Psalms 1

Notes. Many things that are usually put in an introduction we shall consider probably better as we come to them. Gems look better in their settings -God’s gems assuredly do: the connection of psalm with psalm, so necessary for the knowledge of them individually, makes much plain as to their application; the numerical symbolism, here as elsewhere, gives precision to and confirms the meaning. Best it seems, therefore, to settle as little as possible at the beginning, and to make our notes take the shape very much of an inductive study, looking at each question as it arises, and as the means of settling it are in our hand. We shall find thus, I doubt not, that God has provided, in the orderly arrangement of the matter, for the progressive understanding of it, though we shall have always to say with the apostle, “We know in part, and we prophesy in part.” The divisions (or Books) of the Psalms are given in the Revised Version; and it will be seen that the first three books (ending with Psalms 41:1-13; Psalms 72:1-20; Psalms 89:1-52,) are closed with a double Amen; the fourth, with “Amen, Hallelujah;” the fifth ends with five Hallelujah psalms. The number five clings to the whole book; five being, as we have seen, as 4+1, the weak with the Strong, the creature with the Creator, but thus bringing in the governmental ways of God with man, and his responsibility and exercise under this government. The Psalms are 150 in number (3 x 5 x 10), and the five books are a perfect Pentateuch, as we have said. Book 1. (Psalms 1:1-6; Psalms 2:1-12; Psalms 3:1-8; Psalms 4:1-8; Psalms 5:1-12; Psalms 6:1-10; Psalms 7:1-17; Psalms 8:1-9; Psalms 9:1-20; Psalms 10:1-18; Psalms 11:1-7; Psalms 12:1-8; Psalms 13:1-6; Psalms 14:1-7; Psalms 15:1-5; Psalms 16:1-11; Psalms 17:1-15; Psalms 18:1-50; Psalms 19:1-14; Psalms 20:1-9; Psalms 21:1-13; Psalms 22:1-31; Psalms 23:1-6; Psalms 24:1-10; Psalms 25:1-22; Psalms 26:1-12; Psalms 27:1-14; Psalms 28:1-9; Psalms 29:1-11; Psalms 30:1-12; Psalms 31:1-24; Psalms 32:1-11; Psalms 33:1-22; Psalms 34:1-22; Psalms 35:1-28; Psalms 36:1-12; Psalms 37:1-40; Psalms 38:1-22; Psalms 39:1-13; Psalms 40:1-17; Psalms 41:1-13.)Christ in the counsel of God the source of all blessing for His people (Israel). The first book, as giving the counsel of God as to Christ, does not on that account contain all the Messianic psalms, as we see at once. In fact there are more outside than within it; but those found here are the leading ones as regards His office, person, and work. His kingship in Israel, affirmed in the second psalm, widens in the eighth into full earth-empire as the Son of Man. The sixteenth shows the perfection of His life among men, the ground of appeal to God against His enemies in the seventeenth, which is answered in the eighteenth, His foes being put under His feet. The twenty-second reveals the sin-offering character of His work, as the fortieth does its perfection as the burnt-offering. The forty-first closes the book by showing the double and opposite result for faith and for unbelief respectively. These psalms govern and give character to all the others, as we see; and thus the book as a whole gives us “Christ as the source of blessing for His people.” The plan of the book, and, more or less, of the whole of the psalms, is, as another has remarked, that “some great truth or historical fact is brought forward as to Christ or the remnant,” -the faithful in Israel, -“or both, and then a series of psalms follows, expressing the feelings and sentiments of the remnant in connection with that truth or fact.” (Synopsis.) Thus the human exercises are seen in relation to such truths, often embodied in the historic facts, and which the historic fact also embodies. This involves a very distinct and purposive grouping of the psalms, as is plain, and prepares us to see spiritual order throughout them. Nor are the series thus formed hard to be discerned in general, often being marked off by their authors, as those of Asaph or of the sons of Korah, -sometimes by their character as “Maschil” or “Michtam” psalms, or “Songs of degrees,” -often the subject alone being quite sufficient for the purpose, as soon as we begin fairly to entertain the thought of such divisions. That the titles should be found to have such uses goes far to prove their trustworthiness, so much in dispute; but this will be examined as we go on. The first book has three subdivisions: — (Psalms 1:1-6; Psalms 2:1-12; Psalms 3:1-8; Psalms 4:1-8; Psalms 5:1-12; Psalms 6:1-10; Psalms 7:1-17; Psalms 8:1-9) Christ ordained King in Zion, and, after rejection by His people, to wider rule as Son of Man. (Psalms 9:1-20; Psalms 10:1-18; Psalms 11:1-7; Psalms 12:1-8; Psalms 13:1-6; Psalms 14:1-7; Psalms 15:1-5.) The enemy and Antichrist, with the conflict and final deliverance. (Psalms 16:1-11; Psalms 17:1-15; Psalms 18:1-50; Psalms 19:1-14; Psalms 20:1-9; Psalms 21:1-13; Psalms 22:1-31; Psalms 23:1-6; Psalms 24:1-10; Psalms 25:1-22; Psalms 26:1-12; Psalms 27:1-14; Psalms 28:1-9; Psalms 29:1-11; Psalms 30:1-12; Psalms 31:1-24; Psalms 32:1-11; Psalms 33:1-22; Psalms 34:1-22; Psalms 35:1-28; Psalms 36:1-12; Psalms 37:1-40; Psalms 38:1-22; Psalms 39:1-13; Psalms 40:1-17; Psalms 41:1-13.) Christ in the midst of the people, manifesting God for them, and sanctifying them to God. Thus in these three subdivisions the character of the first book is made clear; the two main ones being separated by one which shows us the opposition in man and the evil to be overcome, without which the view of Christ Himself could not be rightly seen. Let us notice that in the first of these subdivisions we have, first of all, two parts, which give us the theme, and of which the second at least is strictly Messianic; the third section, with only one psalm, is again Messianic; the middle section, which expresses those exercises of the faithful-hearted which are the result of the rejection of the King, consisting of five parts, the number which speaks of exercise. In the second subdivision (9 -15), which speaks of the strife with evil, there are but two sections: two psalms in the first again, giving the theme; five once more giving the exercises. But in the third subdivision we return to an arrangement similar to that of the first, though larger: here nine psalms (16 -24) are characteristically Messianic; the remnant psalms are increased correspondingly to three fives (25 -39); and two Messianic psalms close the book. (40, 41.) Certainly in all this there is order, and the numerals are significant throughout, or as suited as if meant to be significant. Shall we not find in each psalm, as we study it, proof of a divine wisdom which has put each in its place as definitely as the earth into its orbit, and arranged its every detail to convey to us clear and consistent meaning? Is it not good to have this assurance of a divine hand, just there where we are most in danger of seeing only the human? And may we not with corresponding earnestness take up what God has in His grace thus elaborated, to make us realize His handy-work in it? Subdivision 1. (Psalms 1:1-6; Psalms 2:1-12; Psalms 3:1-8; Psalms 4:1-8; Psalms 5:1-12; Psalms 6:1-10; Psalms 7:1-17; Psalms 8:1-9.)Christ ordained King in Zion, and (after rejection by His people) to wider rule as Son of man. The first eight psalms are naturally an introduction, not merely to the first book of the psalms, but to the whole. We have Christ as King on Zion, but rejected by the banded nations, the threatening of wrath to come for this, but the time of long-suffering too, which is salvation to those who in submission “kiss the Son.” We find that, though rejected by the nation of Israel, the people with whom He is in connection are still Israel, if only a remnant of them. Judgment is drawing nigh for the world, the evil which is growing to a head, and its opposition to God and to His own is becoming ever fiercer: so that at last the prayer of the righteous is turned into a cry for judgment, which is not reproved. Yet the fire through which this people pass is to them a necessary purification. They are made to face and bottom the question of sin, until mercy becomes their only plea. It is the time of Jacob’s trouble, and Joseph’s brethren begin to realize their soul-hunger which will yet bring them penitents to Him.

But in this introductory part all is touched as yet with a light hand. We see them humbled that He may exalt them, and we realize that they are accepted, their prayer is answered. But for this deliverance judgment must take its course, and now it does so: Jehovah is praised according to His righteousness, which has acted in the overthrow of the wicked, and is now manifested as in truth “Jehovah most High.” So ends the seventh -the fifth remnant psalm. It is followed by a totally different strain, as an eighth psalm, that of a new period, the celebration of a Man and the Son of man, through whom, set over the whole earth, Jehovah’s Lordship is realized and His Name made excellent in all the earth, and man himself is seen as worthy of the original place to which God the Creator destined him. The application can only be to One, and to Him the epistle to the Hebrews accordingly applies it. (Hebrews 2:6-9.) Thus we have reached the point beyond which the Psalms do not go, and the next is therefore plainly a retrogression. The first series is in this way clearly marked off, and is complete in itself. The details we are presently to consider; but it should be plain at once that here is no fortuitous collection of ill-assorted lyrics. Whoever wrote, whoever gathered them, there is a common life that unites them all; they are organically joined together. Moreover, the scheme to which they are related is distinctly prophetic; purpose, and a divine purpose, rules the whole: whether written in exilic or pre-exilic times, to classify them in this way would give no clue to their meaning, -shed upon them no ray of light. The how of their production is of very small importance compared with the why of their design. They contemplate the last days and the nearing judgment. They project themselves beyond the immediate horizon of the times in which they were written and link together days which are for us now already past, and which have confirmed them as true prophecy, and days which are even yet to come. Every detail throughout is in accordance with this. Section 1. (Psalms 1:1-6; Psalms 2:1-12.)The destined King, and the blessedness of obedience and trust in Him. The first section here shows us Him who is in the purpose of God King in Zion, with whom the destinies of His people are bound up. For the Redeemer shall come unto Zion, and to them that turn from transgression in Jacob" (Isaiah 59:20): which the apostle paraphrases with “Out of Zion shall come the Deliverer, and turn away ungodliness from Jacob.” (Romans 11:26.) That is, the king must actually be in Zion for deliverance to come: the kingdom of Christ must be openly established in power upon the earth. But in the second psalm, while the purpose of God abides unrepentingly, Israel and the earth are not yet ready. The powers of the earth are in coalition against Christ, and among these we find “both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel.” (Acts 4:27.) Thus the controversy begins, in the days in which we still are, the long-suffering mercy of God delaying judgment, and the gospel going out among men, while Satan is still the “prince of this world,” yea, “the god of this” entire “age.” (2 Corinthians 4:4.) But with the kingdom in this “mystery” form, or what we call the Christian dispensation, the book of Psalms, as part of the Old Testament, has nothing directly to do (Matthew 13:10-11; Matthew 13:35); and in the third psalm and those following, a remnant of Israel is still, as we shall find, before us. All the present period is passed over, and we are in the “end of the age” -the Jewish age -concerning which the Lord taught His disciples in the great prophecy on the mount of Olives. (Matthew 24:1-51.) This we shall see more of presently: just now we have only what reaches down to the rejection of Christ by the Jews. The first psalm may give us also the King of Israel, not as such but in His personal character, upon which, of course, all depends for blessing. So looked at He is the perfect Israelite, and the psalm speaks in the most general way of the blessedness of an obedience which is naturally linked in them with faith in Christ Himself, which the second emphasizes. Christ also was “Leader and perfecter of faith” in His own Person, but here it is the faith of others in Him; and the two psalms together show us what must be the foundation of blessing for Israel in the last days, the spirit of obedience and faith, -which the apostle connects together in their true relation to one another as the “obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5, Gk.), as necessary to Gentile as to Jew, but in these two psalms applying to the Jew. Herein they proclaim this to be the way of safety and blessing for Israel, though but a remnant, -for every individual soul among them.

Psalms 1:1-6

The Blessedness of Obedience. The first psalm has only six verses, which are manifestly divided into two triplets; in the first of these the godly man is seen in the blessedness of being this; in the second, as contrasted with the character and portion of the wicked. Every verse moreover answers to its numerical place. Let us look briefly at this before we take up the psalm more deeply. First, then, we have the blessedness of the godly looked at by itself. In the first verse we see his consistent independency of all the various forms and degrees of ungodliness by which he is encompassed. He shakes them off from him, to walk, as far as their advocates are concerned, alone. Such is in fact the necessary commencement of a true walk with God. The first step with Him must be outside of all that is contrary to Him; and to be indifferent is to be contrary! In the second verse the godly one is seen in his dependency and communion with God. His delight and meditation are in Jehovah’s law, which term, while it may include the whole of the inspired Word existing at the time, yet shows the deep subjection of the soul required and rendered. In the third verse we have the fruitfulness resulting. The second part contrasts the wicked with this in character and in end. First, their lightness and barrenness -mere chaff. Secondly, they are separated from the godly by the coming judgment in which it is impossible for them to stand. Thirdly, Jehovah’s approbation of the way of the righteous manifests itself thus for them; and the path of the wicked breaks down in ruin. The thread of numerical structure runs evidently through the psalm, and certifies it to be a good note from the King’s treasury. One might trace it, I believe, more fully and minutely; but this may suffice us now. The psalm claims, however, from us more detailed exposition. The psalm has no special title, as one perhaps not suggested by any special occasion, and its principles being of the widest application. Nor is it needful to speculate as to an author, whom Scripture itself has not made known. As to such things, the higher criticism has set itself to most unnecessary work, and necessarily been led astray by its own wisdom. Faith in the word of God -which, indeed, they will not call it -would have made them approve its silence as well as its speech, and found profit from both. Would it not have rather lessened than enhanced the authority of such words as these, to have them commended to us as from David, or from Any other? Conscience alone is needed to respond to them, and will do so with the upright in heart. The description of the godly man is first negative, then positive. He is first seen in his refusal of any link with the ungodly, whatever be the phase of their ungodliness. The words certainly show us a down-grade of evil, and how its hold strengthens upon those drawn into its vortex. It begins with “counsel,” which simply leaves out God. Walk by it, and you shall find that it leads into the way of sinners, -practical and open rejection of righteousness in deed and word. And this has for its natural consummation the brazen hardness of the scoffer, who says, “Depart from me, for I desire not the knowledge of thy ways!” (Job 21:14.) This is the way in which many travel, who strengthen each other by their mutual unbelief, and become for each other the authority which God has lost in their souls. Thus the mass hardens as it compacts together; and this is more and more being seen in days of widespread confederacy such as these are, -confederacy which for the Christian, in its lightest form, means compromise, the overthrow of conscience, of that which is the witness to God’s supremacy over man, the divine throne to which alone he is really subject. The positive side of this description of the godly man is just this subjection of conscience and heart to God. A dependent creature, realizing his relationship to a Being of unchanged perfection, his delight is in conformity to His blessed will, to Jehovah’s law. He is exercised by it, occupied with it, meditates upon it day and night. As the psalms themselves even are quoted as “the law” in Scripture (Romans 3:19), there is no possible reason for limiting this here even to the books of Moses; and the soul delighting in God will seek to possess itself of all that He has communicated. “All Scripture . . . is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness”; so there is nothing impractical in the whole range of that which God has given to us: if we neglect any of it, this may result in serious misunderstanding of the rest. It is a Jew, of course, who is contemplated here, and with the necessarily limited revelation that had as yet been made; and how much the more does this diligent study upon his part speak to us to whom so much more has been vouchsafed! “Labor not,” says the Lord, amid an audience of the hard-working poor, whose poverty and need He so well knew, -“Labor not for the meat that perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give you.” And did not these wondrous psalms of praise themselves grow largely out of such day and night study of Jehovah’s law as characterizes the godly here? We are next shown the fruit found and produced by one in such a course: “He is even like a tree, planted by the water-streams, that giveth its fruit in its season.” No special tree is named; except that it has fruit, we have no further knowledge of it; the vegetable kingdom furnishes the great types of production, as the beast is the typical consumer; the fruit-tree is the natural figure here. Like all other living things, the tree is also a growth from seed, the development of an organic unity; and this is what the believer is, himself the fruit of seed of God’s sowing, and so far as this goes, at one with himself and with the creation of God as such; an organic unity, mind, heart, and moral nature, in response to one another. This, it is true, is not the whole picture of what the believer is, looked at as a man down here, in whom sin dwells, if it does not reign. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:7); and yet the same apostle who says this gives us afterwards the picture of one born of God, as fair as this is (John 3:9). It is the truth of what the child of God is, as that; it is the ideal regenerate man: for God, when He puts such pictures in His gallery, does it to win us to better imitation. He does not, therefore, in this case put the defects before us for such a purpose, or to dispirit us, as if we were given up to a blotched life, but the contrary. He paints what we dare not say, with the Spirit within us, is not possible, and so encourages us on to make it actual. The sin in our lives in no wise comes from the seed of His sowing. Some have argued, from what I have called the idealizing of the picture, that it must be the king of Israel alone, the Lord Jesus Christ, that is portrayed in it. That He alone has fully answered to it, we may be sure is true; but it is not, therefore, untrue as a generalized type of the believer. Here is the happiness of the man who does so and so; and in doing this he becomes like so and so. So far as the previous conditions are fulfilled, so far is the likeness found to be like; there is no difficulty in understanding this. To return: he is “like a tree planted by the water-streams.” Here the figure is of tender care and ministry. The fruit-tree is not a natural growth of the soil: a Hand has planted it, and that amid the divided streams of an irrigated land. The “living water” -and we, know this living water prepares soil for root and root for soil; and not without such care will this dependent life be sustained. Notice, that it is the man meditating day and night upon Jehovah’s law of whom this is said: the Spirit of God acts through the word of God; there is no other way than this. As, to handle the Word without the Spirit is but rationalism, so the dream of the Spirit ministering apart from the Word is delusion and fanaticism. The word of God is the work and gift of the Spirit in man’s behalf, and He cannot be expected to set aside the very instrument that He has prepared. It is by “all Scripture, inspired of God,” that “the man of God” is to be perfect, “thoroughly furnished unto every good work.” Let us take care not to sunder what God has joined thus together. So nurtured, the result is sure: he “giveth his fruit in its season.” There is no crude prematurity about it: truth has to be digested and assimilated; but the activity and energy of life are there, and progress day by day. That which presents itself as of God must needs meet the challenge of the conscience ere the heart is free to yield itself to it, and the life is cast into the mould of the doctrine. But the seasonable fruit is found which God can take pleasure in. It is not for the tree itself that the fruit is produced, and it is not what we find in ourselves that is the point, but what the Lord finds. Even when, with the apostle, “I know nothing by myself,” -am conscious of nothing wrong, -“yet am I not hereby justified, but He that judgeth me is the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 4:4.) The soul that is thus able to say nothing for itself is just that in which the Lord will find the fruit He seeks. And “his leaf shall not wither”: it is impossible to forget, as we think of this, that tree upon which once the Lord sought fruit; and finding none, He said, “Let no fruit grow on thee henceforth for ever,” and presently the fig-tree withered away. Thus the leaf withered because the fruit was not to be found, for in the case of the fig-tree the putting forth of leaves takes place after the fruit. “The time of figs” in general was, indeed, as we are told, not yet"; but on this tree, however precociously, there was already the leaf of profession, and the significance of the judgment is therefore apparent. Not yet was there sign upon earth of subjection to God, save in one nation, to which, therefore, the Lord came. Israel was just as this fig-tree, covered with leaves, zealous of the law, parading their obedience to their “One Jehovah.” Surely, then, they would recognize and reverence Him whom Jehovah had openly proclaimed His Son. So the Lord had just, in public fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy, entered the city amid the homage of the multitude, rebuking those who would have rebuked them for it. But He entered to find the temple, His Father’s house, made a den of thieves, and to meet the dogged, desperate opposition of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians, all the leaders of the parties that divided the people, united only in refusal of Himself. Thus they had pronounced sentence upon themselves, and His upon the fruitless fig-tree was but the manifestation of their self-assumed position. How evident the application of this psalm, then, to the real “time of figs” that yet shall be, when the remnant of true believers in Israel shall expand into a nation of rejoicing converts, born as in a day! The fruit being at last found in its season, their “leaf shall not wither”; the perpetuity which is in God’s favor shall be theirs. “Thy people shall be all righteous: they shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified. A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation: I Jehovah will hasten it in his time.” (Isaiah 60:21-22.) It is plain, then, that we have Israel before us in this introductory psalm, and in the time of the end; and this is confirmed by the closing verses. It is equally plain that this does not hinder the widest possible application of principles that are ever true, and must abide while God abides. The practical use that all generations have made of the psalms, from the day that they were written, has not been mistaken, except indeed where the necessary differences between Jewish and Christian apprehension and experience have been lost sight of or never appreciated. Upon this there will be need to remark more particularly and frequently enough as we go through the book: we shall not at this time, therefore, dwell upon it. The second part of the psalm shows the character and doom of the ungodly in contrast with the blessing of the godly. Brief enough is their description, and the image used with regard to them carries us once more onward to the gospels. The Baptist, in his denunciation of judgment to come, draws, as the psalmist does, his similitude from the threshing-floor: He will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather the wheat into the garner, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." Here the figure is not pursued so far: “they are like chaff which the wind driveth away.” The rootless, fruitless vain-doer is shown in the judgment of God in his own nothingness, chased away out of the world, as the wind, from the top of the hills on which the threshing-floors were placed, carried off the useless husk of the grain. The separation is dwelt on in the next verse, and in plain words, Israel thus becoming what it never yet has been, an “assembly of the righteous.” And this once more Isaiah declares will be: “And it shall come to pass that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem; when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning.” (Isaiah 4:3-4.) In this Jehovah manifests Himself at last, from under the clouds and darkness which often now are round about Him. That which He approves abides, His seal upon it never will be broken. And thus He “knows” the way of the righteous, -knows it well as what is His own: it is the way in which He too walks, and in which communion is found with Himself. “But the way of the ungodly perisheth.” We have, then, in this introductory psalm the blessedness of a righteous remnant in Israel, cleaving to God in subjection while others wander from Him, and in view of coming judgment which shall leave the whole nation an assembly of the righteous. But this evidently is but a partial view of the matter: the word “faith” has not as yet been uttered; the Object of faith has as yet not been seen. The second psalm must complete, therefore, the picture by presenting these.