Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 73:15
If I say, I will speak thus; behold, I should offend [against] the generation of thy children.
15. If I had said, I will speak thus;
Behold, I had dealt treacherously with the generation of thy children (R.V.).
If he had paraded his perplexities, and made open profession of the wicked man’s creed (Job 21:15), he would have been faithless to the interests of God’s family. In the O.T. Israel as a people is called Jehovah’s son (Exo 4:22) or Jehovah’s sons (Deu 14:1), but the individual does not yet claim for himself the title of son except in an official and representative capacity (Psa 2:7). The recognition of that closer personal relation is reserved for the N.T. (Gal 3:26).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
15 17. Instead of parading his doubts, he wrestled with them until in the sanctuary the solution of them was revealed to him.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
15 28. Faith triumphant in the conviction of an ultimate judgement and the consciousness of the supreme blessedness of fellowship with God.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
If I say, I will speak thus – If I should resolve to give expression to my feelings. If I should utter all that is passing in my mind and my heart. It is implied here that he had not given utterance to these thoughts, but had confined them to his own bosom. He knew how they might be regarded by others; how others might be led to feel as if no confidence was to be placed in God; how this might suggest thoughts to them which would not otherwise occur to them, and which would only tend to fill their minds with distress; how such thoughts might unsettle the foundations of their faith, their peace, their hope, and their joy.
I should offend against the generation of thy children – The word rendered I should offend, means to treat perfidiously, or in a faithless or treacherous manner. Then it means, to deal falsely with. And this is the meaning here; I should not be true to them; I should not be faithful to their real interests; I should do that which would be equivalent to dealing with them in a false and perfidious manner. The idea is, that he ought not to say or do anything which would tend to lessen their confidence in God, or which would suggest to their minds grounds of distrust in God, or which would disturb their peace and hope. This was alike an act of justice and benevolence on his part. Whatever might be his own troubles and doubts, he had no right to fill their minds with doubts and distrust of God; and he felt that, as it was desirable that the minds of others should not be harassed as his own had been, it could not be kind to suggest such thoughts.
This, however, should not forbid anyone from mentioning such difficulties to another for the purpose of having them removed. If they occur to the mind, as they may to the minds of any, however sincere and pious they may be, nothing can make it improper that they should be laid before one of greater age, or longer experience, or wider opportunities of knowledge, in order that the difficulties may be solved. Nothing can make it improper for a child to have recourse thus to a parent – or a member of a church, to a pastor. If, however, these doubts can be calmed down otherwise, it is better that they should be mentioned to no one. Some little additional strength may be given them even by dwelling on them long enough to mention them to another, and by putting them in such a form that they would be understood by another; and the true way is to go to God with them by prayer, and to spread them out before the mercy-seat. Prayer, and a careful study of the word of God may calm them down without their being suggested to any human being. At any rate, they should not be suggested at all to the young, or to those with fewer advantages of education, or of less experience than we have had, on whom the only effect would be to fill their minds with doubts which they could not solve – and with thoughts tending only to perplexity and unbelief – such as would never have occurred to themselves.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 73:15-28
If I say, I will speak thus; behold, I should offend against the generation of Thy children.
Searching and finding relief in the right direction
. Searching for relief in the right direction (Psa 73:16-17) He went where the mind of God was to be met with, where he obtained such ideas from the great Fountain of wisdom as calmed his agitation and solved his difficulties. Whenever God speaks to us, whether in providential events, or in the works of nature, or in sacred writings, or in the dictates of our own consciences, it must be in some place, and that place is a sanctuary. To go into this sanctuary, is simply to put our minds in a reverent, praying, waiting attitude.
II. Finding relief in the right direction.
1. New light came (Psa 73:17). The condition of the wicked.
(1) Their position is dangerous. Thou didst set them in slippery places.
(2) Their danger is awful. Thou castedst them down into destruction. Into destruction of what? Of all their property, worldly grandeur, health, friends, all that renders existence tolerable. This comes and breaks the sleep of sin. As a dream when one awaketh.
(3) His own temper in relation to their prosperity (Psa 73:21).
2. New inspiration came. New confidence in God.
(1) New confidence in His upholding power (Psa 73:23).
(2) New confidence in His future guidance (Psa 73:24). Man wants a guide through this life. God is the only safe Guide. Following His guidance, we shall be led on to glory.
(3) A supreme delight in God (Psa 73:25). He felt that without God the universe to him was nothing; that with God, whatever else was absent, he had all his delight. God is the strength of my heart.
(4) Here is a fact in the history of all men. The fact is decay. The law of decay is universal and inexorable.
(5) Here is a privilege in the experience of some men. God is the souls power and portion, all-satisfying, inexhaustible, ever-enduring portion.
(6) A higher consciousness of nearness to God (Psa 73:27-28). (Homilist.)
The problem of suffering
A great preacher has reminded us of a truism that we are all in danger of forgetting, namely, how very old our difficulties are, that there is really very little of novelty about them. We are apt to think that they are new, that no one has ever faced the problems with which we are confronted; that human life at no period of its history has been crowded with problems and perplexities as it is crowded for us to-day. But all the time there is really very little of novelty about them. When the cry goes up, It is too hard for me, what can religion say? Until I went into the sanctuary of God–that is what religion says.
1. To believe in God is to believe in His purpose; it is to be absolutely certain that there is a golden cord somewhere running through the history of the world, running through the story of my own personal life, often hidden, sometimes emerging, but continually there, the eternal purpose of God. If I am sure there is a purpose, though I have not found it yet, I can afford to wait if there is anything to be waited for. I can understand how the very waiting, the very imperfection of my knowledge, the very impossibility of explaining things to me as yet, may be invaluable to me, develop powers m me that will best enable me to see the light when it comes.
2. The man who prays, apart altogether from the answer to his prayer, prays humbly, feelingly, perhaps with moral consciousness, in the very act of prayer is calming his spirit, accumulating strength, exercising his highest powers in the highest way. As He prayed He was transfigured. And the man who worships, without much thought of edification perhaps, in the very act of worship is realizing his dependence on his God, educating his whole nature.
3. The sense of immortality was borne in on him in the sanctuary of God. Man doth not live by bread alone. The whole place rang with echoes of that cry. Those lives that were in his thought, those inequalities that troubled him, that suffering that was so undeserved, that prosperity that was so basely won–how small they all look beside that endless life of which the sanctuary spoke to him. God has a larger scheme than he has ever dreamt of, a vaster vision of prosperity a loftier standard of happiness–then understood! the end of these men. The idea of consecration. The sanctuary of God! It speaks of a separate place, a hallowed house of men and things consecrated to the service of God. Do you remember that splendid picture, the vision of St. John, the crowned ones of the earth bringing their crowns and flinging them down before the throne? What were those crowns? Surely the completions, the highest developments of the power and the talent with Which God had endowed them. That is the picture of the future. But, tell me, may it not be the picture of to-day? Surely, it makes the grandeur of ones work when you dedicate your work. Those crowned ones were never so crowned as when they cast their crowns before the throne. It makes the value of their work. Everything is valuable, but for what, for whom is that work done? It lights up the whole career, it makes failure more bearable, success more sweet. It is all for God, it is brought into His sanctuary; we cast our crowns before Him. (Bp. F. E. Ridgeway.)
Doubt
The most intelligent among believers themselves have, as a rule, known painfully what doubt is, and have even built up their newer and better faith upon the ruins of the old. If there were no room for doubt, there would be no room for faith. Doubt is simply the power to see the negative side of things of which faith is the power to see the positive side. No believer who knows what he is talking about claims that everything is clear. What believers do claim, in all the great questions between faith and unbelief, is that the reasons for unbelief are outweighed by the reasons for faith, and that if faith has its difficulties, unbelief has more. And they claim this also, that while allowing to the full the force of the agnostic question, Who hath known the mind of the Lord? all that we practically need to know of God for the imperious necessities of life and duty and redemption has been adequately revealed in Jesus Christ. And as we admit that there is room for doubt, let us further admit that the ministry of doubt has often played a beneficent part in the progress of mens knowledge of truth and their advance from a lower to a higher faith. God as often speaks to us through the chill silences of doubt as when the whole air around us is musical with the voices of faith. Hence the saying that the doubters of one generation are the believers of the next. The great movements of thought in science, in philosophy, in religion, have invariably begun in scepticism as to the finality of the movements which went before them. True, as Carlyle says, scepticism is not an end, but a beginning. But you must have the beginning before you can have the end. Let us distinctly understand, however, that the doubt which deserves sympathy, and which God often uses as a stepping-stone by which a man may pass to a nobler faith, is doubt that rests on intellectual grounds, not on moral, or, rather, immoral grounds. That was the kind of doubt which the psalmist had. He assures us he had cleansed his heart, and washed his hands in innocency. His doubts were those of a good man, who was earnestly trying to live a pure and upright life. Now, supposing that a man is really and truly striving to be a good man, pure in thought, devout in heart, upright in life, spiritual in his views of things, and yet is troubled with grave and bewildering doubts, what is he to do? Several things; but the one thing which I have both time and desire to emphasize now, is this–he should keep his doubts to himself. That was what the psalmist did. He felt that, if he had not done so, if he had gone about instilling them into other minds, and suggesting to them difficulties they probably did not feel, he would have been acting treacherously towards Gods children and his own brethren. Treacherously! No, more than that–devilishly! It is the serpent in Genesis who insinuates doubt. It is the Mephistopheles in Faust who is the spirit that denies. Dont tell me your doubts, said Goethe wisely, tell me your certainties; Ive doubts enough of my own. Be sure of this–that the most serious moral injury you can do to your brother-man is in any way to undermine his religious faith, unless you have a higher one to offer him in place of it, or to weaken his sense of the sacred imperiousness of the moral law. It involves, first of all, the mans loss of what even sceptics themselves admit to be, and what believers know from experience to be, the noblest and fullest source of the moral strength we all need for successful resistance of the assaults of temptation and of sin. What is the meaning of human brotherhood, if there be no Divine Father, if there be no Christ in whom humanity is summed up and perfected, crowned and glorified? Then, secondly, loss of faith involves, as a rule, loss of courage to do and bear in this human life of ours. It is a common saying, but it is very true, that ages of faith are strong and heroic ages, and ages of scepticism ages of weakness and decay. And what is true of ages is true also of individuals. Look abroad upon the world to-day, and everywhere you will find that it is believers who are foremost in the ranks of those who are toiling self-denyingly for the real progress of our race. And the reason of this is clear. You know how the companies that supply us here in London with water build lofty towers at their pumping-stations. Why? Because it is a law of nature that water will not rise above its own level. And so, if the cisterns at the top of our houses are to be supplied with water, a column of the fluid must be forced at the pumping-stations to a height higher than that of the highest houses where the water is to come. In the same way, if we are to be inspired to holy and loving activity for the good of others, we must draw our inspiration from a source higher than ourselves. Life for man must flow from life in God. We can give to others only as we receive from Him. And though I dont by any means deny that there are to-day many men and women who are doing noble service in the field of philanthropy without any profession of religious faith, this is rather in spite of their lack of faith than because of it. What they would gain in joy, in inspiration, in a sense of support in their work, if they had this faith, may be proved from the experience of those who, with labour for man, join belief in Christ and God. So much for the influence of faith as regards doing. And as for its influence as regards bearing–bearing pain and loss, grief and trial–can you find anywhere such a source of resignation and comfort and hope as in the conviction of Gods changeless love and unerring wisdom, in the feeling of the tender and sustaining sympathy of the Divine Man of Sorrows? Our very tears glisten in the sunlight of Gods smile. The Cross of Jesus has turned the bitter waters of suffering into a fountain of health and life. (Henry Varley.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 15. If I say, I will speak thus] I have at last discovered that I have reasoned incorrectly; and that I have the uniform testimony of all thy children against me. From generation to generation they have testified that the Judge of all the earth does right; they have trusted in thee, and were never confounded. They also met with afflictions and sore trials, but thou didst bring them safely through all, didst sustain them in the worst, and sanctifiedst the whole to their eternal good.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
I will speak thus; I will give sentence for the ungodly in this manner.
I should offend against the generation of thy children, by grieving, and discouraging, and condemning them, and by tempting them to revolt from God and godliness. But because the Hebrew verb bagad in this sense is always, so far as I have observed, construed with the preposition beth, which is not here, and is constantly put before that preposition and word which it governs, and not after, as here it is, I rather join with them who render the place thus; which is more agreeable to the words and order of the text; Behold the generation of thy children, (or, Behold, these are the generation of thy children, as appears by thy fatherly care of and indulgence and kindness to them, whilst thou dost at present seem to treat them like bastards who are more truly called thy children, dealing roughly and severely with them,) I shall (or rather, should, to wit, in speaking so) transgress, or prevaricate, speak against the truth, and against my own conscience, which assureth me that these are the haters of God, and hated and cursed by him.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
15. Freed from idiomaticphrases, this verse expresses a supposition, as, “Had I thusspoken, I should,” &c., intimating that he had kept histroubles to himself.
generation of thychildrenThy people (1Jo 3:1).
offendliterally,”deceive, mislead.”
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
If I say, I will speak thus,…. Either as the wicked do,
Ps 73:8 or rather as he had thought in his own mind,
Ps 73:13, wherefore he kept it all to himself, and did not make known to others the reasonings of his mind, and the temptations he laboured under:
behold, I should offend against the generation of thy children; of whom care should be taken, above all things, that they be not offended,
Mt 18:6, or “should condemn”; as the Targum; or as Jarchi,
“I should make them transgressors, and wicked persons;”
should represent them as if they were men hated and rejected of God, because of their afflictions: the words may be rendered, “behold the generation of thy children, I have transgressed” q; by giving way to the above temptation, which might have been prevented by considering the church, children, and people of God, and the care he has taken of them, the regard he has shown to them, and the preservation of them in all ages. The words are an apostrophe to God, who has children by adopting grace, and which appear so by their regeneration; and there is a generation of them in all ages; when one goes, another comes; there is always a seed, a spiritual offspring, to serve him, which is counted for a generation.
q “ecce generatio filiorum tuorum, praevaricatus sum”, Pagninus, Montanus.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
To such, doubt is become the transition to apostasy. The poet has resolved the riddle of such an unequal distribution of the fortunes of men in a totally different way. Instead of in Psa 73:15, to read (Bttcher), or better, by taking up the following , which even Saadia allows himself to do, contrary to the accents (Arab. mtl hda ), (Ewald), is unnecessary, since prepositions are sometimes used elliptically ( , Isa 59:18), or even without anything further (Hos 7:16; Hos 11:7) as adverbs, which must therefore be regarded as possible also in the case of (Aramaic, Arabic , Aethiopic kem ). The poet means to say, If I had made up my mind to the same course of reasoning, I should have faithlessly forsaken the fellowship of the children of God, and should consequently also have forfeited their blessings. The subjunctive signification of the perfects in the hypothetical protasis and apodosis, Psa 73:15 (cf. Jer 23:22), follows solely from the context; futures instead of perfects would signify si dicerem … perfide agerem . is the totality of those, in whom the filial relationship in which God has placed Isreal in relation to Himself is become an inward or spiritual reality, the true Israel, Psa 73:1, the “righteous generation,” Psa 14:5. It is an appellative, as in Deu 14:1; Hos 2:1. For on the point of the uhiothesi’a the New Testament differs from the Old Testament in this way, viz., that in the Old Testament it is always only as a people that Israel is called , or as a whole , but that the individual, and that in his direct relationship to God, dared not as yet call himself “child of God.” The individual character is not as yet freed from its absorption in the species, it is not as yet independent; it is the time of the minor’s , and the adoption is as yet only effected nationally, salvation is as yet within the limits of the nationality, its common human form has not as yet appeared. The verb with signifies to deal faithlessly with any one, and more especially (whether God, a friend, or a spouse) faithlessly to forsake him; here, in this sense of malicious desertion, it contents itself with the simple accusative.
On the one side, by joining in the speech of the free-thinkers he would have placed himself outside the circle of the children of God, of the truly pious; on the other side, however, when by meditation he sought to penetrate it ( ), the doubt-provoking phenomenon ( ) still continued to be to him , trouble, i.e., something that troubled him without any result, an unsolvable riddle (cf. Ecc 8:17). Whether we read or , the sense remains the same; the Ker prefers, as in Job 31:11, the attractional gender. Neither here nor in Job 30:26 and elsewhere is it to be supposed that is equivalent to (Ewald, Hupfeld). The cohortative from of the future here, as frequently (Ges. 128, 1), with or without a conditional particle (Psa 139:8; 2Sa 22:38; Job 16:6; Job 11:17; Job 19:18; Job 30:26), forms a hypothetical protasis: and (yet) when I meditated; Symmachus (according to Montfaucon), . As Vaihinger aptly observes, “thinking alone will give neither the right light nor true happiness.” Both are found only in faith. The poet at last struck upon the way of faith, and there he found light and peace. The future after frequently has the signification of the imperfect subjunctive, Job 32:11; Ecc 2:3, cf. Pro 12:19 ( donec nutem = only a moment); also in an historical connection like Jos 10:13; 2Ch 29:34, it is conceived of as subjunctive ( donec ulciseretur , se sanctificarent ), sometimes, however, as indicative, as in Exo 15:16 ( donec transibat ) and in our passage, where introduces the objective goal at which the riddle found its solution: until I went into the sanctuary of God, (purposely) attended to ( as in the primary passage Deu 32:29, cf. Job 14:21) their life’s end. The cohortative is used here exactly as in , but with the collateral notion of that which is intentional, which here fully accords with the connection. He went into God’s dread sanctuary (plural as in Ps 68:36, cf. in the Psalms of Asaph, Psa 67:7; Psa 78:69); here he prayed for light in the darkness of his conflict, here were his eyes opened to the holy plans and ways of God (Psa 77:14), here the sight of the sad end of the evil-doers was presented to him. By “God’s sanctuaries” Ewald and Hitzig understand His secrets; but this meaning is without support in the usage of the language. And is it not a thought perfectly in harmony with the context and with experience, that a light arose upon him when he withdrew from the bustle of the world into the quiet of God’s dwelling – place, and there devoutly gave his mind to the matter?
The strophe closes with a summary confession of the explanation received there. is construed with Lamed inasmuch as collocare is equivalent to locum assignare (vid., Psa 73:6). God makes the evil-doers to stand on smooth, slippery places, where one may easily lose one’s footing (cf. Psa 35:6; Jer 23:12). There, then, they also inevitably fall; God casts them down , into ruins, fragores = ruinae , from = , to be confused, desolate, to rumble. The word only has the appearance of being from : ensnarings, sudden attacks (Hitzig), which is still more ill suited to Psa 74:3 than to this passage; desolation and ruin can be said even of persons, as , Psa 28:5, , Isa 8:15, , Jer 51:21-23. The poet knows no other theodicy but this, nor was any other known generally in the pre-exilic literature of Israel (vid., Ps 37; Psa 39:1-13, Jer. 12, and the Job 1:1). The later prophecy and the Chokma were much in advance of this, inasmuch as they point to a last universal judgment (vid., more particularly Mal 3:13.), but not one that breaks off this present state; the present state and the future state, time and eternity, are even there not as yet thoroughly separated.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| The End of the Wicked. | |
15 If I say, I will speak thus; behold, I should offend against the generation of thy children. 16 When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me; 17 Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end. 18 Surely thou didst set them in slippery places: thou castedst them down into destruction. 19 How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment! they are utterly consumed with terrors. 20 As a dream when one awaketh; so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image.
We have seen what a strong temptation the psalmist was in to envy prospering profaneness; now here we are told how he kept his footing and got the victory.
I. He kept up a respect for God’s people, and with that he restrained himself from speaking what he had thought amiss, v. 15. He got the victory by degrees, and this was the first point he gained; he was ready to say, Verily, I have cleansed my heart in vain, and thought he had reason to say it, but he kept his mouth with this consideration, “If I say, I will speak thus, behold, I should myself revolt and apostatize from, and so give the greatest offence imaginable to, the generation of thy children.” Observe here, 1. Though he thought amiss, he took care not to utter that evil thought which he had conceived. Note, It is bad to think ill, but it is worse to speak it, for that is giving the evil thought an imprimatur–a sanction; it is allowing it, giving consent to it, and publishing it for the infection of others. But it is a good sign that we repent of the evil imagination of the heart if we suppress it, and the error remains with ourselves. If therefore thou hast been so foolish as to think evil, be so wise as to lay thy hand upon thy mouth, and let it go no further, Prov. xxx. 32. If I say, I will speak thus. Observe, Though his corrupt heart made this inference from the prosperity of the wicked, yet he did not mention it to those whether it were fit to be mentioned or no. Note, We must think twice before we speak once, both because some things may be thought which yet may not be spoken and because the second thoughts may correct the mistakes of the first. 2. The reason why he would not speak it was for fear of giving offence to those whom God owned for his children. Note, (1.) There are a people in the world that are the generation of God’s children, a set of men that hear and love God as their Father. (2.) We must be very careful not to say or do any thing which may justly offend any of these little ones (Matt. xviii. 6), especially which may offend the generation of them, may sadden their hearts, or weaken their hands, or shake their interest. (3.) There is nothing that can give more general offence to the generation of God’s children than to say that we have cleansed our heart in vain or that it is vain to serve God; for there is nothing more contrary to their universal sentiment and experience nor any thing that grieves them more than to hear God thus reflected on. (4.) Those that wish themselves in the condition of the wicked do in effect quit the tents of God’s children.
II. He foresaw the ruin of wicked people. By this he baffled the temptation, as by the former he gave some check to it. Because he durst not speak what he had thought, for fear of giving offence, he began to consider whether he had any good reason for that thought (v. 16): “I endeavoured to understand the meaning of this unaccountable dispensation of Providence; but it was too painful for me. I could not conquer it by the strength of my own reasoning.” It is a problem, not to be solved by the mere light of nature, for, if there were not another life after this, we could not fully reconcile the prosperity of the wicked with the justice of God. But (v. 17) he went into the sanctuary of God; he applied to his devotions, meditated upon the attributes of God, and the things revealed, which belong to us and to our children; he consulted the scriptures, and the lips of the priests who attended the sanctuary; he prayed to God to make this matter plain to him and to help him over this difficulty; and, at length, he understood the wretched end of wicked people, which he plainly foresaw to be such that even in the height of their prosperity they were rather to be pitied than envied, for they were but ripening for ruin. Note, There are many great things, and things needful to be known, which will not be known otherwise than by going into the sanctuary of God, by the word and prayer. The sanctuary must therefore be the resort of a tempted soul. Note, further, We must judge of persons and things as they appear by the light of divine revelation, and then we shall judge righteous judgment; particularly we must judge by the end. All is well that ends well, everlastingly well; but nothing well that ends ill, everlastingly ill. The righteous man’s afflictions end in peace, and therefore he is happy; the wicked man’s enjoyments end in destruction, and therefore he is miserable.
1. The prosperity of the wicked is short and uncertain. The high places in which Providence sets them are slippery places (v. 18), where they cannot long keep footing; but, when they offer to climb higher, that very attempt will be the occasion of their sliding and falling. Their prosperity has no firm ground; it is not built upon God’s favour or his promise; and they have not the satisfaction of feeling that it rests on firm ground.
2. Their destruction is sure, and sudden, and very great. This cannot be meant of any temporal destruction; for they were supposed to spend all their days in wealth and their death itself had no bands in it: In a moment they go down to the grace, so that even that could scarcely be called their destruction; it must therefore be meant of eternal destruction on the other side death–hell and destruction. They flourish for a time, but are undone for ever. (1.) Their ruin is sure and inevitable. He speaks of it as a thing done–They are cast down; for their destruction is as certain as if it were already accomplished. He speaks of it as God’s doing, and therefore it cannot be resisted: Thou castest them down. It is destruction from the Almighty (Joel i. 15), from the glory of his power, 2 Thess. i. 9. Who can support those whom God will cast down, on whom God will lay burdens? (2.) It is swift and sudden; their damnation slumbers not; for how are they brought into desolation as in a moment! v. 19. It is easily effected, and will be a great surprise to themselves and all about them. (3.) It is severe and very dreadful. It is a total and final ruin: They are utterly consumed with terrors, It is the misery of the damned that the terrors of the Almighty, whom they have made their enemy, fasten upon their guilty consciences, which can neither shelter themselves from them nor strengthen themselves under them; and therefore not their being, but their bliss, must needs be utterly consumed by them; not the least degree of comfort or hope remains to them; the higher they were lifted up in their prosperity the sorer will their fall be when they are cast down into destructions (for the word is plural) and suddenly brought into desolation.
3. Their prosperity is therefore not to be envied at all, but despised rather, quod erat demonstrandum–which was the point to be established, v. 20. As a dream when one awaketh, so, O Lord! when thou awakest, or when they awake (as some read it), thou shalt despise their image, their shadow, and make it to vanish. In the day of the great judgment (so the Chaldee paraphrase reads it), when they are awaked out of their graves, thou shalt, in wrath, despise their image; for they shall rise to shame and everlasting contempt. See here, (1.) What their prosperity now is; it is but an image, a vain show, a fashion of the world that passes away; it is not real, but imaginary, and it is only a corrupt imagination that makes it a happiness; it is not substance, but a mere shadow; it is not what it seems to be, nor will it prove what we promise ourselves from it; it is as a dream, which may please us a little, while we are asleep, yet even then it disturbs our repose; but, how pleasing soever it is, it is all but a cheat, all false; when we awake we find it so. A hungry man dreams that he eats, but he awakes and his soul is empty, Isa. xxix. 8. A man is never the more rich or honourable for dreaming he is so. Who therefore will envy a man the pleasure of a dream? (2.) What will be the issue of it; God will awake to judgment, to plead his own and his people’s injured cause; they shall be made to awake out of the sleep of their carnal security, and then God shall despise their image; he shall make it appear to all the world how despicable it is; so that the righteous shall laugh at them, Psa 52:6; Psa 52:7. How did God despise that rich man’s image when he said, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee!Luk 12:19; Luk 12:20. We ought to be of God’s mind, for his judgment is according to truth, and not to admire and envy that which he despises and will despise; for, sooner or later, he will bring all the world to be of his mind.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
15. If I should say, I will speak thus. David, perceiving the sinfulness of the thoughts with which he was tempted, puts a bridle upon himself, and reproves his inconstancy in allowing his mind to entertain doubts on such a subject. We can be at no loss in discovering his meaning; but there is some difficulty or obscurity in the words. The last Hebrew verb in the verse, בגד, bagad, signifies to transgress, and also to deceive. Some, therefore, translate, I have deceived the generation of thy children, as if David had said, Were I to speak thus, I should defraud thy children of their hope. Others read, I have transgressed against the generation of thy children; that is, Were I to speak thus, I would be guilty of inflicting an injury upon them. But as the words of the prophet stand in this order, Behold! the generation of thy children: I have transgressed; and as a very good meaning may be elicited from them, I would expound them simply in this way: Were I to approve of such wicked thoughts and doubts, I would transgress; for, behold! the righteous are still remaining on the earth, and thou reservest in every age some people for thyself. Thus it will be unnecessary to make any supplement to complete the sense, and the verb בגדתי, bagadti, I have transgressed, will read by itself, and not construed with any other part of the verse. We have elsewhere had occasion to observe, that the Hebrew noun דור, dor, which we have rendered generation, is properly to be referred to time. The idea which David intends to convey is now perfectly obvious. Whilst worldly men give loose reins to their unhallowed speculations, until at length they become hardened, and, divesting themselves of all fear of God, cast away along with it the hope of salvation, he restrains himself that he may not rush into the like destruction. To speak or to declare (187) here signifies to utter what had been meditated upon. His meaning, therefore, is, that had he pronounced judgment on this subject as of a thing certain, he would have been chargeable with a very heinous transgression. He found himself before involved in doubt, but now he acknowledges that he had grievously offended; and the reason of this he places between the words in which he expresses these two states of mind: which is, because God always sees to it, that there are some of his own people remaining in the world. He seems to repeat the demonstrative particle, Behold! for the sake of contrast. He had a little before said, Behold! these are the ungodly; and here he says, Behold! the generation of thy children. It is assuredly nothing less than a divine miracle that the Church, which is so furiously assaulted by Satan and innumerable hosts of enemies, continues safe.
(187) The word in the Hebrew text is ספר, saphar Horsley translates it “to argue” —
“
If I resolve to argue thus, I should be a traitor to the generation of thy children.”
“
The verb ספר,” says he, “which literally signifies to count or reckon, may easily signify ‘to reason within one’s self, to syllogise,’ as is indeed the case with the corresponding words of many languages; as λογιζεσθαι, ratiocinari, putare, reckon, count. ”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(15) If I say . . .Or, If, thought I, I should reason thus, I should be faithless to the generation of thy sons. Or, perhaps, if it ever occurred to my mind to speak thus, the Hebrew often using two finite verbs to express one thought. (See, e.g., Psa. 73:8; Psa. 73:19.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
15. If I say, I will speak thus That is, If I say within myself, (as Psa 14:1,) that I will openly declare thus make this statement.
I should offend The same cautious reserve of speech is observed, Psa 39:1-2. The Hebrew word “offend,” means to betray, to deal falsely with, and thus it is translated in every case but two in our English Bible. And to openly declare as dogma that which was only a temptation under powerful pressure, would be to act like the wicked, or those who had fallen away to the wicked, and thus deal falsely, or betray God’s children into the hands of their scoffing enemies.
The generation of thy children Or, thy sons, sons of God, Deu 14:1; 1Jn 3:1; the total body of the truly spiritual Israel. To have openly spoken, according to his doubts, would have placed him outside of the family of the true Israel, while his reserve and patient inquiry restored his faith and saved them.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 73:15. If I say, I will speak thus, &c. Reckon or reason thus:I should offend against the generation of thy children; i.e. “I should give the lie to the history of our forefathers.” See Peters, and the first note. Others, by the generation of God’s children, understand all true believers: those who have undertaken the service of God, and entered into covenant with him: part of which covenant and profession is, to believe in God’s Providence: which therefore to deny, question, or doubt of, is to break the covenant, to prevaricate, to deal perfidiously; according to the meaning of the original word bagad, rendered offend.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Reader! do mark what it was which the Lord blessed to the mind of his servant: namely, his visits to the sanctuary. It is in God’s house that we are brought acquainted with God’s ways. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he will show them his covenant; Psa 25:14 . Depend upon it, the faithful, constant, diligent, and humble waiting upon the Lord in his ordinances, reading his word, and drawing nigh in Jesus to the mercy-seat; these are the methods God is pleased to honour, in bringing souls acquainted with himself and his dispensations.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 73:15 If I say, I will speak thus; behold, I should offend [against] the generation of thy children.
Ver. 15. If I say I will speak thus ] If I should give way to such a wicked thought, &c. Here the Spirit beginneth to get the upper hand, to gain the wind and the hill of the flesh. The Spirit would always get the better of the flesh, were it upon equal terms. But when the flesh shall get the hill, as it were, of temptation, and shall have wind to drive the smoke upon the face and eyes of the combatant, that is, to blind him, upon such a disadvantage he may seem to be overcome.
Behold, I shall offend against the generation, &c.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Psa 73:15-20
15If I had said, I will speak thus,
Behold, I would have betrayed the generation of Your children.
16When I pondered to understand this,
It was troublesome in my sight
17Until I came into the sanctuary of God;
Then I perceived their end.
18Surely You set them in slippery places;
You cast them down to destruction.
19How they are destroyed in a moment!
They are utterly swept away by sudden terrors!
20Like a dream when one awakes,
O Lord, when aroused, You will despise their form.
Psa 73:15-20 This strophe is the theological heart of this Psalm. Notice the main points.
1. Faithful followers openly expressing their doubt and confusion can affect other believers.
2. A place and time of fellowship with God can bring peace to our confusion.
3. The wicked’s prosperity is fleeting and their time of confrontation with God will surely come (cf. Psa 73:27).
This is an affirmation that the two ways still have validity! We do reap what we sow!
Psa 73:16 When I pondered to understand this Our ability to understand the ways of God through fallen, worldly, time-bound human intellect is doomed to failure (cf. Pro 3:5 b; Isa 55:8-13; Col 2:8). Knowledge is good but trust is better!
Psa 73:17 Until I came into the sanctuary The word sanctuary (BDB 874) is plural, which would denote the entire temple compound or the plural of majesty. Worship helped the psalmist see clearly. Possibly he had neglected this during his struggle.
I perceived their end Revelation came and his eyes were opened to the big picturehe took the long look, both in time and beyond time.
Psa 73:18-20 The result of rebellion is not only a fearful death but also a dreadful eternity (cf. Mat 25:31-46; Luk 16:19-31; Rev 20:11-15).
Psa 73:19 The term terrors (BDB 117) can refer to death (cf. Job 18:11; Job 18:14). The AB in Psalms by Mitchell Dahood finds many Hebrew words and idioms that, because of Ugaritic usage may be imagery for the nether world.
Psa 73:20 when aroused The preposition and verb (, BDB 734, KB 802, Hiphil infinitive construct) has been emended (LXX, Peshitta, Vulgate) to city (, BDB 746 II). This would refer to
1. the city of phantoms (AB, i.e., Sheol)
2. a reference to Jerusalem (i.e., they are excluded from God’s presence by sin and/or exile)
The concept of God awakening from sleep or rising from His throne to act is used in the OT as figurative language to denote the mystery of Deity’s apparent inactivity or/and the unfairness of worldly events. God has revealed Himself but why are His promises and human conditions so different?
NASBform
NKJC, NJB,
JPSOAimage
NRSV, LXXphantoms
PESHITTAidolatry
This word (BDB 853) occurs only twice in the OT (cf. here and Psa 39:6). NIDOTTE, vol. 3, p. 810, suggests it denotes an image or shadow. It possibly comes from an ANE root for dark, black (another form would be the valley of the shadow of death, cf. Psa 23:4).
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Behold. Figure of speech Asterismos.
offend = deal treacherously. Hebrew. bagad.
children = sons.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Psa 73:15-18
Psa 73:15-18
“If I had said, I will speak thus;
Behold I had dealt treacherously with the generation of thy children.
When I thought how I might know this,
It was too painful for me;
Until I went into the sanctuary of God,
And considered their latter end.
Surely thou settest them in slippery places:
Thou castest them down to destruction.”
“If I had said, …” (Psa 73:15). No, he did not speak the sinful thoughts that Satan whispered to him. For him to have done so would have been treachery in the sight of God.
“Until I went into the sanctuary of God” (Psa 73:17). It is important to note the place where enlightenment came to the tempted heart of the Psalmist; it came in the house of worship; and the same thing still happens. If men would be strengthened in their faith and delivered from the manifold temptations which the Evil One continually hurls against the sons of God, let him attend the worship services. There is no substitute whatever for this. In the last analysis, salvation and damnation turn finally upon one little pivot, those who attend God’s worship and those who don’t. Scoffers may scoff, but that is the way it is whether men like it or not.
“Thou castest them down to destruction” (Psa 73:18). This is the latter end of the wicked; and there can be no appeal from this fact. There is certain to come a day of Judgment, when God will cast evil out of his universe and Satan himself shall receive the destruction which he so richly deserves. It should be remembered that the hell spoken of so often in the Bible, under so many different figures, was never designed for evil men, but for Satan; and God never intended that any man should suffer in such a place. Moreover Christ himself spread wide his bleeding hands upon the Cross to keep any man from sharing Satan’s punishment; but when willful men choose to follow Satan instead of the loving Saviour, how could such a fate be avoided?
E.M. Zerr:
Psa 73:15. Thy children means the eople of God in general. The chastisenent upon David, though brought about by the agency of foes, was from God. Were David to complain too much about his trials, it would be offensive to the people who might think he should bear his burdens with more patience.
Psa 73:16. At times it was hard for David to understand what it was all about.
Psa 73:17. The uncertainty indicated in the previous verse was solved by the action recorded in this. By consulting the Lord in his holy temple David learned their end; that is, he learned that the agents of these tests would get their dues.
Psa 73:18. Them refers to the agents mentioned above. They were also brought to punishment because of the motive prompting their persecution of David.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
offend: 1Sa 2:24, Mal 2:8, Mat 18:6, Mat 18:7, Rom 14:15, Rom 14:21, 1Co 8:11-13
generation: Psa 22:30, Psa 24:6, 1Pe 2:9
Reciprocal: Psa 14:5 – the generation Psa 37:8 – fret Lam 3:66 – Persecute Mal 3:16 – spake Heb 12:6 – whom Heb 12:8 – General
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE RECTIFYING INFLUENCE OF THE SANCTUARY
Then thought I to understand this; but it was too hard for me, until I went into the sanctuary of God: then understood I the end of these men.
Psa 73:15-16 (Prayer Book Version)
The difficulty of the writer of the psalm is a very old difficulty, and yet it seems to us to be perpetually new. The inequality of things. Up starts the question before us, the problem of suffering, the mystery of evil, the strange impossibility of reconciling the two sides of lifehere is the difficulty which perplexed him.
And what is the solution? Is there any solution? The solution is this: It was too hard for me, until I went into the sanctuary of God. What does he mean? How did it help him, and how may it help us?
I. In the Sanctuary there came to him the thought of God.The whole place was full of it. How did that help him in the perplexities that troubled him? Think for a moment what the real difficulty was. It was not a difficulty of his mind; it was a difficulty of his conscience. It was not an intellectual difficulty; it was a moral difficulty. He went into the Sanctuary. It was the natural place to go to. But, I think, it meant something more than that. It was not merely the place, but that to which the whole place witnessed. It was the thought of God, the consciousness of God, and the consciousness of God meant the consciousness of purpose. Could it be otherwise? To believe in God is surely of necessity to believe in His purpose. To say the opening words of the Creed, I believe in God, is to believe that there is no tangle, no puzzle, no labyrinth. It is only that we have not yet discovered the clue, God has not yet placed it in our hands. Your heavenly Father knoweththe whole of the Sanctuary rings with the truth.
II. In the Sanctuary he discovered himself.I suppose there is no thoughtful person but has often and often echoed that question, What am I? What is that thing I call myself? What does it denote, and what does it involve? What am I? My bodyis that myself? At first sight there seems to be so much to be said for it because my body is so intertwined with my soul, that if I am tired, I cannot pray; if I am in pain, I can hardly think. At first sight my body seems to be myself. But somebody says, No, yourself is the changeless part of you, and your body changes. The body of to-day is a very different thing from the body of twenty years ago. My mind, thenis that myself? And again the answer comes: No. Your thoughts, your feelings, your opinions, they are not what they were ten years ago. But your self remains unchanged. In the Sanctuary of God I discovered myself. Why? Because the whole of the Sanctuary, and the worship of the Sanctuary, and every detail of the worship, is based upon the assumption that I am more than body and more than mind, that I am a deathless spirit, and that I cannot live by bread alone. How did the discovery of his own immortality help him in the perplexities and problems of his life? Why, surely thus. The whole thing looked so small beside those vast themes. Once he had discovered the endless life, once he had been made quite certain by the very fact of the Sanctuary, that if a man dies, he lives again; then all these things became insignificant. The inequalities of life, the sufferings so undeserved, the prosperity equally undeserved, they all sank into insignificance before the fact of the endless life of which the Sanctuary spoke.
III. In the Sanctuary he discovered the influence of worship.There is a strange reflex influence in all acts of devotion. When the Lord Jesus prayed, he was transfigured; so when a man prays, he is bringing a strange influence, morally and spiritually, upon his being, and he rises up from the act of prayer as the Lord rose from His prayer, a stronger, calmer, braver man. And so it is also with the influence of worship. In days like these, when life is so anxious, more especially to men; when business is so exacting; when a right judgment is so important; when a prompt, almost instantaneous, decision is so frequently demanded, it is pathetically sad that some of the very men who want the power most should cut themselves off from the calming influences of the House of God.
IV. In the Sanctuary he discovered the truth of the consecration of himself to God.The whole place spoke of consecration separated for the worship of God; every holy vessel set apart; the priest consecrated to Gods service. The whole place was full of the consecration of things and of life to God. Is there a more tremendously important truth than that for us to try and write upon our hearts? I am sure there is not. All you who are accustomed to go into the Sanctuary, may you not turn your thoughts from the place to yourselves? It is consecrated, will you not be re-consecrated? Again and again it has been said for you here: We offer and present unto Thee, O Lord! ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto Thee. Give these words a meaning they have never had before in more spiritual life, in more frequent worship, in more steady, well-prepared communion, in more generous alms.
Bishop F. E. Ridgeway.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Psa 73:15. If I say, I will speak thus I will give sentence for the ungodly in this manner. I should offend against the generation of thy children
By grieving, discouraging, and condemning them, and by tempting them to revolt from thee and thy service. By the generation of Gods children must be understood all true believers; those who have undertaken the service of God, and entered into covenant with him; part of which covenant and profession is to believe in Gods providence; which, therefore, to deny, question, or doubt of, is to break the covenant, to prevaricate, to deal perfidiously; according to the meaning of the word , bagad, here rendered, offend. The reader will observe, that the psalmist, having particularly described the disease, proceeds now, like a skilful physician of the soul, to prescribe a medicine for it, which is compounded of many salutary ingredients. And first, to the suggestions of nature, grace opposes the examples of the children of God, who never fell from their hope in another world, because of their sufferings in this. For a man, therefore, to distrust the divine goodness on that account, is to belie their hope, renounce their faith, and strike his name out of their list.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
73:15 If I say, {g} I will speak thus; behold, I should offend [against] the generation of thy children.
(g) If I give place to this wicked thought, I offend against your providence, seeing you do all things most wisely and preserve your children in their greatest dangers.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
2. The future destiny of the wicked and the righteous 73:15-28
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
The present condition of the wicked tends to make the godly question the wisdom of their strong commitment to the Lord. However, the future condition of those who disregard God’s will now helped Asaph remain loyal to Yahweh.
Had he proclaimed his former doubts publicly, he would have misled those who heard him because he was not considering all the facts. It was only when he viewed life in the light of God’s revelation that he regained a proper perspective. Sitting in the sanctuary and reflecting brought the memory of the end of the wicked to mind again. Even though the wicked may prosper now, when they stand before God He will punish them. Their ultimate end will be bad even though their present life may be comfortable. Their present life will then seem to them to have been only a dream in view of that final reality.