Psalms 71

Psalms 71:1-24

The Revival of Israel. The third psalm of this series is plainly, in accordance with its place, a resurrection psalm. Israel is seen -although anticipatively -renewing her youth. God is glorified in one who has been of old His witness, and who now witnesses for Him in self-abasement, in the old age that is upon her, but in which she finds Jehovah’s strength and righteousness her sole confidence and boast. The psalm is almost throughout a prayer, but which turns in the end into joyful assurance and praise.

1. The first section is a simple appeal to God as the confidence of faith, the one sufficiency. As an introduction it gives us, as very commonly, the theme, which the rest of the psalm expands and illustrates. Faith is the expression of self-renunciation, which as such leaves God Himself in what He is, to be its all, and thus occupied with Him without distraction, its plea is founded on His very nature. It is a safe argument, if a true one: “I have put my trust in Thee, let me not be put to confusion.” And thus God’s righteousness can be pleaded by a sinner, the Cross of Christ being the full declaration and justification of this. The psalmist, divinely taught, goes to the full extent of this, claiming God as his rock-dwelling, to which he can resort whatever the danger. And His word assures him -the prophecies of God concerning Israel? -that He has given commandment to save him: “for Thou,” he repeats, “art my cleft of the rock and my fortress.” But Israel is in the sore trial of the last days, and the hand of the wicked one presses sorely upon them. He can only repeat that the Lord Jehovah -the immutable One, supreme over all opposing force, is his hope and his confidence “from his youth.” This last expression in its application to Israel, is an interesting one, reminding us, as it does, of that “remnant according to the election of grace” which has always been among the people, and which is a proof advanced by the apostle, that even now God has not “cast them away.” At the time these psalms carry us on to, the Christian dispensation being over, these which are the true “brethren” of the King born in Bethlehem, “will return,” according, to Micah’s prediction (Micah 5:2-3), “to the children of Israel,” -to take their place upon the ground of God’s promises to her. This voice of theirs now, then, as heard in the psalm, connecting itself with the long line of faith from the beginning, is itself a witness of God’s returning favor to her. Israel is awaking from her sleep of centuries: the resurrection of the nation is begun.
2. Accordingly we find now, in mystical expression, what God has been to His people from the beginning, from their birth as a nation; brought through the various and chequered history in which they have been in so many ways “a wonder to many:” amid all their perils from without and from within, the Lord having shown Himself their “strong refuge.” Their preservation is indeed today the standing miracle of history, and a testimony to God, spite of (nay, in) their very unbelief. Now they are openly to glorify Him: My mouth shall be filled with Thy praise, -with Thy glory all the day." Yet as in the mystery of spiritual things, the soul which is awaking from the sleep of death, awakes to realize the “body of death” which clings to it, so the remnant brought to God in those days will find themselves amid the national decay which might well be the signs of speedy dissolution. It is the time of old age, and strength has failed: the spiritual life is well nigh departed. As the ravens watch the expiring struggles of their anticipated prey, their enemies congregate and consult together. “God has forsaken him” is a verdict that looks so like the truth as to be agony to the soul that seeks Him. Such agonies are often to men the birth-throes of a new life; and so will Israel find it in her day.
3. A grand thing it is when, in the dissolution of all other things, God is found to be the one necessity of the soul. We can reason this out at any time; but to have got it in experience is quite another matter. Thus come to us those days of famine, which may by no means be openly that. The food may be there that does not feed us; the sun may shine as of old, but it does not warm us: the change is in ourselves. Everything seems unreal, but It is the real into which we ate entering, and which is only demonstrating for us the unrealities in which we have lived. No man that knows not God has hold of reality; and it is the mercy of God when we wake up to the truth that the possession of God is the possession of what is real, and, in a true sense, of all that is real. Israel has been, for long, according to Hosea’s prophecy, “without a sacrifice, and without an ephod,” ignorant of the better sacrifice that has come, and unable to present the prescribed offerings of their law; and when, with some dawning light among them; they begin to seek approach to God according to the old ritual, Satan will make his last and decisive attack to turn them away from Him to whom the Spirit of God would lead them on. “Another,” a false Christ, “will come in his own name,” as our Lord predicted, and “him they will receive.” Cast out of the land, and with the abomination of desolation in their holy place, the remnant of true-hearted ones may indeed be tempted to think that God has forsaken them." It is a crisis in their history for which, as we know, the Lord has specially provided in that discourse after His own decisive rejection, when their house had now to be “left unto them desolate.” And may it not be that just by all this their hearts may be wrought upon and led back to Him whose sheltering wing would (how often!) have been stretched over them; but they “would not.” “Upon the wing of abominations,” according to the literal translation of Dan 9:27, “the desolator” comes! How affecting the contrast! As the desolation follows in answer to the idolatrous challenge from Israel’s holy place, will not hearts be opened to respond more intelligently to the love that seeks them? will it not be like the look which awakened Peter to the outgushing of repenting sorrow for having denied His Lord? Then will the cry go forth indeed, “O God, be not far from me!” and that in intimate connection with the cry against those “adversaries to their soul” that are covering the land. But where faith is begun, the tug upon the heart-strings tunes them to music; and it is not at all incomprehensible, that speedy reassurance: “But for me, I will hope continually, and will praise Thee more and more.” Can we not understand, too, as the fruit of this exercise, -perhaps, as a sorrow deeper than their own has been gaining upon them -that return to what, in the first section, we have spoken of as so much the theme of the psalm: “My mouth shall tell of Thy righteousness, and of Thy salvation, all the day: for I know not how to reckon it”
4. Thus they are ushered into the place of blessing: so simple as it is, after all! Just the creature place, from which man departed at the first, seeking to be as God, and thus coming into independence of God: now to take up again dependence, and with the confession of the infinite sin of departure, -the need of salvation already owned. Now then the place of strength is found, but Whose strength? How significantly do those titles come in again, found in the first section with such thoughts as these, but still more closely and more triumphantly joined together: I will go in the might of the LORD JEHOVAH; I will make mention of Thy righteousness, of THINE ALONE." Yes, the refreshing stream runs low, but oh, the refreshment! The creature place and the creature privilege are never disjoined. If the creature is for God, God is for the creature: and which is it that finds the blessing here? Intensely interesting, too, is it to find that now they begin to understand how God has been teaching them from the beginning: “Jehovah, Thou hast taught me from my youth:” and they enter into His purpose through them to declare His own marvelous works. It is now that they are beginning intelligently to fulfill this. His witnesses they have ever been in fact, but now in integrity and uprightness they are this. Still, and because of this, the consciousness of feebleness and decay is with them; and they cry to God as alone their ability to fulfill what is in their heart. And this is no less than to be the witness of God’s power to all succeeding generations. This they will assuredly be. Sustained in perpetual strength by this same power, they will be henceforth on earth His living testimony. Age and decay gone, they will abide as in resurrection strength and beauty. The stump of the cut-down tree shall send forth fresh shoots, the holy seed being the sap of it. “Israel shall bud and blossom; and fill the face of the earth with fruit.”
5. Israel is now with God. The language of prayer is changed for that of praise and confident expectation. “Thy righteousness, O God, reacheth to the height, who hast done great things: O God, who is like unto Thee?” Who indeed? And yet that simple truth, surely and wholeheartedly believed, is the end of all evil, the assurance of all blessing to every soul that receives it. It is the fall overcome, the tempter’s suggestion vanquished, -“ye shall be as God,” -the restlessness of man’s will at an end; sabbatic rest and peace have come where and as far as this is realized. Israel here strikes the key-note of the world’s praise. The full salvation of the people is involved in this. The same hand that humbled will now exalt, and “he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” The full truth of the past condition is owned: the nation is quickened and brought up from the depths of the earth -from its living tomb. Nor is this enough for the plenteous grace of God: “Thou shalt increase my greatness, and comfort me on every side.”
6. The triumph is now celebrated. It is God’s victory, as we have seen. If it were not that, the whole tone and character of what is here would be lowered immeasurably. Israel has been, however she may have failed in real subjection to God, His witness upon the earth. And if men also have failed in discerning this, Satan, the great adversary, has no less used them according to his knowledge, in his opposition to God’s purpose in them. This strife has gone on through a large part of human history. Now, thank God, the adversaries are overthrown. The rejoicing is not a mere personal or national one, but in the removal of that which has hindered man’s blessing and the glory of God: and these two things are inseparably joined together. Hence the triumph may well be celebrated. The truth -or faithfulness -of God is the first note of the song; with that accompaniment of stringed instruments, the meaning of which we have in some measure learned. We ought to know, and yet do not, what is the difference between psaltery and harp in this way. If they had been treated as more than curious questions of technical knowledge or antiquarian research, we should no doubt have known. But sheer unbelief has prevailed with us to make the word of God as dull and barren as it first of all concluded it to be; and we have had our reward. Then, as connected with this truth of God, the soul that God has set free sings aloud to God of this deliverance. Nature, the nations of the earth, as well as Israel, have all their part in this; and if it is not mentioned, it should not need to be. Every reader of Scripture ought to know what is connected with Israel’s redemption -in the strong language of an apostle, the apostle of the Gentiles, “if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be but LIFE FROM THE DEAD?” (Romans 11:15). For this the ban upon evil must be carried out, and “true and righteous” are the judgments of the Almighty. No weak woman’s wail must mingle with this triumph. Nay, “my tongue shall talk of Thy righteousness all the day long: for they are put to shame, for they are confounded, that sought my hurt.”