Psalms 5

Psalms 5:1-12

The holiness of God’s presence. To the chief musician upon the flutes. A psalm of David. The fifth psalm is, in many respects, the converse, and in some the opposite of the fourth. He who has set apart the godly for Himself, of necessity “hateth all the workers of iniquity.” And here, for the first time, the pleading is against, and no longer with, them. It is one of those psalms whose language most Christians have found difficulty in appropriating as their own. No wonder that they should not be able to assimilate “Destroy thou them, O God,” with their Lord’s “Father, forgive them,” or with Stephen’s “Lay not this sin to their charge”! Judaism and Christianity are, in this matter, essentially different; and however people may try to blend them together, their own consciences will bear witness against the attempt. Alas, that the law which says “eye for eye and tooth for tooth” should be brought back to contravene the contrasted words of the Master," But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: . . . love your enemies, bless them that curse you, and pray for those that despitefully use you and persecute you." But the question will be asked, why should that be right and according to God upon the lips of a Jew, which would be wrong and to be condemned upon the lips of a Christian? The answer is, first, the prayer, “Destroy thou them, O God; for they have rebelled against thee,” is not wrong as measured by the test of intrinsic morality. If it be right for God to destroy, as it surely is, it is not wrong in itself to ask Him to do so. Nay, this is here a Spirit-taught prayer, and answered of God, as the Lord says: “And shall not God avenge His own elect who cry day and night unto Him, though He bear long with them? I tell you that He will avenge them speedily.” (Luke 18:7-8.) So, when Elijah asked for fire from heaven to consume those that were sent to take him, the fire came. God put His seal upon that prayer, terrible as it was. Yet, when the disciples asked, in the case of the Samaritans, “Lord, shall we call down fire from heaven to consume them, even as Elias did?” they met with rebuke, not sanction: “Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.” But why should that which was right in Elias be wrong in them? On this account: “for the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” In other words, they were out of sympathy with the mind of God. When Christ had come to save, how altogether unsuited a prayer for judgment! The Lord does not speak of any comparative difference between the Samaritans and the Israelitish companies of old, but reminds them that God was showing grace. How strange and sad that they should not enter more into the spirit of what He was doing, and rejoice in this grace being shown to men. On the other hand, were the day of grace passed, and the time come for judgment to take its course upon the despisers of that grace, what more evident than that the invoking of judgment would be the only right thing, and the prayer for grace itself totally unsuited? Thus, when the Rider on the white horse comes out to smite the nations, the very saints now praying for God’s mercy upon men will come out after Him as the “armies in heaven” to the judgment of the earth, and there is not, and could not be, a solitary cry of intercession. If Christians, then, are with Christ in the mercy that is now being shown, they will find it difficult indeed to pray, “Destroy thou them, O God”; but when judgment is at the doors, and the foredoomed followers of the beast and of his prophet are arrayed in open, blasphemous opposition to the Most High, the King of kings and Lord of lords, the prayer of the Jewish remnant of that future day will be in accordance with God’s mind, “Cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions, for they have rebelled against Thee.” These considerations may account also for the change of tone in the fifth psalm as compared with the fourth. There there was, as we have seen, an appeal to the sons of men to consider. Here that is over, and they are treated as having definitely taken their place in rebellion against Jehovah. Entreaty lasted while it might avail. That being found in vain, judgment takes its course. The very purposes of love and goodness, against which the evil is arrayed in opposition, call for the unsparing removal of what hinders the display of that goodness. The “Lamb” will thus be the “Lion.” (Revelation 5:1-14.) The Great Shepherd will “shepherd with an iron rod.” Love will smite, and yet be love: yea, because it is. The Psalm therefore has the governmental character, and the twelve verses which speak of this; in general, also, the 4 x 3 structure which 12 ordinarily has. Yet there is a difference, the third section being divided again, so that the psalm has five divisions instead of four: all which must be in harmony with the theme. In fact, though showing governmental numbers the psalm is not in the governmental place: it is a psalm of the sanctuary; and its subject, therefore, is the holiness of God, which indeed necessitates the judgment of evil, but the main bearing of it is upon the education of the remnant themselves, as suits the place it has in this series; and this we must go on to consider.

1. The first part is a cry to God the King: the power of evil manifesting itself continually more, the heart rises above it for relief to the divine supremacy. God has not yielded to man the sceptre of His omnipotence. It is Jehovah the Unchangeable on whom he relies as hearkening to his words, and invites to consider even the heart-musing from which they spring. How man, the creature of a moment, sinks into nothing here, in presence of the Eternal! Yet in this very contrast faith finds its claim upon God. The appeal of our weakness to His strength, of our ignorance to His wisdom, of our sinfulness to His grace, can never be in vain. To those that wait upon the Lord as such, how many are the promises! And here, “if patience has its perfect work,” we are “perfect and entire, lacking nothing.” (James 1:4.) Thus the plea is here only that of dependence -“I am Thy suppliant”; and there is no sense of its inadequacy: man taking his place before God, -God, too, has His, and relationship is owned between them. But God being such as He is, the prayer of the suppliant has respect necessarily to His character; the words become “ordered” words, as in His presence: there is earnestness, and expectancy of the mercy sought.
2. In the second part, His nature as against evil is dwelt upon. He is not like one of the mighty ones of the nations, in whom power is conjoined with pleasure in wickedness: not for the briefest moment can evil dwell with Him; even the boaster, with his pretension to more than what is true, cannot maintain himself before the searching eyes of omniscience; and the doers of what is unprofitable and vain He hates. In the issue the actors of a lie perish, and the violence with which men associate their deceit is shown as the abhorrence of the righteous Judge.
3. The third section, or what would have been that in the ordinary division of the number 12, is here divided, as already said, so that only the first verse remains to it; the two others being detached as a plain fourth section. In this one verse the personal assurance of the worshiper expresses itself; but briefly, and without the joyousness that has marked the previous psalms when God’s revelation of Himself to the soul has been the theme; and this seems a sign of transition to the psalm that follows. The sense of the divine holiness induces fear of the Holy One, and it is abundant mercy to be permitted to come unto God’s house. He worships “toward” it. A certain shadow seems to pass over the soul, rather than the “thanksgiving” being heard, which we have elsewhere “at the remembrance of His holiness.” And this agrees well with the abrupt shortening of the section already noticed, if it be not rather the explanation of it.

And how, indeed, shall we have “boldness to enter into the holiest,” or to draw near to God at all, save “by the blood of Jesus”? It is this, I doubt not, toward which God is bringing His people in this psalm; and for this there is just beginning, and no more, that self-revelation of the soul that must come, for the need and efficacy of the blood to be known aright. 4. At present there is but an intimation of this. The psalmist is still too much in the presence of others whose wickedness, which is evident, comforts him, as it were, with the consciousness of his own uprightness. Yet he feels his weakness under the gaze of those keen and sinister eyes that watch for his halting, and prays to be led in God’s path as made straight before his face, the only way of security and peace and power, for God is in it. Around lie these enemies of the righteous, with a smooth but slippery tongue, their throat a yawning sepulchre, abysses within that none can fathom. Such is the divine picture -we may be very sure, therefore, no exaggerated one -of man away from God. What a morass to engulf the unwary! What a contradiction to the fixed clear certainty of the truth of God! But let us notice again that all this, right as it is in desire, is nevertheless an intrusion into the third or sanctuary part of the psalm. What would have been completely in place as a proper fourth part, -that is, in the last three verses, -here takes away the larger part of the third, while it is itself diminished also in this way. How perfect is the very disorder that seems here! How full of meaning, and evidently designed! For with a soul not at rest, and for which the abiding presence of the Lord is not known, is it not just the walk, the practical conduct, that is the disturbing element; and that to its own damage? Where Christ is not thus rightly known, self is sure to intrude; and with peace holiness is marred, and God is little honored, though we desire it. The enemies and hindrances here loom large also invariably, while the sanctuary has not power because not in truth enjoyed -to shut them out. From how many exercises -only needed because we must be driven to it, if without this we do not lay hold of it -would the apprehension of the perfect grace of God deliver the soul! 5. And God must interfere for His own. Can it be a question, when wickedness is leagued against the righteous, with which side He will be? Can He give up the world to riot and misrule? No: He has promises to fulfill, blessings for the earth itself, which can only consist with the destruction of the wicked out of it. These promises are Israel’s, as the apostle has very plainly told us. (Romans 9:4.) These blessings the faithfulness of God, spite of their present condition, will fulfill to them.

Let us not wonder, then, at the cry for judgment which we hear in this psalm: all the interests of man himself are bound up with the answer. The last verse gives once more the reason for this governmental interference, as well as the ground for the joy that He does thus interfere: “for Thou, Jehovah, wilt bless the righteous: with favor wilt Thou compass him as with a shield.” Yet, when God’s terrible judgments are at hand, not theirs, -righteous in a true sense as these Jewish saints may be -not theirs the attitude of the white-robed elders, peacefully seated on their thrones amid the lightnings and thunderings of the Throne which they surround. Needful, however painful, is the exercise of heart to which we shall find them now subjected. They are under His hand for good and not for evil; and though He lead the blind by a way they know not, He will at length make darkness light before them. The shadow of death shall be turned to morning, -“a morning without clouds.”