Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 21:3
For thou preventest him with the blessings of goodness: thou settest a crown of pure gold on his head.
3. thou preventest him &c.] For prevent, see note on Psa 18:18. Jehovah, as it were, goes to meet the king and bless him with success ( goodness = good things, Pro 24:25): and once more crowns him king. The victory is a Divine confirmation of his sovereignty (1Sa 11:13 ff.). There may possibly be an allusion to the crown of the Ammonite king (2Sa 12:30).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For thou preventest him – Thou goest before him; thou dost anticipate him. See Psa 17:13, margin. Our word prevent is now most commonly used in the sense of hinder, stop, or intercept. This is not the original meaning of the English word; and the word is never used in this sense in the Bible. The English word, when our translation was made, meant to go before, to anticipate, and this is the uniform meaning of it in our English version, as it is the meaning of the original. See the notes at Job 3:12. Compare Psa 59:10; Psa 79:8; Psa 88:13; Psa 95:2; Psa 119:147-148; Amo 9:10; see the notes at 1Th 4:15. The meaning here is, that God had anticipated him, or his desires. He had gone before him. He had designed the blessing even before it was asked.
With the blessings of goodness – Blessings indicating goodness on his part; blessings adapted to promote the good or the welfare of him on whom they were bestowed. Perhaps the meaning here is, not only that they were good, but they seemed to be good; they were not blessings in disguise, or blessings as the result of previous calamity and trial, but blessings where there was no trial – no shadow – no appearance of disappointment.
Thou settest a crown of pure gold on his head – This does not refer to the time of his coronation, or the period when he was crowned a king, but it refers to the victory which he had achieved, and by which he had been made truly a king. He was crowned with triumph; he was shown to be a king; the victory was like making him a king, or setting a crown of pure gold upon his head. He was now a conqueror, and was indeed a king.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 21:3
For Thou preventest him with the blessings of goodness.
God going before us
The word prevent is now generally used to represent the idea of hindrance. Thou preventest him would mean commonly, Thou hinderest him. But here the word prevent means, to go before. Thou goest before him with the blessings of Thy goodness as a pioneer, to make crooked ways straight and rough places smooth; or, as one who strews flowers in the path of another, to render the way beautiful to the eye and pleasant to the tread. Gods anticipation of our necessities by His merciful dispensations. The leading idea of the text is expressed elsewhere. In Isa 52:12, The Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel shall be your reward. Here is not only the idea of God following a man to shelter him and to protect him; but of God going before a man to make what preparation is necessary for his safety and comfort. God prevents us with the blessings of His goodness–
I. When we come into the world.
II. When we become personal transgressors.
III. When we enter upon the duties and cares of mature life. The word providence seems to represent something more passive than that which it is essential God should be to us and do for us. For example, you might make a provision for another, put that provision within his reach, and then leave both him and the provision you have made–and that would be providence. But that is not Gods providence. He leaves nothing. He is with everything–with things great and with things small. God has not, you know, constructed this world as a clockmaker constructs a clock–adapting the machinery to work rightly without his oversight or his interference, but only needing a little attention on the part of the individual who owns it. God has not put this world in such a position as that. Everything that acts, moves, and works–acts, moves, and works under the direct impulse of God. I know that men try to drive God away from His world, by talking of the laws of nature and of the powers and resources of nature. But as I understand the laws of nature, they are Gods usual mode of working. He does a particular work in the same way, month after month, and year after year–that is a law. But then, the law is nothing in itself–the law is no power or force; it is only Gods mode of doing the thing. You might as well talk of the law of carpentering, or the law of cabinetmaking, in terms which would show you do not consider the presence of the carpenter or the cabinetmaker necessary to his work. There are rules of carpentering and rules of cabinet making; but you require the carpenter and the cabinetmaker. Just so with reference to God. He works in the same mode, month after month, and year after year; but pray do not put the mode, the method, in the place of Himself, and speak of the mode of working as though it were the worker. And so God goes before us. He has been busy about that business of ours which we have just taken up as our occupation through life. He has thought of, cared, and provided for us.
IV. When we enter upon new paths.
V. When we enter the dark valley of the shadow of death.
VI. By giving us many mercies without our asking for them. What wretched beings we should be if God limited His gifts to our prayers! I know that sometimes we do ask great things, when our hearts are enlarged and when our lips are open; but I know that, at other times, we ask God nothing, and that our prayers are as poor as ourselves; and if God restrained His giving when we restrained our praying, in what utter destitution we should be!
VII. By opening to us the path of heaven and by storing heaven with every provision for our blessedness. Then let us praise God for His goodness, and let us imitate Him by seeking to prevent others in like manner. (Samuel Martin.)
The goodness of the Creator preceding the history of the creature
I. In the natural provision made for us as men. Let us look a little at this, and see how goodness went before us, worked for us ages before we made our appearance on the stage of life.
1. There was a home exactly fitted for our reception. How exquisitely fitted this earth is to our senses and our wants! Do we crave for beauty? What a gallery of magnificent pictures! Have we an instinct for music? What an orchestra, redolent with every variety of melodious strains! Do we need sustenance? What a rich banquet nature spreads before us! Do we crave for delicious odours? The air is laden with perfumes. Do we need facilities of transit? There is the prancing steed; by our side there grows the timber that will bear us over oceans, and there are the elements ready to our call. Goodness made everything ready here before we came.
2. There was parental love to welcome us. We were not sent into a world of strangers to make acquaintance with those who for us had no sympathy.
3. There were educational elements to develop our powers. Here was the piece of work waiting for us to do it. Here were men and women whose knowledge qualified them to instruct us: schools were here, and libraries.
4. There were wholesome laws to guard our rights. Goodness went before us and made this government.
II. In the spiritual provision made for us as sinners. Pardon and spiritual cleansing were here awaiting us. Redemptive agencies were at full work all about us as we commenced our life.
III. In the heavenly provision made for us as disciples. What this world was to us before we entered it, heaven is to us now.
1. This world was unknown to us. How ignorant is the unborn child of the home into which he is to be introduced! How little we know of heaven! Eye hath not seen, etc.
2. This world was exquisitely fitted for us. Its soil, climate, productions.
3. This world has infinitely more than we can enjoy. It is so with heaven,–its provisions are rich, varied, and unbounded.
4. This world welcomed our existence with love. (Homilist.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 3. Thou preventest him] To prevent, from praevenio, literally signifies to go before. Hence that prayer in the communion service of our public Liturgy, “Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings, with thy most gracious favour!” That is, “Go before us in thy mercy, make our way plain, and enable us to perform what is right in thy sight!” And this sense of prevent is a literal version of the original word tekademennu. “For thou shalt go before him with the blessings of goodness.”
Our ancestors used God before in this sense. So in Henry V.’s speech to the French herald previously to the battle of Agincourt: –
“Go therefore; tell thy master, here I am.
My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk;
My army, but a weak and sickly guard:
Yet, God before, tell him we will come on,
Though France himself, and such another neighbour,
Stand in our way.”
A crown of pure gold] Probably alluding to the crown of the king of Rabbah, which, on the taking of the city, David took and put on his own head. See the history, 2Sa 12:26-30.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Preventest him; or, didst prevent him; crowning him with manifold blessings, both more and sooner than he either desired or expected; surprising him with the gift of the kingdom, and with many happy successes.
With the blessing of goodness, i. e. with excellent blessings. Or, with abundance (as this word both in Hebrew and Greek is sometimes used, as Psa 84:6; Rom 15:29; 2Co 9:5,6) of good.
A crown of pure gold either,
1. In token of victory. Or rather,
2. As an ensign of royal majesty conferred upon him.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
3. preventestliterally, “tomeet here in good sense,” or “friendship” (Ps59:10; compare opposite, Ps17:13).
blessings of goodnesswhichconfer happiness.
crown of pure goldafigure for the highest royal prosperity.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For thou preventest him with the blessings of goodness,…. Not temporal, but spiritual blessings, which spring from the grace and goodness of God, and consist of it; and relate to the spiritual and eternal welfare of those for whose sake he receives them, and who are blessed with them in him: his being “prevented” with them denotes the freeness of the donation of them; that before he could well ask for them, or before he had done requesting them, they were given him; and also the earliness of the gift of them, they were put into his hands before his incarnation, before he was manifest in the flesh, even from the foundation of the world, and before the world began, Eph 1:3 2Ti 1:9, and likewise the order in which they were given; first to Christ, and then to his people in him, as the passages referred to show;
thou settest a crown of pure gold on his head; which is expressive of his victory over all enemies, sin, Satan, and the world, death and hell; and of his being possessed of his throne and kingdom; and has respect to his exaltation at the right hand of God, where he is crowned with glory and honour: and this crown being of “pure gold” denotes the purity, glory, solidity, and perpetuity of his kingdom; this is a crown, not which believers put upon him by believing in him, and ascribing the glory of their salvation to him, or what the church, called his mother, has crowned him with, So 3:11, but which his father put upon him, who has set him King over his holy hill of Zion, Ps 2:6; compare with this Re 14:14. The Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions read “a crown of a precious stone”; and so Apollinarius; and seem to refer to the crown set on David’s head, which had precious stones in it, 2Sa 12:30; Josephus x says it had a sardonyx. Fortunatus Scacchus y fancies the topaz is meant, and that the Hebrew text should be read “a crown of topaz”; mistaking the sense of the word “phaz”, which never signifies a topaz, but the best gold, pure solid gold.
x Antiqu. l. 7. c. 7. s. 5. y Elaeochrism. Sacr. l. 3. c. 40. p. 1003.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(Heb.: 21:4-5) “Blessings of good” (Pro 24:25) are those which consist of good, i.e., true good fortune. The verb , because used of the favour which meets and presents one with some blessing, is construed with a double accusative, after the manner of verbs of putting on and bestowing (Ges. 139). Since Psa 21:4 cannot be intended to refer to David’s first coronation, but to the preservation and increase of the honour of his kingship, this particularisation of Psa 21:4 sounds like a prediction of what is recorded in 2Sa 22:30: after the conquest of the Ammonitish royal city Rabbah David set the Ammonitish crown ( ) , which is renowned for the weight of its gold and its ornamentation with precious stones, upon his head. David was then advanced in years, and in consequence of heavy guilt, which, however, he had overcome by penitence and laying hold on the mercy of God, was come to the brink of the grave. He, worthy of death, still lived; and the victory over the Syro-Ammonitish power was a pledge to him of God’s faithfulness in fulfilling his promises. It is contrary to the tenour of the words to say that Psa 21:5 does not refer to length of life, but to hereditary succession to the throne. To wish any one that he may live , and especially a king, is a usual thing, 1Ki 1:31, and frequently. The meaning is, may the life of the king be prolonged to an indefinitely distant day. What the people have desired elsewhere, they here acknowledge as bestowed upon the king.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
3. For thou wilt prevent him. The change of the tense in the verbs does not break the connection of the discourse; and, therefore, I have, without hesitation, translated this sentence into the future tense, as we know that the changing of one tense into another is quite common in Hebrew. Those who limit this psalm to the last victory which David gained over foreign nations, and who suppose that the crown of which mention is here made was the crown of the king of the Ammonites, of which we have an account in sacred history, give, in my judgment, too low a view of what the Holy Spirit has here dictated concerning the perpetual prosperity of this kingdom. David, I have no doubt, comprehended his successors even to Christ, and intended to celebrate the continual course of the grace of God in maintaining his kingdom through successive ages. It was not of one man that it had been said,
“
I will be his father, and he shall be my son,” (2Sa 7:14😉
but this was a prophecy which ought to be extended from Solomon to Christ, as is fully established by the testimony of Isaiah, (Isa 9:6,) who informs us that it was fulfilled when the Son was given or manifested. When it is said, Thou wilt prevent him, the meaning is, that such will be the liberality and promptitude of God, in spontaneously bestowing blessings, that he will not only grant what is asked from him, but, anticipating the requests of the king, will load him with every kind of good things far beyond what he had ever expected. By blessings we are to understand abundance or plenteousness. Some translate the Hebrew word טוב, tob, goodness; (481) but with this I cannot agree. It is to be taken rather for the beneficence or the free gifts of God. Thus the meaning will be, The king shall want nothing which is requisite to make his life in every respect happy, since God of his own good pleasure will anticipate his wishes, and enrich him with an abundance of all good things. The Psalmist makes express mention of the crown, because it was the emblem and ensign of royalty; and he intimates by this that God would be the guardian of the king, whom he himself had created. But as the prophet testifies, that the royal diadem, after lying long dishonored in the dust, shall again be put upon the head of Christ, we come to the conclusion, that by this song the minds of the godly were elevated to the hope of the eternal kingdom, of which a shadow only, or an obscure image, was set forth in the person of the successors of David. The doctrine of the everlasting duration of the kingdom of Christ is, therefore, here established, seeing he was not placed upon the throne by the favor or suffrages of men, but by God, who, from heaven, set the royal crown upon his head with his own hand.
(481) Reading “blessings of goodness;” that is, the best or most excellent blessings.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(3) Thou preventesti.e., comest to meet him. The word prevent is familiar in this sense in the English collect: Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings. (Comp. Psa. 79:8; 1Th. 4:15.) The crown is by some identified with that won by David at Rabbah Moab. Others make it refer to a coronation. Ewald thinks of a birthday celebration. Probably no more is intended than a symbol of victory and rejoicing. Maidens were accustomed to meet a monarch returning in victory, and to offer a crown, or garland, which was a symbol of extraordinary rejoicing. (Comp. 1Sa. 18:6; Psa. 68:11; Son. 3:11; Wis. 2:8; Jdt. 15:13; 3Ma. 7:16.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
3. Thou preventest him Thou anticipatest him. God had provided for David’s want before he had finished his prayer.
A crown of pure gold Probably an allusion to 2Sa 12:30. The ancients were not unused to such. Pliny (b. 30, c. 3) says Claudius Cesar, (A.D. 54,) at his triumph after his subjugation of Britain, exhibited crowns of beaten gold, one of which weighed seven pounds and another nine pounds a barbaric way of asserting royalty. The throne of David was now established more firmly than ever.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 21:3. For thou preventest him The word in the original signifies to encompass. The rendering of Castalio is fully expressive of the sense; Thou hast bestowed most eminent favours on him. By the crown of pure gold, may be meant, in general, an illustrious crown; which is here represented as being set upon our blessed Saviour’s head at his exaltation into heaven, in token of his being then advanced to the chief exercise of his regal authority. Thus he is said, Psa 8:5 to be crowned with glory and honour; and St. John says, with respect to his deified humanity, in which he was made King of Kings and Lord of Lords, that on his head were many crowns. Rev 12:16.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Do observe again here, what a lovely account is given of the Father’s grace in the salvation of the Church, outrunning and being beforehand with Jesus in his desire for it. God the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. The Father’s hand was first in the blessed work. The Father ordered, planned, appointed, and finally blesseth the rich salvation of Jesus. Of all mercies, going before, and preventing the very wishes or prayers of his people, the gift of God’s dear Son is the highest and the best. Reader, I charge it both upon your heart and my own, never forget this. We owe all our blessings in Jesus and by Jesus, nay, Jesus himself, with all the mercies of redemption, to the gift of God, our Father. Hence the Apostle was taught by the Holy Ghost to say, We have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. 1Jn 4:14 . And hence the redeemed in glory are represented as before the throne chanting the hymn of praise to the Lamb, for the blessings of his great salvation, in that he had redeemed them to God by his blood. Thus testifying that it was from Jehovah as the first cause, and to Jehovah as the final end, all the blessings of redemption by the Lord Jesus Christ are to be ascribed. Rev 5:9 . Sweet thought! also suggested in the latter part of this verse: Jehovah is said to have set a crown of pure gold upon the Mediator’s head. Yes: long before the incarnation of Jesus, by the spirit of prophecy, Jehovah is introduced as proclaiming him King in Zion, and crowning him upon his holy hill. Jesus is said to declare this decree. And when was this done but in that glorious event John saw by vision, in order to tell the church, when he saw that book of the divine decrees in Jehovah’s hand, who was sitting on the throne, and when none was found worthy to open the book, neither to look thereon, but the Lion of the tribe of Judah? Surely, Reader, if none but this Lamb of God was found worthy to open the book, none but him could declare the contents of it. Compare Psa 2:6-8 with Rev 5:1 , etc. Reader! you perceive Jehovah hath set a crown of pure gold upon the head of Jesus, and crowned him King in Zion. Do you know of another coronation day of our Lord Jesus? Yes, every poor sinner that puts the crown of his salvation, also, upon the same blessed head of Jesus, doth the same, and, in so doing, proves that the mind of Jehovah, and the mind of that poor sinner, are here fully agreed. Oh, the wonders of redemption!
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 21:3 For thou preventest him with the blessings of goodness: thou settest a crown of pure gold on his head.
Ver. 3. For thou preventest him with the blessinqs of goodness ] Not staying till he asked them of thee. He had but a thought of building thee a house and thou sentest Nathan to tell him that thou wouldest build him an everlasting house, and stablish his throne to all perpetuity, 2Sa 7:16 . So Isa 65:24 , “Before they call, I will answer,” &c.
Thou settest a crown of pure gold upon his head
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
preventest = comest to meet. Compare “settest” in Psa 21:3.
crown. See Rev 14:14, and compare Mat 8:20.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Psalm 21:3-4
Psa 21:3-5
“For thou meetest him with the blessings of goodness:
Thou settest a crown of fine gold on his head.
He asked life of thee, thou gavest it him,
Even length of days forever and ever.”
“A crown of fine gold” (Psa 21:3). This indeed applies to David; but such a crown merely symbolized the golden crown of Rev 14:14 and the many crowns of Rev 19:12.
“Even length of days forever and ever” (Psa 21:4). As Barnes noted, David had merely asked for life, but God gave him far more than he requested. “It is by no means an uncommon thing that God gives us more than we ask in our prayers.”
“Forever and ever” (Psa 21:4). It is distressing to us that even some of our brethren are willing to view these words merely as the equivalent of a common expression in that period of time, such as “O, King live forever.” “There is considerable probability that the words from this Psalm, as well as in Pro 12:28, mean eternal life.” Furthermore, although Maclaren freely admitted such expressions as, “O King live forever,” are in a sense parallel to what is said here, “The great emphasis of expression here and its repetition in Psa 21:6 (immediately following) can scarcely be disposed of as mere hyperbole.” Also, as both Maclaren and Dahood pointed out Divine attributes are also ascribed to “the King” of this passage in Psa 21:6, thus clearly distinguishing the earthly king David from the glorious “Son of David” introduced in the first verse of the New Testament.
E.M. Zerr:
Psa 21:3. Preventest means to assist, for it is used in connection with God’s blessings and goodness. Pure gold means refined gold, and it is called pure because that term means unmixed.
Psa 21:4. He means the king and thee means the Lord. Ever and ever was used figuratively, meaning that David was to die in peace, not by the sword of war.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
The Ministry of Surprise
Thou preventest him with the blessings of goodness.Psa 21:3.
1. This is a companion Psalm to the one that goes before it. They both deal with the same general situation, the outbreak of national war, but differ in this respect, that while the first is a Psalm of prayer before the people go forth to the battle, the second is a Psalm of thanksgiving after they have returned victorious. In the former we are to conceive them gathered in the Temple, the king at their head, to entreat the aid of their fathers God, that in the hour of danger He may send them help out of the sanctuary and strength from His holy hill. But in the latter the danger is past. The kings arms have been successful. His enemies have been scattered. He has re-entered the city gates with his exultant army, and made his triumphal way through the streets, and now once more, as is most meet, stands before the Lord, who has given him the victory, while priests and people make the sacred courts ring again with their shouts of thanksgiving and joy. The king shall joy in thy strength, O Lord; and in thy salvation how greatly shall he rejoice! Thou hast given him his hearts desire, and hast not withholden the request of his lips. For the king trusteth in the Lord, and through the mercy of the most High he shall not be moved. Be thou exalted, Lord, in thine own strength: so will we sing and praise thy power.
2. The gist of the text is that Gods wise grace can outstrip the present stage of our experience, can pass on into the future, and be busy on our behalf before we arrive there. He not only attends us with the blessings of His goodness, He prevents us with them as wellgoes on before and sows the days to come with mercy, so that we find it waiting us when we arrive, and reapor may reapnothing but goodness as we go. It is a profound, most comfortable truth for us to rest our minds on.
There is in theology a term, still used, prevenient grace, meaning the grace which acts on a sinner before repentance inducing him to repent, the grace by which he attains faith and receives power to will the good. Milton, when describing the repentance of Adam and Eve in Paradise Lost, when they confessed their sin and prayed for forgiveness, puts it:
Thus they in lowliest plight repentant stood
Praying, for from the Mercy-seat above
Prevenient Grace descending had removd
The stony from their hearts, and made new flesh
Regenerate grow instead.
But we must not limit Gods prevenient grace to the act of repentance, to the steps which lead up to the consciousness of sonship with God.1 [Note: H. Black, Christs Service of Love, 210.]
I.
A Prepared World
1. When we come upon the stage of existence we find that the world has been prepared for us. Thou hast formed the world to be inhabited is one of the deep sayings of the prophets. For whatever ends the world has been created, it has been fashioned upon the lines of man. It has been decked in beauty for the human eye; covered with sustenance for the human frame; stored with energies that would have slept unused but for the large intelligence of man. Does the newborn child need to be clothed? Sheep have been pasturing upon the hills. Does the newborn child need to be fed? Mysterious changes have been preparing food. And does the newborn child need to be warmed? Why then, unnumbered centuries ago, the leaves were falling with the sunshine in them, that to-day we might have summer on the hearth. Not into an unprepared world is the little infant flung. Nature never calls, I am not ready, nor can I support this gift of a new life. Nature has been getting ready for millenniums, since she awoke from the primeval chaos; and in her depths, and on her hills of pasturage, has been preparing for this very hour.
We are rising to the conviction that we are a part of nature, and so a part of God; that the whole creationthe One and the Many and All-Oneis travailing together toward some great end; and that now, after ages of development, we have at length become conscious portions of the great scheme, and can co-operate in it with knowledge and with joy. We are no aliens in a stranger universe governed by an outside God; we are parts of a developing whole, all enfolded in an embracing and interpenetrating love, of which we too, each to other, sometimes experience the joy too deep for words.1 [Note: Sir Oliver Lodge.]
There are inhospitable regions, in which the oak cannot flourish, in which the hardy pine cannot live, and in which the mountain heather finds no place, but yet some variety of corn can be made to grow, if man can live there at all. If you were to ascend from the sea-level to the sides of the high mountains, or to proceed from the swamps of China to the prairies of America, or from the burning plains of India to the Arctic regions, you would find at the different levels, or in the different latitudes, entirely different kinds of plants, with one exception; the corn plant you would find everywhere. In the tropical regions you would find rice; in the bleak north, oats and rye; in parts of the western world not congenial to wheat, you would find maize, while similar parts of Europe produce barley. So carefully has God provided for the needs of man.
2. These bounties of God come to us at a great cost. Take a single grain of corn, and remember that it cost the Creator thousands of years of forethought and labour. We know how useless it is to sow wheat on hard clay or solid rock. Soil needs first to be made, so God sets in motion the forces of rain, frost, and rivers. He sets the great glaciers grinding over the granite, sandstone, and limestone. And that took thousands of years. If God had not laboured for ages, not even the tiniest grain of corn could have existed to-day. But, further, the God who made the soil sends thousands of rays of sunshine to ripen the corn. And for every ray that we see, there are ten invisible heat rays. Now before these rays can begin their work, they have a journey to make of more than ninety millions of miles. And God keeps these messengers continually flying through the sky. He spares no labour and counts no cost to provide royally for His children.
II.
A Prepared Home
1. Home is the childs whole world. Within the family circle lie his earth and heaven, and through the medium of its life and fortunes the larger provision accumulated out of doors is gradually interpreted and conveyed to him. To have first drawn breath, then, in a truly Christian home is to have been born to an inheritance which not all the worlds wealth could buy. To have been received into this world by one whose first feeling was that of trembling thankfulness to God, mingled with fear lest she should be unworthy of the trust of bringing up a child for Him; to have grown up within walls where He from whom every fatherhood in heaven and earth is named, was ever acknowledged supreme and reverently loved and served; to have been led to His footstool early, and to have had His word printed on the mind; to have been taught to rest on the day of rest, and to love the habitation of Gods house; to have been trained in early impressionable years, for the most part unconsciously, under the influence of those around, as well as of the men and women that come about a good mans fireside and the books that lie on a good mans table,in all this what splendid provision for all who are fortunate enough to fall heirs to it. Truly God prevented us with blessings of goodness. Our lot was stored with them beforehand. We were cradled in spiritual profusion which a Loving Care had been long preparing, as a mothers choicest appointments will be ready for her babe long before it is put into her hands.
Sometimes there comes a visitor to see us of whose coming we had no anticipation. He has been long abroad, and for years we have not seen him, until one day he is standing at our door. But it is not thus that into Christian homes there come the joy and mystery of childhood. The child is born in a prepared place, and love has been very busy with its welcome. And prayers go heavenward with a new intensity, and some now pray who never prayed before; and fountains of tenderness are opened up, and feelings that were scarce suspected once; and God is nearer and His hand is more wonderful, and all the future has a different music, and that is why home is as a type of heaven; it is a prepared place for a prepared people. Thou goest before us with the blessings of goodness.1 [Note: G. H. Morrison, The Return of the Angels, 146.]
Oer a new joy this day we bend,
Soft power from heaven our souls to lift;
A wondering wonder Thou dost lend
With loan outpassing gift
A little child. She sees the sun
Once more incarnates thy old law:
One born of two, two born in one,
Shall into one three draw.
But is there no day creeping on
Which I should tremble to renew?
I thank Thee, Lord, for what is gone
Thine is the future too!
And are we not at home in Thee,
And all this world a visioned show,
That, knowing what Abroad is, we
What Home is too may know?2 [Note: George MacDonald, Organ Songs.]
Mr. Moody could never speak of those early days of want and adversity without the most tender references to that brave mother whose self-sacrifice and devotion had sacredly guarded the home entrusted to her care. When, at the age of ninety, her life-voyage ended, she entered the Haven of Rest, her children, her childrens children, and an entire community rose up to call her blessed. And well she deserved the praise they gave her, for she had wisely and discreetly discharged the duties God had placed upon her, and, entering the presence of her Master, could render a faithful account of the stewardship of motherhood. To rule a household of seven sturdy boys and two girls, the eldest twelve years old, required no ordinary tact and sound judgment, but so discreet was this loyal mother that to the very end she made home the most loved place on earth to her family, and so trained her children as to make them a blessing to society.
For nearly fifty years I have been coming back to Northfield, said Mr. Moody, long after that little circle had been broken up, and I have always been glad to get back. When I get within fifty miles of home I grow restless and walk up and down the car. It seems as if the train will never get to Northfield. When I come back after dark I always look to see the light in mothers window.1 [Note: W. R. Moody, Life of Dwight L. Moody, 26.]
The purest-minded of all pagans and all Emperors devotes the whole of the first book of his Meditations to a grateful consideration of all that he owed to others in his youth. Such humble gratitude is the mark of a great soul. He goes over the list of all who helped him by counsel or example. The example of my grandfather, Verus, gave me a good disposition, not prone to anger. By the recollection of my fathers character, I learned to be both modest and manly. My mother taught me to have regard for religion, to be generous and open-handed. The philosopher Sextus recommended good-humour to me. Alexander the Grammarian taught me not to be finically critical about words. I learned from Catulus not to slight a friend for making a remonstrance. And so on through a long list of benefits which his sweet humble mind acknowledged, finishing up with: I have to thank the gods that my grandfathers, parents, sister, preceptors, relations, friends, and domestics were almost all of them persons of probity.2 [Note: H. Black, Christs Service of Love, 213.]
2. We are ushered also into a society that was prepared. A childs education is a great deal more than a matter of lesson books and a few years schooling. The use he is able to make of books and schooling depends on the nature he brings to them and on the surroundings among which he is born; and these again depend largely on what manner of persons those were who went before him. Education is the development of manhood, and this is determined always, on the one hand, by the stock the man springs from, and, on the other, by the intellectual and moral atmosphere he grows up in. So that in literal truth it may be said about each of us that Providence began our education not one but many hundreds of years since. All down the generations the lot we should in due time stand in has been growing more goodly and favourable, until at this particular stage in the history of the race and in our own greatly privileged land, what amelioration of manners, what elevation of morals, what enrichment of social relationships, what increase of knowledge, in a word, what multiplied spiritual wealth, opportunity, and stimulus, do we not inherit! We are the heirs of the ages, and are born rich indeed. We reap where we had not strawed. Why, the very language in which we speak to one anotherthe medium of communion between man and manis a legacy of the past to us, and in our earliest broken syllables we unconsciously acknowledge our indebtedness to it.
The holy Andrewes before he comes to give thanks for salvation begins with what is more fundamental still. I thank Thee, he writes, that I was born a living soul, and not senseless matter; a man and not a brute; civilized not savage; free not a slave; liberally educated, and endowed with gifts of nature and worldly good.1 [Note: A. Martin, Winning the Soul, 204.]
3. It cannot be that God is absent from the most untoward environment. There are children born into the world for whom you would say little preparation had been made by any one. Nobody seems to want them here. It is scanty care they receive from any one. They are left to grow as they may; and live, one hardly knows how; and are reared with squalor before their eyes, and coarseness in their ears, and evil everywhere. Is God beforehand with them with the blessings of goodness? Surely He is; for, after all, the world is His, nor can mans uttermost labour in evil altogether obliterate or quench His everywhere present and active loving-kindness. One thing is certain; that He has the strangest ways of blending His mercy even with the most untoward environment.
I have seen little children exposed to early influences which you would have thought must inevitably have proved fatal to any seeds of goodness they brought with them into the world; and these thingsdrunkenness, vileness, murderous brutality, and all the unspeakable horrors that make up the daily round in a drunkards homewere only blessed to them. There is no limit to the power of Him who overrules all things, and whose face the angels of little children do always behold, out of evil to bring good. In him the fatherless find mercy. Let us admit that He deals with manyor allows them to be dealt with by circumstancesvery strangely, very sorely. Nevertheless, these circumstances too are under His Hand. Who shall say that they are ever sufficient to blind any soul born into Gods world outright to its inheritance or quite to put it beyond His reach?2 [Note: lbid. 202.]
In his ballad The Three Graves Coleridge puts this story into the mouth of an old sexton. A young farmer, paying his addresses to the daughter of a widow, finds that the widow herself desires to marry him. When he asks in due time that the day of the marriage may be fixed, the mother maliciously depreciates the character of her daughter, and confesses her own passion. Finding herself thrust aside, she kneels down and solemnly prays for a curse upon her daughter and the lover she had accepted. A cloud hangs over the wedding, and bride and bridegroom find themselves strangely chilled and depressed. On Ash-Wednesday the widow goes to church, and takes her place by the side of her daughters friend, who has helped forward the marriage, and curses her together with the others. Under the haunting influence of that curse the three people fade away, and, within a few short months, fill graves side by side in the country churchyard. The essence of the ballad story is expressed in the lines:
Beneath the foulest mothers curse
No child could ever thrive.
That conception fits a pagan condition of society in which, for both temporal and spiritual things, the power of the parent is absolute. But it makes into an almighty fiat the cry of the blood of Abel, and is untrue to the spirit of the gospel. None can curse child or neighbour into hopeless distress in either this or the coming life. He who opens and shuts the gates of blessedness has not surrendered the key into unworthy hands.1 [Note: T. G. Selby, The Divine Craftsman, 90.]
III.
A Prepared Inheritance
1. What have we that we have not received? Behind us lie the labours and sufferings and sacrifices of the noblest, and we have entered into their labours. We have a rich inheritance, which can be described only as the blessings of goodness. The tree of our life has its roots deep in the soil and the subsoil of history. We are not only the heirs of all the ages, but the heirs of Gods grace through all the ages. Gods providence is only another name for Gods grace, and His providence did not begin to us merely at the hour of birth. Every prophet, and every man of faith, has felt in some degree at some time of intense insight that he has been under a foreordaining, a loving purpose before birth, before history, from the very foundation of the world. Gods grace began with him long before he was born, and prepared his place for him, and went before him with the blessings of goodness. Time would fail for any of us to tell all that we owe to the past, all the debt in which we stand to preceding generations, not only for temporal mercies, but even for the very intellectual and spiritual atmosphere into which we have been born, and in which we have been reared. We have a spiritual climate, as well as a geographical; and in it we have had our place prepared for us. The blessings of Gods goodness have gone before us, and can in many lines be clearly seen by every enlightened mind and conscience and heart. The liberty we enjoy politically and religiously has been bought and paid for by others. The knowledge which we hold so cheap was dearly acquired by the race. Every advance in social organization which is to us now as our birthright was attained at great cost.
As a man deepens so his longings deepen, till they reach to the Infinite and the Eternal. And the strange thing is, that as these cravings alter, and rise from the transient to the enduring, so God is ever there before us, with His prepared answer to our quest. We crave for light, and the sun and moon are there, and they have been shining for unnumbered ages. We crave for love, and love is not of yesterday. It is as ancient as the heart-beat of humanity. We come to crave for pardon and for peace and for unbroken fellowship with God; and all that, in Jesus Christ our Lord, has been made ready for us long ago.
2. Gods prevenient goodness is very conspicuous in the privileges of the Gospel. Our spiritual needs are all anticipated by an ample provision. And that is signified by our baptism. Gods goodness came to a point there, so to speak, and was set forth with gracious impressiveness. For baptism is the seal of our lineage and signifies that we come of the elect stock. It is the Christian circumcision, and denotes that we belong to the community of the faithful, whose life is sustained by the living Lord, and have our right and portion among them in all the goodness He has introduced into human life.
To me one of the surest proofs that the Bible is indeed the Word of God is the way in which it goes before us through all the changing experience of life. Other books we leave behind. They were before us once; they are behind us now. We have outgrown them. We have reached an hour when they were powerless to cheer and guide. But always as we battle through the years, and break through the thicket into another glade, a little ahead of us, with eyes of love, we descry the figure of the Word of God. It is before us in the day of triumph. It is before us in the hour of fall. In every new temptation it is there; in every joy, in every bitterness. We move into the shadow and the heartbreak, or into the sunshine with the play of waters, and yet the Bible understands it all, and is there to meet us when we come. We are not above it when we scale the heavens, nor beneath it when we make our bed in hell. It is always a little higher than our highest. It is always a little deeper than our deepest. And that to me is an argument unanswerable that God is in Scripture as in no other book. It is not so much that I find Him there. It is rather that there He finds me.1 [Note: G. H. Morrison, The Return of the Angels, 150.]
Geologists find the presence of tropical species in latitudes now subjected to the rigours of a cold climate, and arctic forms in regions at present belonging to the temperate zone. In endeavouring to explain these anomalies of climate, scientists in past days went in search of vast cosmic changes, such as an alteration in the position of the terrestrial axis, a diminution in the amount of solar heat, or a gradual cooling of the earths crust; but modern scientists are satisfied to explain these climatic conditions as the result of a familiar agency close at hand, of which we have daily experience. A genial current of water or air deflected toward our coast is, in their opinion, sufficiently powerful to create the difference of temperature which rescues us from the rigours of Lapland and fills our island with summers pageantry and autumns pride. So to give the nations of the earth a sweet summer for the long dark winter of their discontent God makes the stream of His grace to flow through our sanctuaries, schools, and homes, silently blessing and enriching human life.2 [Note: W. L. Watkinson, The Fatal Barter, 37.]
IV.
A God who is always Beforehand
1. God is before at every stage of this life. Whatever good we have gained to ourselves, there is a better still before us. The best is always in store. We go from strength to strength. And if we have an eye for the working of His Hand at all, we need never fail to find the traces of Gods power marking out before-hand the path in which we go.
(1) God is before us to enrich and to purify our joys.Indeed those joys are of Gods own making. They arrive we know not whence or how. They come as a surprise. We had not looked for them, or learned perhaps to desire them. And then they befell us, and woke our nature into music, and made all life new. Is it not so for the most part that our great joys have come to us? the choice gifts of Providence? the signal blessings of grace? And what does this mean but just that the Divine loving-kindness had prepared for us such mercy, and then at the fitting moment laid it bare? He who has planned our path is in ambush for us, and oftenest it is at some unexpected turn of the way that His goodness stands disclosed. We stumble upon His bounty ere we know, and find to our surprise how long it had been stored for us. Does not the greatest of all gifts, the Gift Unspeakable, at times arrive upon us in this way, hiding Himself in some unlooked-for experience, then striding into our life suddenly? And of other gifts also, the arrival is, as a rule, as unexpected, and betokens a preparation we had not thought of. Our path has been sown with goodness beforehand, and we reap the harvest of it as we go.
I am filled with shame and confusion when I reflect, on one hand, upon the great favours which God has bestowed and is still unceasingly bestowing upon me; and, on the other, upon the ill use I have made of them, and my small advancement in the way of perfection. Since, by His mercy, He gives us still a little time, let us begin in earnest, let us redeem the time that is lost, let us return with a whole-hearted trust to this Father of Mercies, who is always ready to receive us into His loving arms. Let us renounce, and renounce generously, with single heart, for the love of Him, all that is not His; He deserves infinitely more. Let us think of Him unceasingly; in Him let us put all our confidence. I doubt not but that we shall soon experience the effects of it in receiving the abundance of His grace, with which we can do all things, and without which we can do nought but sin.1 [Note: Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God, 48.]
Dr. John Brown (Rab) had a favourite expression, which he was constantly usingUnexpectedness. There is much of that in life. It plays a large part in our training. Kindness comes from unexpected quarters. So does unkindness. It was thou, a man mine equal, my guide and mine acquaintance. It is, as we say, the unexpected that happens. The seemingly impossible comes to pass. Often what we plan fails, and what we expect deceives, while what we neither plan nor expect occurs. The forces that work for us and against us do more than we anticipate. If some men disappoint us painfully, others do so agreeably. The timid Nicodemus was one of the foremost at Jesus tomb. There are flowers in the desert. The beauty of holiness blooms in unexpected places. What we lean upon breaks, what seems broken stands. Ananias was a failure, Saul became Paul. How often our fears are disappointed, our hopes surpassed, our difficulties removed. The whole of life is a succession of surprises breaking its monotony. It is like a winding road, where every turn discloses something new that beguiles and draws us on. There are many of what Faber sings ofnovelties of love. You think, sometimes, that everything has been exhausted, and then God surprises you with a fresh gladness.2 [Note: A. Philip, The Fathers Hand, 161.]
A critic of the oratorio Elijah has pointed out how, after apparently exhausting every combination of sound, Mendelssohn has given one more proof of his resource, by the weird effect of a single, long-sustained note. But what is a marvel in this consummate artist is only a suggestion of the fertility of God in every life. Amiel has been described as the master of the unexpected. It is God who is its true Master. It is He who is the true Giver of surprises. No two days are alike. Our life is like a series of dissolving views. Its fashion is ever changing. God, in providence, appeals to the strange and the varied. What every child of God feels about His kindnesses is that they are new every morning, and is it not quite as true that they are fresh every evening? Is there a day that we are not constrained to say, Thou surprisest me with the blessings of goodness?3 [Note: Ibid. 162.]
As I look back, and recall what is paststruggles which I have not chronicled here; doubts and inward conflicts which may not be written; hours of fierce anguish of spirit; moments in hell too awful and too sacred to be recorded; joys which, though brief, are yet joys for ever; tearful times of sowing which have yielded happy harvests; kindly teachings, both tender and severe, which experience has broughtI see life as education, wonderful and changeful, but full of a Divine purpose; replete with interest, and slowly revealing that Love is its origin and Love its end. Oh, brother man, to whom life seems dark and its purpose undecipherable, hold fast to the Loving Spirit! It will guide you into the heart of things. It will so fashion you after its own likeness that, when you awake to lifes true significance, you will be satisfied.1 [Note: Bishop Boyd Carpenter, Some Pages of My Life, 332.]
(2) God is in front to assuage our sorrow.There are trials and sorrows which come to all in course of nature, and in regard to which, unless men and women are very rebellious, it is possible perhaps to see no little mercy and goodness assuaging their bitterness all through. But those which come athwart the course of nature, as it were; which no one could have foreseen, and nothing appears to justify; which only darken the world to men, and confound their judgment, and tempt their unbeliefwhat are we to say of these sorrows? They are, alas! not uncommon, and growing experience of life furnishes always fresh evidence of the forms they may take. Where men and women lie prostrate under themtheir hearth perhaps left bare, the light of youthful promise perhaps quenched, perhaps worse sorrows still befalling themwhat are you to expect them to feel and say in circumstances like these? Even if they believe, is it to be thought of that they are to look up to God and say, These things too are good. Thou comest to meet me in them with the blessings of goodness? Yet I have known one whose worldly all was, in a quite unlooked-for hour, swept away from her, and who, after a single moments pause, said: The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away! Blessed be the name of the Lord! I have known another whose home was suddenly left desolate, and the cherished hopes of years, and the early blossom of their fulfilment strewed in ruins, and all he said was, I needed this. And just the other day I heard of one struck down at the outset of a most promising career and rendered helpless for the remainder of his days, yet who was able, almost at once, to accept his Fathers will and to be content with it. Had not such humble trusting sufferers found the blessings of goodness in those dark providences that suddenly darkened round them and seemed to others to wreck their lives?1 [Note: A. Martin, Winning the Soul, 209.]
Do we complain of the sorrows of life, classing them among the insoluble problems of existence? We owe much of lifes purest and happiest experiences to these sorrows. They can reveal unexpected good qualities; they can draw human lives into sympathy with one another; they can bridge over chasms which seemed to decree separation between soul and soul; they can soften, refine, and elevate. Certainly, if I may speak from my own experience, hours of sorrow serve to show what an unsuspected wealth of kindness there is in the world. Here is a box, full of letters! No, I am not going to open it, or drag forth the letters to view. Let them lie where they are, in sacred seclusion; but they are witnesses to the width and depth of human sympathy. They are letters, written to me, by people of all classes, in one supreme, sorrowful hour of my life. Indeed, as I go about my room, and turn from one treasury of old letters to another, I realize that the sweetest and best of them are the offspring of sorrow in some form or another. Dear letterssome written by hands now coldyou still carry your message to my heart! You are the constant witnesses that our capacities of heart could hardly have found scope to work, or space to grow, had not sorrow opened the door of opportunity.2 [Note: Bishop Boyd Carpenter, Some Pages of My Life, 331.]
(3) God is in front to strengthen us in temptation.Temptation is the constant element in our lives that every now and then gathers itself up into some sore hour which tries and shakes our fidelity to the roots. The temptation to unbelief, the temptation to self-indulgence, the temptation to be untrue to some heavy charge of which we would fain be quittemptations such as these, and others like them, are no doubt dangerous, since we may give way in our weakness and fall ignobly. But with the temptation there is always a strength available for the bearing of it, of which, if we seize and are not overborne by it, nothing but good is the issue. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation. It strengthens the thews of the spirit. It toughens faith. It teaches to pray. Temptation, if met and dealt with fairly, brings blessing into our life,and nothing else.
I would especially recommend you, as far as possible, to keep your mind fixed on our Blessed Lords love, sympathy, and presence with younot on the temptation. Put the temptation altogether aside. Dont think of it. Dont pray about it. Dont entangle yourself with it. But keep close to God, and feel sure that He who is in us is greater than he that is in the world, and ask of our Blessed Lord that He would encompass you with His blessed angels, and so drive far away the evil spirit. Nothing is impossible with Him. Make proof of His power and love, and resolve, though you have failed before, now henceforth to fail no more. Let it encourage you to feel that every temptation overcome makes you stronger than you were before.1 [Note: J. P. F. Davidson, Letters of Spiritual Counsel, 65.]
It was my Time. The old hour struck,
The ancient self without my leave
The old impatience came to pluck,
How briskly at my sleeve!
And one stood crying within my heart
(It was not I)The strait is sore.
Thy strength is small. So yield. Thy part
Requires of thee no more.
Then to the god we do not know,
Whose perfect name lies not within
Our speech, all speechless in her woe
My spirit fled, cryingThis is sin.
Against his coming many times
Thou gavest a secret, golden power.
Then sudden as the lark that climbs,
I sang, and in that dolorous hour
I stood with an immortal strength,
Looked out upon the dangerous way,
And singing trod its bitter length,
Scatheless, as even a mortal may.2 [Note: Mildred McNeal-Sweeney, Men of No Land, 56.]
(4) God is beforehand to soften trouble.With our cares, anxieties, daily dutywhatever is commonest, whatever is most exceptionalGod is before us to make them bearable, and profitable. All our experiences whatsoever bring good to us, if we will have it. Life is a constant discovery of light and help and blessing of every kind, which are waiting us beforehand. It is not by chance that these things come there. They have all the marks of a provision made by One who knows what things we have need of. Let us be sure of it and fear nothing. Faith should recognize a friend even when sense fears a foe. And of everything that comes to meet us our hearts should be greatly able to say: This also cometh forth from the Lord, who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working.
As Washington Irving was passing a print window in Broadway, New York, one day, his eye rested on the beautiful engraving of Christus Consolator. He stopped and looked at it intently for some minutes, evidently much affected by the genuine inspiration of the artist in this remarkable representation of the Saviour as the consoler of sorrow-stricken humanity. His tears fell freely. Pray get me that print, said he; I must have it framed for my sitting-room. When he examined it more closely and found the artists name, Its by my old friend Ary Scheffer! said he, remarking, further, that he had known Scheffer intimately, and knew him to be a true artist, but had not expected from him anything so excellent as this. I afterwards sent him the companion, Christus Remunerator; and the pair remained his daily companions till the day of his death. To me, the picture of Irving, amid the noise and bustle of noon in Broadway, shedding tears as he studied that little print, so feelingly picturing human sorrow and the Source of its alleviation, has always remained associated with the artist and his works. If Irving could enjoy wit and humour, and give that enjoyment to others, no other writer of books had a heart more tenderly sensitive than his to the sufferings and ills to which flesh is heir.1 [Note: George Palmer Putnam, 268.]
2. God may be trusted to prepare our everlasting portion. I go to prepare a place for you, said Christ. Whatever hell be, it is not mans environment. It was prepared for the devil and his angels. Whatever heaven be, it is mans native place, prepared for him from the foundation of the world. And then within that kingdom, all made ready, there is to be the individual touchI go to prepare a place for you. Of what kind that preparation is, eye hath not seen and ear hath never heard. All we know is that we shall be at home, and shall be welcomed by familiar hands. And if here the preparation is so wonderful that waits for the little child when it is born, how much more wonderful shall it all be when dying we are born into the glory. If love has been busy making ready here, shall love not also be making ready there? It is all our Fathers house of many rooms, and we but pass from one into the other.
Robertson took an active part in the work of the revival movement of 1859, sometimes holding services in the open air, in the neighbouring mining village of Dreghorn, and in the opposite direction, near the Eglinton furnaces. Mr. Andrew James Symington describes one of these outdoor services. When we arrived at the manse, he says, we found that Robertson had gone to address a meeting of miners in the open air at their works, about a mile off. We followed, and got among the crowd of listeners. The sermon was a remarkable one, as simple in its telling illustrations as it was powerful in the enforcement of truth. Rarely have I heard such an earnest flow of impassioned eloquenceone could have heard a pin falland the begrimed audience, spellbound, hung on his every word. The theme was mansions prepared, and the subject was approached and opened up by an allusion to the coming November term timeto those who were going to flitand he asked them if they had yet looked out other houses to which they would go. Then, as to our abode on earth, he said, we were all tenants-at-will. But our heavenly Father had prepared, not cabins or houses, but mansions for us. These were freely offered, and why should we anxiously look before us to the habitations of a few short years, and yet think so little of the heavenly mansions, prepared from before the foundation of the world for all who love Him, for Christs sake, by Him who made these glorious stars, twinkling overhead in the blue? Then he pressed home the gospel offer, and, as an ambassador for heaven, invited all to come and receive their inheritance.1 [Note: A. Guthrie, Robertson of Irvine, 156.]
Can the bonds that make us here
Know ourselves immortal,
Drop away, like foliage sear,
At lifes inner portal?
What is holiest below
Must for ever live and grow.
I shall love the angels well,
After I have found them
In the mansions where they dwell,
With the glory round them:
But at first, without surprise,
Let me look in human eyes.
Step by step our feet must go
Up the holy mountain;
Drop by drop within us flow
Lifes unfailing fountain.
Angels sing with crowns that burn:
We shall have our song to learn.
He who on our earthly path
Bids us help each other
Who His Well-beloved hath
Made our Elder Brother
Will but clasp the chain of love
Closer, when we meet above.
Therefore dread I not to go
Oer the Silent River.
Death, thy hastening oar I know;
Bear me, Thou Life-giver,
Through the waters, to the shore,
Where mine own have gone before!1 [Note: Lucy Larcom.]
As you ascend the Stelvio Pass from the Italian side, you travel through wild, majestic scenery. One moment you are lost in admiration of the engineering skill that carried the zigzag road along the mountain-side; another, lingering by a waterfall, or caught by the vista of some retreating valley, the ruin of an avalanche, or the dazzling sheen of the encircling snow. But the road is nothing to the top of the pass; it hides the secret that awaits you. It is impossible to forget the thrill of emotion when we touched the summit of the pass, and the glorious secret stood disclosed. It had taken hours to ascend, and then, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, a marvellous panorama of mountain and glacier burst on the eye, and Austria lay in the abyss at our feet.
This present life is like crossing the Stelvio. We are going towards the glorious secret, but meantime the way hides it. The more we think of the land within the veil, the more we must look forward to the top of the pass, when we shall see the secret for ourselves. It is ready, as Peter writes, to be revealed. When we behold it, shall we not adore the loving-kindness of Him who hid that He might reveal, in whose light it is ours now to see light clearly?1 [Note: A. Philip, The Fathers Hand, 91.]
A famous city in the East has triple walls. Within the huge, strong gates of the first wall the trading and mercantile populations dwell; within the gates of the second wall the space is reserved for tribesmen who are akin to the reigning house; and within the gates of the innermost wall nestle palace and park and imperial pleasure-grounds. The first gate to which Christ holds the key looks forth into infinite vistas. The gospel opportunity gives access into a new standing-ground of privilege, and through the new standing-ground passes a highway into the favoured and sacred sphere, where dwell members of a royal and priestly race, and through this sphere approach is at last made to the blessed and glorious realms beyond the angel-guarded gates.2 [Note: T. G. Selby, The Divine Craftsman, 80.]
Literature
Black (H.), Christs Service of Love, 209.
Martin (A.), Winning the Soul, 199.
Morrison (G. H.), Flood-Tide, 252.
Morrison (G. H.), The Return of the Angels, 143.
Philip (A.), The Fathers Hand, 157.
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
preventest: Psa 18:18, 1Sa 16:13, 2Sa 2:4, 2Sa 5:3, Job 41:11, Rom 11:35
blessings: Psa 31:19, 2Ch 6:41, Rom 2:4, Eph 1:3
settest: 2Sa 12:30, 1Ch 20:2, Heb 2:9, Rev 19:12
Reciprocal: 2Ki 11:12 – put the crown 2Ch 23:11 – put upon Psa 8:5 – hast Psa 15:1 – Lord Psa 59:10 – prevent Psa 79:8 – let thy Psa 88:13 – prevent thee Psa 103:4 – crowneth Psa 119:147 – I prevented Zec 6:11 – make Rev 4:4 – crowns Rev 14:14 – a golden
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Psa 21:3. Thou preventest him Or, didst prevent him, namely, David; crowning him with manifold blessings, both more and sooner than he desired or expected, surprising him with the gift of the kingdom, and with many happy successes. With the blessings of goodness That is, with excellent blessings, or with abundance of good. Applying this to Christ, we must say, The Son of God could not be more ready to ask for the blessings of the divine goodness than the Father was to give them, and his disposition is the same toward all his adopted sons. By the crown of pure gold, may be meant, in general, an illustrious crown, which is here represented as being set upon our Lords head at his exaltation into heaven, in token of his being then advanced to this chief exercise of his regal authority. Thus he is said, Psa 8:5, to be crowned with glory and honour; and St. John says, with respect to his deified humanity, in which he was made King of kings, and Lord of lords, that on his head were many crowns, Rev 19:12; Rev 19:16.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
21:3 For thou {b} preventest him with the blessings of goodness: thou settest a crown of pure gold on his head.
(b) You declared your liberal favour toward him before he prayed.