Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 18:35
Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation: and thy right hand hath holden me up, and thy gentleness hath made me great.
35. Jehovah’s saving help has been his defence cp. Psa 18:2-3 ; Psa 18:46, and Eph 6:17: Jehovah’s right hand supports him that his foot should not slip (Psa 20:2; Psa 94:18): Jehovah’s condescension lit. meekness or lowliness makes him great. The word is a bold one to apply to God, but its meaning is explained by Psa 113:5-6; Isa 57:15; and the choice of the humble shepherd boy to be the king of Israel was a signal example of this characteristic of the Divine action.
Loving correction (P.B.V.) is a conflate rendering combining ( discipline) from the LXX, and mansuetudo ( gentleness) from Jerome. The second line of the verse is omitted in 2 Sam.; and thine answering (i.e. of prayer) is read in place of thy condescension.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
35 38. But it is not to his own valour that his successes are to be ascribed.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvations – Thou hast saved me as with a shield; thou hast thrown thy shield before me in times of danger. See the note at Psa 5:12.
And thy right hand hath holden me up – Thou hast sustained me when in danger of failing, as if thou hadst upheld me with thine own hand.
And thy gentleness hath made me great – Margin, or, with thy meekness thou hast multiplied me. The word here rendered gentleness, evidently means here favor, goodness, kindness. It commonly means humility, modesty, as applied to men; as applied to God, it means mildness, clemency, favor. The idea is, that God had dealt with him in gentleness, kindness, clemency, and that to this fact alone he owed all his prosperity and success in life. It was not by any claim which he had on God; it was by no worth of his own; it was by no native strength or valor that he had been thus exalted, but it was wholly because God had dealt kindly with him, or had showed him favor. So all our success in life is to be traced to the favor – the kindness – of God.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 18:35
Thy gentleness hath made me great.
The gentleness of God
When the coarse mind of sin makes up gods by its own natural light, those gods reveal the coarseness and the sin together. The God of revelation contrives to be a gentle being; hiding His power that He might put confidence and courage in the feelings of His children.
I. What do we mean by gentleness? Gods gentleness lies in His consenting to the use of indirection, as a way of gaining His adversaries. Instead of coming down upon man in a manner of direct onset, to carry His submission by storm, He gently lays siege to him, waiting for his willing consent. It is the very genius of Christianity itself to bring men to obedience by a course of loving indirection from what is revealed in that wondrous indirection of grace, the incarnate life and death of Jesus. But where is the gentleness of God in those inexorable forces of the external world? Is it such a God that moves by indirection? Yes, and all the more properly, because these terrible forces permit Him to do it. He can hide His omnipotence–can set His will behind His love for a time, because He has these majestic inexorabilities for the rear guard of His mercies.
II. The end God has in view in condescending to these gracious methods,–to make us great. The Christian Gospel is a plan to bring down the loftiness of our pride and the wilfulness of our rebellion, but to make us loftier in capacity and power and personal majesty. This is true of our will and of our intellect. Then, how perverse are those who require God to convert them by force. Let us adjust our conceptions of the true scale of a Christian man by Gods careful respect for our liberty, the detentions of His violated feeling, the sending of His Son, and the silent intercession of His Spirit. Be it ours to live with a sense of our high calling upon us. (Horace Bushnell, D. D.)
The Divine gentleness
The idea here is, goodness manifested in gentle dealings, in loving kindness and tender mercy–an exhibition of the goodness of God which had often awakened his hearts warmest gratitude and led him to ascribe praise to Jehovah. The idea of lowliness enters into the meaning of the word gentleness; it is indeed essential to it. Gentleness is put in contrast with greatness. There is first God stooping down to that which is lowly, and as the result of this, His condescension, we have the gentle tender rule of His loving administration.
I. The gentleness of our fathers rule. It was due to the Fathers gentleness–
1. That we were brought under His genial sway.
2. That we have been kept in the school of Christ. There He conquers our dulness and wilfulness by His gentleness.
3. The gentleness of the Divine rule is revealed to us in the experience of life. Illustrate from our days of sin, days of punishment, days of affliction, days of weariness, and the hour of death.
II. The effects which this genial sway produces in us. Sept. reads, Thy discipline. The Chaldee paraphrase reads, Thy word hath increased me. There are some Christians of whom you feel that their humility–so beautiful and sincere and unpretending and unobtrusive–is an honour to them. Do you know the secret of this their greatness It is the product of Divine culture. We know some Christians whose zeal for God and Gods house is such that they are made honourable by it. It is because the Divine gentleness has been so sweetly realised as to create a passionate desire to make some expression of its gratitude. Saviour Divine! may Thy gentleness make us gentle–gentle in thought, in intent, in speech, in action,–that we may live gentle lives of loving devotedness to the God whose discipline and leadings are ever tender and kind! (Edward Leach.)
Gods gentleness our greatness
It is remarkable that the Psalmist should speak of God as gentle, and of himself as great, and that he should ascribe his own greatness to Gods gentleness, as the effect to the cause. This would appear to reverse the natural order of things. The greatness of God might well teach us a lesson of gentleness.
I. The import of that gentleness which is ascribed to God. Contrast it with His infinite power and universal sovereignty. There is united in the Divine character surpassing gentleness and transcendant greatness. To what but the Lords gentleness, forbearance, long suffering, and tender mercy is it owing that our rebellious and guilty race haw been so long spared and so graciously dealt with? But it is in the person of His well-beloved Son, the meek and lowly Saviour, that the gentleness of God is exhibited to us in a visible and palpable form. Was not the Spirit of Christ emphatically one of gentleness? Did not that lovely Spirit, so aptly typified by the similitude of a dove, characterise His every word and action? Such a combination of gentleness with fortitude; of meekness with dignity; of the tenderest love with the most inflexible firmness, belongs only to Immanuel. The delineation of the character is far above human power.
II. The nature of the greatness which the Psalmist affirms to be the effect of the Divine gentleness. Is it the grandeur of wealth, power, fame, or royal dignity to which he refers? His own testimony negatives the supposition. It is of moral greatness, as distinct from earthly grandeur,–greatness of principle, of soul, of destiny–that greatness which teaches man to contemn sensual indulgences, that greatness which consists in spiritual endowments, and heavenly relationships–this is the only greatness which really dignifies and ennobles a never-dying spirit. This true spiritual greatness is at once the evidence and the effect of a Divine nature. To such heavenly greatness Gods gentleness would lead us by Christ Jesus. The one subject of our everlasting songs will be, the gentleness of God in Christ. (W. F. Vance, M. A.)
The genesis of greatness
Hengstenberg calls this Psalm the great hallelujah of Davids life, and one with which he retires from the theatre of action. David was at his best when he wrote these words. There were times when he was not fitted to pen such an ode.
I. The character of true greatness. The world has admired and even deified the human earthward side of greatness, and overlooked the spiritual, Godward side. Men have exalted power, wealth, intellectual superiority above character or moral greatness, founded in faith, purity, and trust in God. Since the religion of Jesus Christ has prevailed, men are beginning to put character in the light of His matchless Excellence. How far like Him is any admired character? It is a cheerful sign that Christian communities demand some degree of moral greatness in those called to posts of power. The greatest nations of the globe are Christian. The most influential statesmen are reverent in their attitude, if not professedly converted men. True greatness is moral goodness.
II. The source of this true greatness. David is here reviewing his life. He is getting at the force that wrought in all these years and led him safely on and up, that has developed an inward life as well as an outward opulence and power. It is God. Thy gentleness hath made me great. This word gentleness is translated condescension or benignity. It is gracious kindness to ones referrer. The sun pours its fervid rays on the earth, kiting its flowers and fruits into beauty, and ripening its bounty year by year. So the face of God, like Divine sunshine, calls out of you and me all that is good and really great. We realise this fact as we muse on the Divine love, so unwearied and continuous through our lives. Let us all strive to realise that Gods eye of love rests on us. He sees our joy and grief, our loss and gain, our sin and our sorrow. Let us ever keep the windows of our life open to Him. Gods benignant grace makes us truly great. (George E. Reed, D. D.)
The gentleness of God, and our greatness
The gentleness of God–it is a wonderful word: a word that never could have originated with man. There are gods of might, grim and terrible. Man has never invented a god of gentleness. Jove is but a hurler of thunderbolts. Unto us our God hath revealed Himself, and lo, He is our Father, Almighty and Everlasting, yet His chosen emblem is the Breath, the Dew, the Lamb, the Dove,–all that sets forth the gentleness of our God. How best may we get hold of this wondrous truth? Gentleness is many sided. The word is rendered condescension, goodness, patience–but gentleness is more than these, or less. With us it may be but a lack of energy, a lack of decision. What passes for gentleness may be only a colourless mixture of weakness and unconcern, a forbearance that amiably smiles at everything and everybody, because it is less trouble than doing anything else. But it is difficult to think of gentleness in an intense nature. How can such an one be gentle? It is David, the valiant champion and captain of Israel, brave, heroic, chivalrous David, the man, too, of fierce passions, who gives us this experience. He knew as well as any the power and majesty of the Most High. And yet as he looks back upon his life he sees that the greatness of it has grown up out of the gentleness of God. We see the gentleness of God bearing in this brave soldier its own fruit, making him gracious and gentle; and at such times it is that he rises to his highest greatness. For myself I think I get furthest into the heart of this truth when I think of gentleness as the grace of one who puts himself in our place, making himself so one with us that he understands how we feel, taking our weakness and our difficulty and doubt and fear as his own. God is our father and mother too–setting ever before Himself the loftiest purpose concerning us, yet ever seeing our weakness, feeling it, and stooping tenderly to help us. That is the gentleness of God. If I am to think of God as the sublime, the majestic only, what hope have I? What allowance can be made for weakness, for ignorance, for peculiar difficulties? But if the infinite love and gentleness of God do bring Him down to be one with me in my very flesh and blood, one with me in all the round of daily life and circumstance, then I may set out with confidence. If He understand me in all my peculiarities and needs, and be ever ready to help me, then may I triumph–His gentleness shall make me great. This perfect understanding of us away by ourselves, and this perfect sympathy with us, this separate love and separate help, is the very strength and sweetness of the Gospel of Christ. God is not consumed, as some have thought, with an incessant craving for His own glory. God is consumed with an incessant longing for the welfare and blessedness of His children. All things are set and perfectly adjusted to this end. You to whom the beginnings of the life of God are a perplexity, goodness is a despair–He calls you to Himself that His gentleness may make you great. His purposes concerning us are altogether too great to be won by force; they can only be fulfilled by His gentleness. (Mark Guy Pearse.)
The gentleness of God, and the moral greatness of man
I. The gentleness of God.
1. Not a quality men usually ascribe to God. The sense of sin is the prime cause of the dread of God.
2. Not a single, but a complex attribute. Its base is goodness. Its aspects and operations are manifold. It is always sympathetic, but it is not mere softness. It does not exclude severity when severity is demanded. God both hurls the thunderbolt and distils the dew.
II. The effect of Gods gentleness on the moral greatness of man. The faculties of man are great, his destiny is great, and the Gospel of his salvation is great. The character and conduct of man are often little, very little indeed; but the powers and possibilities of his nature cannot be trivial. The Divine gentleness seen in–
1. Convincing of sin.
2. Prompting to a better life.
3. Upholding the saint in his progress toward perfection. The afterlife of the believing man on earth needs the ministry of Gods gentleness. In the fight with evil within, the soul not infrequently grows sick of itself, weary of its own infirmities, and loses all heart about its own predicted victories. In such hours the experience of Gods great patience with us, when we have given up all patience with ourselves, is of priceless value.
III. Conclusion.
1. Other attributes besides the gentleness of God must contribute to the moral life and welfare of the soul. Rigour and tenderness are both requisite to the moral guidance and training of our race.
2. In the moral development and perfection of fallen men the gentleness of God discharges the highest function. The strong hand retains, the hand of gentleness elicits and fosters. Authority moulds from without; love inspires from within.
3. The aim of the moral activity of God in this planet is to ensure the moral greatness of man.
4. Let none fail to weigh the condemning power of Gods gentleness. The sufficiency of any moral force to encourage, inspire, and exalt is the exact measure of its ability to condemn. (H. Batchelor, B. A.)
Great lives
Gentleness is love in action. Geologists tell us that the silent influences of the atmosphere are far more powerful than the noisy forces of nature: quiet sunshine than thunder, and gentle rain than earthquake. So the gentleness of God is His grandest excellence. His gentleness shows itself in the goodness which teaches us to know Him and inspires us to become like Him; in the mercy which, remembering that we are but dust, forgives our sins and blots out the record of our iniquity. The spirit of the New Testament reveals the gentleness of God as manifested in the life of our Saviour; for gentleness was the prevailing disposition of Jesus. Jesus was gentle in all His words, and meek in all His actions. In His disposition you have a picture of the spirit of the Almighty God. And His object is ever to make us truly great.
I. The gentleness of God in the inspiration of His love. Love is the strongest force we know. Impelled by it, the wife has not feared to suck the poison from the wound of her husband, and love has ever been willing to lay down its life to save its beloved. Love is refining and elevating in proportion to its purity and power. Even the love of a dog makes a bad man better than he otherwise would be. There is a hunger for love in the human heart. The prisoner for life is the better for the love of the rat who creeps about his dungeon. One of the worst characters portrayed by Charles Dickens is that of Bill Sykes–a creature apparently without natural affection–yet even he had a soft place in his heart, and was moved with pity when trying to drown his faithful dog. The most helpless being in this world is a newborn child; and it is this very helplessness that appeals so strongly to our love. But when you realise that you are loved of God, it makes you great in noble deeds. Love calls forth love. Gods gentleness is known by its record in the Bible and by its inspiration in our carts. And so the New Testament tells me of a fact–that in the heart of God there is love for me. But what should be the result when we know that our Saviour laid down His sacred life for us? Surely, that love, when it is felt in our heart, shall make the feeblest man great.
II. Notice His gentleness in the pleading of His spirit with every man. The Holy Spirit pleads with every man; and we are taught not to grieve God by resisting that hallowed influence.
III. The gentleness of God in giving us the power of the risen life of Jesus Christ. May God make us great–
1. In our friendship to one another.
2. In our obedience to God.
3. In our actions.
4. In bearing our trials. You are one of Gods jewels. But the polishing on the wheel must be if it is to shine brilliantly.
5. In our homes. Let us put away our littleness of character, and our feebleness in charity, and all that makes us mean and unlovely. We should be great in action as in thought. It is far more noble to be great than to be a king. Be great because God in His gentleness intends to lead you to paradise to be kings and priests. Let your actions be worthy of your high destiny; and may the gentleness of God uplift you from sin, and make you His children, whose lives shall adorn the Gospel of our Saviour. (W. Birch.)
The Divine gentleness
Whatever may have been the special link of association in the Psalmists mind between the dignity to which he had himself been raised and the condescension of the Most High, the text naturally suggests to our own minds the connection subsisting between the gentleness of God and the true greatness of man.
I. Consider the fact of the Divine gentleness; Gentleness is more than kindness. A man may be benevolent, and yet rude. He may do much good to others, and yet his well-doing may lack tenderness, and even his condescension may be a phase of his pride. But when we speak of the gentleness of any man or woman we speak of a quality into which enter the elements of humility, sympathy, simplicity, delicacy of feeling, calmness of spirit, patience, and long suffering. It is a quality which eludes definition. It is to be felt rather than described. Gentleness is, so to speak, an expression on the face of love, the power of which may be realised in a moment, but the characteristics of which can with difficulty be transferred to the canvas. Now, when we speak of the gentleness of God we speak primarily of a quality in the Divine nature, made known to us, as it could only be, by its manifestations, by the revelation of an actual feeling in the Divine heart. We know how the gentleness of the human heart expresses itself,–in smiles which steal their way into the soul as the sunbeams steal into forest nooks; in tones which fall upon the ear as dew upon the grass, or as snowflake upon snowflake. And so, when we find in Gods works and ways the characteristics of lowliness and tenderness, we ought not merely to say that God acts as if He were gentle, but we ought to trace these characteristics upwards to an actual quality in the Divine nature. Carrying, then, this principle with us, let us look at some of the modes in which the Divine gentleness is revealed. And–
1. The very language which I have just been using about the sunlight, the dew, the summer breeze, may suggest to us that God manifests His gentleness in the minuter forms and quieter aspects of nature. Creation reveals God: His wisdom, power, glory, but also, to some extent, His character. Not all things in nature thus reveal His character, but most do. We have in nature that which tells of what is grand and awful in Him. The vast mountains, with their wintry summits hidden in snow and mist; the ocean, lashed into fury by the tempest which strews upon its waters the wrecks of human industry; the earthquake and volcano, the thunder roar and lightning flash–these are manifestations of a majesty which is almighty to create or to destroy. But when, on the other hand, we walk out into the fields on some fresh spring morning, and see the buds opening in the hedgerows; or when, on the quiet summer eve, we stroll by some streamlet and hear the birds sing among the leaves which are gleaming in the sunset, then God seems nearer to us than in thunder roar or ocean tempest. Nearer to us, because the nearness is one which we can more easily bear–not of majestic power, but of quiet gentleness. How this gentle presence steals into our hearts amid the flowers. Yes; even if there were nothing else to testify to the gentleness of God, the flowers would bear their silent witness. Mere power could manifest itself in ten thousand other and grander ways. What must be the nature of Him who finds a delight in thus clothing the earth with beauty? Pluck one of the daisies at your feet, and think–the great God who made the worlds has made this little flower to grow! Must not He Himself, then, be gentle and lowly, even as He is mighty? A fevered child hushed to sleep by its mother look at that picture for a moment.
2. Another mode in which the Divine gentleness is revealed–namely, in the creation and maintenance of human affection. It is God who is the Inspirer of that love within the mothers heart. He it is who has constituted those relations which bind us to one another, and which tend to elicit the deepest and tenderest affection. And has not man been created in the Divine image? Would he have been constituted with these capacities of affection unless his Maker delighted in beholding their exercise? How near God draws to us in the gentle courtesies of home and friendship: more near than even in the quiet scenes of nature. How often does some daughter within a household become, through her loving ways, as a smile of God to her parents; and the cradle of a sleeping infant, as another Bethel to the grateful mother, a very gate of heaven to her soul, giving her new glimpses of the presence and tenderness of God. Yes, out of the mouth even of babes and sucklings God, etc. And in friendship too, with its tender ministries and patient loving help–how this tells of the Divine sympathy, and of Him who healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. There could be no tenderness at all in us, if its archetype were not first in Him.
3. God has also manifested His gentleness in the gift and Person of His Son Jesus Christ. Here, indeed, the revelation of the Divine humility reaches its climax. We cannot kneel in imagination before the manger of Bethlehem without feeling how real is the lowliness of God. The incarnation of the Divine Son was itself a humiliation. And this incarnation, remember, was the answer of the Creator to the sin of His creatures. Men were forgetting and forsaking Him, and trampling His laws under their feet. And all this enmity of theirs He meets–not with another deluge, not with fire and brimstone from heaven; but with the gift of the only-begotten Son, to take upon Him their nature, that the Divine Life might thus be inwrought, as it were, into the very texture of humanity, and that the world might be saved. Oh, what patient humility is here! How gently did the great God thus steal into the midst of the human family in the form of this Bethlehem Child. And how all through His life on earth does He show the same lowly gentleness. I might speak to you of other modes in which God manifests His gentleness. I might remind you how tenderly He often deals with us in His providence–erecting barriers of circumstance which help to keep us in the path of safety; mingling mercy also even with His chastisements; laying a gentle hand on the wound which must be probed, and sweetening the bitterness of the cup which must be drunk. Think, too, of the gentleness implied in the gift of the Holy Spirit the Comforter, who wrestles with us when we are tempted to sin, rebukes our transgressions in deep whispers within the soul, and gives peace and consolation by His own indwelling presence.
II. The effect of the Divine gentleness upon ourselves. It makes us great. It enlarges our being: helps us to the attainment of noble spiritual character. And He does this–
1. By raising our estimate of our own nature. So long as we think only of the greatness of God and of His holiness, our own weakness and sin make us feel almost as if our existence were a worthless thing. But when God draws near to us in His gentleness, and calls us His children, then we begin to be conscious of the dignity of our being.
2. The gentleness of God makes us great by inspiring us with faith in Himself. Humility, not pride, is the godlike attribute; and faith in God is the root of all the highest creature greatness. For it is the key to self-conquest; and he who ruleth his own spirit is, etc. What has not faith done in and by those who have been inspired with its might? (Heb 11:1-40) Now as faith is the secret of all this higher spiritual greatness, so the gentleness of God is the secret of this faith. We could not look up to God with a childlike confidence if He were merely in our thoughts the Thunderer of Olympus. But, being lowly and gracious in His own nature, He so manifests His fatherly gentleness as to win our trust. And thus the Divine gentleness makes us great, by awakening within us that faith which is the root of greatness.
3. The gentleness of God makes us great, by inducing the development of all our highest capacities. It has been remarked that civilisation has proceeded with more rapid strides and has reached a higher stage on the broader plains of earth, amid the tamer and quieter aspects of nature, than in the neighbourhood of the loftiest mountains and the grander features of our world. See the contrast between the populations of India or South America and those that cover the plains of Europe. The theory is that, in presence of the more sublime phenomena of nature, the spirit of man is awed and crushed, so that his development is cramped and fettered; whereas, on the broader plains of the world, his spirit becomes freer, and he learns to master the forces of nature, instead of cringing before her like a slave. But, however this may be, we know from our own experience that men who are greater, wiser, nobler than ourselves, help us in proportion as they stoop to us and identify themselves with us. To be met with gentleness is to be mightily helped, if it be only the gentleness of a strength which we respect. And thus it is that the Divine gentleness induces the development of our noblest powers. So long as we think only of the majesty of God there is danger lest terror paralyse our souls. But it is far otherwise when we realise the Divine lowliness–when we feel that God is drawing near to us in tender sympathy, and encouraging us, as dear children, to do our best for Him. Then our reverence for His greatness only makes our gratitude for His condescension the more intense; and this gratitude is a stimulus to all holy energy. Our meditation suggests two practical lessons–
(1) Learn how you may yourselves become greater. Your whole being will shrivel if you worship a colossal fate or an almighty spectre. The devotees of mere power grow weak. Let awe and trust blend themselves in your souls.
(2) Learn how you may help others to become greater. Treat them with gentleness, not with a weak softness–that will only enervate. Cultivate robustness of character. But see to it that you cultivate gentleness also. Has some poor ship dashed itself on the rocky coast, and would you save the crew with that strong thick rope of yours? Then attach to it the slender cord, and throw them that; that may bring them the strong rope, which will prove the means of their deliverance. Would you save men from a spiritual shipwreck? Would you strengthen souls in the hour of temptation? Then the stronger your own character is, the better; but let your strength avail itself of gentleness, and it will become the mightier to protect and redeem. Would you make men wiser? Then the wiser you yourselves are, the better; but your wisdom must in gentleness stoop to their ignorance, if you would educate and instruct them. Would you make men purer? Then the purer your own heart is, the better; but your purity must in gentleness bear pityingly and patiently with them, if you would arouse them to a truer self-respect, and lead them into a higher and holier life. It is the gentleness of greatness that makes men great. (T. Campbell Finlayson.)
The power of Gods gentleness
No one can glance, even in the most hasty manner, over this Divine song without observing the recognition of Gods hand in all things by which it is pervaded.
I. And at the very outset we find rising out of these words the question, what is that greatness which in the Christian is produced by Gods gentleness? Scarcely two individuals have the same idea of greatness. All, indeed, will agree that it denotes preeminence, but each will have his own preference as to the department in which that is to be manifested. Some associate it with the deeds of the warrior on the battlefield, others with the triumphs of the orator, or the achievements of the artist, the poet, the philosopher, the man of science; others, with the acquisition of rank or wealth or power. But the greatness which Gods gentleness produces may co-exist with many of these, but is independent of them all. For man is great in the proportion that he resembles the holy God who made him. Mans greatness, therefore, is greatness in holiness. It is a moral thing, for the truest manliness and the highest God likeness are convertible terms. Behold our Lord Jesus Christ. Is there anyone who imagines that His greatness was lessened by the fact that He laboured at the carpenters bench and was one of the poorest of the people? Not among warriors, poets, artists, statesmen, or the like do we name Him; yet even in the estimation of those who deny His deity, He is regarded as the greatest of men. Why? Because of His preeminence in holiness. Now, true greatness in man is precisely what it was in Him who, because He was the God-man, was the archetypal man. It is moral excellence, the greatness of character, preeminence in holiness, and is such that no external meanness can obscure its radiance, and no blaze of earthly glory can outshine its brightness. Thus, whatever our outward sphere may be, to be truly great we must have an inward character of holiness manifesting itself in all our actions; and he will be the greatest who, wherever he may be, is likest Christ. Some years ago a poor Spanish sailor was brought into a Liverpool hospital to die, and, after he had breathed his last, there was found upon his breast tattooed, after the manner of his class, a representation of Christ upon the Cross. You call that superstition, and perhaps you are right; yet there was beauty ill it too, for if we could have in our hearts what that poor seaman had painfully, and with the needle point, punctured over his, we should be great indeed. Is not this, in truth, the open secret of Pauls preeminence? for he thus describes himself: Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifest in our body. The manifestation of the life of Jesus: that is greatness, and to get that we must bear about in the body the dying of the Lord.
II. But how does Gods gentleness make us great?
1. It is because the human heart is always more deeply affected by tenderness than sternness. See this in the reformation of criminals. If you attempt to drag a man by force his nature is to resist you; but if you attempt to attract him by love, it is equally in his nature to follow you. And this is the principle of the Cross of Christ. God might have left us justly to our sins; but He would make us great, and therefore Christ died. It is this which turns the heart to God as Sinai could never do. But the manifestation of this love attracts: in other words, His gentleness produces in me that love to Him which is the source and inspiration of holiness. But, passing from the general to the particular, you may see the words of the text verified in the manner in which God receives individuals into His love, and so begins in them the greatness of holiness. The bruised reed He does not break; the smoking flax He does not quench; and there is no one here whom He will not willingly and lovingly receive. Read those gentle and beneficent words which fell so frequently from His lips. Peruse such parables as that of the lost sheep, or that of the prodigal son. Ah! who can tell how many have been encouraged to go to Him by such declarations and invitations as these? And now, as they revert to the first faint stirrings of the new life in them which these words evoked, they can say with truth, Thy gentleness hath made us great.
2. See this also in the manner in which God in Christ Jesus trains His people after they have come to Him He does not leave them to themselves. He teaches them yet more and more of His grace; yet, in truest tenderness, He teaches them as they are able to bear it.
3. And in His dealings with His people now. Terrible are, at times, their trials, but He stayeth His rough wind in the day of His east wind, and if the thorn of trial be not extracted, there comes the precious assurance, My grace is sufficient for thee; My strength is made perfect in weakness. The subject has a two-fold application. It presents Jehovah to the sinner in a very affectionate attitude. Think of it, my friend. God is tender toward you. How often you have provoked Him with your iniquities, your ingratitude, your procrastination! Yet He has not cut you down. You are living evidences of His gentleness. Finally, this subject shows the Christian how he should seek to bring others to the knowledge of Jesus. The gentleness of God should be repeated and reproduced in us, and we should deal with others with the same tenderness and affection as God hath dealt with us. Parents, seek the greatness of your children, that is their godliness, not by rigorous, unbending sternness, but in tender forbearance. You have heard of the mother who, as she was sitting on the brow of a hill, suffered her child unnoticed to wander from her side, until he stood upon the very edge of the beetling cliff. She was appalled when she discovered where he was, but her maternal instinct would not let her shriek. All she did was to open her arms and beckon him to her embrace, and the little fellow, unconscious of the danger in which he stood, ran to be folded to her bosom. So let it be with you. When you see your young people standing on some precipice of temptation, do not scold or blame or cry out about it; that will only push them over. Rather open to them the arms of your affection. Make home to them more attractive than aught else. Let your fatherhood and motherhood become more to them than ever and by your very gentleness you will make them great. Sabbath school teacher, this text speaks to you, and bids you, in your earnest efforts for your scholars welfare, show to them the same gentleness that Jesus manifested when He took the children in His arms and blessed them. Do not lose your temper with them, but be gentle with them, even as God for Christs sake hath forgiven you. (W. N. Taylor, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 35. The shield of thy salvation] In all battles and dangers God defended him. He was constantly safe because he possessed the salvation of God. Everywhere God protected him. Thy gentleness, anvathecha, thy meekness or humility. Thou hast enabled me to bear and forbear; to behave with courage in adversity, and with humility in prosperity; and thus I am become great. By these means thou hast multiplied me. The Vulgate reads, Disciplina tua ipsa me docebit; “And thy discipline itself shall teach me.” In this sense it was understood by most of the versions. The old Psalter paraphrases thus: Thi chastying suffers me noght to erre fra the end to com.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The shield of thy salvation; thy safeguard and protection, which hath been to me like a shield to defend me.
Holden me up; kept me from falling into those snares and mischiefs which mine enemies designed, and I feared.
Thy gentleness, or
meekness, as this word signifies, Num 12:3; Psa 10:17; 45:4; Zep 2:3, i.e. thy clemency, whereby thou hast pardoned my sins, which might otherwise have undone me, and mitigated thy corrections which I have deserved; thy grace and benignity, which thou hast freely showed to me and for me.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
35. thy gentlenessas appliedto Godcondescensionor that which He gives, in the sense ofhumility (compare Pr 22:4).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Thou hast given me the shield of thy salvation,…. Meaning either temporal salvation, which was a shield to him when he had no outward one, as when he fought with Goliath; and was what preserved him in all his battles at other times: or spiritual salvation, which is of the Lord, of his contriving, effecting:, and applying, and in which his glory is concerned; interest in which is a free gift of his, as are the knowledge, application, and possession of it; and this is as a shield, which saves from sin, from all sin, and the damning power of it; keeps off the curses of the law, secures from wrath to come, and repels Satan’s temptations; the words may be applied to Christ, who, though he was not saved from dying, yet was preserved in the day of salvation, and was not suffered to see corruption in the grave, and was quickly delivered from the power and dominion of it;
and thy right hand hath holden me up; Christ may be said to be the right hand of God, being as dear to him as his right hand; and being exalted at it; and because by him he communicates all good things to his people, and with him upholds and sustains them; or else it designs the mighty power of God, which is often signified by it,
Ps 20:6; and may be understood of the sustentation of David, both in a providential way, with respect to his being, the preservation of it, the supplies of life, and support in times of trouble and distress; and in a spiritual sense, maintaining the principle of grace in him, furnishing him with fresh supplies of grace, and bearing him up under and through every temptation and exercise; so upholding him that he stood firm in the true grace of God, in the exercise of it implanted, and in the doctrine of grace, so as to go forward in the ways of God, and follow hard after him, and so as not to fall and utterly perish; and which is true of all the saints; see
Ps 63:8. The words may be interpreted of Christ, who, as man and Mediator, as God’s righteous servant, was upheld by him, so that he failed not, nor was he discouraged; the hand of the Lord was established with him, and his arm also strengthened him, Isa 42:1; this clause is not in 2Sa 22:36;
and thy gentleness hath made me great; David was very mean and low by his birth and occupation, and while persecuted by Saul; but God of his grace and goodness, of his sovereign good will and pleasure, raised him to an high estate, set him on the throne of Israel, and gave him honour among and above the kings of the earth; so Kimchi interprets the word for “gentleness” by “goodness” or “merciful” kindness; R. Jonah by “providence”; and R. Isaac explains it “thy help [and] good will”; and all shows that his greatness was not owing to his merits, but to the providential goodness of God; and his special grace and mercy in Christ Jesus made him still greater, even a child of God, an heir of God, a joint heir with Christ, a King and a Priest unto God; gave him a right unto and a meetness for a crown of glory, an everlasting kingdom, an eternal inheritance, as it does all the saints. The words may be rendered, “thy humility hath made me great” p; which may be understood either of God’s humbling himself to look upon him in his low estate, and to raise him to such honour and dignity as he did, both in a temporal and spiritual sense; see Ps 113:6; or of the humility which he had in himself from God, as Aben Ezra interprets it; of which grace God is the author; it is a fruit of the Spirit; which he takes great notice of, gives more grace to them that have it, and exalts them, as he did David, who was mean and low in his own eyes. The Septuagint, and those versions which follow that, render it “thy discipline” or “correction”: and so may design the gentleness and lenity of God in chastising his people, which is always in measure and in judgment, and for their good; whereby he increases grace in them, and trains them up for, and brings them to his kingdom and glory. The Chaldee paraphrase is, “by thy word thou hast increased me”; it may not be improperly interpreted of Christ, who was very low in his estate of humiliation on earth, but is now highly exalted, and crowned with glory and honour; who first endured great sufferings, and then entered into his glory.
p “mansuetudo tua”, Pagninus, Montanus, Musculus, Gejerus; “thy meekness”, Ainsworth; “sumitur pro humilitate seu mansuetudine”, Zeph. ii. 3. Gejerus.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(Heb.: 18:36-37) Yet it is not the brazen bow in itself that makes him victorious, but the helpful strength of his God. “Shield of Thy salvation” is that consisting of Thy salvation. has an unchangeable , as it has always. The salvation of Jahve covered him as a shield, from which every stroke of the foe rebounded; the right hand of Jahve supported him that his hands might not become feeble in the conflict. In its ultimate cause it is the divine , to which he must trace back his greatness, i.e., God’s lowliness, by virtue of which His eyes look down upon that which is on the earth (Psa 113:6), and the poor and contrite ones are His favourite dwelling-place (Isa 57:15; Isa 66:1.); cf. B. Megilla 31 a, “wherever Scripture testifies of the of the Holy One, blessed be He, it gives prominence also, in connection with it, to His condescension, , as in Deu 10:17 and in connection with it Deu 10:18, Isa 57:15 and Isa 57:15, Psa 68:5 and Psa 68:6.” The rendering of Luther, who follows the lxx and Vulgate, “When Thou humblest me, Thou makest me great” is opposed by the fact that means the bending of one’s self, and not of another. What is intended is, that condescension of God to mankind, and especially to the house of David, which was in operation, with an ultimate view to the incarnation, in the life of the son of Jesse from the time of his anointing to his death, viz., the divine (Tit 3:4), which elected the shepherd boy to be king, and did not cast him off even when he fell into sin and his infirmities became manifest. To enlarge his steps under any one is equivalent to securing him room for freedom of motion (cf. the opposite form of expression in Pro 4:12). Jahve removed the obstacles of his course out of the way, and steeled his ankles so that he stood firm in fight and endured till he came off victorious. The praet. substantiates what, without any other indication of it, is required by the consecutio temporum , viz., that everything here has a retrospective meaning.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(35) Thy gentleness.Or, meekness, as in margin. We cannot afford to sacrifice this striking foreshadowing of His saying of Himself, I am meek and lowly, to the scare of a word like anthropomorphism. Why be afraid to speak of the Divine Being as meek any more than as jealous. The LXX. and Vulgate have discipline, probably through this timidity.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
35. Thy gentleness hath made me great The humbling or condescending love of God to him had so inspired him with faith and hope, and had so reproduced itself in David’s character, that it was the cause of all his greatness.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 18:35. Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation, &c. i.e. “The salvation which thou hast afforded me, hath been my constant protection and security; and thy gentleness; i.e. (as I think the words may be rendered) that gentleness, forbearance, and freedom from the spirit of malice and revenge, with which thou hast blessed me, hath increased my greatness; referring to his conduct towards Saul, which God approved and highly rewarded.” Chandler.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Psa 18:35 Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation: and thy right hand hath holden me up, and thy gentleness hath made me great.
Ver. 35. Thou hast also given me, &c. ] i.e. Thou hast preserved and settled me. See Trapp on “ Psa 5:12 “
And thy gentleness hath made me great
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
gentleness = condescension.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Gods Gentleness and Mans Greatness
Thy gentleness hath made me greatPsa 18:35.
1. This Psalm is a hymn of praise after deliverance from deadly perils. It is also found with slight verbal alterations in 2 Samuel 22, in connexion with that part of Davids history which is mentioned in the title. The writer of the Book of Samuel found it already in existence as a song of David. Its composition probably belongs to the Psalmists later life. It is evidently a thankful retrospect of Gods wonderful dealings with him, referring especially to the time when his life was most beset with dangers,his bitter and protracted persecution by Saul, his expulsion from his throne and kingdom by Absalom, and the fierce foreign wars that distracted him for a long time thereafter. But from all these he had been graciously delivered, and from a peaceful old age he now looks back with wonder and gratitude. He combines the whole of that stormy past in one idealized and glowing picture. In the imminent peril described, he gives us the concentration of many perils, and in his description of a gracious interposition, the concentration of repeated interpositions, brought to a common focus at which they are seen as one, with corresponding intensity. In the poets imagination it is a Theophany, a visible exhibition of the presence and power of the great Jehovah on behalf of His servant, in such extremity that nothing less than this could have saved him. His style is majestic, his conceptions vivid, and his language graphic. It has been well said that this wonderful composition bears the marks of the classic age of Hebrew poetry. With the exception of the matchless 68th Psalm, it has no rival in this whole collection.
2. In this setting we find the jewel of our text. Who has not often dwelt in thought on this precious saying? As, after we have heard a sweet strain of music, we keep going over and over again to ourselves some especially pleasing portion of it; or as, when we have gazed a while on a gorgeous landscape, our eyes rest at length on some object of surpassing loveliness within it; so, after we have perused this Psalm, we return again and again to the words of the text. They fall on the ear like the soft breathing of an olian harp, and they linger there with a permanence that earthly music knows not. Many gems flash out upon us from this book of praise, but there are few with a radiance so bright as that which comes from this one, Thy gentleness hath made me great.
I.
Gods Gentleness
1. The term rendered gentleness seems to have puzzled the early translators. Luther translated the text, When thou humblest me thou dost make me great, and the older English version, which survives in the Prayer Book, conveys something of the same meaning. Thy loving correction shall make me great. But recent scholarship confirms the rendering of our Authorized Versionthy gentlenessor thy condescension, as the Revisers marginal reading has it. And, after all, is not this more in accord with what we know of Gods dealings with man? He does indeed bring down the high looks of the proud; but with those whom He is leading from lowliness to greatness He deals differently. He does not humble them, but Himself. He empties Himself that He may make them full. And David, looking back over Gods dealing with him, seizes a great truththe great truth of Gods dealing with man, that truth which we Christians contemplate in all its fulness as we bow before the Mystery of the IncarnationGod is love.
This life, broken off from its immortal whole, has no meaninglike a fragment broken off from a statuelike a few bars cut out of the best piece of music. For the anthem, in its movement through the earthly bars, is full of minor passages and discords imperfectly resolved; but to him who hears it further on, these shall only bring in, with a richer harmony of all chords on the original key, the chorus and refrain of God is love. And well for him that can seize on that governing key and keep it in sight and recognize its presence, though unheard, all through the music, through the most shattering discords and departures out of it. He has found that which gives it all a unity and meaning and interprets to his heart (if it should not be to his understanding, in technical terms of sharps and flats) what seems to others mere chaos and confusion of noise; and if he too lose it for a little while, though never altogether, shall not this only bring it back more grandly, more sonorously, when it returnswhen the golden morning breaks with a chorus of all voices singing, God is love!1 [Note: Life of W. B. Robertson of Irvine (by Dr. James Brown), 252.]
2. The gentleness of God, like that of one of ourselves, is not a single but a complex attribute. Its base is that quality of nature which we call goodness. The aspects and operations of gentleness are manifold. It will appear in fellow-feeling towards the suffering and the sorrowing. Gentle natures are always sympathetic. It will beget consideration for men in their mistakes, follies, and sins. Gentleness is incapable of wholesale and indiscriminate condemnation. It remembers the weaknesses and temptations of even the evil-doer. Gentleness will be patient with the dull learner, and with the feeble in limb who would fain walk uprightly. It will not grow sick and tired of the slow and the infirm, and will not cast them off in disgust and turn away with loathing. A soul of gentleness will be forbearing with men, even in their waywardness, their wilfulness, and their wrongdoing. Behind the perverse and evil demeanour there is often the beginning of a better mind. The effect must be waited for. To wax hot and consume the delinquent, is to annihilate all hopeful possibilities. The gentle are generous. Their interpretations of conduct are not heated and rash, and always lean to charity and virtue. Gentle natures are calm, because neither easily provoked nor harsh in their resentments. Gentleness is tender towards all menabounding in sympathy for the tempted, compassionate towards the suffering, and filled with grief by the sins and the sorrows of the polluted and the guilty. The gentleness of God is substantially the same as the gentleness of man, varied only by the difference between the imperfect and sinful creature and the all-holy and ever-blessed Creator.
What it cost Archbishop Benson to conquer his masterfulness of temper comes out in a touching note to his wife (July 14, 1878): So this is my birthday. I think the most grave and altogether best lesson which I have learned in nine-and-forty years is the incalculable and infinite superiority of gentleness to every other force, and the imperious necessity of humility as a foundation to every other virtue. Without this it appears to me the best characters and noblest have to be taken to pieces and built up again with the new concrete underlaidand without gentleness things may be done, but oh, at what needless cost of tears and blood too!1 [Note: Canon Scott Holland, Personal Studies, 99.]
Let no man predicate
That aught the name of gentleness should have,
Even in a kings estate,
Except the heart there be a gentle mans.
The star-beam lights the wave,
Heaven holds the star and the stars radiance.2 [Note: Guido Guincelli, trans, by D. G. Rossetti.]
3. Gentleness is not a quality which men have commonly ascribed to God. It certainly has not occupied a prominent place in the thoughts of human beings, and has by no means dwelt in their reflexions. The religions of men, which are the sum of their ideas of God, are not only silent as to the Divine gentleness, but irreconcilable with it. Power and anger represent the chief characteristics of the Deity in the minds of all nations. The tumultuous forces of creation have commonly brought the might and the wrath of God into contact with the sensibilities of men. Nature in her gentler aspects and in her more restful moods has not exerted so effective an influence over religious thought and feeling. The vast conflagration; the overwhelming flood; the raging and resistless sea; the sweep of the wild hurricane; the blinding glare of lightnings and the crash and roll of thunder; the earthquake which sends its shock to the very foundations of the globe, which makes every inch of ground feel insecure, for the time, annihilates faith in the stability of nature, and summons terror to every face;these things constrain human impotence to tremble before almighty power.
I have never seen hard mountain summits but soft slopes were there, where hung the raindrop and the snow, where the cloud loved to nestle, and the insect could find a home. The tenderest flowers grow on the hardest, steepest crags; cliffs that defy the foot of man to scale them, and laugh the thunderbolt to scorn, are garlanded with the daintiest mosses, and tenanted by the most timid creatures. The down on the breast of the eagle is as warm and soft a nestling-place as that on the breast of the dove. God must be gentle, or He would not have formed feeble creatures. God must be gentle, or the world would be hard and stern. God must be gentle, or He would not have made the mothers heart. God must be gentle, or inexperience would not be suffered to run its little hour, and childhood and youth would suffer swift eclipse, and all the vanities of time would meet a sudden end. Where has man learned gentleness? Who inspired the saying, Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth? Who has put in the hearts of all the thoughtful the certainty that patience shall conquer at the end? Nay; were God not gentle, how could man live upon the earth? For we presume upon His patience; we venture to be thoughtless; we delay our penitence; and, when we have made a resolution of amendment, take a long, long time to work it out. We are not afraid to be pitiful to others; we are not ashamed to pity ourselves; because deep in our heart there is the feeling that like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.1 [Note: A. Mackennal, The Life of Christian Consecration, 74.]
4. Gentleness does not exclude severity. Doubtless small natures are commonly petulant and irritable. Great souls are constitutionally forbearing and gentle. But the noblest men, when occasion demands, can veil their gentleness and frown in severity, or quench their severity and shed only smiles of gentleness. The God of creation hurls the thunderbolt and distils the dews, pours flaming lava over field and vineyard, and fringes with crimson and gold the minutest stems that spring upon the waste, musters the tempests and blackens the sky, and enkindles the tender dyes which span the retreating storm. The Bible is full of the wrath of God, and fuller of the love of God. It declares law as well as grace. It is written of the one Jehovah, The Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created; Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth. The same attributes were incarnate in Jesus Christ. The most terrible words that ever fell from human lips, and the most gentle, proceeded from the Lord Jesus. Both of the attributes which the utterances of Christ present are abundantly revealed in Holy Scripture; both are consistent, though we may not always be able to harmonize their operations; and both are essential to the moral perfection of the Deity.
Not long since, I saw a range of crags, beetling over the seaan expressive emblem, it seemed to me, of Divine gentleness and severity. On their fronts the south-western gales poured all their fury. The breakers rushed with headlong violence at their base, and were hurled back again in impotent foam and with huge uproar. Above, from the waters edge up to the sky-line, there were innumerable myriads of yellow primroses, wild hyacinths, and violetsa living heaven with living stars gleaming from the seaward slopes. The careering winds and the long rolling waves were repulsed by strength; but the fragile blossoms were nourished and sheltered in their retreats with maternal tenderness. The cliff beat back the flood with iron arms, but seemed to enclose a heart of tenderness beneath its rocky bosom.1 [Note: H. Batchelor, The Incarnation of God, 60.]
5. The Divine gentleness finds its perfect illustration in Jesus Christ. When God Himself appeared on earth in the Person of Jesus Christ, gentleness was so conspicuous that men could not understand it; they had not depth enough of soul to understand the strength that works by patience and love. They could not understand a God waiting upon men, a God suffering contradiction, a God baffled and thwarted, a God without the thunderbolts and chariots of fire, a God pleading and beseeching, weeping and moaning in the anguish of ineffectual love, a God doing nothing by violence, who neither strove nor cried, whose voice was not heard in the streets. How little have men ever known what is most Divine! They looked for one shod with blazing brass, trampling under foot all that is unworthy and hostile; and He came not breaking the bruised reed nor quenching the smoking flax. This lightness of step was unintelligible to them; this considerateness of all that was weak made them presume instead of worshipping. They did not see that the love which could uphold this infinite patience and prompt to this quiet, compassing gentleness was the proof of Divinity, was a greater thing and more impossible to every one besides than the might that called worlds into being, was the last evidence that could be given that God is Godthe source of all good, the strength of all His creatures, in whom there ever remains capacity to repair all moral disaster, love enough to overcome all hatred in His creatures, an all-enduring, untemptable gentleness which will not be provoked, will not retaliate, will not give up hoping and loving.
He who hath seen Christ, hath seen the Fatherthe Father, in whose Name He worked, whose word He spake. That last and uttermost pledge of unfaltering love, the death on the Cross, was no plan, no thought of His own. It was the Father that prompted it, the Father, without whom He could do nothing: it was the Father who moved Him to the task: this commandment He had received of the Father, to lay down His life for the sheep. That tender, gracious, devoted, patient, forgiving gentleness, that warm, overflowing sympathy, that invincible passion of sacrificial love, that sweet human-hearted compassion, that lovely persuasiveness, which flows down to us from the Cross of Jesusall this, then, is not only a revelation of the motives, and spirit, and affection of God the Son, but more than this, all of it is an outcome, an expression, of the character (if we may be allowed the word) of God the Father. His heart it is which the Passion of Christ makes manifest, His heart which it is given us to understand in the infinite piety, and beauty, and grace, and comfort, and goodness, and meekness of Jesus. These are all the signs, the sacraments, the interpretation, the outflow, of His Fathers presence; for He and the Father are one. The winning tenderness, the wonderful humility, which look at us out of the eyes of the dear Lord, are the clearest and closest knowledge we ever here shall attain of what we mean when we name the Father, of what we shall behold when we see God.1 [Note: Canon H. Scott Holland.]
The Man who was lord of fate,
Born in an oxs stall,
Was great because He was much too great
To care about greatness at all.
Ever and only He sought
The will of His Father good;
Never of what was high He thought
But of what His Father would.
You long to be great; you try;
You feel yourself smaller still:
In the name of God let ambition die;
Let Him make you what He will.
Who does the truth, is one
With the living Truth above:
Be Gods obedient little son,
Let ambition die in love.1 [Note: George MacDonald, Poetical Works, ii. 178.]
II.
Mans Greatness
1. What is true greatness? Scarcely two individuals have the same idea of greatness. All, indeed, will agree that it denotes pre-eminence, but each will have his own preference as to the department in which that is to be manifested. Some associate it with the deeds of the warrior on the battlefield, and others with the triumphs of the orator in the senate; some identify it with the achievements of the artist, and others with the creations of the poet. Some restrict it to the department of science or philosophy; while, in the view of others, it is connected mainly with the acquisition of wealth, or the attainment of rank and power. But the greatness which Gods gentleness produces is a different thing from any of these. It may co-exist, indeed, with many of them, but it is distinct from them all. It is excellence in that for which especially man was originally created. Now, as we learn from Scripture that man was made in the image of God, it follows that men are great in the proportion in which they are like Him. But wherein consists the greatness of God? Ask those who are nearest Him and know Him best, and they will reply, while they continue their song, Holy! Holy! Holy! Lord, God Almighty. The greatness of manhood, therefore, is greatness in holiness. It is a moral thing; for the truest manliness and the highest godlikeness are convertible terms.
True greatness consists in being the best and doing the best that our nature is capable of. It is making the most of ourselves. This definition will bring many within the ranks of the great whom the world knows not as such; and it will cut off many who think themselves great, or are so esteemed among men. One characteristic of true greatness is that there is nothing partial or one-sided about it; it is the full, complete development of all our powers; whereas we, in our false estimate of life, often think that striking and powerful things are truly great.1 [Note: Phillips Brooks, The Spiritual Man, 301.]
Go out into the streets of London to-day, and ask your fellow-men what is their best work. One will tell you he can make the canvas speak with the likeness of the human form; another, that he can lend to the dead marble grace and beauty almost lifelike; another, that he has conquered Englands enemies, or enchanted men with sweet music, or amassed a colossal fortune; but amidst them all comes one voice, the voice of Him at whose feet blindness and palsy, weakness and leprosy, the tossing wave and the blustering wind crouched submissive, and His claim to greatness is, as He has told us Himself, that He came to seek and save the lost. Will your life and mine be deemed great in Gods sight, judged by this standard? I think many a humble ragged-school teacher in London will tower above poet and statesman when the day comes for the Master to reckon up His jewels.2 [Note: Quintin Hogg, 398.]
Was Napoleon a great man? If by great be intended the combination of moral qualities with those of intellect, great he certainly was not. But that he was great in the sense of being extraordinary and supreme we can have no doubt. If greatness stands for natural power, for predominance, for something human beyond humanity, then Napoleon was assuredly great. Besides that indefinable spark which we call genius, he represents a combination of intellect and energy which has never perhaps been equalled, never, certainly, surpassed. He carried human faculty to the farthest point of which we have accurate knowledge. No name represents so completely and conspicuously dominion, splendour, and catastrophe. He raised himself by the use, and ruined himself by the abuse, of superhuman faculties. He was wrecked by the extravagance of his own genius. No less powers than those which had effected his rise could have achieved his fall.3 [Note: Lord Rosebery, Napoleon, The Last Phase, 251.]
2. Gods design for man is that he should be morally and spiritually great. And the aim of the moral activity of God in this planet is to ensure the true greatness of man. This is the scene which He has chosen, furnished, and adorned for conducting our education. Every object of beauty, greatness, might, and splendour, and all symbols of truth, purity, beneficence, and Godhead, are the diagrams created by infinite Wisdom, Power, and Goodness for the great school of the human and Christian life. What is the design of every parent worthy of the name? Is it not to provide his children with all the means of intelligence, self-control, success, nobility, and honour? First, and above all other things, will he not train them in the knowledge and love of their Creator and Redeemer? Is it not an honest pride to him, of which he will never feel ashamed, and a delight of heart which he will never need to disguise, to see the members of his family living in the practice of every Christian virtue and in the respect and goodwill of all their fellow-men? Is not God our Father? It is a joy to Him to guide His children to glory, honour, and immortality.
(1) When God makes men great, He makes them kingly. Milton says, He who reigns within himself and rules passions, desires, fears, is more than a kingand when God handles a man He sets his feet on a throne, a crown on his head, a sceptre in his hand. He is not carried away by impulse, caprice, desire, passion, but is swayed by reason and righteousness. Nor does he rule himself alone, for he influences others, and moulds and makes the society in which he moves. He puts out evils fires; he kindles the fires of goodness.
Who is the strong man? Is he the man who passes through society with the battle-axe of Richard Cur de Lion? The child sees a man lift a great weight with his teeth, and at once he exclaims, What a strong man! Is the child right? He would have been right had he said, What a strong animal! Such poor power wastes itself day by day; the mans teeth perish, where is the giant then? Here are two men under circumstances of equal provocation: the one man instantly resents the insult which has been inflicted upon him; in a moment he is in a paroxysm of rage, asserting his dignity, and smiting his opponent; men who are standing by admire the fire of his character, they say, What a strong man! The other man shows no sign of rage, holds himself in the severest self-control; instead of resisting evil, he answers not again, and persons who look only on the surface of things declare him a coward. Solomon would have declared him a strong man, and so would Jesus Christ. The strength of manhood is to be judged not by the fury of occasional explosions, but by the depth and solidity of moral foundations. The smallest natures are, of course, most easily excited to self-defence. Impudence is infinitely quicker than dignity. True strength is calm; incomplete power is fussy. He that ruleth his own spirit is greater than he that taketh a city.1 [Note: Joseph Parker.]
(2) When God makes men great, He makes them useful. The life which is God-saved, God-built, God-blessed, is wonderfully beneficent. I will bless thee and thou shalt be a blessing.
The legend tells that the visits of a goddess to an ancient city were always known, although no eye sighted her. She paused before a lightning-blasted tree, and lo! the woodbine sprang up and covered the trees nakedness. She lingered by the stagnant poolthe pool became a flowing stream. She rested upon a decaying log, and lo! it became a fruitful tree. She crossed a brook, and lo! wherever she put down her foot the flowers came to birth. It is even so with the life nourished and cherished by God. It leaves its marka gracious markwherever it goes. The wilderness and the solitary places are made glad.2 [Note: J. Pearce, Life on the Heights, 46.]
3. The proof of a mans true greatness is found in his humility. True moral greatness is a flower which seeks the shade; and, like the other works of God, it has to be sought out by them who take pleasure therein. There is a lid for the vessels of the temple. Humility is one of the crowning graces, and it keeps the truly great man from making long prayers at the corners of the streets, from sounding a trumpet when he gives alms, from making broad his phylacteries, or covering his face with the marks of fasting.
Humility is the special virtue of Christ, the virtue proper to Him, the virtue most dear to Him, the virtue that brought Him, moved by infinite charity, from the splendour of the eternal glories, into the extremes of poverty and humiliation, so that there is nothing more illustrious in His life and death than this Divine virtue of humility, whereby He redeemed the world, and with which He prepared the medicine that healeth all our infirmities, and bringeth us from all our sin and misery to rest in Him. Here we also learn from Him that that which pleases Him in souls is humility. And if He speaks of meekness as well, it is because meekness is the most exquisite and delightful fruit of humility, exhibiting the interior strength and fortitude of patience in a gentle sweetness.1 [Note: Bishop Ullathorne.]
There is little doubt that any one who knew Dr. McLaren well would agree with the statement that the most marked feature in his character was his entire freedom from anything approaching to egotism. His deep vein of shyness, as well as refined taste, made egotism, in the way of speaking of his own doings, an impossibility to him. But his want of egotism had a deeper source. It was the result of genuine deep-rooted humility. He knew that in many directions unusual powers had been given him, but that conviction led to no undue elation. Gifts brought responsibility, and conscience told of failure as to their use. He never perhaps took part in a meeting in the Manchester Free Trade Hall when the large building was not filled to its utmost capacity, and for years before the close of his career, almost invariably the immense audience rose to receive him and cheered enthusiastically. Once, driving home from one of these meetings, his companion ventured to ask him if he could recall what his thoughts were as he stood waiting till the applause had ceaseda far-away, almost pained expression had been noticed. Yes, he said, perfectly; I all but heard the words, It is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of mans judgment; he that judgeth me is the Lord. 2 [Note: E. T. McLaren, Dr. McLaren of Manchester, 207.]
Ones chiefest duty here below
Is not the seeming great to do,
That the vain world may pause to see;
But in steadfast humility
To walk the common walk, and bear
The thousand things, the trifling care,
In love with wisdom patiently.
Thus each one in his narrow groove
The great world nearer God may move.3 [Note: M. Hunt.]
III.
Gods Gentleness and Mans Greatness
In the moral development and perfection of men the gentleness of God discharges the highest function. The strong hand restrains; the hand of gentleness elicits and fosters. Authority moulds from without; love inspires from within. The strength of a thing that grows is its life, not the external force which only sways it hither and thither. The essential, the inward, the living energy which animates and perfects the moral and spiritual characters of men is the gentleness of God.
1. Two of the prime elements of personal greatnessnobility of purpose and purity of motiveare directly stimulated by the gentleness of God. Their great enemy is craven fear, perpetual anxious self-consideration; no man can be great who is always thinking of himself. When we have once apprehended that God is gentle, terrors about ourselves are effectually banished: perfect love casteth out fear; and in its stead there comes a sense of the infinite worthiness of God, the desire to please and glorify Him; there is a sense of security in Him and in His dealings with us, nay more, an absolute satisfaction with Him and with His ways, before which all ungracious feeling disappears.
2. It is in gentleness that God wins back to Himself those who have rebelled against Him and revolted from Him, subdues our waywardness, teaches and perfects us. He does not coerce us by His power; He constrains us by His love. He does not launch His thunderbolt to destroy us; He solicits penitence and obedience, waits patiently, deals gently with our passion and petulance, our ignorance and unbelief; gives us time for reflexion and experiment, for the cooling of passion, the growth of wisdom, the rectifying of mistakes. He waits to be gracious. Not of Himself and of His insulted majesty does He think, so as to assert His greatness, but of us and of our suicidal alienation from Him, and how He may make us great.
Did you ever know a man converted by the Ten Commandments, or by the Athanasian Creed? Is it not rather some word of ineffable love, some manifestation of him whom we have pierced, some yearning of great sorrow, that, filling our heart, has subdued it to penitence or constrained it to prayer? Some calamity has befallen, some sickness nigh unto death, some bereavement of wife, or child, when God has comforted us, or pointed us to the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.1 [Note: H. Allon, The Indwelling Christ, 243.]
If for every rebuke that we utter of mens vices, we put forth a claim upon their hearts; if for every assertion of Gods demands from them, we could substitute a display of His kindness to them; if side by side with every warning of death, we could exhibit proofs and promises of immortality; if, in fine, instead of assuming the being of an awful Deity, which men, though they cannot and dare not deny, are always unwilling, sometimes unable to conceive, we were to show them a near, visible, inevitable, but all beneficent Deity, whose presence makes the earth itself a heaven, I think there would be fewer deaf children sitting in the market-place.1 [Note: Ruskin.]
3. God carries on His educative processes by gentle methods. Of course it were an easy thing for God to shield us from all danger, so that we should know nothing of toil and suffering. He might flood our minds from day to day with the light of truth, so that doubt and ignorance should never darken them. He might give us strength so much beyond our needs that we should never feel the assaults of temptation, and so we should never sin. He might so appal us by the terrors of the law that we should be compelled to do His will without any vision of its beauty or approval of its goodness. But all this, pleasant though it might seem to little children, were to do violence to religion, conscience, and will, to dishonour our true manhood and to render for ever impossible our growth in the knowledge, love, and true obedience of His blessed law. No. God has begotten us: we are His children. In fatherly wisdom, in motherly gentleness, He bends to our weakness that He may educate and perfect us. By daily need, and the thirst which springs from need, the mind of man is quickened into activity and led to seek for truth that it may grow thereby. The moral nature even from childhood has free play: good and evil are ever presenting themselves in infinitely varied forms; he is called to make a real choice between right and wrong, to set his affections upon the things that are good and fair, and with a regal will to follow in the paths of virtue. God will have us grow in the only possible wayby our own free effort. He will have us pass, with His help, through an endless series of new births, in all of which He so hides Himself that we are unconscious of His quickening power, from strength to strength, from grace to grace, till at last we appear in glory.
There is a gentleman still living in Birmingham, who was once Mayor, of whom a pleasant little story is told. One day, when he was Mayor of the town, he had to pass up the Bull Ring, as the open space near the great Market Hall is called. A little donkey, with a big load behind it, was struggling its hardest to drag the load up the hill. A big brute on two legs was beating the poor beast that walked on four. The Mayor, the chief magistrate of the place, saw what he was doing. He might have called a policeman to lock up the fellow who used the stick on the patient, dumb creature. But instead, he went up to him and said: Hold on, man, be merciful as well as powerful, and come behind and put your shoulder to the cart. The Mayor put his shoulder against the cart, and soon the difficulty was passed. Gentleness as well as greatness were surely there.1 [Note: Charles Leach, Sunday Afternoons with Working Men, 244.]
I have recalled gratefully again and again a word that my drawing-master gave me when I was a little lad, blundering at my first lesson. I had set the copy before me and was trying very hard to reproduce itbut, alas! what crooked lines. How impossible it was for anything to be like my picture;and yet how impossible it seemed to make my picture what it should be. Smudged and messed by many rubbings out and many failures, trying only made the matter worse. Then came the master and took the pencil, and in the twinkling of an eye the thing was done, every stroke firm, straight, exact. Then my despair was completedI had tried so hard and failed so utterly, and he had done it without trying at all! I laid down the pencil with a sigh, and said, I shall never draw.
Nonsense, said the master cheerily, patting me on the shoulder. You can draw as well as I could when I was your age!
What! was there a time when he bungled and blundered? I looked up in amazement.
I mean it, he said, amused at my look.
I was an artist thenif never since. He had come down and back to me and was himself again the little awkward beginner, and I was lifted up and linked on to him. That was gentleness, and it made me great. Is not that the very Gospel of God? God hath made Himself one with us that He may make us one with Himself. He has come down to be little and weak and beset with our hindrances, that He may lift us up and set us on high amongst His heroes and conquerors.2 [Note: M. G. Pearse, The Gospel for the Day, 51.]
4. When God corrects His children, He does so only that they may be stimulated to grow in grace; and there is usually, in the concomitants of their trial, something to remind them of His love. He stayeth his rough wind in the day of the east wind: and, if the thorn of trial may not be extracted, there comes the precious assurance, My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness. How often have we had such experiences! Even when we have been most sorely smitten, there has come to us some view of His character or some promise of His Word which has made us feel that He had not forgotten us. And when, under His chastening dispensation, we have turned to Him, how full of love was His reception of us. Thus, all through our lives, His gentleness is the background of all our discipline; and when earth is exchanged for heaven, and we stand perfected in holiness before the throne, looking back upon the way by which He led us, and marking the infinite love which called us out of the world at the first, the unwearied patience which bore with all our follies and transgressions, the tenderness which cherished us in every emergency, and the grace which supported us through death, we shall be able to understand all that is implied in this beautiful text, and we shall sing, as we could never sing on earth, Thy gentleness hath made me great.1 [Note: W. M. Taylor, The Limitations of Life, 354.]
As the eye of the cunning lapidary detects in the rugged pebble, just digged from the mine, the polished diamond that shall sparkle on the diadem of a king; or as the sculptor in the rough block of marble, newly hewn from the quarry, beholds the statue of perfect grace and beauty which is latent there, and waiting but the touch of his hand,so He who sees all, and the end from the beginning, sees oftentimes greater wonders than these. He sees the saint in the sinner, the saint that shall be in the sinner that is; the wheat in the tare; the shepherd feeding the sheep in the wolf tearing the sheep; Paul the preacher of the faith in Saul the persecutor of the faith; Israel a prince with God in Jacob the trickster and the supplanter; Matthew the Apostle in Levi the publican; a woman that should love much in the woman that was sinning much; and in some vine of the earth bringing forth wild grapes and grapes of gall, a tree which shall yet bring forth good fruit, and wine to make glad the heart; so that when some, like those over-zealous servants in the parable, would have Him to pluck it up, and to cast it without more ado into the wine-press of the wrath of Almighty God, He exclaims rather, Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it, and is well content to await the end.1 [Note: R. C. Trench, Sermons Preached in Westminster Abbey, 342.]
5. By His gentleness God appeals to our whole personality, on its best and noblest side.
(1) The mind is gently disciplined and developed into maturity. God regulates His revelations to the requirements of individual reason. The sun shines mechanically and is unconscious of the influences which it emits. God is omniscient love, and never works automatically. The rays of the Supreme Intelligence are lovingly and wisely reined. Our earth is but the millionth part of the sun, yet it affects the gravitating power of that gigantic orb. The mind of man is but a spark, yet it modifies the effulgence of the Divine splendour. The beams of Gods love warm and revive the latent capacities of the brain. The discordant strings of the reason are gently tuned into harmony with the Infinite. The extension of our mental horizon is graduated by unerring beneficence. Under Gods wise and delicate treatment, mans mental mechanism becomes increasingly sensitive, and able to think Gods thoughts after Him.
There are many states of mind which are amenable only to gentleness. You cannot scold a man out of his grief; if you wish a man to love you, you do not use violent language and insist on his loving you; if you wish to bring a man over to your way of thinking, you deal gently with him and are careful not to offend his prejudices or ride roughshod over his feelings. Instinct tells us that in many cases nothing but gentleness will win.2 [Note: Marcus Dods, Christ and Man, 130.]
(2) The will is wooed and won by the unspeakable tenderness of Jehovah. There is a very wide chasm between the animal appetites of the sinner and the self-conscious resolves of the saint. Not my will, but thine, be done are words which represent the acme of spiritual volition. But before this height is reached, there are delicate moral fibres to be straightened and strengthened, and selfish inclinations to be reversed. This is to be achieved, not by the compulsion of might, but by the touches and attractions of Divine benignity. We cannot be terrorized into intelligent and whole-hearted submission to the will of heaven; it is under the softening influences of love that our stubborn wills are subdued, and made to flow into the harmony and rhythm of the Divine intent. This love will gradually rectify our declinations from truth and righteousness, and restore us to perfect accord with the will of the Supreme.
The will itself is governed by that love which rules it and shapes it. Now the Love of God is supreme above all other loves, and that so entirely, that unless it holds sovereign sway it must perish altogether.1 [Note: St. Francis de Sales.]
The Almighty will never come in His omnipotence to break our will. What is the good of a moral creature with a broken will? You might as well break a childs leg to teach it to walk, as break a childs will to teach it to obey. The heavenly Father bends the will, but never breaks it, and that only by patient love and gracious promptings; by the discipline of life, its fears and sorrows, and above all, by the shame and sorrow of the Cross, He softens the will that He may bend it. Our God loves and respects us too much ever to keep us at home with Himself as slaves or servants. Rather will He suffer us to go away into the far country until the hunger and loneliness do make the heart cry out in its sorrow. Then at last is shaped the purpose, I will arise and go to my Father, and lo! He runs and falls upon the neck and kisses us. He stands upon no stately etiquette and makes no terms. Then it is that, arrayed in the best robes, with the ring on the finger, seated at the Fathers table, full of the gladness of that joyous welcome, amazed at His infinite goodness, so patient, so eager to bless usthen it is that we learn the deep meaning of the wordsThy gentleness hath made me great.2 [Note: M. G. Pearse, The Gospel for the Day, 58.]
(3) The conscience is pacified, purged, and perfected by the gentle ministrations of infinite love. Greatness, in the Divine sense, is impossible to man apart from a restful, rectified, refined conscience. The smile of the Supreme soothes, stimulates, sanctifies this delicate organism. Love alone can rehabilitate this receiver, and make it ever vibrate with communications from the eternal rectitude. Under the ministries of Gods grace, this deranged and stultified faculty becomes an unerring discriminator between good and evil, and an infallible reporter of messages from the supreme equity. In the atmosphere of Gods gentle love, this Divine power becomes imperturbably graceful and healthily active. A conscience void of offence toward God and toward men is the grand result of the beneficence of the Supreme.
When a man can endure his sins no longer, and must go to some one for relief, to what sort of person will he repair? Will he feel strongly drawn towards some severely upright mancold, hard, and unsparing towards all transgressors? No; he will keep out of his way. He would be as likely to pour forth his confessions and griefs into the bosom of a November cloud from which the sleet was falling, or into the chills of a cavern of icicles. When a boy has got into trouble and is sorry for it,for a good boy will sometimes be ensnared by temptation, and is sure to regret it with all sincerity,and does not know what to do, where will he go first for counsel and succour? Will it be to his father or his mother? Mostly to his mother. There are men womanly in tenderness; and there are women, though very rare, unwomanly and without sympathies; but commonly there is more gentleness in the mother; and to his mother the boy is sure to turn in his extremity. I know where I should have gone, and I dare say you do too. The mothers gentleness is a sun that never pales nor wanes, down to her lifes end; and in the hour of its setting has resigned none of its warmth and splendour.
The gentleness of God performs precisely the same office to sinning and sorrowing men. Penitent sinners cannot have too vivid an idea of the gentleness of God. They will never attain to an apprehension of it too large and bright for the reality, or in excess of their own need. Their moral helplessness will require it all. There is wrath in God, and there ought to be; but not wrath only. God is a Judge; but if He were nothing but a Judge, then for a sin-stricken soul there would be nothing but despair. But the gentleness of God is a firm and unfailing hope.1 [Note: H. Batchelor, The Incarnation of God, 65.]
(4) The heart is soothed and comforted. Love alone can find its way into the innermost shrine of personality. In the atmosphere of beneficence our pores are opened, and subtle heavenly influences percolate into the soul.
Harsh and heartless criticism almost fatally wounded the imaginative genius of Turner. The precocious poet Keats was mortally grieved by the cruel ridicule and savage scorn of the Press. But in the atmosphere of Supreme Love, the flickering spark of spiritual genius is revived into an aspiring flame, and the absorbent system of the soul is developed and perfected. The influences with which God is surcharged are so wisely regulated that the frailest spiritual organism can imbibe them.1 [Note: J. Newton, The Problem of Personality, 163.]
And gently, by a thousand things
Which oer our spirits pass,
Like breezes oer the harps fine strings
Or vapours oer a glass,
Leaving their token strange and new
Of music or of shade,
The summons to the right and true
And merciful is made.2 [Note: Whittier.] [Note: The Great Texts of the Bible: Job to Psalm XXIII, ed. James Hastings (New York; Edinburgh: Charles Scribner’s Sons; T&T Clark, 1913), 245-318.]
Literature
Allon (H.), The Indwelling Christ, 233.
Batchelor (H.), The Incarnation of God, 53.
Brooks (P.), The Spiritual Man, 301.
Bushnell (H.), Christ and His Salvation, 18.
Dods (M.), Christ and Man, 129.
Grimley (H. N.), The Temple of Humanity, 24.
Hoare (E.), Strength in Quietness, 40.
Irons (D. E.), A Faithful Ministry, 182.
Johnston (J. B.), The Ministry of Reconciliation, 196.
Leach (C.), Sunday Afternoons with Working Men, 241.
Mackennal (A.), The Life of Christian Consecration, 67.
Moody (A.), The Message of Salvation, 69.
Moore (A. L.), From Advent to Advent, 50.
Newton (J.), The Problem of Personality, 157.
Palmer (J. R.), Burden-Bearing, 265.
Pearce (J.), Life on the Heights, 36.
Pearse (M. G.), The Gospel of the Day, 44.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xii. (1866) No. 683.
Taylor (W. M.), The Limitations of Life, 344.
Trench (R. C.), Sermons Preached in Westminster Abbey, 339.
Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), iv. (1865) No. 512.
Woodford (J. R.), Sermons: O. T. Ser., 105.
Christian World Pulpit, iv. 232 (Leach).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
shield: Psa 5:12, Psa 28:7, Deu 33:29, 2Sa 22:36
right: Psa 17:7, Psa 45:3
gentleness: or, with thy meekness thou hast multiplied me, Psa 45:4, Isa 40:11, Isa 22:3, 2Co 10:1, Gal 5:22, Gal 5:23, Jam 3:17, Jam 3:18
Reciprocal: Gen 24:35 – the Lord Gen 32:10 – my staff Jos 3:7 – magnify thee 2Ch 26:7 – God helped Est 10:2 – advanced him Psa 20:6 – with Psa 30:7 – by thy Psa 60:5 – save Psa 63:8 – thy Psa 119:65 – dealt well Psa 138:7 – and thy right Psa 140:7 – the strength
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Psa 18:35. Thou hast given me the shield of thy salvation Thy protection, which hath been to me like a shield to defend me. Thy right hand hath holden me up Kept me from falling into those snares and mischiefs which mine enemies designed, and I feared I should fall into. And thy gentleness hath made me great Or, meekness, as the word , gnanvah, is translated, Num 12:3; Psa 45:4; Zec 2:3; that is, thy clemency, whereby thou hast pardoned my sins, which otherwise would have undone me, and hast mitigated thy corrections which I have deserved: or, thy grace and benignity, which thou hast manifested to me, and exercised in and for me.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
18:35 Thou hast also given me the {b} shield of thy salvation: and thy right hand hath holden me up, and thy {c} gentleness hath made me great.
(b) To defend me from dangers.
(c) He attributed the beginning, continuance and increase in well doing only to God’s favour.