Psalms 3

Section 2. (Psalms 3:1-8; Psalms 4:1-8; Psalms 5:1-12; Psalms 6:1-10; Psalms 7:1-17.)The education of faith in a day of rejection and conflict. Five psalms follow, which give us, according to the meaning of the number, the exercises of the faithful remnant in Israel, while yet the day of Christ’s rejection lasts, although the end, as we have already seen, is contemplated as nigh. Indeed, for there to be a Jewish remnant, with Jewish hopes and expectations, owned as such, after Christ’s rejection, means that the present dispensation is over, that the heirs of heavenly blessings are removed to heaven, and that that “end of the age” (not world) is nearly reached, which the disciples in their question on Olivet (Matthew 24:3) connect, as the after-prophecy does, with the personal appearing of the Lord in glory. It is certain they could not be thinking of a Christian, “age”: of Christianity itself, and a long delay of the Bridegroom, they knew nothing. It is clear also that we find in the prophecy following a people implied of whom they themselves could be, and were in fact taken as, representatives. For them there would be a recognized “holy place,” the danger of being led away by a false Messiah appearing in the midst of Israel, a Jewish sabbatic law, and all this in the land of Judea, and in days, as already said, quite near the end to be brought by the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven. This nearness may be very definitely proved: for the abomination in the holy place begins a time of trouble for these disciples of His (who must be that, as ready to obey His word) unexampled at any time before or since. It is to be as brief as it is severe: except those days were shortened, no flesh should be saved; but for His elect’s sake whom He has chosen He has shortened the days. Here, then, is but a short period; immediately after which the sun is darkened, and then the sign of the Son of man appears, and they “see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” Thus, as clearly as possible, we have depicted here a Jewish remnant in the last days, -Jewish in all their connections and prospects, and yet disciples of the Lord as well. The reference to Daniel which we find here still further defines the period, and shows us this as itself (to speak broadly) “the end of the age,” -the broken-off last “week” of the seventy announced to him; but all this will come before us necessarily, as we go through the psalms, and need not be dwelt on now. The five psalms before us give us then the exercises of such a remnant; as still introductory to the book as a whole, they outline moreover these in general, with reference to the end to which they lead, and for which indeed they are permitted. It is plain enough, from many scriptures, what the end is of all their trials. God’s double controversy with the nation is upon them. The broken law has its claim on the one side; their rejected Messiah faces them on the other. When the light begins to rise on Israel, the darkness of an awful eclipse has fallen upon the rest of the world. Christ has gathered all that are truly His in Christendom to Himself.

Nothing remains but a rejected mass, -corrupt, and rapidly hastening to apostasy. Israel are in unbelief, and ready, in their refusal of the true Messiah, to receive a false one soon to rise. The conflict of good with evil might seem to have come to an end, and the strife now beginning to be only of the different forms of evil with one another. Without other restraint than that of these collisions, the waves of a new deluge are abroad upon the earth; and yet over this “raging deep,” and, in fact, for a new creation, the Spirit of God begins to brood once more. The five psalms here give us this work of the Spirit in a remnant of Israel, gradually separated by it from the apostatizing mass, at whose hands they suffer increasing persecution until, after God’s end is reached for them, the coming of the Lord brings deliverance. The trials through which they pass are used to bring them to the knowledge of themselves, and thus to the apprehension of the mercy of which they have found the need; and this is what we find developed here: not fully, indeed, but sufficiently to serve as the introduction which it is. The eighth psalm, which is of course beyond this series, shows the end reached which we have in the prophecy in Matthew also, the Son of man, deliverer from “the enemy and the revengeful,” and set over all the works of God’s hands. This finishes the brief introduction, which enables the larger details, worked out afterwards in various ways, to be assigned to their place. For, while the introduction is as to its order historical, the body of the book has a doctrinal basis, the experiences everywhere being connected with the great truths which faith embraces, and by which spiritual life is shaped and sustained. The Psalms, like all other Scripture, have thus their perfect order and relation to one another, the want of apprehension of which deprives them of definite individuality also, and thus of very much of their power for edification and blessing for our souls. The “higher criticism” would classify them, indeed, but according to theories of authorship and times of composition. for which they have little but conjecture, and that outside of Scripture itself. The meaning given them in this way generally, as we might expect, is of the earth earthy, and lowers their whole character. The application for which we find the warrant in Scripture itself reveals their inspiration, while maintaining them at their highest spiritual value, and justifying their widest use and extension to the needs of practical life. Were it not for this, one could indeed well understand the question, and be prepared both for surprise and incredulity in the asking why the Spirit of Christ in the Psalms should link itself thus with the feeble remnant of a yet future day, in this close and peculiar manner? Certainly the unbelief would be not only natural but justifiable, if it were implied at all that, in the link with these, the intervening generations of God’s saints had been forgotten.

Their own hearts are, and have been in all time, witness that this is not so. Nay, in the wonderful wisdom and goodness of God, this link with a latter-day remnant of His people is made in a very simple and intelligible way, to minister only the more effectually for being this, to the comfort and blessing of every generation. A people are taken up at the lowest ebb of hope, into whose cup of sorrow every bitter ingredient is crowded. All the foundations of the earth are out of course. God’s four sore plagues are there (Ezekiel 14:21); death in all that makes death terrible; the enemy without, intestine strife within; seduction, and open-handed violence; the wrath of man, the dread of divine wrath; the consciousness of sin aggravated and accumulated: a time of trouble such as never was and never again will be. Surely the hearts that bear this burden have need of special comfort, and from God; while that which can be comfort in the bitterest hour of human trial will be comfort at least equally in any other. Hence the peculiar provision for those in such peculiar need is no less gracious consideration of all lesser need. He who stoops to have mercy on the chief of sinners is not thereby refusing but extending mercy to all grades of such. And He who stoops, as here, to the need of the neediest, is showing heart and resources equal to the need of the less needy. Looked at in this way, the book of Psalms gets its full character, and the widest possible application to saints everywhere and at all times. While the actual predicted deliverance for those in that unequalled tribulation lies so near at hand, is so mighty, so complete, so altogether of God, that the prophetic anticipations of it which support the faith of the remnant of that day, furnish for the day of trial everywhere those strong and blessed expressions of hope and confidence which faith in all ages has laid hold of as God-sent for its need, and found no delusion. For what are all mornings but the anticipation of that final one whose brightness shall never fade? Or what is the light of that unclouded day but just the full manifestation of that love which, not then beginning, but spanning, as it does, eternity, is as true for faith now as it will be for sight by and by? But another thing with regard to that day, so brief and yet so often the theme of prophecy: its transience cannot be thus the true measure of its importance; no time-measure can be of human history. The Cross is the glory and wonder of eternity, but how short the time of its continuance! And in this last hour of “man’s day,” before the day of the Lord has abased all the pride of the creature in the presence of God, -the time of the harvest, when every seed upon earth is permitted to bring forth, that it may manifest itself for what it is, -when the bridle upon evil is removed, and it is allowed to gather all its forces for the final conflict, -what interest for us all attaches to the questions which then reach their final solution, -to the forms of evil which will then receive judgment from the Lord Himself! What various exercises, then, may we not expect to meet with in the Psalms! And what need shall we have of patient discrimination in seeking to realize the features of a time such as that presented to us! May our God give wisdom; and may we find abundant blessing from the study of this precious book!

Psalms 3:1-8

The sufficiency of the unchanging God. A psalm of David when he fled from the face of Absalom his son. The third psalm is, in its title, ascribed to David, when he fled from the face of Absalom his son. “Search the story of David’s life from end to end,” says Cheyne, “and you will find no situation which corresponds to these psalms” (3 and 4). On the other hand, Delitzsch says “All the leading features of the psalm accord with [the inscription], namely, the mockery of one who is rejected of God (2 Samuel 16:7, seq.); the danger by night (2 Samuel 17:1); the multitudes of the people (2 Samuel 15:13, 2 Samuel 17:11); and the high position of honor held by the psalmist.”

1. The psalm itself is simple enough in character. It is the first and most elementary thing in a believer, what indeed makes him such, that is expressed in it, -confidence in the Unchangeable. Here is the soul’s sufficiency, and the growing danger has no argument to shake it. As the waves rise, the soul is only driven up higher upon its rock of refuge. Yet around they murmur, “there is no help for him in God.” The many that rightly see God in the circumstances, often wrongly judge of Him by the circumstances alone. There is an easy faith, which was that of Job’s friends, that simply accepts the clouds and darkness that are “round about Him,” as if they revealed instead of hiding Him, It is a straightforward theology, to which the sufferer himself is often tempted to become a proselyte, that love with Him wears no disguises; whereas it is indeed His delight to find a soul familiar enough with Him to penetrate the disguise, and mount through the darkness to the perfect Light above. With this shield of faith the psalmist fortifies himself. Nay, better than that, it is God who is his shield; no partial defense, therefore, but “round about” him: perhaps he had not realized Him so near, had not the need been so great. Thus, though the cloud be a reality too, he can say of Him, “my glory,” as in the cloud itself for Israel, and in the darkness, the glory had shone out. So he can add, “the Uplifter of my head”: for it is not pride or obstinacy that will not give in, or natural courage merely that sustains him, but the sweet apprehension of the “I AM” of God. “I am has sent me to you,” was the deliverer of old to say; and with the divine words, when faith admits them into the heart, deliverance might seem already to have come. At the back of this confidence lie how many experiences! what answers to prayer have already come! how well the present faith is justified by the test of experience! This living intercourse has made familiar to us a living God nor is He man that He should lie, nor the son of man that He should repent. I cry, and He answers me! and this is not a possible delusion. The Voice out of the holy mount, the holy Voice that speaks ever from the more wondrous sanctuary of the divine nature, how impossible for it to have been but the mere feeble echo of my own!
2. The psalm passes on from the general to the particular, -to the present distress and the needful deliverance. Here already there has been obtained a foretaste of this, in the peace that has entered and possessed the soul. “I have laid me down and slept,” he says; not evidently the sleep of one merely worn out, to whom it has become a necessity: men have been known to sleep on the deck of a ship in action; but not such the sleep that is spoken of here. It is the peace of the known rampart round about which qualifies for this. Night has its special dangers in the midst of warfare, and the imagination pictures in the darkness more than may be found; yet faith can rest and be quiet under the watchful eye of God, and the morning justifies this assurance: I awaked, for Jehovah sustaineth me." The multitude of enemies are then but witnesses of Jehovah’s care of one that trusts in Him. They remain, but faith has already triumphed over them. The cry to God for deliverance is answered in the soul by memories of the past that are at the same time prophetic of the future. The enemies are the same “ungodly” who have been so often before defeated, and gape upon him with jaws that have, as it were, been already broken. They are harmless, and only make indeed Jehovah better known. To Him belongs salvation; upon His people invariably His blessing rests. All this is simplicity itself, as long as no questions arise from within to disturb the conclusion. God is the same, and from without no question need be for a moment entertained. Beautiful as this faith is, and real, and fully warranted, and sure to be fully justified at last; yet as we follow these psalms to their close, we shall find how many painful experiences may intervene before this childhood instinct becomes maturity of manhood knowledge, -before “I will not be afraid” becomes the abiding realization of the soul. It will become so, for this is true and Spirit-taught confidence, and God cannot be less to it than faith deems of Him. But it is another thing whether faith will be equal to the encounter of all challenges itself has made. This process in some way do we not all pass through?

Yet through fire and water we are brought at last into a wealthy place. Such is God’s way; and His way is ever perfect. He must needs have His people answer to what His heart craves that they should be. Hence come their trials, and His issue both.