For even his brethren did not believe on him. Jesus therefore saith unto them, My time is not yet come; but your time is always ready. The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that its works are evil. Go ye up unto the feast: I go not up yet unto this feast; because my time is not fulfilled. Joh 7:2-9 (R.V.).

These citations from the Revised Version tell their own story. But all that sad story is foreshown in the prophetic psalms. For example: I am become a stranger unto my brethren, And an alien unto my mother’s children. Psa 69:8 .

(5) The triumphal entry into Jerusalem was welcomed by a joyous people shouting a benediction from Psa 118:26 : “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord” (Mat 21:9 ); and the Lord’s lamentation over Jerusalem predicts continued desolation and banishment from his sight until the Jews are ready to repeat that benediction (Mat 23:39 ).

(6) The children’s hosanna in the Temple after its second purgation is declared by our Lord to be a fulfilment of that perfect praise forecast in Psa 8:2 .

(7) The final rejection of our Lord by his own people was also clear in the psalmist’s vision (Psa 118:22 ; Mat 21:42-44 ).

(8) Gethsemane’s baptism of suffering, with its strong crying and tears and prayers was as clear to the psalmist’s prophetic vision as to the evangelist and apostle after it became history (Psa 69:1-4 ; Psa 69:13-20 ; and Mat 26:36-44 ; Heb 5:7 ).

(9) In life-size also before the psalmist was the betrayer of Christ and his doom (Psa 41:9 ; Psa 69:25 ; Psa 109:6-8 ; Joh 13:18 ; Act 1:20 ).

(10) The rage of the people, Jew and Gentile, and the conspiracy of Pilate and Herod are clearly outlined (Psa 2:1-3 ; Act 4:25-27 ).

(11) All the farce of his trial the false accusation, his own marvelous silence; and the inhuman maltreatment to which he was subjected, is foreshown in the prophecy as dramatically as in the history (Mat 26:57-68 ; Mat 27:26-31 ; Psa 27:12 ; Psa 35:15-16 ; Psa 38:3 ; Psa 69:19 ).

The circumstances of his death, many and clear, are distinctly foreseen. He died in the prime of life (Psa 89:45 ; Psa 102:23-24 ). He died by crucifixion (Psa 22:14-17 ; Luk 23 ; 33; Joh 19:23-37 ; Joh 20:27 ). But yet not a bone of his body was broken (Psa 34:20 ; Joh 19:36 ).

The persecution, hatred without a cause, the mockery and insults, are all vividly and dramatically foretold (Psa 22:6-13 ; Psa 35:7 ; Psa 35:12 ; Psa 35:15 ; Psa 35:21 ; Psa 109:25 ).

The parting of his garments and the gambling for his vesture (Psa 22:18 ; Mat 27:35 ).

His intense thirst and the gall and vinegar offered for his drink (Psa 69:21 ; Mat 27:34 ).

In the psalms, too, we hear his prayers for his enemies so remarkably fulfilled in fact (Psa 109:4 ; Luk 23:34 ).

His spiritual death was also before the eye of the psalmist, and the very words which expressed it the psalmist heard. Separation from the Father is spiritual death. The sinner’s substitute must die the sinner’s death, death physical, i.e., separation of soul from body; death spiritual, i.e., separation of the soul from God. The latter is the real death and must precede the former. This death the substitute died when he cried out: “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me.” (Psa 22:1 ; Mat 27:46 ).

Emerging from the darkness of that death, which was the hour of the prince of darkness, the psalmist heard him commend his spirit to the Father (Psa_31:35; Luk 23:46 ) showing that while he died the spiritual death, his soul was not permanently abandoned unto hell (Psa 16:8-10 ; Act 2:25 ) so that while he “tasted death” for every man it was not permanent death (Heb 2:9 ).

With equal clearness the psalmist foresaw his resurrection, his triumph over death and hell, his glorious ascension into heaven, and his exaltation at the right hand of God as King of kings and Lord of lords, as a high Driest forever, as invested with universal sovereignty (Psa 16:8-11 ; Psa 24:7-10 ; Psa 68:18 ; Psa 2:6 ; Psa 111:1-4 ; Psa 8:4-6 ; Act 2:25-36 ; Eph 1:19-23 ; Eph 4:8-10 ).

We see, therefore, brethren, when the scattered parts are put together and adjusted, how nearly complete a portrait of our Lord is put upon the prophetic canvas by this inspired limner, the sweet singer of Israel.

QUESTIONS

1. What is a good text for this chapter?

2. What is the threefold division of the Old Testament as cited by our Lord?

3. What is the last division called and why?

4. What is the object of the discussion in this chapter?

5. To what three things is the purpose limited?

6. What especially qualifies the author to meet the objections of the higher critics to allowing the New Testament usage of the Old Testament to determine its meaning and application?

7. What is the author’s conviction relative to the Scriptures?

8. What is the New Testament testimony on the question of inspiration?

9. What is the author’s suggested plan of approach to the study of the Messiah in the Psalms?

10. What the background of the Psalmist’s portrait of the Messiah and of what does it consist?

11. Give the substance of Paul’s discussion of man’s sinfulness.

12. What is the teaching of Jesus on this point?

13. What is the teaching relative to sacrifices?

14. What the nature, extent, and blessedness of the salvation to be wrought by the coming Messiah and what the four great elements of it as forecast by the psalmist?

15. What is the teaching of the psalms relative to the wondrous person of the Messiah? Discuss.

16. What are the offices of the Messiah according to psalms? Discuss each.

17. Cite the more important events of the Messiah’s life according to the vision of the psalmist.

18. What the circumstances of the Messiah’s death and resurrection as foreseen by the psalmist?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

XVI

THE MESSIANIC PSALMS AND OTHERS

We commence this chapter by giving a classified list of the Messianic Psalms, as follows:

The Royal Psalms are:

Psa 110 ; Psa 2 ; Psa 72 ; Psa 45 ; Psa 89 ;

The Passion Psalms are:

Psa 22 ; Psa 41 ; Psa 69 ;

The Psalms of the Ideal Man are Psa 8 ; Psa 16 ; Psa 40 ;

The Missionary Psalms are:

Psa 47 ; Psa 65 ; Psa 68 ; Psa 96 ; Psa 100 ; Psa 117 .

The predictions before David of the coming Messiah are, (1) the seed of the woman; (2) the seed of Abraham; (3) the seed of Judah; (4) the seed of David.

The prophecies of history concerning the Messiah are, (1) a prophet like unto Moses; (2) a priest after the order of Melchizedek; (3) a sacrifice which embraces all the sacrificial offerings of the Old Testament; (4) direct references to him as King, as in 2Sa 7:8 ff.

The messianic offices as taught in the psalms are four, viz: (1) The Messiah is presented as Prophet, or Teacher (Psa 40:8 ); (2) as Sacrifice, or an Offering for sin (Psa 40:6 ff.; Heb 10:5 ff.) ; (3) he is presented as Priest (Psa 110:4 ); (4) he is presented as King (Psa 45 ).

The psalms most clearly presenting the Messiah in his various phases and functions are as follows: (1) as the ideal man, or Second Adam (8); (2) as Prophet (Psa 40 ); (3) as Sacrifice (Psa 22 ) ; (4) as King (Psa 45 ) ; (5) as Priest (Psa 110 ) ; (6) in his universal reign (Psa 72 ).

It will be noted that other psalms teach these facts also, but these most clearly set forth the offices as they relate to the Messiah.

The Messiah as a sacrifice is presented in general in Psa 40:6 . His sufferings as such are given in a specific and general way in Psa 22 ; Psa 41 ; Psa 69 . The events of his sufferings in particular are described, beginning with the betrayal of Judas, as follows:

1. Judas betrayed him (Mat 26:14 ) in fulfilment of Psa 41:9 .

2. At the Supper (Mat 26:24 ) Christ said, “The Son of man goeth as it is written of him,” referring to Psa 22 .

3. They sang after the Supper in fulfilment of Psa 22:22 .

4. Piercing his hands and feet, Psa 22:16 .

5. They cast lots for his vesture in fulfilment of Psa 22:18 .

6. Just before the ninth hour the chief priests reviled him (Mat 27:43 ) in fulfilment of Psa 22:8 .

7. At the ninth hour (Mat 27:46 ) he quoted Psa 22:1 .

8. Near his death (Joh 19:28 ) he said, in fulfilment of Psa 69:21 , “I thirst.”

9. At that time they gave him vinegar (Mat 27:48 ) in fulfilment of Psa 69:21 .

10. When he was found dead they did not break his bones (Joh 19:36 ) in fulfilment of Psa 34:20 .

11. He is represented as dead, buried, and raised in Psa 16:10 .

12. His suffering as a substitute is described in Psa 69:9 .

13. The result of his crucifixion to them who crucified him is given in Psa 69:22-23 . Compare Rom 11:9-10 .

The Penitential Psalms are Psa 6 ; Psa 32 ; Psa 38 ; Psa 51 ; Psa 102 ; Psa 130 ; Psa 143 . The occasion of Psa 6 was the grief and penitence of David over Absalom; of Psa 32 was the blessedness of forgiveness after his sin with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah; Psa 38 , David’s reference to his sin with Bathsheba; Psa 51 , David’s penitence and prayer for forgiveness for this sin; Psa 102 , the penitence of the children of Israel on the eve of their return from captivity; Psalm 130, a general penitential psalm; Psa 143 , David’s penitence and prayer when pursued by Absalom.

The Pilgrim Psalms are Psalms 120-134. This section of the psalter is called the “Little Psalter.” These Psalms were collected in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, in troublous times. The author of the central psalm of this collection is Solomon, and he wrote it when he built his Temple. The Davidic Psalms in this collection are Psa 120 ; Psa 122 ; Psa 124 ; Psa 131 ; Psa 132 ; Psa 133 . The others were written during the building of the second Temple. They are called in the Septuagint “Songs of the Steps.”

There are four theories as to the meaning of the titles, “Songs of the Steps,” “Songs of Degrees,” or “Songs of Ascents,” viz:

1. The first theory is that the “Songs of the Steps” means the songs of the fifteen steps from the court of the women to the court of Israel, there being a song for each step.

2. The second theory is that advanced by Luther, which says that they were songs of a higher choir, elevated above, or in an elevated voice.

3. The third theory is that the thought in these psalms advances by degrees.

4. The fourth theory is that they are Pilgrim Psalms, or the songs that they sang while going up to the great feasts.

Certain scriptures give the true idea of these titles, viz: Exo 23:14-17 ; Exo 34:23-24 ; 1Sa 1:3 ; 1Ki 12:27-28 : Psa 122:1-4 ; and the proof of their singing as they went is found in Psa_42:4; 100; and Isa 30:29 . They went, singing these psalms, to the Feasts of the Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. Psa 121 was sung when just in sight of Jerusalem and Psa 122 was sung at the gate. Psa 128 is the description of a good man’s home and a parallel to this psalm in modern literature is Burns’s “Cotter’s Saturday Night.” The pious home makes the nation great.

Psa 133 is a psalm of fellowship. It is one of the finest expressions of the blessings that issue when God’s people dwell together in unity. The reference here is to the anointing of Aaron as high priest and the fragrance of the anointing oil which was used in these anointings. The dew of Hermon represents the blessing of God upon his people when they dwell together in such unity.

Now let us look at the Alphabetical Psalms. An alphabetical psalm is one in which the letters of the Hebrew alphabet are used alphabetically to commence each division. In Psalms 111-112, each clause so begins; in Psa 25 ; Psa 34 ; Psa 145 ; each verse so begins; in Psa 37 each stanza of two verses so begins; in 119 each stanza of eight verses so begins, and each of the eight lines begins with the same letter. In Psa 25 ; 34 37 the order is not so strict; in Psa 9 and Psa 10 there are some traces of this alphabetical order.

David originated these alphabetical psalms and the most complete specimen is Psa 119 , which is an expansion of the latter part of Psa 19 .

A certain group of psalms is called the Hallelujah Psalms. They are so called because the word “Hallelujah” is used at the beginning, or at the ending, and sometimes at both the beginning and the ending. The Hallelujah Psalms are Psalm 111-113; 115-117; 146-150. Psa 117 is a doxology; and Psalms 146-150 were used as anthems. Psa 148 calls on all creation to praise God. Francis of Assisi wrote a hymn based on this psalm in which he called the sun his honorable brother and the cricket his sister. Psa 150 calls for all varieties of instruments. Psalms 113-118 are called the Egyptian Hallel. They were used at the Passover (Psalm 113-114), before the Supper and Psalm 115-118 were sung after the Supper. According to this, Jesus and his disciples sang Psalms 115-118 at the last Passover Supper. These psalms were sung also at the Feasts of Pentecost, Tabernacles, Dedication, and New Moon.

The name of God is delayed long in Psa 114 . Addison said, “That the surprise might be complete.” Then there are some special characteristics of Psa 115 , viz: (1) It was written against idols. Cf. Isa 44:9-20 ; (2) It is antiphonal, the congregation singing Psa 115:1-8 , the choir Psa 115:9-12 , the priests Psa 115:13-15 and the congregation again Psa 115:16-18 . The theme of Psa 116 is love, based on gratitude for a great deliverance, expressed in service. It is appropriate to read at the celebration of the Lord’s Supper and Psa 116:15 is especially appropriate for funeral services.

On some special historical occasions certain psalms were sung. Psa 46 was sung by the army of Gustavus Adolphus before the decisive battle of Leipzig, on September 17, 1631.Psa 68 was sung by Cromwell’s army on the occasion of the battle of Dunbar in Scotland.

Certain passages in the Psalms show that the psalm writers approved the offering of Mosaic animal sacrifices. For instance, Psa 118:27 ; Psa 141:2 seem to teach very clearly that they approved the Mosaic sacrifice. But other passages show that these inspired writers estimated spiritual sacrifices as more important and foresaw the abolition of the animal sacrifices. Such passages are Psa 50:7-15 ; Psa 4:5 ; Psa 27:6 ; Psa 40:6 ; Psa 51:16-17 . These scriptures show conclusively that the writers estimated spiritual sacrifices as more important than the Mosaic sacrifices.

QUESTIONS

QUESTIONS

1. What are the Royal Psalms?

2. What are the Passion Psalms?

3. What are the Psalms of the Ideal Man?

4. What are the Missionary Psalms?

5. What are the predictions before David of the coming Messiah?

6. What are the prophecies of history concerning the Messiah?

7. Give a regular order of thought concerning the messianic offices as taught in the psalms.

8. Which psalms most clearly present the Messiah as (1) the ideal man, or Second Adam, (2) which as Prophet, or Teacher, (3) which as the Sacrifice, (4) which as King, (5) which as Priest, (6) which his universal reign?

9. Concerning the suffering Messiah, or the Messiah as a sacrifice, state the words or facts, verified in the New Testament as fulfilment of prophecy in the psalms. Let the order of the citations follow the order of facts in Christ’s life.

10. Name the Penitential Psalms and show their occasion.

11. What are the Pilgrim Psalms?

12. What is this section of the Psalter called?

13. When and under what conditions were these psalms collected?

14. Who is the author of the central psalm of this collection?

15. What Davidic Psalms are in this collection?

16. When were the others written?

17. What are they called in the Septuagint?

18. What four theories as to the meaning of the titles, “Songs of the Steps,” “Songs of Degrees,” or “Songs of Ascents”?

19. What scriptures give the true idea of these titles?

20. Give proof of their singing as they went.

21. To what feasts did they go singing these Psalms?

22. What was the special use made of Psa 121 and Psa 122 ?

23. Which of these psalms is the description of a good man’s home and what parallel in modern literature?

24. Expound Psa 133 .

25. What is an alphabetical psalm, and what are the several kinds?

26. Who originated these Alphabetical Psalms?

27. What are the most complete specimen?

28. Of what is it an expansion?

29. Why is a certain group of psalms called the Hallelujah Psalms?

30. What are the Hallelujah Psalms?

31. Which of the Hallelujah Psalms was a doxology?

32. Which of these were used as anthems?

33. Which psalm calls on all creation to praise God?

34. Who wrote a hymn based on Psa 148 in which he called the sun his honorable brother and the cricket his sister?

35. Which of these psalms calls for all varieties of instruments?

36. What is the Egyptian Hallel?

37. What is their special use and how were they sung?

38. Then what hymns did Jesus and his disciples sing?

39. At what other feasts was this sung?

40. Why was the name of God delayed so long in Psa 114 ?

41. What are the characteristics of Psa 115 ?

42. What is the theme and special use of Psa 116 ?

43. State some special historical occasions on which certain psalms were sung. Give the psalm for each occasion.

44. Cite passages in the psalms showing that the psalm writers approved the offering of Mosaic animal sacrifices.

45. Cite other passages showing that these inspired writers estimated spiritual sacrifices as more important than the Mosaic sacrifices.

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Psa 130:1 A Song of degrees. Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O LORD.

Ver. 1. Out of the depths have I cried unto thee ] i.e. Ex portis ipsis desperationis, from the very bosom and bottom of despair, caused through deepest sense of sin and fear of wrath. One deep calleth to another, the depth of misery to the depth of mercy. Basil and Beza interpret it, Ex intimis cordis penetralibus, from the bottom of my heart, with all earnestness and humility. He that is in the low pits and caves of the earth seeth the stars in the firmament; so he who is most low and lowly seeth most of God, and is in best case to call upon him. As spices smell best when beaten, and as frankincense maxime fragrat cum flagrat, is most odoriferous when cast into the fire; so do God’s afflicted pray best when at the greatest under, Isa 19:22 ; Isa 26:16 ; Isa 27:6 . Luther, when he was buffeted by the devil at Coburg, and in great affliction, said to those about him, Venite, in contemptum diaboli Psalmum, de profundis, quatuor vocibus cantemus, Come, let us sing that psalm, “Out of the depths,” &c., in derision of the devil (Joh. Manl. loc. com. 43). And surely this psalm is a treasury of great comfort to all in distress (reckoned, therefore, of old among the seven penitentials), and is, therefore, sacrilegiously by the Papists taken away from the living and applied only to the dead; for no other reason, I think, saith Beza, but because it beginneth with “Out of the depths have I cried”; a poor ground for purgatory, or for praying for the souls that are there, as Bellarmine makes it.

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

“A song of the ascents.” It is the new ground of divine mercy, and so of forgiveness for the generation to come.

Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Psa 130:1-4

1Out of the depths I have cried to You, O Lord.

2Lord, hear my voice!

Let Your ears be attentive

To the voice of my supplications.

3If You, Lord, should mark iniquities,

O Lord, who could stand?

4But there is forgiveness with You,

That You may be feared.

Psa 130:1 Out of the depths This noun (BDB 771) has several figurative uses. It basically means deep.

1. distress described as a flood of waters, cf. Psa 69:1-2; Psa 69:14-15 (similar metaphor to Psa 42:7 a; Psa 88:7)

2. YHWH as champion of watery chaos, cf. Isa 51:9-10 (similar to Psa 74:12-17; Psa 89:9-10)

3. the defeat of Tyre’s sea power (i.e., sunk into the sea), cf. Eze 27:34

4. possibly a reference to Sheol, cf. Jon 2:2-6; Psa 18:4-5)

I have cried to You The exact nature of the psalmist’s distress is not stated but it is related to his sense of sin (cf. Psa 130:3-4). He feels alienated but knows God will forgive and restore a repentant, patient follower (cf. Psa 130:5-6)!

Psa 130:2 This verse reflects the psalmist’s prayer mentioned in Psa 130:1.

1. hear – BDB 1033, KB 1570, Qal imperative

2. let Your ears be attentive – BDB 224, KB 243, Qal imperfect used in a jussive sense

Psa 130:3-4 Several English translations make these two verses a separate strophe (i.e., NKJV, NRSV, NJB).

The reality of the sinfulness of all humans after the Fall of Genesis 3 is a recurrent truth throughout the Bible.

1. Gen 3:17-19; Gen 6:5; Gen 6:11-12; Gen 8:21

2. 1Ki 8:46

3. 2Ch 6:36

4. Ezr 9:15

5. Job 4:17; Job 9:2; Job 15:14-16; Job 25:4

6. Psa 51:5; Psa 76:7; Psa 130:3; Psa 143:2

7. Pro 20:9

8. Ecc 7:20

9. Isa 53:6

10. Nah 1:6

11. Mal 3:2

12. Rom 3:9-19; Rom 3:23; Rom 11:32

13. 1Jn 1:8-10

14. Rev 6:17

All need forgiveness! Humans do not sense a need for forgiveness until the Spirit clearly reveals our need. There is no need for a savior until there is a sense of lostness! See SPECIAL TOPIC: FORGIVENESS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT .

Forgiveness is possible because of

1. the gracious, unchanging character of God (see SPECIAL TOPIC: CHARACTERISTICS OF ISRAEL’S GOD [OT])

2. the finished work of the Messiah (cf. Isaiah 53; Mar 10:45; 2Co 5:21)

3. the drawing, wooing of the Spirit (cf. Joh 6:44; Joh 6:65; Joh 16:8-15)

Psa 130:3 mark This verb (BDB 1036, KB 1581, Qal imperfect) denotes, in this context, the preserving of a record. This is reflected in the two books of God (i.e., book of deeds/remembrances and the book of life, see SPECIAL TOPIC: THE TWO BOOKS OF GOD of God). This is a metaphor for the memory of God.

It is ironic but God is asked again and again to forget our sins (i.e., Psa 79:8; Psa 106:6; Isa 64:9; Mic 7:18) but remember His promises. On Judgment Day the books will be opened (cf. Dan 7:10; Rev 20:12)!

Psa 130:4 feared The outcome of a free and full forgiveness by a gracious God is the restoration of the personal relationship with God (i.e., lost in the Fall of Genesis 3), which is/was/will be the goal of creation. We were created by Him and for Him. Fear is the appropriate awe that He is due. Forgiveness results in fellowship! See Special Topic: Fear (OT) .

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

Title. A Song of degrees. Same as 120. See App-67.

depths. Symbolical of distress. Compare Psa 42:7; Psa 66:12; Psa 69:2.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Psa 130:1-8

Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O LORD. Lord, hear my voice: let your ears be attentive to the voice of my [prayers or] supplications. For if you, LORD, should start [making a list] marking iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, that you may be reverenced. I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning. Let Israel hope in the LORD: for with the LORD there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities ( Psa 130:1-8 ).

So if the Lord should begin to keep an account of iniquities, none of us would make it. Oh, how thankful we are that with God there is mercy; there is forgiveness. Oh, how happy is the man whose sins are forgiven. “With the Lord there is mercy, and plenteous redemption.” “

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Psa 130:1. Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O LORD.

Sinking, sinking, sinking, drowning, dying, hope all but gone, almost everything gone, yet I have cried unto thee; with much fear, and little hope, Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.

Psa 130:2-3. Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?

Judged by ourselves, on the ground of absolute justice, none of us can hope to stand before his judgment seat without being condemned. I trust that we all know and feel that this is true.

Psa 130:4-5. But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.

Never yet has, any poor soul perished that could use such language as this. It may be a long while before you get the full comfort of all the Lords promises; but you are sure to have it sooner or later, if you can but hope in his Word. Well did good John Newton sing,

Rejoice, believer, in the Lord,

Who makes your cause his own.

The hope thats, built upon his Word

Can neer be overthrown.

Psa 130:6-8. My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning Let Israel hope in the LORD: for with the LORD there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. And he shall redeem Israel from all her iniquities.

Children of God, plead that precious, promise: He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities; and never rest till you are fully freed from the bondage of sin; for God will work a perfect work in you, and then he will take you home to be with himself for evermore.

This exposition consisted of readings from Psalms 32, 130.

Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible

Psa 130:1-2

Psalms 130

PRAYING FOR THE MORNING OF GOD’S FORGIVENESS

This psalm is an earnest prayer for the forgiveness of sins, not of the nation of Israel, but of a sinner who cries “out of the depths” unto the Lord. We have often noted that the absolute forgiveness of sins was not available under the Mosaic Law, nor anywhere else until the coming of Christ and his atoning death on Calvary. However, this psalmist, recognizing the agonizing sorrow of his penitent heart called to God for a forgiveness which he knew was “with God” (Psa 130:4).

He was like a watchman “waiting for the morning” (Psa 130:6); but that “morning” of forgiveness would not come until the heavens should ring with the angelic chorus singing Glory to God in the Highest and the shepherds of Judea would find the Christ child in the Manger of Bethlehem.

The theme of the psalm is in Psa 130:5, “I wait for Jehovah, my soul doth wait; and in his word do I hope.” It should not be overlooked that the psalmist was still in the dark; the morning had not come. Like all who lived under the Old Dispensation, he would “wait … wait … “until the Christ should come. “He felt sure that God would redeem him from all iniquity; but he lived in the twilight dawn, and he had to watch for the morning; the sun is indeed risen for us, even `The Sun of Righteousness’ with healing in his wings!

There were doubtless many in Israel who, like this penitent psalmist, earnestly “waited” for the kingdom of God and the forgiveness for which mankind stood in the sorest need. Luke mentions the godly Simeon who was, “looking for the consolation of Israel” (Luk 2:26). We believe the psalmist here was also of that company who waited for the kingdom of God.

Barnes pointed out that, “Most interpreters suppose that the psalmist here is speaking, not as an individual, but in the name of the nation. However, Barnes rejected this, stating that, “It may be the language of an individual mourning over his sins.”[3] We interpret the psalm as exactly that. The idea that the nation of Israel was ever penitent in the sincere attitude of the psalmist in this song is foreign to everything the Bible says about the nation. If the nation ever repented of anything we certainly have no record of it. They never even repented for murdering the Son of God.

Psa 130:1-2

“Out of the depths have I cried unto thee,

O Jehovah.

Lord, hear my voice:

Let thine ears be attentive

To the voice of my supplications.”

“Out of the depths” (Psa 130:1). There are several kinds of “depths” from which one may cry to God, (1) the death of a loved one, (2) a terrible illness, (3) a life-threatening danger, (4) some devastating loss, or (4) a soul-chilling consciousness of one’s sinfulness. We believe that the latter is the “depths” spoken of here. There is no deeper pit than the black hole of despair which the soul experiences in the realization that one’s sins have separated him from God.

Maclaren wrote:

“The beginning of true personal religion is the sense of personal sin. An insufficient realization of that is the mother of heresies in the creeds and superficial deadness in the practice of Christianity.

E.M. Zerr:

Psa 130:1. The depths referred to the great depression into which David’s enemies had plunged him with their persecutions. While in that condition he cried to God.

Psa 130:2. Supplications means the more urgent and earnest prayers. That kind of petition to God usually is offered when personal distress is the motive. However, a servant of God might make a supplication if he felt a deep personal concern for some special friends who were in a situation of distress or were threatened with such.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

After the backward look there would fittingly be an inward look as the worshipper approached the place of worship. This is always a disquieting look. There is no confession here of specific sins, but the cry is out of the depths, and the figure suggests the singers sense of deep need.

What the cause is may certainly be gathered from the apprehensive sigh, If Thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? If the sense is of the nations distress with sin. All this is background which flings into bright relief the confidence of the soul in Jehovah as a pardoning and redeeming Lord. Some of the most beautiful things in the Psalter, or indeed in the Bible, are here. It was a Welshman in the midst of the wonderful revival of 1905 who rendered verse Psa 130:4, There is forgiveness with Thee- enough to frighten us! which if not accurate translation is fine exposition. The deepest note in all true worship is this sense of plenteous redemption, and the perfection of Jehovahs love as thus manifested. To mark iniquities would be to fill us with despair. To redeem from all iniquities is to inspire us with hope.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

Out of the Depths

Psa 130:1-8; Psa 131:1-3

The cry, Psa 130:1-2. The word Lord occurs as often as there are verses. The soul in trouble repeats again and again that precious Name, in which comfort and help are summed up. The chief cause of anguish, Psa 130:3-4, is the memory of our sins. But our iniquities are not marked save by the jewels of forgiveness, like the pearls of an oyster that are set in the place where it was wounded. The souls attitude, Psa 130:5-6. It waits! He will surely come though He seems to tarry. Plenteous redemption, Psa 130:7. It is not enough for God to forgive. He will abundantly pardon.

Psa 131:1-3

The cry of the child-heart. The psalmist said this in all simplicity. He did not exercise himself (literally walk to and fro) in things beyond his powers, but left God to reveal them to him, as he was able to receive them. We are reminded of Mat 11:25. Clearly he had not reached this position without effort. He had found it necessary to still and quiet himself, as a nurse quiets a fretful babe. There had been a time when he was fed at the breast of the worlds consolations. The weaning had been hard, but he had learned to get all from God and to draw on His sustaining grace.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Psa 130:1

I. That deep was not merely the deep of affliction. You may see men with every comfort which wealth and home can give who are tormented day and night in that deep pit in the midst of all their prosperity, calling for a drop of water to cool their tongue and finding none. That deep pit is a far worse place, an utterly bad place, and yet it may be good for a man to have fallen into it; and strangely enough, if he do fall in, the lower he sinks in it the better for him at last. There is another strange contradiction in that pit, which David found: that though it was a bottomless pit, the deeper he sank in it the more likely he was to find his feet set on a rock; the further down in the nethermost hell he was the nearer he was to being delivered from the nethermost hell.

II. The fire of that pit hardens a man and softens him at the same time; and he comes out of it hardened to the hardness of which it is written, “Do thou endure hardness, like a good soldier of Jesus Christ,” yet softened to that softness of which it is written, “Be ye tender-hearted, compassionate, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you.”

III. How shall we learn this? How shall the bottomless pit, if we fall into it, be but a pathway to the everlasting Rock? David tells us: “Out of the deep have I cried unto Thee, O Lord.” He was face to face with God, alone, in utter weakness, in utter nakedness of soul. He cried to God Himself. There was the lesson. God took him up and cast him down; and there he sat alone, astonished and confounded, like Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, when she sat alone upon the parching rock. But it was told David what Rizpah had done. And it is told to One greater than David, even to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, what the poor soul does when it sits alone in its despair. It shall be with that poor soul as it was with Moses when he went up alone into the mount of God and fasted forty days and forty nights, amid the earthquake, and the thunderstorm, and the rocks which melted before the Lord. “And, behold, when it was past, he talked face to face with God, as a man talketh with his friend;” and his countenance shone with heavenly light when he came down triumphant out of the mount of God.

C. Kingsley, The Good News of God, p. 68.

Reference: Psa 130:1.- Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xii., p. 83.

Psa 130:1-2

There are deep soul-utterances here: there are the trouble and the darkness that often precede or accompany the coming to life again of the soul; there are the cries of pain and anguish which usher back the soul from the world of outer darkness to the blessed light.

I. To the majority there comes a time of awakening. The time of awakening is a critical time; it is a period of jeopardy to the soul. There are mistakes sometimes made which, like wrong turnings on a road, bring us to unforeseen issues. There is the danger of mistaking a first fervour for a completed conversion; there is the danger of mistaking flowing tears for true repentance, dissatisfaction with self for deep contrition, fear of earthly consequences for hatred of sin.

II. But if there be this abounding weakness of human nature shown in the course of the awakening soul, far more is the abounding strength of God here made manifest, the strength of Him whose strength is made perfect in weakness. God never yet deserted a soul in whom, however faintly, true penitence was shown. Christ’s blood is sufficient; the aid of the Holy Ghost is all-powerful. God goes out to meet the soul; He clothes, adorns, renews, and welcomes back that soul, telling it of Himself in language which as time goes on He teaches it to interpret and understand more and more fully.

III. Only let us not resist His grace; let us seek it, be on the watch for it, pray for it. “Sorrow may endure for a night”-yea, even for a long night-“but joy cometh in the morning,” the longer morning of an unending life of peace.

Bishop E. R. Wilberforce, The Awaking Soul, p. 1.

Psa 130:1-2, Psa 130:7

I. The first thing that occurs to us in glancing over the Psalms is the great variety of circumstances under which they seem to have been composed. These circumstances embrace the whole range of human life, its joys and its sorrows, its successes and its reverses; while the emotions which they express include all the corresponding feelings of the human heart.

II. Another striking feature is their unity, their agreement or oneness. (1) Manifold as they are, they all speak to one Person: God. All meet in Him as the one centre towards which they are directed. (2) In their various utterances to God there is the same spirit; the same principle seems to dictate each. They all speak the language of faith in God.

III. If you search through the Psalms, you will find this faith in God unfolding itself into: (1) faith in God as the Creator and Preserver of the world; (2) faith in God as the living King and Ruler of men; (3) faith in God as the righteous Judge; (4) faith in God as having compassion upon all who suffer; (5) faith in God as One who will not reject the penitent.

G. Formes, The Voice of God in the Psalms, p. 80.

References: Psa 130:1-3.-M. R.Vincent, Old Testament Outlines, p. 149. Psa 130:2.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xii., p. 84.

Psa 130:3

We have here the second stage in the journey of the soul from the abyss to God.

I. Consider the state itself. “If Thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?” (1) There has been distinct progress here, yet the eyes are still dim with past slumber; the heart is still hardened by former sin; the vision is not clear. The soul is beginning to understand that to make any real progress it must know two things alone at first: itself and its wants, Christ and His redeeming blood; yet it cannot now shut all else out. Other men are still included in its view-others, with their measure of guilt. The eyes are but opening to spiritual things; the soul is not yet alone with God. (2) Mark how this verse discloses all the conflict that rages in the soul. It is as though the shipwrecked man had been thrown upon a rock, bruised, stunned, bewildered; as if he could just hold on there, and no more; as if the roar of the angry waters was still in his ear; nay, as if he saw those waters almost sweeping up to him again, almost enfolding him in their fearsome embrace once more, and yet was powerless to move: only in his heart there is a reaching out to One who alone is powerful to save.

II. Consider the peculiar dangers of this time: (1) despair; (2.) a want of thoroughness and reality; (3) impatience; (4) the haunting of old temptations.

III. This stage is also one of hope, and one on which there rests an especial blessing from our God. If Satan be busy round us then, yet is not the heaven opened above us? Is not One watching us who Himself once suffered in the attack of the thronging temptations? He will never mark iniquities if you deal truly and honestly with Him. Yes, it is a time of hope, of joy in the presence of God, when the repentant sinner seeks the homeward way.

Bishop E. R. Wilberforce, The Awaking Soul, p. 16.

Reference: Psa 130:3.- Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xii., p. 84.

Psa 130:3-4

I. It is when the sinner feels his weakness and his utter inability to deliver himself from the clinging guilt of the past, to shake off by the mere exercise of his will the evil habits and unruly tempers that have got strong hold over him, and to keep himself free from falls for the time to come, that the concluding words of the text come home to him with their full power: “There is mercy with Thee; therefore shalt Thou be feared.” If there were no mercy, there would be little fear. Men would grow reckless, desperate. All experience, the experience of all ages and countries, has shown this. Where mercy is never shown, crimes multiply; men grow bolder, take their chance more recklessly, and meet their fate more doggedly, than when there is an occasional pardon and reprieve.

II. If God were extreme to mark what is done amiss, there would be no hope for any of us. But He has a prerogative of mercy, which He exercises in favour of those whom He deems worthy of it. Because, therefore, He holds the prerogative of mercy, let us fear Him-fear lest we should render ourselves unworthy of it; fear lest we should compel Him to withhold it; fear lest we should miss it.

F. E. Paget, Helps and Hindrances to the Christian Life, vol. ii., p. 28.

I. As St. Paul urged the goodness of God as a motive not, as some might expect, for hope and confidence, but for repentance-“The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance”-so here the same doctrine is taught us by the Holy Spirit; because God is merciful, therefore we ought to fear Him. We might have expected that the psalmist would have said, There is mercy with Thee; therefore shalt Thou be trusted. There is mercy with Thee; therefore shalt Thou be loved and adored: and so of course it might; nevertheless the word is, “Therefore shalt Thou be feared,” or “that Thou mayest be feared.”

II. We should all endeavour more and more to feel and acknowledge our own deficiencies, our sins, negligences, and ignorances, and then to set in earnest about leading a new life, because to go on as we have been, without trying to grow better, may indeed satisfy other people and ourselves too; but still the awful question remains whether we are indeed such as our Lord, Master, and Redeemer will acknowledge as His in the day when He makes up His jewels.

Plain Sermons by Contributors to “Tracts for the Times,” vol. iv., p. 250.

Reference: Psa 130:3, Psa 130:4.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 367.

Psa 130:4

Surely it is a time known to most of us when we have, in our self-abasement, felt the mercy of God to be the sole warrant for our return to Him; and with that feeling there have come light and hope. There is the birth of a new love in the heart; and before it all the old loves pale, and finally die out. God has met the returning soul half-way, and has whispered His pardon in its ear. It is one of the very few times in the spiritual life when something of its actual progress is made known to the awakening soul; it has got within the sure mercies of God, and it cannot but feel the touch of the embrace of God. If to us Christ has made known His mercy, and has broken up our hearts with its penetrating sweetness, then it behoves us to think how we may guard this treasure so that none shall ever snatch it from us, so that in life it may be our stay, in death it may be our comfort, and in the judgment it may be our shield.

I. First, let us be careful that we have the reality, and no mere counterfeit, invented by the craft of a juggling Satan. If the psalmist’s words are to be truth for us, we must be careful to avoid putting any confidence in mere feeling. This would be to make the soul a sport for the winds, a prey to deceit; no sense of uplifting must be alone trusted to, any more than any mere sense of depression need be feared.

II. The half-repentant soul is in deeper danger almost than the soul which has never yet awakened; half-repentance lulls the soul to sleep even while it sins: it is the devil’s way of giving an anodyne whilst he is destroying the soul for ever. The half-repentant soul has never made the one great decision between God and sin; it seeks to know God and yet bow down in the house of Rimmon; it would serve God and mammon.

III. Let us be most especially upon our guard as to any shallow half-heartedness in repentance because of the present feeling of relief that a contemplation of God’s mercy brings. Let us never be content till in the will, the actions, the temper, the desires, in short till in the life, the expression of thankfulness for that forgiveness be seen, till we know repentance is growing with our life.

Bishop E. R. Wilberforce, The Awaking Soul, p. 32.

I. There must be something peculiar about God’s forgiveness that it leads to fear. How is it that, while the parents who constantly forgive are not feared, God, with whom is forgiveness, is? Why is it that forgiveness does not in His case, as in theirs, breed insolent presumption? What is that strange and potent element in Divine forgiveness which makes the forgiven fear, making me more afraid to sin beside the Cross of Calvary, with its quiet, pale, dead, bleeding burden, than if I stood at the foot of Sinai, amid the thunders, lightnings, and trumpet-peals that made Moses himself exceedingly fear and quake?

II. Let me explain those peculiar characters in the forgiveness of God which breed fear, not presumption, in the forgiven. (1) The manner of the forgiveness sets forth the holiness of God and the evils of sin in the strongest light. It is by an altar and through a victim that there is forgiveness with God; pardon flows to men in a stream of blood. But here the altar is a cross, and its Victim is the Son of the Highest. There is forgiveness, but after a fashion that should teach us to fear, and in life’s lightest hours to join trembling with our mirth. If God did not spare His only-begotten and well-beloved Son when He took our sins on Him, how shall He spare those who prefer their sins to their Saviour, neglecting this great salvation? (2) The manner of forgiveness sets forth not only God’s hatred of sin, but His love to sinners, in the strongest light. It costs man nothing to forgive, but it cost God His Son. How must He have loved you for whom He gave a Son so loved! and how will the love this breeds in you make you fear to dishonour or displease One who has so loved you, securing your forgiveness on such an immovable foundation and at so great a price!

T. Guthrie, Sneaking to the Heart, p. 20.

Psa 130:4

(with Psa 85:8)

I. The particle “but” in these verses indicates the contrast of one truth to another. In Psa 130:4 the contrast is between Divine holiness, the strictness of Divine justice, and the amplitude and freedom of Divine grace.

II. Psa 85:8. When God speaks peace, Hewill accompany it with solemn warning, not without good cause and need. The fear of apostasy is set before believers, and is one of the means by which God creates and maintains that holy caution, self-distrust, and confiding trust in Him by which His people are kept from apostasy and, short of apostasy, from return to folly. There is forgiveness with Him, but it is that He may be feared.

III. With these two “buts,” what is left: (1) for despair; (2) for presumption?

J. Duncan, The Pulpit and Communion Table, p. 276.

References: Psa 130:4.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. x., p. 80, and vol. xii., p. 84. Psa 130:5.-Ibid., vol. ii., p. 27.

Psa 130:5-6

In Dr. Kay’s translation of the Psalms, these verses are rendered thus:-

“I waited for the Lord; my soul waited,

And for His word I looked earnestly.”

Mark that past tense, and now the transition:-

“My soul is to the Lord,

More than sentries for the morning, than sentries for the morning.”

Here are two more steps marked put upon the homeward way: the past waiting and the present result of that waiting. The waiting may have been very painful, very long, very discouraging at times; but it was persevered in, and the earnest watch was kept. Mark the result: the turning of the soul to the Lord; completed conversion. Never did tired sentinel look more eagerly for the first ray of morning light than does that soul look for the signs of the presence of God with it.

I. It is a state of armed expectation, then, that is here described; one that is full of a hope based on past favours; one, however, that it needs much manhood to maintain, much fortitude to endure; one that has its own peculiar trials, and yet one that has its own uplifting helps. Most souls who know aught of Christ and His wealth of love, aught of sin and its misery, are somewhere about the region here described by the psalmist.

II. Consider some of the dangers of the state before us. (1) The time which we are considering is especially a time for building up the spiritual house, though now, as of old, the sword must be in one hand while the trowel is in the other. Guard at this stage against an emotional form of Christianity, against any mere hysterical approaches to Christ. (2) We should mistrust mere quiet, at least if that quiet mean only the absence of temptation. This is an armed wakeful quiet, if quiet it be. (3) Never let us be cast down by mere temptation, so long as, by God’s help, we are able to resist the temptation; it will humble us to be tempted: that is good; it will warn us: that is helpful; it will teach us to rely only on Christ: that is what we want to learn. (4) Beware of spiritual idleness at this stage.

III. Notice some of the marks whereby we may know whether we have reached this stage of the spiritual life or no. (1) We shall have cut ourselves adrift from all old associations with sin. (2) There will be an abiding sorrow for sin, which will have an increasing gentleness of manner as one of its chief characteristics. (3) There will be a growing love of the word of God. (4) The growth of patience. The spiritual life is full of sweetest surprises to the patient looker-out on God; the eye grows to be instructed where to look for signs of His presence and to see them where others cannot, just as experienced mountaineers ever look to the westward hills for the reflection of the first faint flush of dawn, while tyros are still gazing up at the eastern hills, which only hinder signs. Let us be patient in our armed watch, and the morning will come. “My soul is to the Lord, more than sentries for the morning.”

Bishop E. R. Wilberforce, The Awaking Soul, p. 48.

Reference: Psa 130:5, Psa 130:6.-W. M. Statham, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxv., p. 340.

Psa 130:6

No one can read the Psalms and doubt that David knew and loved the Second Advent. And therefore I am inclined to believe that it was of this he spoke in the text.

I. Who but a very bad man thinks of the morning with any other than a happy feeling? The man of ardent enterprise chafes at the hindrances of the darkness, and longs for the morning. The timid child is afraid of the loneliness, and wishes it were day. The weary sentry treads his rounds, and listens for the early notes that herald his release. The solitary mourner wails that the night is long. The expectant bride looks out upon the horizon, and sighs for the dawn. And just so it is with the whole Church; all, with one consent, watch for the morning. That morning shall roll back the uncertainties and the hindrances, the terrors and the regrets, the sins and the sufferings of the old, and let in a new existence.

II. There are four things which especially go to make up that one little, comprehensive command “Watch.” (1) Whoever would watch for Christ must have some intelligent conception of the nature of His coming. (2) To watch for the Second Advent is to be always regarding it as David did, and Peter: as the great antidote and cure for all present evil. (3) You must place the thought of the Second Advent as the crown of all your happiness. It will be like the bloom of the morning upon the mountain-top. (4) If you would watch for Christ, all life must be in harmony with the watch. The light must be in that heart that looks for light.

J. Vaughan, Sermons, 12th series, p. 189.

I. What is the true idea of the phrase “waiting upon God”? “Waiting” expresses a state or habit which is the result of a combination of desire, expectation, and patient submission. “Waiting on God” is thus the patient expectation of results which God has promised to secure, results which are in themselves desirable, and which God has given us reason to believe will be realised. It implies the exercise of self-control, a meek acquiescence in the Divine arrangements, a confident assurance that God will do what He has promised and show Himself in full accordance with all that He has revealed Himself to be.

II. As practically exemplifying this Divine principle, (1) we may take the case of a Christian man engaged in the business of life. Here waiting upon God will be exhibited not in the neglect of means or in any fanatical expectation that God will send down success apart from diligent and wise endeavours on the part of the individual to secure it, but in the pious, devout, and patient expectation of God’s blessing to give effect to exertion wisely and perseveringly put forth. (2) The same principle applies to our spiritual business. We are to use the means; and when we have done what God has commanded us to do, true piety teaches us to wait on Him for that grace without which no effort of ours after spiritual attainment will succeed. (3) Take the case of a Christian man under the discipline of affliction. He who has learned to “wait” commits himself to God, assured that He will not afflict His people willingly or lay on them more than they are able to bear, but, in the infinitude of His love, wisdom, and power, will make all things work together for good to those that love Him and are the called according to His purpose.

W. Lindsay Alexander, Christian Thought and Work, p. 62 (see also Good Words, 1861, p. 191).

Reference: Psa 130:6.- Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xii., p. 84.

Psa 130:7

I. This redemption cancels all sin. God brings a plenteous redemption from the sin of the past and from the sin which, through the infirmity of our flesh, will surely come; from the sin we can remember and from that which we sinned but never knew; from bold transgressions and from those which struggled timorously, yet persistently, through the light of conscience, into birth; from the first sin which struck with strange pain our childish heart and from the last which will shadow our dying bed and then sink into oblivion, “whilst that we withal escape.”

II. This redemption satisfies all law. The universe is full of law; it has never been invaded by chaos; it has never been ruled by chance. We are born into a world which is “established that it cannot be moved.” There is a moral fixedness corresponding with, although transcending, all the regularities of nature. Our God is “not the Author of confusion, but of order;” in the plenteous redemption He brings to us, He makes void no law. His “grace reigns, but through righteousness.” And no redemption can be called plenteous that does not satisfy law, because law is truth; moral law is the highest kind of truth: it is the transcript and expression of the Divine nature, and unless that nature can change, the law cannot change.

III. This redemption is deliverance for the whole man. As the whole human being sinks and withers under sin, so the whole rises and flourishes again in Christ.

IV. This redemption lasts through all time. “For ever” is the last and highest inscription written on it, and it sheds down a wondrous light on all its other qualities.

A. Raleigh, Sermon, preached April 11th, 1860.

Psa 130:7

I. The soul has been led upward by degrees, till it now seems almost lost in the idea of the “plenteous redemption.” One figure alone stands out distinct and clear; namely, the figure of the great Redeemer. All else is merged in the idea of the redemption.

II. The dangers of this state are: (1) lukewarmness; (2) unconscious hypocrisy, or self-deceit; (3) familiarity with tilings spiritual rather than deep love for Jesus Christ.

III. What are the safeguards? Let the text answer. Like some golden thread woven in throughout the full length of a cloth, mercy and hope have gone hand in hand as yet; now the Holy Ghost speaks further of a “plenteous redemption.” These three will fortify the soul that possesses them against attacks from without or betrayal from within.

IV. One of the outward marks which will help us to decide if we are accepted with God is our attitude to others. If we arc constantly judging others, we have not got into that precious redemption ourselves yet. If our souls are “to the Lord,” we shall strengthen others, we shall bring others to Christ. (1) Our reality in prayer will bring many to Christ. (2) We preach Christ by our behaviour. (3) We may bring others to Christ by our silence, by that government of the tongue which issues in a silence that is as “a loud cry in the ear of God.” At this stage we must watch the tongue. Men on Alpine heights must often speak in whispers, lest they bring down the avalanche.

Bishop E. R. Wilberforce, The Awaking Soul, p. 67.

Psa 130:7

We may conclude from these words:-

I. That the redemption purchased by the Saviour’s death is ample and unlimited. It is the plain sense of Holy Scripture that Jesus shed His blood for Jew and Gentile, for bond and free; that by His death He put all into such a state that they may, if they will, come unto Him and be saved.

II. The redemption cannot be exhausted; provision has been made for each one of us. “Plenteous redemption” has been provided for each one of us; but the question for us to ask ourselves is this: Have we taken the needful steps for securing it?

J. N. Norton, Golden Truths, p. 278.

References: Psa 130:7.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vii., No. 351; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 367; W. Baird, The Hallowing of our Common Life, p. 47. Psa 130:7, Psa 130:8.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xii., p. 84.

Psa 130:8

I. These words speak to us, first, of a Person. Do we know that Person? We are all well acquainted with His history; we believe it, no doubt: but does that faith colour our lives and shape our deeds? That is the question. Is the soul, in its separate individuality, reaching out to a personal God, whom even now it can touch by virtue of a sacramental union, and to whom it can even now speak in prayer and be certain of an audience?

II. How careful our blessed Lord is to teach us the truth; how often that tremendous “I am” confronts us at the very outset of much of His teaching; and in His one person all truth is seen to be summed up. He teaches us no doctrine about Himself. From first to last, His teaching is Himself; He is the expression of all He taught. From the first “I am” far away back in the pages of the old world history down to the “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end,” of the book of Revelation, it is so.

III. Redemption implies both the bringing back by One who shed His blood for us, and it implies as well the victory of One who is our King. In Christianity we are led through obedience to the kingdom, through the sufferings to the crown. If Christ be King, He calls for our personal surrender; if Christ be the Redeemer, He calls to us to come to Him for cleansing: but as He Himself is truth, He looks for reality in all our approaches to Him. Let us strive to know our God by personal access to Him, and knowing Him, strive to serve Him ever better. Let us labour on towards the goal, till we learn to know Him perfectly, who can alone “redeem Israel from all his iniquities,” who alone is “King of kings and Lord of lords.”

Bishop E. R. Wilberforce, The Awaking Soul, p. 88.

Psalm 130

This Psalm gives us what we may call the ascent of the soul from the depths to the heights.

I. We have the cry from the depths. The depths which the psalmist means are those into which the spirit feels itself going down, sick and giddy, when there comes the thought,” I am a sinful man, O Lord, in the presence of Thy great purity.” Out of these depths does he cry to God. (1) The depths are the place for us all. (2) Unless you have cried to God out of these depths, you have never cried to Him at all. (3) You want nothing more than a cry to draw you from the pit.

II. We have, next, a dark fear and a bright assurance (Psa 130:3-4). These two halves represent the struggle in the man’s mind. They are like a sky one half of which is piled with thunder-clouds and the other serenely blue. (1) To “mark” iniquities is to impute them to us. Here we have expressed the profound sense of the impossibility of any man’s sustaining the righteous judgment of God. (2) “There is forgiveness with Thee,” etc. No man ever comes to that confidence that has not sprung to it, as it were, by a rebound from the other thought. He must first have felt the shudder of the thought, “If Thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities,” in order to come to the gladness of the thought, “But there is forgiveness with Thee.”

III. “My soul waiteth for the Lord,” etc. There is the permanent, peaceful attitude of the spirit that has tasted the consciousness of forgiving love-a continual dependence upon God. The consciousness of sin was the dark night. The coming of God’s forgiving love flushed all the eastern heaven with diffused brightness that grew into perfect day. And so the man waits quietly for the dawn, and his whole soul is one absorbing desire that God may dwell with him and brighten and gladden him.

IV. “Let Israel hope in the Lord.” There is nothing which isolates a man so awfully as a consciousness of sin and of his relation to God; but there is nothing that so knits him to all his fellows, and brings him into such wide-reaching bonds of amity and benevolence, as the sense of God’s forgiving mercy for his own soul. So the call bursts from the lips of the pardoned man, inviting all to taste the experience and exercise the trust which have made him glad.

A. Maclaren, A Year’s Ministry, 2nd series, p. 31 (see also Contemporary Pulpit, vol. i., p. 25, and Preacher’s Monthly, vol. viii., p. 122).

References: Psalm 130-S. Cox, The Pilgrim Psalms, p. 217; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xii., p. 83; H. C. G. Moule, Ibid., vol. xvi., p. 87; C. Kingsley, Westminster Sermons, p. 262. Psa 131:1.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., p. 100.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

A Song of degrees

See title note; (See Scofield “Psa 120:1”).

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

De Profundis

Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.Psa 130:1

1. This psalm belongs to the group of fifteen psalms called Psalms of Ascents or Goings up. It is a Psalter within the Psalter, and may possibly have originally formed a separate hymn-book. When these fifteen psalms120134 inclusivewere written we know not; but they have about them the breath of the exile in a foreign land, who from the long levels of his alien home saw far off in fancy the hills of his beloved fatherland; or nearer, in his going up from his captivity, beheld once more the snowcapped heights of Hermon to the north, or the grey, stony hills stand round about Jerusalem, as the mercy of God stood round about His people. Those who in imagination go back to the time when the singers took their harps from the willow-trees by Euphrates side, and tuned them to these tender hymns, may hear as they read them how in some far warrior chieftains tent, upon the frosty Caucasus, the exile who has long time dwelt among those that are enemies unto peace, chants sadly enough, Woe is me, that I am constrained to dwell in Meshech and have my habitation among the tents of Kedar; or may catch the cry of hope and triumph of the fugitive band, as they see the sun rise over the purple hills that bound the parched deserts or the moonlight wastes they have left behind.

This was one of the favourite psalms of Lutherone he paraphrased and had set to music; in it, he said he saw the gate of heaven opening wide to him. His paraphrase of it became one of the favourite hymns of the German Reformers. And the song returned into Luthers own heart. During the Augsburg Diet, when he was at the Castle of Coburg, and had to suffer much from inward and outward trials, he fell into a swoon. On awaking from it, he said, Come and let us, in defiance of the devil, sing the Psalm, Lord, from the depths to thee I cry. Let us sing it in full chorus and extol and praise God. Being asked on one occasion which were the best Psalms, he replied, The Pauline Psalms (Psalmi Paulini), and being pressed to say which they were, he answered: The 32nd, the 51st, the 130th, and the 143rd. For they teach us that the forgiveness of sins is vouchsafed to them that believe without the law and without works; therefore are they Pauline Psalms; and when David sings, With thee is forgiveness, that thou mayest be feared, so Paul likewise saith, God hath concluded all under sin that he may have mercy on all. Therefore none can boast of his own righteousness, but the words, That thou mayest be feared, thrust away all self-merit, teach us to take off our hat before God and confess, gratia est, non meritum, remissio non satisfactioit is all forgiveness, and no merit.

I

In the Depths

1. Our human nature and human life have their depths, and not in anything are they less understood than in the depths which belong to them. Their superficial aspects are for ever hiding from us their deeper realities. What calls itself knowledge of menacquaintance with their ordinary thoughts, passions, motives, and ways, with their various humours, caprices, follies, and weaknessesis not knowledge of man, of the inner and real man which the outer man as often conceals as reveals.

We speak at times of a shallow man. But is there any such man anywhere? There are only too many men everywhere who are living on the surface of their nature, keenly alive to their earth-born wants and to the capacities of human existence for work and pleasure, men whose days are largely the record of mean ambitions and strivings. But to judge by appearances is nearly always misleading. The acutest judges of character are often at fault, and none go more frequently and lamentably astray in their reckoning than those who boast most confidently of their knowledge of men. In the so-called shallow man we may perceive, if we look intently and sympathetically enough, what is not shallow, and find, especially in those revealing hours when the tragic forces of existence sweep into his life, some suggestion of the latent power which needs the fiery storm to throw it up to the surface. We are often only passing judgment upon ourselves, upon our want of thought, imagination, and insight, when we proclaim our fellows to be lacking in those elements to which the great and deep things of life make their appeal. In the circle in which we live and move there would be many rich discoveries for any one with fine imaginative power, skilled to see into

The depths of human souls

Souls that appear to have no depth at all

To careless eyes.

There is a well-known poem by Matthew Arnold entitled The Buried Lifea poem full of haunting music and rare introspective power. It is a picture of many a soul, and it is not difficult to fill in from experience the outline which it supplies. We all have the power of living so completely upon the surface of our souls as to be ignorant of what is hidden in their depths. It is, indeed, a large part of the pathos and tragedy of life that we are so disobedient to the oracle which bids us know ourselves. We either do not care for self-knowledge, or imagine we have it in such abundance that we can swear by it at timesas well as I know myself! But there are moments when we have glimpses of what we are and may be, of hitherto unknown capacities and powers, and from beneath our conscious life there rise the murmuring voices of a deepera buried life.

Yet still, from time to time, vague and forlorn,

From the souls subterranean depth upborne

As from an infinitely distant land,

Come airs, and floating echoes, and convey

A melancholy into all our day.

A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast,

And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again.

The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain.1 [Note: J. Hunter, De Profundis Clamavi, 3.]

2. Perhaps the Psalmist personifies the nation. The later days of Israels history were days of storm and stress. The golden age of national prosperity had passed away. Storm after storm had swept over the nation. The great Powers of the East had arisen. They felt their strength, and the little exclusive Israelitish nation was their constant and ready prey. Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Egypt arose in their might. Part of the nation was dispersed and disappeared, and part of it was carried away. Those who returned after the Exile were but a poor and broken remnant, still under the dominion of their conquerors. We may hear in this pathetic psalm the voice of the nation crying to the Lord out of the deep waters of its distress. Its pride is humbled, its soul is brought low even to the dust by the wholesome discipline of adversity.

We all remember those long, dark months at the beginning of the South African War, when we were appalled by the news of one reverse after another. There was the dread suspense, the anxious waiting. In many a home the interest was a personal one, and mothers and wives and children were in the depths of apprehension for loved ones far away. In that dark experience the nation betook itself to prayer and learnt to lift up its eyes to One above, and found in Him a very present help and stay in trouble.1 [Note: R. B. Tweddell.]

3. Whatever the original reference of the phrase out of the depths, it comes to us with a larger meaning than the writer could apprehend. It is not an incident of life, it is life itself that constitutes for us the deep out of which we cry. We of this modern world have caught, as men never before have caught, a sense of the mystery of life. Men have lost, perhaps for ever, the art of unconscious objective living, the habit of looking upon life as a child looks upon its mother, gratefully accepting her gifts and asking no questions. We have well-nigh tortured all beauty and joy out of life by our fierce, relentless probings. In return we have captured here and there a fact, a force, a law, a glimpse of the methods by which life fulfils itself. Our sciences and philosophies have broadened our conceptions. To us life is a larger, richer thing than to our fathers. But, after all, our deepest questions are unanswered. There is no possibility of their answer. What is life? What is its purpose? Whence did it come? Whither does it go? Why am I here, living to-day a conscious, sentient, thinking drop in the mighty torrent of life that pours unceasingly from the exhaustless bosom of nature? I am borne on the flow of the torrent. Whence? Whither? Wherefore? These are questions a man asks when he disengages himself from the rush of the world and tries to find some meaning for his life. It may be an unhealthy business; but never were men so busy at it as now. The difficulty is that life echoes back our questions unanswered. It refuses to explain itself. We are simply submerged in the stream which flows through nature, as the planets roll in their orbits, and the waves of light pulse through the ether. What remains? There remains the mystery which we call prayer, almost as great a mystery as life itself.

God in His infinite mercy has placed us in those deeps of wonder at life and death, of why and whither, deeps of intense agony: Wherefore hidest thou thy face? Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself. Deeps of intense joy: Thou art about my bed, and spiest out all my ways, there is not a thought in my heart but thou knowest it altogether; and deeps of satisfaction and quiet inward peace, which Wordsworth spoke of when he said

Enough, if something from our hands have power

To live, and act, and serve the future hour;

And if, as toward the silent tomb we go,

Through love, through hope, and faiths transcendent dower,

We feel that we are greater than we know.1 [Note: H. D. Rawnsley.]

4. There is a deeper mystery stillthe mystery of sin. The great religions of the world expressed in sacrifices and rituals of atonement, often grotesque and horrible, their sense of moral failure and guilt. The sense is rooted in the conscience, and it has deepened as the life of the conscience has deepened. It finds expression in the meditations of Marcus Aurelius. It sends out a long, agonizing cry from the pages of St. Paul. The religion whose elemental facts and implications he, more than any other man, threw into architectonic form, disclosed the subtlety and virulence of the taint which had fastened on human nature. In giving to men a new sense of God, it gave them a new sense of sin. All along its history, those who have climbed farthest up its spiritual heights, its saints and heroes, have glanced with the most shuddering fear down the spiritual chasms on whose verge they trod.

The German naturalist, Bchner, in his book, Man in the Past, the Present, and the Future, writes these profound words: It is only in man that the world becomes conscious to such a degree that it rises out of its previous dream-like natural existence. Struggle therefore rages on the domain of morals as violently as it formerly did on the physical field. And another German scholar, Frauenstadt, in his Religion of Nature, writes: In the self-assertion of the flesh against the spirit I recognize sin; and since man is by nature subject to this tyranny of the flesh, it follows that he is by nature sinful; and the sinful nature propagating itself, there arises an original sinfulness.1 [Note: W. W. Battershall.]

The word sin implies the existence of something which ought not to be where it is; in using it, we set up an external standard and condemn what fails to conform to it. The most decisive argument against identifying sin with imperfection is the verdict of the human consciousness itself. The consciousness of sin as a positive malignant fact is most intense in the highest natures. It is the saint, not the sinner, who says, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? It was the Son of God Himself who, as Christians believe, gave His life a ransom for sin, because no smaller price could destroy its power.2 [Note: W. R. Inge, Truth and Falsehood in Religion.]

II

The Cry Out of the Depths

1. The cry for God is the natural utterance of the awakened soul of man in every land and agethe cry of man whenever and wherever he freely speaks out of the depths of his nature, an aspiration which all history confesses. It may not always be an intelligent or conscious cry, but a seeker after God man has always been and must ever be, because from God he comes, begotten, not made, and with a nature so constituted that only in God can he find his full and final satisfaction and rest. The surface of his life may often appear to say one thing, and its depths quite another thing, but it is the cry from the depths that reveals what he truly is and what he most needs. It is his inmost wants and desires, not his hard, cold sense and keen understanding, that read most rightly the secret of his life. It is not his real spiritual needs that belong to the surface of his life, but only those poor selfish cravings which are often mistaken for them by ill-instructed minds. Outwardly he may seem to long and cry for other things more than for the presence of God, and to find his peace and joy in them; but when his soul is moved and searched, and the fountains of the great deep are broken up, in all those crises which throw light on the inner condition and movement of his being, the cry for God is seen to be fundamental, and his longing to connect his life in some way with the life of the invisible and eternal world is felt to be an irrepressible longing, which tends ever to rise into a strong and intense passion.

It was once said by a celebrated English lawyer of our time that the man who could not get on without religion, who could not occupy his mind with love, friendship, business, politics, science, art, literature, and travel, must be a poor kind of creature. It is, on the contrary, the man who can be wholly satisfied with outward and earthly things apart from God who is the poor kind of creature living upon the surface of his nature, with the energies of his spirit still dormant, or so suppressed and overborne that they are in danger of dying out. To be truly a man is to have infinite capacity for God, to have desires, affections, and needs which the things of civilization and culture cannot satisfy, which can be satisfied only in communion with the Divine. Man, be he what he may, is made to be a seeker after God; and, because he cannot escape from himself, he cannot escape from God.1 [Note: J. Hunter, De Profundis Clamavi, 15.]

The one thought which possesses me most at this time and, I may say, has always possessed me, is that we have been dosing our people with religion when what they want is not this but the Living God, and that we are threatened now, not with the loss of religious feeling, so-called, or of religious notions, or of religious observances, but with Atheism. Everywhere I seem to perceive this peril. The battle within, the battle without, is against this; the heart and the flesh of our countrymen is crying out for God. We give them a stone for bread, systems for realities; they despair of ever attaining what they need. The upper classes become, as may happen, sleekly devout for the sake of good order, avowedly believing that one must make the best of the world without God; the middle classes try what may be done, by keeping themselves warm in dissent and agitation, to kill the sense of hollowness; the poor, who must have realities of some kind, and understanding from their betters that all but houses and lands are abstractions, must make a grasp at them or else destroy them. And the specific for all this evil is some evangelical discourse upon the Bible being the rule of faith, some High Church cry for tradition, some liberal theory of education. Surely we want to preach it in the ears of all men. It is not any of these things or all these things together you want, or that those want who speak of them. All are pointing towards a Living Being, to know whom is life, and all, so far as they are set up for any purpose but leading us into that knowledge, and so to fellowship with each other, are dead things which cannot profit.1 [Note: The Life of Frederick Denison Maurice, i. 369.]

2. No one can call from the depths until he has gone down into the depths; and no one can reasonably expect God to be attentive unto the voice of his supplication until he cry out of the depths. There is much outward prayer in the present day. Services, and means of grace, and administrations of the Sacraments are multiplied, and many wonder that there is not a corresponding visible result in life and morals. Is it not possible that the failure may arise from the conditions of successful prayer not being fulfilled? May not the charge against Israel be partly true against ourselvesThis people honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me? They have fasted to the letter and not to the spirit. The cry, the worship, the prayer, may not have come from the depths of conscious spiritual need, and so it has not reached the everlasting hills; it has not risen to the throne of the Lords Presence; it has not awakened and could not awaken a response. How can we expect the great and holy God to be attentive when we are scarcely attentive ourselves, when our utterances are merely formal, dictated by no feeling of penitence or awe? To approach God acceptably, to speak to Him aright, the cry must come out of the depths of the soul, and to do this a man must go down into those depths.

The Psalmist went down into the depths of shame on account of his sin, and his cry is therefore the sharp cry of penitence. This is plain from his words; for he adds, If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. His conscience had been awakened. He had realized the enormity of sin. His accuser had stood before him, charging him with faults enough to condemn him for ever. He had seen that he was full of sin, burdened with guilt, in imminent danger of punishment. He sank into the depths, overwhelmed by fear, beholding the justice of God and His power to inflict penalty, swallowed up in despair and the consciousness of guilt.

The Cross of Calvary which tells of the awfulness of sin speaks also of the mercy of a sin-forgiving God. The soul looks to the completed sacrifice of propitiation and thence to the risen, living Saviour, who continues to make intercession for us. Well has the poet Fenner expressed the experience

Up from the deeps, O God, I cry to Thee,

Hear my souls prayer, hear Thou her litany,

O Thou who sayest, Come, wanderer, home to Me.

Up from the deeps of sorrow, wherein lie

Dark secrets veiled from earths unpitying eye,

My prayers, like star-crowned angels, Godward fly.

Not from lifes shallows where the waters sleep,

A dull, low marsh where stagnant waters sleep,

But ocean-voiced, deep calling unto deep.

3. In the lowest depths the cry of the soul becomes most importunate. Down in the depths the suffering soul instinctively reaches out its hands even though manacled by doubtinstinctively raises its voice, even though bitter with rebellionfor God, for nothing less than God, for God as the only One sufficient for the awful needs of the lonely failing heart. Such depths are places of revelation. They show what even the common superficial life needs, though it may not be aware of it. They bid us know our real Helper, that when we rise again to the common level we may not forget the supreme lesson taught us by this glimpse, through tears, into the tremendous realities of life.

Perhaps to suffer, wrote the Swiss theologian, Vinet, in one of his letters, is nothing else than to live deeply. Love and sorrow are the conditions of a profound life. A truer word was never spoken. The tragedy in which we live is meant to educate us. There would indeed be no understanding of life at all did we not know from experience that in lifes depths we receive our best teaching and training. Out of the depths have come the finest poetry, the finest music, the finest speech of the world. The Bible owes its place in literature, said Emerson, not to miracles, but to the fact that it comes from a profounder depth of life than any other book. Out of the depths have come the most inspired and inspiring of the psalms of faith, both ancient and modern. Out of the depths men have brought blessings which are rarely found in green pastures and by still waters. We never know how much God is the one great need of the soul till we go down to the depths.1 [Note: J. Hunter, De Profundis Clamavi, 22.]

III

The Hearer of Prayer

The Psalmists cry is addressed to the Lord, and we notice that the word Lord is printed in capital letters; and whenever the word Lord is in capitals it stands for Jehovah. This was the highest name of God. It was considered so sacred by the Jew that he never pronounced it. When he read the Scriptures he substituted another nameAdonaiwhich was of a less sacred character. This name appears in the second and third verses of the psalm. Indeed we cannot be quite certain as to the right pronunciation of this incommunicable name of the God of Israel.

1. Does this God hear? Is there a Divine response to mans cry from the depths? There must be in the nature of things, we are persuaded, such a response, something outside of man answering to his inner life and fulfilling its needs, actual movement and manifestation on the part of God corresponding to our natural cravings after Him. Out of the depths man cries, down to the depths God must come, meeting with a corresponding answer every real want of the souls He has made to seek after Him, if haply they may feel after Him and find Him. Whatever may be the relations between human aspiration and Divine condescension, whatever may be the conditions of the coming down of the heavenly help to human need, it is simply impossible for any religious soul to think that there is no approach of God to man. Unless life is a tremendous unreality and illusion, and we come into the world only to be fooled and cheated; unless the universe departs from its order in dealing with the spiritual necessities of mankind and the cry for God meets with exceptional treatment, quite unlike that given to the other functions and attitudes of our nature, it is simply inconceivable that the fundamental cravings of the soul can exist without their satisfaction and the prayer from the depths remain unanswered.

The objection that prayer involves the dictation of man to God; that prayer, where it is answered, means the control of things by mans uninformed wishes, rather than by infinite wisdom, or by the reign of law, falls at once to the ground when we consider what true prayer really is. It is a travesty of the idea to suppose it means saying to God, Do this, or that; Give me what I want. For the genuine prayer comes in the first instance not from man, but from God Himself. It is the gracious circulation of Divine ideas through the human soul. It is the rain from heaven, falling upon this prepared soil, and springing up there in love, and trust, and holy resignation to a Will higher than itself. It is, as Goethe has somewhere put it, God seeking for Himself and meeting Himself in man. Prayer at its truest is not man having his way with God, but God having His way with Man 1:1 [Note: J. Brierley, Religion and To-Day, 64.]

2. God answers mans cry for forgiveness, for reconciliation and union with Him. The great obstacle to religion in our world is not ignorance, but sin. More than enlightenment, we need salvation. Can all our civilization minister to a troubled conscience? Can all our culture heal a guilty pang? Can the knowledge of any scientific, philosophical, or theological truth subdue an evil passion? But in the depths of our weakness and sin God is our salvation. The deliverance of man is dear to God. It is the essential nature of love to seek and to save. Because God is love, He is ever coming down to the depths of our life, depths of sorrow and sin, the deepest depths of degradation, in order to help and to bring to Himself by all the power of His love His wayward and disobedient children. Whether it be a fallen or a rising world we live in, we know in our hearts that we need reconciliation with the God of the world. Blessed be His eternal love! He has never been outside His world, but has been always in it, bearing the sins and carrying the sorrows of our race. Its history is the history of redemption, the history of the unceasing efforts of Him with whom we have to do, to influence without compelling the vagrant and stubborn wills of men.

We must hold on fast to the fact that Gods forgiveness is a very real thing, and not a mere dramatic thing; and that if we have to suffer what seems a disproportionate penalty for our fault, it is not sent us because God is merely an inflexible exactor of debts, but because by exacting them He gives us something that we could in no other way attain to. Where we go wrong is in comparing God to a human disciplinarian. If a father says to a son, I forgive you, but I am going to punish you just the same, we may frankly conclude that he does not know what forgiveness means. The fact that he punishes merely means that he does not really trust the sons repentance, but is going to make sure that the sons repentance is not merely a plea for remission. We have to act so, or we believe that we have to act so, on occasions, to other human beings; but it is only because we cannot really read their hearts. If we knew that a repentance was complete and sincere, we should not need to exact any punishment at all. But with God there can be no such concealments. If a man repents of a sin and puts it away from him, and if none of the dreaded consequences do befall him, he may be grateful indeed for a gracious forgiveness. But if the consequences do fall on him, he may inquire whether his repentance had indeed been sincere, or only a mere dread of contingencies; while if he is penalized, however hardly, he may believe that his sufferings will bring him a blessing, and that by no other road can he reach peace.1 [Note: A. C. Benson Along the Road, 244.]

Literature

Brown (C.), The Message of God, 216.

Church (R. W.), Pascal and Other Sermons, 1.

Dearden (H. W.), Parochial Sermons, 14.

Hunter (J.), De Profundis Clamavi, 1.

King (T. S.), Christianity and Humanity, 17.

Lonsdale (J.), Sermons, 152.

Purves (G. T.), Faith and Life, 323.

Travers (H.), The Garden of Voices, 94.

Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), New Ser., xvi. (1878), No. 1078.

Christian World Pulpit, 1. 177 (H. D. Rawnsley); lxxi. 346 (R. B. Tweddell).

Churchmans Pulpit: Ash Wednesday, v. 269 (W. W. Battershall).

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

Out of: Psa 18:4-6, Psa 18:16, Psa 25:16-18, Psa 40:2, Psa 42:7, Psa 69:1, Psa 69:2, Psa 69:14, Psa 69:15, Psa 71:20, Psa 88:6, Psa 88:7, Psa 116:3, Psa 116:4, Lam 3:53-55, Jon 2:2-4, Heb 5:7

Reciprocal: Gen 37:24 – the pit 2Sa 22:17 – he drew 1Ki 22:32 – Jehoshaphat Neh 9:4 – cried Psa 3:4 – I cried Psa 18:6 – distress Psa 30:8 – unto Psa 64:1 – Hear Psa 77:2 – In the Psa 102:1 – Hear Psa 118:5 – called Psa 119:143 – Trouble Son 3:1 – but Isa 37:17 – Incline Lam 3:55 – General Dan 4:34 – lifted Jon 2:1 – out Jon 3:8 – cry Luk 22:44 – being Luk 22:62 – and wept Act 9:11 – for Rom 7:24 – wretched 1Ti 2:8 – pray

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Redemption from sin.

A song of the ascents.

We go on to see what the plowing has effected. We had it in fact in the series of remnant-psalms in the first book of psalms (3 -7). The troubles of the remnant in the latter days, though at the hand of godless enemies, are used to bring them to realize the sins, which cast them entirely on the mercy of God alone. This is expressed here very similarly, and in words that show more than there that it is the effect of the disciplinary process. The humbled soul has learned to wait on Jehovah, the impatience of self-will set aside, patience having its perfect work; and this leads on to the closing psalm; where the full result in this way is seen.

“Out of the depths” -the extreme of distress, hopeless save to God -the soul cries to Him; the sole possible Helper. It seeks answer to its lowly complaint. It realizes in Him a holiness which, if He should act simply in view of it, no one could stand. But with Him there is forgiveness also; and the mercy that He shows is the very thing that produces in the recipients of it that reverent fear in which lies the beginning of all true wisdom. This makes Him to the soul its one expectancy: it waits in hope on Him. His word sustains and directs this hope, waiting for the Lord more than the anxious watchers for the morning light.

So may Israel wait in hope then. The bounty of His love will justify it. For with Him is plenteous redemption; and He will redeem Israel from all his perversities. The new covenant number fitly closes here the lowly and chastened strain of the psalm.

Fuente: Grant’s Numerical Bible Notes and Commentary

Psa 130:1-2. Out of the depths Being overwhelmed with deep distresses and terrors, and ready to despair; have I cried unto thee Like another Jonas, entombed in the whales belly, and surrounded by all the waves of the ocean. Observe, reader, Fervent prayer will find its way through every obstruction to the ears of him who sitteth upon his holy hill.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

This is one of the penitential psalms, which though it have no title, appears to have been composed by David when in deep distress.

Psa 130:6. More than they that watch for the morning. The word morning is twice repeated in the Hebrew; yet the LXX took the liberty of dropping the repetition, though repetitions in grief and anguish display the heart in the most powerful language. Dr. Hammond, following the Chaldee, will read it, My soul hasteneth to the Lord from the guard in the morning; that is, as early as the guard. The Vulgate is much the same.

REFLECTIONS.

This psalm consists of three parts, Davids troubles, Davids prayers, and Davids salvation. It is a fine copy of the human heart labouring under trouble of conscience, and grief for having offended against God. The depths were his sins, the terrors of justice, the darkness of the mind, and especially afflictions. His method of pleading with God is a model for the penitent in anguish and grief: every sinner, conscious that sin worketh death, should plead with God as a criminal begging life of his sovereign. In the depth of his trouble, mercy, but mercy through redemption, was the ground of his plea. If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, who shall stand? If I am lost, all are lost. I therefore plead for mercy, even from the delays of justice.

While he cried under the absence of God, and awaited a pardon, he hoped in the promises; and the promises of pardon are painted with the richest tints of grace. Though our sins be as crimson, they shall be white as wool. Isa 1:18. He pleaded for mercy in unison with justice. With thee there is forgiveness that thou mayest be feared. God does not pardon sin till there has been a proper law-work on the mind. The justified soul may then say, let me no more hear that voice on Sinai; let me no more see that fire, and let me no more fall into that miry pit lest I die.

Being deeply distressed he prayed, he waited, he watched till the morning, or till the light of Gods countenance was lifted up upon his soul. Then he tasted the joys of remission, and his heart overflowed with grace. Then he exhorted Israel to trust in the Lord, and promised them the same salvation and holiness. True indeed it is, that no minister can preach pardon with greater effect than the young convert, who is exulting in Gods forgiving love. In reading psalms therefore of this nature, we should endeavour fully to enter into the spirit of devotion, and expect a present deliverance from the Lord.

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

CXXX. Waiting for God.

Psa 130:1. depths refers primarily to Gods exaltation in heaven, mans position far below on earth.

Psa 130:4. The fear of Yahweh was to pious Jews the sum of religion. If God withdrew His kindness and pardon, no man could stand. On the other hand, forgiveness encourages a sinner to fear God and keep His commandments. The LXX reads, for thy names sake.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

PSALM 130

The anguish of soul of the godly remnant on account of the sins of Israel.

Psalm 129 reviewed the outward afflictions of Israel in the presence of the righteousness of the Lord. Psalm 130 describes the inward distress of soul on account of sins seen in the light of the mercy of the Lord.

(vv. 1-2) The first two verses present the cry of anguish from a soul conscious of its guilt, and yet accompanied with faith which turns the soul to the Lord in spite of the conviction of sin.

(vv. 3-4) In the presence of the Lord the repentant soul learns three great truths. First, no sinner can stand before God on the ground of his own merit. If the Lord marks iniquities in the sense of observing them, or keeping them in memory in order to punish, there is no hope for man – none can stand (Job 10:14; Job 14:16). Second, if there is no standing before God through our own merits, there is forgiveness through His mercy. Third, if God forgives it is that He may be feared, and not that men may think lightly of their sin or of God’s mercy. Grace does not lead to a careless walk; on the contrary, it teaches us to live soberly, righteously, and godly (Tit 2:12).

(vv. 5-6) The two following verses describe the condition of the soul that fears the Lord. Such wait upon the Lord, and confide in His word. There is an eager longing that leads the soul to wait for the delivering mercy of the Lord, more than those who, through a night of sorrow, watch for a morning without clouds.

(vv. 7-8) Realizing that the Lord will bring in a day of blessing for His suffering people, the godly man exhorts Israel to hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is plenteous redemption to ransom His people from all their enemies, and redeem them from all their iniquities.

Fuente: Smith’s Writings on 24 Books of the Bible

130:1 [A Song of degrees.] Out of the {a} depths have I cried unto thee, O LORD.

(a) Being in great distress and sorrow.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

Psalms 130

The poet uttered a cry for God to show mercy to His people, and he encouraged his fellow Israelites to wait for the Lord to deliver them. This is one of the penitential psalms, as well as an individual lament and a psalm of ascent.

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

1. A desperate cry for mercy 130:1-2

The writer felt that he was at the very bottom of his resources, at the end of his rope (cf. Psa 30:2-3; Psa 71:20). This expression stresses the urgency of his request. The particular situation he faced is unknown, but in view of Psa 130:8 it may have been oppression by an enemy.

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

Psa 130:1-8

IN a very emphatic sense this is a song of ascents, for it climbs steadily from the abyss of penitence to the summits of hope. It falls into two divisions of four verses each, of which the former breathes the prayer of a soul penetrated by the consciousness of sin, and the latter the peaceful expectance of one that has tasted Gods forgiving mercy. These two parts are again divided into two groups of two verses, so that there are four stages in the psalmists progress from the depths to the sunny heights.

In the first group we have the psalmists cry. He has called, and still calls. He reiterates in Psa 130:2 the prayer that he had long offered and still presents. It is not only quotation, but is the cry of present need. What are these “depths” from which his voice sounds, as that of a man fallen into a pit and sending up a faint call? The expression does not merely refer to his creatural lowliness, nor even to his troubles, nor even to his depression of spirit. There are deeper pits than these-those into which the spirit feels itself going down, sick and giddy, when it realises its sinfulness. Unless a man has been down in that black abyss, he has scarcely cried to God as he should do. The beginning of true personal religion is the sense of personal sin. A slight conception of the gravity of that fact underlies inadequate conceptions of Christs nature and work, and is the mother of heresies in creed and superficialities and deadnesses in practice. A religion that sits lightly upon its professor, impelling to no acts of devotion, flashing out in no heroisms, rising to no heights of communion-that is to say, the average Christianity of great masses of so called Christians-bears proof, in its languor, that the man knows nothing about the depths, and has never cried to God from them. Further, if out of the depths we cry, we shall cry ourselves out of the depths. What can a man do who finds himself at the foot of a beetling cliff, the sea in front, the wall of rock at his back, without foothold for a mouse, between the tide at the bottom and the grass at the top? He can do but one thing: he can shout, and perhaps may be heard, and a rope may come dangling down that he can spring at and clutch. For sinful men in the miry pit the rope is already let down. and their grasping it is the same act as the psalmists cry. God has let down His forgiving love in Christ, and we need but the faith which accepts while it asks, and then we are swung up into the light and our feet set on a rock.

Psa 130:3-4 are the second stage. A dark fear shadows the singers soul, and is swept away by a joyful assurance. The word rendered above “mark” is literally keep or watch, as in Psa 130:6, and here seems to mean to take account of, or retain in remembrance, in order to punish. If God should take mans sin into account in His dispositions and dealings, “O Lord, who shall stand?” No man could sustain that righteous judgment. He must go down before it like a flimsy but before a whirlwind, or a weak enemy before a fierce charge. That thought comes to the psalmist like a blast of icy air from the north, and threatens to chill his hope to death and to blow his cry back into his throat. But its very hypothetical form holds a negation concealed in it. Such an implied negative is needed in order to explain the “for” of Psa 130:4. The singer springs, as it were, to that confidence by a rebound from the other darker thought. We must have tremblingly entertained the contrary dread possibility before we can experience the relief and gladness of its counter truth. The word rendered “forgiveness” is a late form, being found only in two other late passages. {Neh 9:17; Dan 9:9} It literally means cutting off, and so suggests the merciful surgery by which the cancerous tumour is taken out of the soul. Such forgiveness is “with God,” inherent in His nature. And that forgiveness lies at the root of true godliness. No man reverences, loves, and draws near to God so rapturously and so humbly as he who has made experience of His pardoning mercy, lifting a soul from its abysses of sin and misery. Therefore the psalmist taught by what pardon has done for him in drawing him lovingly near to God, declares that its great purpose is “that Thou mayest be feared,” and that not only by the recipient, but by beholders. Strangely enough, many commentators have found a difficulty in this idea, which seems sun-clear to those whose own history explains it to them. Gratz, for instance, calls it “completely unintelligible.” It has been very intelligible to many a penitent who has been by pardon transformed into a reverent lover of God.

The next stage in the ascent from the depths is in Psa 130:5-6, which breathe peaceful, patient hope. It may be doubtful whether the psalmist means to represent that attitude of expectance as prior to and securing forgiveness or as consequent upon it. The latter seems the more probable. A soul which has received Gods forgiveness is thereby led into tranquil, continuous, ever-rewarded waiting on Him, and hope of new gifts springs ever fresh in it. Such a soul sits quietly at His feet, trusting to His love, and looking for light and all else needed, to flow from Him. The singleness of the object of devout hope, the yearning which is not impatience, characterising that hope at its noblest, are beautifully painted in the simile of the watchers for morning. As they who have out watched the long night look eagerly to the flush that creeps up in the east, telling that their vigil is past, and heralding the stir and life of a new day with its wakening birds and fresh morning airs, so this singers eyes had turned to God and to Him only. Psa 130:6 does not absolutely require the supplement “hopes.” It may read simply “My soul is towards Jehovah”; and that translation gives still more emphatically the notion of complete turning of the whole being to God. Consciousness of sin was as a dark night; forgiveness flushed the Eastern heaven with prophetic twilight. So the psalmist waits for the light, and his soul is one aspiration towards God.

In Psa 130:7-8 the psalmist becomes an evangelist, inviting Israel to unite in his hope, that they may share in his pardon. In the depths he was alone, and felt as if the only beings in the universe were God and himself. The consciousness of sin isolates, and the sense of forgiveness unites. Whoever has known that “with Jehovah is pardon” is impelled thereby to invite others to learn the same lesson in the same sweet way. The psalmist has a broad gospel to preach, the generalisation of his own history. He had said in Psa 130:4 that “with Jehovah is forgiveness” (lit. the forgiveness, possibly meaning the needed forgiveness), and he thereby had animated his own hope. Now he repeats the form of expression, only that he substitutes for “forgiveness” the lovingkindness which is its spring, and the redemption which is its result; and these he presses upon his fellows as reasons and encouragements for their hope. It is “abundant redemption,” or “multiplied,” as the word might be rendered. “Seventy times seven”-the perfect numbers seven and ten being multiplied together and their sum increased seven-fold-make a numerical symbol for the unfailing pardons which we are to bestow; and the sum of the Divine pardon is surely greater than that of the human. Gods forgiving grace is mightier than all sins, and able to conquer them all.

“He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities”; not only from their consequences in punishment, but from their power, as well as from their guilt and their penalty. The psalmist means something a great deal deeper than deliverance from calamities which conscience declared to be the chastisement of sin. He speaks New Testament language. He was sure that God would redeem from all iniquity; but he lived in the twilight dawn, and had to watch for the morning. The sun is risen for us; but the light is the same in quality, though more in degree: “Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.”

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary