For day and night – <\/B>I found no relief even at night. The burden was constant, and was insupportable.<\/P>
Thy hand was heavy upon me – <\/B>Thy hand seemed to press me down. It weighed upon me. See Job 13:21<\/span>; Psa 39:10<\/span>. It was the remembrance of guilt that troubled him, but that seemed to him to be the hand of God. It was God who brought that guilt to his recollection; and God kept the recollection of it before his mind, and on his heart and conscience, so that he could not throw it off.<\/P> My moisture – <\/B>The word used here – <\/span> l<\/I>e<\/I><\/SUP>shad<\/I> – means properly juice or sap, as in a tree; and then, vital-moisture, or, as we should say, life-blood. Then it comes to denote vigour or strength.<\/P> Is turned into the drought of summer – <\/B>Is, as it were, all dried up. I am – that is, I was at the time referred to – like plants in the heat of summer, in a time of drought, when all moisture of rain or dew is withheld, and when they dry up and wither. Nothing could more strikingly represent the distress of mind under long-continued conviction of sin, when all strength and vigour seem to waste away.<\/P> <\/p>\n Psa 32:4<\/span><\/p>\n Day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n Premens gravissima<\/strong><\/p>\n Premes gravissima. Sublevans suavissima et potentissima. <\/em>So wrote one of our shrewdest commentators about the hand of which the psalmist speaks, in words which may be freely translated, The hand of God, whilst pressing very hard, supports with utmost tenderness and almighty power.<\/p>\n Gods hand<\/strong><\/p>\n 1. <\/strong>They are from Gods hand purposing and ordaining them (Rom 8:29<\/span>; 1Th 3:3<\/span>).<\/p>\n 2. <\/strong>They are from Gods hand executing them (Isa 45:7<\/span>; Gen 45:8<\/span>; Job 1:21<\/span>; 2Sa 16:11<\/span>; Hos 6:1<\/span>).<\/p>\n 3. <\/strong>They are from Gods hand ordering and disposing them.<\/p>\n (1)<\/strong> In their causes, circumstances, kinds, manner, measure, and time of their beginning and ending.<\/p>\n (2)<\/strong> In their ends and issues, His own glory, in manifesting His mercy, justice, wisdom, power, etc. The everlasting salvation of His children. He stops them in their course of sin, as with a hedge of thorns (Hos 2:6<\/span>), that they should not break over into the pleasant pastures of sin, therein to be fatted to the slaughter. He brings them to a true hatred of sin, when they taste the bitter fruit of it. To the exercise of mortification, and desire of heaven and heavenly things: and thus they are judged of the Lord, that they may not be condemned with the world.<\/p>\n 1. <\/strong>There is deep corruption lurking in the best, who not seldom are cast upon so deep a sleep of security that they cannot be wakened with a little shaking, till by most grievous afflictions the Lord break their bones, consume their strength, and bring them into such grief and pain as sets them roaring.<\/p>\n 2. <\/strong>Smaller troubles have often a smaller work. Small things cannot make great hearts stoop; a small fire will not purge away dross from gold, but it must be quick and piercing; a small wind doth not fan away the chaff of vanity, a small correction or smart makes the child more froward, till sounder correction subdue him; small trials do not so exercise faith, nor send men out of themselves to God: for as none for the scratch of a pin, or a little headache, will seek to the physician or surgeon; so a sinner in smaller grievances of the soul will scarce think he needs go to God (Job 33:14<\/span>).<\/p>\n 3. <\/strong>The greater the affliction is, the more odious doth sin appear to be unto God; a strong poison must have a strong antidote: the more the godly are stricken down for sin, the more are they stirred up to godly sorrow, to hatred of it, to zeal against it, the better and more watchful do they prevent sin to come, and look better to themselves: as a good physician oftentimes letteth blood, not to make a man sick, but to prevent sickness.<\/p>\n 4. <\/strong>The greater the trial is, the better experience have they of themselves.<\/p>\n 5. <\/strong>Gods children have great afflictions, and are pressed with an heavy hand, that God Himself may be clearly seen to be their deliverer, when in the eyes of all flesh they are lost.<\/p>\n 6. <\/strong>As great afflictions make way for abundant mercy from God to us, so also for abundant thanks from us to God. If one cure a trifling matter, it neither so binds the patient, nor yet commends the physician: but if any be cured of some deadly, and almost incurable disease, then we profess we could never have met with such a physician in all the world again, and we are accordingly thankful.<\/p>\n 7. <\/strong>Were it not for great afflictions, we could never know the power of Gods Word in quickening us, cheering and comforting us in them, that it is the Word of Life, is most evidently seen in Death itself.<\/p>\n 1. <\/strong>Sometimes Gods children in their falls harden their hearts, and grow stiff in their sin, which was Davids case here, and then the Lord hardeneth Himself to grow stiff in displeasure. Oftentimes Gods children would sit silent, if the Lord would be as silent as they: but whom He loves, He will bring back the way that they are gone, and great hearts will not stoop for a little.<\/p>\n 2. <\/strong>Christ hath not taken away the lingering of trials, but the malignity and poison of them; yea, Himself through all His life was a man full of sorrows; and we must not look to be better; He deserved them not, we have.<\/p>\n 3. <\/strong>God would have us in the continuance of our trouble, to see the continuance of our sin; were our correction always short, we would not be persuaded of the greatness of our sins: plasters use to continue, and not fall off till the wound be cured.; and if a right use of afflictions were attained once, a joyful issue would soon follow: but some lust is not denied, and that adds a sting unto them.<\/p>\n 4. <\/strong>God by the continuance of His hand would hold us in a continual exercise of grace, as of humility, faith, patience, prayer, repentance, etc., it being with a godly man, as one that hath a precious jewel, which he is careful to keep in his hand, so long as he watcheth, none can get it from him; but when he sleeps or slumbers, his hand opens, and it falls out, any man may have it. By continual blowing, the fire is kept in, but it dies by discontinuance. (T. Taylor, D. D.<\/em>)<\/p>\n Thy hand; <\/B>thy afflicting hand bringing my sins to remembrance, and filling me with thy terrors for them. My very radical moisture was in a manner dried up, and wasted through excessive fears and sorrows. <\/P> <\/p>\n 4. thy hand<\/B>of God, or powerin distressing him (Ps 38:2<\/span>). <\/P> moisture<\/B>vital juicesof the body, the parching heat of which expresses the anguish of thesoul. On the other figures, compare Psa 6:2<\/span>;Psa 6:7<\/span>; Psa 31:9-11<\/span>.If composed on the occasion of the fifty-firstPsalm<\/span>, this distress may have been protracted for several months.<\/P><\/p>\n For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me<\/strong>,…. Meaning the afflicting hand of God, which is not joyous, but grievous, and heavy to be borne; especially without his gracious presence, and the discoveries of his love: this continued night and day, without any intermission; and may design some violent distemper; perhaps a fever; since it follows,<\/p>\n my moisture is turned into the drought of summer<\/strong>. That is, the radical moisture in him was almost dried up, as brooks in the summer season; his body was parched, as it were, with the burning heat of the disease; or with an apprehension of the wrath of God under it, or both: and so he continued until be was brought to a true sense of sin, and an acknowledgment of it, when he had the discoveries of pardoning love, as is expressed in Ps 32:5<\/span>. The Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions read, “I am turned into distress, through a thorn being fixed”; and so Apollinarius paraphrases the words,<\/p>\n “I am become miserable, because thorns are fixed in my skin;”<\/p>\n reading for ; and which Suidas o interprets “sin”, that being like the thorn, unfruitful and pricking; see 2Co 12:7<\/span>.<\/p>\n Selah<\/strong>; on this word, [See comments on Ps 3:2]<\/span>.<\/p>\n o In voce .<\/p>\n 4. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me. In this verse he explains more fully whence such heavy grief arose; namely, because he felt the hand of God to be sore against him. The greatest of all afflictions is to be so heavily pressed with the hand of God, that the sinner feels he has to do with a Judge whose indignation and severity involve in them many deaths, besides eternal death. David, accordingly, complains that his moisture was dried up, not merely from simply meditating on his sore afflictions, but because he had discovered their cause and spring. The whole strength of men fails when God appears as a Judge and humbles and lays them prostrate by exhibiting the signs of his displeasure. Then is fulfilled the saying of Isaiah, <\/p>\n “<\/p>\n The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it.” (Isa 40:7<\/span>) <\/p>\n The Psalmist, moreover, tells us, that it was no common chastisement by which he had been taught truly to fear the divine wrath; for the hand of the Lord ceased not to be heavy upon him both day and night. From a child, indeed, he had been inspired with the fear of God, by the secret influence of the Holy Spirit, and had been taught in true religion and godliness by sound doctrine and instruction. And yet so insufficient was this instruction for his attainment of this wisdom, that he had to be taught again like a new beginner in the very midst of his course. Yea, although he had now been long accustomed to mourn over his sins, he was every day anew reduced to this exercise, which teaches us, how long it is ere men recover themselves when once they have fallen; and also how slow they are to obey until God, from time to time, redouble their stripes, and increase them from day to day. Should any one ask concerning David, whether he had become callous under the stripes which he well knew were inflicted on him by the hand of God, the context furnishes the answer; namely, that he was kept down and fettered by perplexing griefs, and distracted with lingering torments, until he was well subdued and made meek, which is the first sign of seeking a remedy. And this again teaches us, that it is not without cause that the chastisements by which God seems to deal cruelly with us are repeated, and his hand made heavy against us, until our fierce pride, which we know to be un-tameable, unless subdued with the heaviest stripes, is humbled. <\/p>\n (4) Thy hand was heavy.<\/strong>The verb, as in kept silence in Psa. 32:3<\/span>, is properly presentthe agony is still vividly present.<\/p>\n My moisture.<\/strong>The Hebrew word is found only once besides (Num. 11:8<\/span>), where the Authorised Version has fresh oil; the LXX. and Vulg., an oily cake. Aquila has of the breast of oil, reading the word erroneously. Here both LXX. and Vulg. seem to have had a different reading, I was turned to sorrow while the thorn was fixed in. Symmachus translates somewhat similarly, but by to destruction <\/em>instead of to sorrow. Aquila, to my spoiling in summer desolation. These readings, however, mistake the lamed, <\/em>which is part of the word, for a preposition. Gesenius connects with an Arabic root, to suck, <\/em>and so gets the meaning juice <\/em>or moisture.<\/em><\/p>\n Into the drought of summer.<\/strong>This is the best rendering of the Hebrew, though it might be either as in summer dryness or with summer heat. Some understand literally a fever, <\/em>but it is better to take it figuratively of the soul-fever <\/em>which the whole passage describes.<\/p>\n 4<\/strong>. <\/strong> For day and night <\/strong> Here is the reason of what is stated in Psa 32:3<\/span>. “Day and night” indicates a long continuance of these sufferings, as also that they were unintermitted. <\/p>\n Drought of summer <\/strong> In summer the grass upon the hills and fields of Palestine, except in well watered places, becomes sear and dry by the heat, giving an aspect of barrenness, wholly different from the freshness and verdure of March and April.<\/p>\n Psa 32:4<\/span><\/em><\/strong>. <\/strong>My moisture is turned into the drought of summer<\/em><\/strong><\/strong> Some have inferred, says Dr. Delaney, from Psa 32:3<\/span>, &c. that David continued some time impenitent after the affair with Bathsheba: but had he been long impenitent, it would have been impossible for him to say, mine iniquity have I not hid; <\/em>however, he most beautifully and feelingly describes the distressed condition that he was in before his pardon was pronounced; his mind upon the rack; his body distempered and wasted with grief. But, in consequence of his pardon, his moisture was turned into the dryness of summer. <\/em>So it should be translated. The change was as if he had been removed at once from the depth of winter into midsummer; as if all the storms and rains and clouds of that gloomy season, the finest emblems of grief, were changed at once into serenity and sunshine; all heaven clear, unclouded, and smiling upon him. This interpretation of the doctor’s might be admitted upon the idea of the summers here in our climate; but we must consider that David wrote in one which was very different; and the drought of which he speaks is very common in the eastern countries. Rain indiscriminately in the winter months, and not at all in the summer, is what is most common in the east. So it is at Aleppo, and about Algiers; and the summers in Judea are usually perfectly dry. It is therefore, doubtless, to the withered appearance of an eastern summer in common, that the Psalmist refers. See the Observations, <\/em>p. 4. 13 where an account of a Syrian summer is given from Dr. Russel, which supplies us with a most beautiful comment on this passage. He says, that “from the end of May, if not sooner, not so much as one refreshing shower falls, and scarce a friendly cloud appears to shelter from the excessive heat of the sun till about the middle of September; that the verdure of the spring fades before the middle of May, and before the end of that month the whole country puts on so parched and barren an aspect, that one would scarce think it capable of producing any thing, there being but very few plants which have vigour enough to resist the extreme heat.” In defence of this latter interpretation, a writer has urged the mechanism of the psalm; for, says he, this is one of those compositions which, according to the genius of the Hebrew poetry, express the same sense twice over in almost every verse. But, if we take the new interpretation of it above given, the latter part of the verse will have no connection at all with the former; nay, will be directly contrary to, and inconsistent with it. And to say no more, all the old versions and the best commentators do agree in the sense which we have given above. <\/p>\n Psa 32:4 For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah.<\/p>\n Ver. 4. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me<\/strong> ] See what God can do when once he taketh a man to do. Day and night he had sinned against God; therefore day and night he suffereth; and glad he may be that he so escapeth, and is not forced to undergo an eternity of extremity. Some think that this psalm and the sixth were made much about a time, when David was recently recovered of some grievous fit of sickness. It may be meant only of his inward terrors, or chiefly, at least; his body suffering by sympathy, as having shared in his sin. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n My moisture is turned into the drought of summer<\/strong> ] My natural radical moisture, the oil that maintaineth the lamp of life, is dried up and become like a lump of clay; the vigour also and verdure of my soul is quelled and consumed with the fire of thy fierce wrath. God will bring his best people to this if they put him to it; that they shall find it to be the greatest folly in the world to buy the sweetest sin at so dear a rate. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Selah<\/strong> ] I speak it feelingly. O quantum tormentum, &c. O aridum et exhaustum me prae maestitia, &c., <\/em> O my pitiful condition! (Vatablus).<\/p>\n hand. Figure of speech Anthropopatheia. App-6. <\/p>\n is = was. <\/p>\n into. Some codices, with Aramaean, read “like”. <\/p>\n Selah. Connecting the trouble of conviction with the confession to which it led. See App-66. <\/p>\n hand: Psa 38:2-8, Psa 39:10, Psa 39:11, 1Sa 5:6, 1Sa 5:7, 1Sa 5:9, 1Sa 5:11, 1Sa 6:9, Job 16:21, Job 33:7 <\/p>\n moisture: Psa 22:15, Psa 90:6, Psa 90:7, Psa 102:3, Psa 102:4, Job 30:30, Lam 4:8, Lam 5:10 <\/p>\n Reciprocal: Lev 26:39 – shall pine Deu 2:15 – the hand of the Rth 1:13 – the hand 1Sa 6:5 – lighten 1Ki 8:38 – the plague 1Ch 4:10 – that it may Job 2:5 – put forth Job 6:9 – that he would Job 19:20 – bone Job 20:14 – his meat Job 33:21 – His flesh Psa 31:10 – bones Psa 102:5 – the voice Psa 109:24 – my flesh Psa 116:3 – I found Pro 17:22 – a broken Pro 18:14 – but Ecc 2:23 – his heart Isa 59:11 – roar Eze 39:21 – and my Mat 11:28 – all Act 13:11 – hand Rom 7:24 – wretched 1Th 2:9 – night<\/p>\n For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah. For day and night – I found no relief even at night. The burden was constant, and was insupportable. Thy hand was heavy upon me – Thy hand seemed to press me down. It weighed … Continue reading “Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 32:4”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
I. <\/strong>creation. How beautifully are the two sides illustrated here. Tim schoolboy can tell us how the atmosphere is weighing upon the slenderest object on the earths surface with a constant pressure of many pounds to each square inch. The hand seen as premeds gravissima. Yet the dewdrop is not shattered, nor the harebell bruised, since the same hand is also sublevans suavissima et potentissima. Again, whilst with irresistible force all things are being dragged towards the earths centre, the insect with its gauzy wings poises itself in the liquid air, and the tiny child is unhindered in his play.<\/p>\n
II. <\/strong>providence. Whatever page of history we study the same facts meet us,–on the one hand discipline and chastisement, disappointment, sorrow, pain, loss–the hand in ten thousand ways premens gravissima; on the other, the reaping of a compensating harvest of happy results, the hand sublevans susvissima et potentissima. Hers tribulation and anguish, there prosperity and peace; nations and individuals groaning beneath the weight of calamity, then led out into a wealthy place.<\/p>\n
III. <\/strong>redemption. By redemption we mean the great process in all its parts by which the Father of Spirits is recovering man from spiritual ruin. Go back to the Fall. In the stern sentence passed on the first sinners, what do we see but the hand premens? in the primal promise what but the same hand sublevans? And in all that wonderful training, covering so many centuries and conducted in ways so surprising, by which the conscience of man was made alive to the guilt of sin–in all the work done by law–are we not looking at the hand of God as it descends upon the sinner, and makes him groan beneath the intolerable burden, as the psalmist did when his bones waxed old through his roaring all the day long, and his moisture was turned into the drought of summer? And does not that hand become more and more visible as sublevans suavissima et poten-tissima, as mercy streams across the midnight sky in an ever-brightening track of blessed light, prophetic of the full glory of the dawn? (T. G. Rose.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I. <\/strong>all afflictions are Gods hand.<\/p>\n
II. <\/strong>God lays his hand heavily often upon his own dear children.<\/p>\n
III. <\/strong>God lays his heavy hand upon his children a long time, and with much continuance.<\/p>\nFuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible <\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"