Psalms 6

Psalms 6:1-10

The trial at its deepest felt as divine displeasure against sin, and the need realized of mercy. To the chief musician, on stringed instruments, upon Sheminith: a psalm of David. The flutes are silent, and the music of the stringed instruments, better fitted to express the deeper emotions of the heart, follows them: and, indeed, in the bass notes, al-sheminith, “upon the octave” [below]. For, as far as this first series of psalms can go, which are but the beginning, we touch bottom here; and it is no accident that in this fourth of these hymns of experience, which emphasizes the “testing” of a soul, we find also just ten verses,* the responsibility number, according to the full measure of the law, the “ten words.” In this psalm there is felt the pressure of that responsibility, and the failure and guilt realized when man is searched out as to the fulfillment of it. \

1. For here is no longer vengeance invoked on others, no longer is there even the same comfort in the thought that “Jehovah has set apart the godly for Himself.” It is, instead, “Jehovah, rebuke me not in Thine anger; and chasten me not in heat of wrath!” The malice of enemies is at work; nay, it is, as we may clearly see, what God has used to bring the soul where it is; but it is as His displeasure that it is realized, and when this presses, the anguish of the thought leaves room for nothing else, the enemies themselves are well-nigh forgotten. It is a cry of repentance and brokenness of heart: for Jehovah’s wrath cannot be causeless, any more than powerless. And it is Jehovah, -it is the Unchangeable: this word, so full of comfort at another time, and to which he clings, too, to the end, for all his hope is in it, -has it not, nevertheless, an aspect of another kind in this time of distress? As Job says, “He is of one mind, and who can turn Him?” And yet how could there be any confidence apart from this? So the soul pleads, and pleads on, for He is gracious, baring its grief and the effect of it even upon the body. Is He not Creator? Has He not made the body? Does He not feel, who has given the very capacity of feeling? The wasting flesh, the quaking of the very bones, all the strong helpers bowed with this distress: what it speaks of a faith that, more than it might seem, knows the tender pity of Him with whom it has to do! Blessed be God, it is so: underneath all the doubt, and amid the darkness, the groping arms turn to the God that is. The cry may be, “Oh, that I knew where I might find Him!” But of Him that it would find it dares not doubt. Grace He has, heal He does, though as yet it sorely feels there is no healing; and as to itself the grace appears not. And it is this delay that searches out the humbled and stricken one. This “how long?” which it is meant that one should feel, and is a question rightly entertained, how it tests the one who has to ask the question! The help so needed, how can it tarry so long, when His messengers are “angels that excel in strength,” and the elements wait upon Him? “How long?” What conditions must be first fulfilled? What survey of the heavens and earth it implies, if to ourselves we would answer it! And this exercise is itself what is wrought in the silence and the darkness, -all the soul awake and alive to its centre, the conscience stirred, the heart attent, the whole man in activity. The travail is, after all, for fullest blessing; the doubtful questioning will at last find assured answer; the heart will be enriched with knowledge of the highest kind, in the joy of which it shall be glad forever.
2. Spite of its crying, the soul descends yet deeper into the darkness, -truly a valley of the shadow of death: for this it is, and as the curse of the broken law, which throws its pall over a living man. And who can plead exemption from death? Here the cry can be only for mercy, -mercy which must be free and sovereign, the bounty of God alone. This is the point to which Israel’s remnant, naturally clinging to covenant-privileges, must be brought. According to covenant they can claim nothing but the covenant-curse.

If they are to be saved, it must be upon the same ground as the merest Gentile. Pharisaism, which crucified the Son of God sent to them, must be swept out of existence; the cross they gave Him must be their only hope. Well may the sky darken and the lightnings flash from the dread mount by which they have chosen to abide, and from which divine mercy alone can save them. That is plainly the key to what we have here, while the lesson remains for every one, of every time, who needs it. Death is seen as the curse of the law, as it truly was. Thank God, it does not dominate eternity, nor shut out the mercy of God as to that. As He never said “Do this, and thou shalt go to heaven,” so neither did He ever say “Break this, and thou shalt go to hell.”* The law itself was handmaid to the gospel, and God had ever in His purpose salvation, through His Son, for believing sinners. Yet as to what was beyond death, the soul that knew no more than law felt, of necessity, its shadow; and from the lips of such as those contemplated in this psalm, the language used in it has no special mystery. To these, and such as these, death as the curse of the law would be the hiding of God’s face, the stilling of the voice of praise, the silence of outer darkness. But this is not the uniform language, even of the Old Testament, as to death, -far from it: it is the language of a special class in a certain state of soul, and that is all.
The effect of this is utter desolation and dismay. We surely see that it is not the ordinary picture of death for all that the psalmist has been drawing. There is no courage to meet what threatens, in which the separation from Jehovah is the overpowering thought. There is no manliness, as we say; no silent submission, even, to the inevitable: and he lets out freely all his emotion, the grief that convulses and unmans him. In the realization of it he floods his couch with tears. He fades away, and shrivels in premature decay. But this is the lowest depth, and having reached and taken it before God, the shadow passes from the soul. 3. In the last portion of the psalm we find this. The enemies are still around, so that circumstances seem not to have appreciably altered. The answer is from God in his heart: what now are the enemies? They are but “workers of vanity,” -powerless with all their seeming might. His supplication is heard, and his soul confirmed. He can then calmly assure himself of the defeat of his enemies, and their final confusion. But in this conclusion there is a lack which makes itself felt. We have nothing of the ground upon which -little of the manner in which -God’s mercy meets the man who has justly merited His displeasure. The work of Christ is not yet unfolded. What grace implies cannot therefore yet be expressed. All is of the most elementary character: we simply see that it is mercy which alone can be man’s confidence; when that is his plea God comes in for him. Yet even the full and adequate confession of sin as yet there is not, and it is most interesting to see how, after the revelation of the true sin-offering (Psalms 22:1-31), that confession is at once found. (Psalms 25:1-22.) At present we have but the indication of what is to follow in the book: the finger points the way, but the road is not yet trodden.