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Matthew Henry |
P S A L M S
PSALM XXXVI.
It is uncertain when, and upon what occasion, David penned this psalm,
probably when he was struck at either by Saul or by Absalom; for in it
he complains of the malice of his enemies against him, but triumphs in
the goodness of God to him. We are here led to consider, and it will do
us good to consider seriously,
I. The sinfulness of sin, and how mischievous it is,
II. The goodness of God, and how gracious he is,
1. To all his creatures in general,
2. To his own people in a special manner,
By this the psalmist is encouraged to pray for all the saints
(ver. 10),
for himself in particular and his own preservation
(ver. 11),
and to triumph in the certain fall of his enemies,
If, in singing this psalm, our hearts be duly affected with the hatred
of sin and satisfaction in God’s lovingkindness, we sing it with grace
and understanding.
| The Character of the Wicked. | |
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To the chief Musician. A psalm of David the servant of the Lord.
1 The transgression of the wicked saith within my
heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes.
2 For he flattereth himself in his own eyes, until his iniquity
be found to be hateful.
3 The words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit: he hath
left off to be wise, and to do good.
4 He deviseth mischief upon his bed; he setteth himself in a
way that is not good; he abhorreth not evil.
David, in the title of this psalm, is styled the servant of the
Lord; why in this, and not in any other, except in
(title), no reason can be given; but so he was, not only as
every good man is God’s servant, but as a king, as a prophet, as one
employed in serving the interests of God’s kingdom among men more
immediately and more eminently than any other in his day. He glories in
it,
It is no disparagement, but an honour, to the greatest of men, to be
the servants of the great God; it is the highest preferment a man is
capable of in this world.
David, in these verses, describes the wickedness of the wicked; whether
he means his persecutors in particular, or all notorious gross sinners
in general, is not certain. But we have here sin in its causes and sin
in its colours, in its root and in its branches.
I. Here is the root of bitterness, from which all the wickedness of the
wicked comes. It takes rise,
1. From their contempt of God and the want of a due regard to him
(v. 1):
“The transgression of the wicked (as it is described afterwards,
saith within my heart (makes me to conclude within myself)
that there is no fear of God before his eyes; for, if there
were, he would not talk and act so extravagantly as he does; he would
not, he durst not, break the laws of God, and violate his covenants
with him, if he had any awe of his majesty or dread of his wrath.”
Fitly therefore is it brought into the form of indictments by our law
that the criminal, not having the fear of God before his eyes,
did so and so. The wicked did not openly renounce the fear of God, but
their transgression whispered it secretly into the minds of all those
that knew any thing of the nature of piety and impiety. David concluded
concerning those who lived at large that they lived without God in the
world.
2. From their conceit of themselves and a cheat they wilfully put upon
their own souls
(v. 2):
He flattereth himself in his own eyes; that is, while he goes on
in sin, he thinks he does wisely and well for himself, and either does
not see or will not own the evil and danger of his wicked practices; he
calls evil good and good evil; his licentiousness he pretends to be but
his just liberty, his fraud passes for his prudence and policy, and his
persecuting the people of God, he suggests to himself, is a piece of
necessary justice. If his own conscience threaten him for what he does,
he says, God will not require it; I shall have peace though I go
on. Note, Sinners are self-destroyers by being self-flatterers.
Satan could not deceive them if they did not deceive themselves. Buy
will the cheat last always? No; the day is coming when the sinner will
be undeceived, when his iniquity shall be found to be hateful.
Iniquity is a hateful thing; it is that abominable thing which the
Lord hates, and which his pure and jealous eye cannot endure to
look upon. It is hurtful to the sinner himself, and therefore ought to
be hateful to him; but it is not so; he rolls it under his tongue as a
sweet morsel, because of the secular profit and sensual pleasure which
may attend it; yet the meat in his bowels will be turned, it will be
the gall of asps,
Job xx. 13, 14.
When their consciences are convinced, and sin appears in its true
colours and makes them a terror to themselves–when the cup of trembling
is put into their hands and they are made to drink the dregs of
it–then their iniquity will be found hateful, and their self-flattery
their unspeakable folly, and an aggravation of their condemnation.
II. Here are the cursed branches which spring from this root of
bitterness. The sinner defies God, and even deifies himself, and then
what can be expected but that he should go all to naught? These two
were the first inlets of sin. Men do not fear God, and therefore they
flatter themselves, and then,
1. They make no conscience of what they say, true of false, right or
wrong
(v. 3):
The words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit, contrived to do
wrong, and yet to cover it with specious and plausible pretences. It is
no marvel if those that deceive themselves contrive how to deceive all
mankind; for to whom will those be true who are false to their own
souls?
2. What little good there has been in them is gone; the sparks of
virtue are extinguished, their convictions baffled, their good
beginnings come to nothing: They have left off to be wise and to do
good. They seemed to be under the direction of wisdom and the
government of religion, but they have broken these bonds asunder; they
have shaken off their religion, and therewith their wisdom. Note, Those
that leave off to do good leave off to be wise.
3. Having left off to do good, they contrive to do hurt and to be
vexatious to those about them that are good and do good
(v. 4):
He devises mischief upon his bed. Note,
(1.) Omissions make way for commissions. When men leave off doing good,
leave off praying, leave off their attendance on God’s ordinances and
their duty to him, the devil easily makes them his agents, his
instruments to draw those that will be drawn into sin, and, with
respect to those that will not, to draw them into trouble. Those that
leave off to do good begin to do evil; the devil, being an apostate
from his innocency, soon became a tempter to Eve and a persecutor of
righteous Abel.
(2.) It is bad to do mischief, but it is worse to devise it, to do it
deliberately and with resolution, to set the wits on work to contrive
to do it most effectually, to do it with plot and management, with the
subtlety, as well as the malice, of the old serpent, to devise it upon
the bed, where we should be meditating upon God and his word,
This argues the sinner’s heart fully set in him to do evil.
4. Having entered into the way of sin, that way that is not good, that
has good neither in it nor at the end of it, they persist and resolve
to persevere in that way. He sets himself to execute the
mischief he has devised, and nothing shall be withholden from him which
he has purposed to do, though it be ever to contrary both to his duty
and to his true interest. If sinners did not steel their hearts and
brazen their faces with obstinacy and impudence, they could not go on
in their evil ways, in such a direct opposition to all that is just and
good.
5. Doing evil themselves, they have no dislike at all of it in others:
He abhors not evil, but on the contrary, takes pleasure in it,
and is glad to see others as bad as himself. Or this may denote his
impenitency in sin. Those that have done evil, if God give them
repentance, abhor the evil they have done and themselves because of it;
it is bitter in the reflection, however sweet it was in the commission.
But these hardened sinners have such seared stupefied consciences that
they never reflect upon their sings afterwards with any regret or
remorse, but stand to what they have done, as if they could justify it
before God himself.
Some think that David, in all this, particularly means Saul, who had
cast off the fear of God and left off all goodness, who pretended
kindness to him when he gave him his daughter to wife, but at the same
time was devising mischief against him. But we are under no necessity
of limiting ourselves so in the exposition of it; there are too many
among us to whom the description agrees, which is to be greatly
lamented.
| The Amazing Goodness of God; Favour of God towards His People;
David’s Prayers, Intercessions and Triumphs. |
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5 Thy mercy, O LORD, is in the heavens; and thy
faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.
6 Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy
judgments are a great deep: O LORD, thou preservest man and
beast.
7 How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the
children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings.
8 They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy
house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy
pleasures.
9 For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall
we see light.
10 O continue thy lovingkindness unto them that know thee; and
thy righteousness to the upright in heart.
11 Let not the foot of pride come against me, and let not the
hand of the wicked remove me.
12 There are the workers of iniquity fallen: they are cast
down, and shall not be able to rise.
David, having looked round with grief upon the wickedness of the
wicked, here looks up with comfort upon the goodness of God, a subject
as delightful as the former was distasteful and very proper to be set
in the balance against it. Observe,
I. His meditations upon the grace of God. He sees the world polluted,
himself endangered, and God dishonoured, by the transgressions of the
wicked; but, of a sudden, he turns his eye, and heart, and speech, to
God “However it be, yet thou art good.” He here acknowledges,
1. The transcendent perfections of the divine nature. Among men we have
often reason to complain, There is no truth nor mercy,
(Hos. iv. 1),
no judgment nor justice,
Isa. v. 7.
But all these may be found in God without the least alloy. Whatever is
missing, or amiss, in the world, we are sure there is nothing missing,
nothing amiss, in him that governs it.
(1.) He is a God of inexhaustible goodness: Thy mercy, O Lord! is in
the heavens. If men shut up the bowels of their compassion, yet
with God, at the throne of his grace, we shall find mercy. When men are
devising mischief against us God’s thoughts concerning us, if we cleave
closely to him, are thoughts of good. On earth we meet with little
content and a great deal of disquiet and disappointment; but in the
heavens, where the mercy of God reigns in perfection and to eternity,
there is all satisfaction; there therefore, if we would be easy, let us
have our conversation, and there let us long to be. How bad soever the
world is, let us never think the worse of God nor of his government;
but, from the abundance of wickedness that is among men, let us take
occasion, instead of reflecting upon God’s purity, as if he
countenanced sin, to admire his patience, that he bears so much with
those that so impudently provoke him, nay, and causes his sun to shine
and his rain to fall upon them. If God’s mercy were not in the heavens
(that is, infinitely above the mercies of any creature), he would, long
ere this, have drowned the world again. See
(2.) He is a God of inviolable truth: Thy faithfulness reaches unto
the clouds. Though God suffers wicked people to do a great deal of
mischief, yet he is and will be faithful to his threatenings against
sin, and there will come a day when he will reckon with them; he is
faithful also to his covenant with his people, which cannot be broken,
nor one jot or tittle of the promises of it defeated by all the malice
of earth and hell. This is matter of great comfort to all good people,
that, though men are false, God is faithful; men speak vanity, but the
words of the Lord are pure words. God’s faithfulness reaches so high
that it does not change with the weather, as men’s does, for it reaches
to the skies (so it should be read, as some think), above the
clouds, and all the changes of the lower region.
(3.) He is a God of incontestable justice and equity: Thy
righteousness is like the great mountains, so immovable and
inflexible itself and so conspicuous and evident to all the world; for
no truth is more certain nor more plain than this, That the Lord is
righteous in all his ways, and that he never did, nor ever will do, any
wrong to any of his creatures. Even when clouds and darkness are
round about him, yet judgment and justice are the habitation of
his throne,
Ps. xcvii. 2.
(4.) He is a God of unsearchable wisdom and design: “Thy judgments
are a great deep, not to be fathomed with the line and plummet of
any finite understanding.” As his power is sovereign, which he owes not
any account of to us, so his method is singular and mysterious, which
cannot be accounted for by us: His way is in the sea and his path in
the great waters. We know that he does all wisely and well; but
what he does we know not now; it will be time enough to know
hereafter.
2. The extensive care and beneficence of the divine Providence:
“Thou preservest man and beast, not only protectest them from
mischief, but suppliest them with that which is needful for the support
of life.” The beasts, though not capable of knowing and praising God,
are yet graciously provided for; their eyes wait on him, and he gives
them their meat in due season. Let us not wonder that God gives food to
bad men, for he feeds the brute-creatures; and let us not fear but that
he will provide well for good men; he that feeds the young lions will
not starve his own children.
3. The peculiar favour of God to the saints. Observe,
(1.) Their character,
v. 7.
They are such as are allured by the excellency of God’s
loving-kindness to put their trust under the shadow of his wings.
[1.] God’s loving-kindness is precious to them. They relish it; they
taste a transcendent sweetness in it; they admire God’s beauty and
benignity above any thing in this world, nothing so amiable, so
desirable. Those know not God that do not admire his loving-kindness;
and those know not themselves that do not earnestly covet it.
[2.] They therefore repose an entire confidence in him. They have
recourse to him, put themselves under his protection, and then think
themselves safe and find themselves easy, as the chickens under the
wings of the hen,
It was the character of proselytes that they came to trust under the
wings of the God of Israel
(Ruth ii. 12);
and what more proper to gather proselytes than the excellency of his
loving-kindness? What more powerful to engage our complacency to him
and on him? Those that are thus drawn by love will cleave to him.
(2.) Their privilege. Happy, thrice happy, the people whose God is the
Lord, for in him they have, or may have, or shall have, a complete
happiness.
[1.] Their desires shall be answered,
(v. 8):
They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy
house, their wants supplied; their cravings gratified, and their
capacities filled. In God all-sufficient they shall have enough, all
that which an enlightened enlarged soul can desire or receive. The
gains of the world and the delights of sense will surfeit, but never
satisfy,
But the communications of divine favour and grace will satisfy, but
never surfeit. A gracious soul, though still desiring more of God,
never desires more than God. The gifts of Providence so far satisfy
them that they are content with such things as they have. I have
all, and abound,
Phil. iv. 18.
The benefit of holy ordinances is the fatness of God’s house, sweet to
a sanctified soul and strengthening to the spiritual and divine life.
With this they are abundantly satisfied; they desire nothing more in
this world than to live a life of communion with God and to have the
comfort of the promises. But the full, the abundant satisfaction is
reserved for the future state, the house not made with hands, eternal
in the heavens. Every vessel will be full there.
[2.] Their joys shall be constant: Thou shalt make them drink of the
river of thy pleasures. First, There are pleasures that are truly
divine. “They are thy pleasures, not only which come from thee
as the giver of them, but which terminate in thee as the matter and
centre of them.” Being purely spiritual, they are of the same nature
with those of the glorious inhabitants of the upper world, and bear
some analogy even to the delights of the Eternal Mind.
Secondly, There is a river of these pleasures, always full,
always fresh, always flowing. There is enough for all, enough for each;
see
The pleasures of sense are putrid puddle-water; those of faith are pure
and pleasant, clear as crystal,
Rev. xxii. 1.
Thirdly, God has not only provided this river of pleasures for
his people, but he makes them to drink of it, works in them a gracious
appetite to these pleasures, and by his Spirit fills their souls with
joy and peace in believing. In heaven they shall be for ever drinking
of those pleasures that are at God’s right hand, satiated with a
fulness of joy,
Ps. xvi. 11.
[3.] Life and light shall be their everlasting bliss and portion,
v. 9.
Having God himself for their felicity, First, In him they have a
fountain of life, from which those rivers of pleasure flow,
v. 8.
The God of nature is the fountain of natural life. In him we live, and
move, and have our being. The God of grace is the fountain of spiritual
life. All the strength and comfort of a sanctified soul, all its
gracious principles, powers, and performances, are from God. He is the
spring and author of all its sensations of divine things, and all its
motions towards them: he quickens whom he will; and whosoever will may
come, and take from him of the waters of life freely. He is the
fountain of eternal life. The happiness of glorified saints consists in
the vision and fruition of him, and in the immediate communications of
his love, without interruption or fear of cessation. Secondly,
In him they have light in perfection, wisdom, knowledge, and joy, all
included in this light: In thy light we shall see light, that
is,
1. “In the knowledge of thee in grace, and the vision of thee in glory,
we shall have that which will abundantly suit and satisfy our
understandings.” That divine light which shines in the scripture, and
especially in the face of Christ, the light of the world, has all truth
in it. When we come to see God face to face, within the veil, we shall
see light in perfection, we shall know enough then,
1 Cor. xiii. 12; 1 John iii. 2.
2. “In communion with thee now; by the communications of thy grace to
us and the return of our devout affections to thee, and in the fruition
of thee shortly in heaven, we shall have a complete felicity and
satisfaction. In thy favour we have all the good we can desire.” This
is a dark world; we see little comfort in it; but in the heavenly light
there is true light, and no false light, light that is lasting and
never wastes. In this world we see God, and enjoy him by creatures and
means; but in heaven God himself shall be with us
and we shall see and enjoy him immediately.
II. We have here David’s prayers, intercessions, and holy triumphs,
grounded upon these meditations.
1. He intercedes for all saints, begging that they may always
experience the benefit and comfort of God’s favour and grace,
(1.) The persons he prays for are those that know God, that are
acquainted with him, acknowledge him, and avouch him for theirs–the
upright in heart, that are sincere in their profession of religion, and
faithful both to God and man. Those that are not upright with God do
not know him as they should.
(2.) The blessing he begs for them is God’s loving-kindness (that is,
the tokens of his favour towards them) and his righteousness (that is,
the workings of his grace in them); or his loving-kindness and
righteousness are his goodness according to promise; they are mercy and
truth.
(3.) The manner in which he desires this blessing may be conveyed: O
continue it, draw it out, as the mother draws out her breasts to
the child, and then the child draws out the milk from the breasts. Let
it be drawn out to a length equal to the line of eternity itself. The
happiness of the saints in heaven will be in perfection, and yet in
continual progression (as some thing); for the fountain there will be
always full and the streams always flowing. In these is
continuance,
Isa. lxiv. 5.
2. He prays for himself, that he might be preserved in his integrity
and comfort
(v. 11):
“Let not the foot of pride come against me, to trip up my heels,
or trample upon me; and let not the hand of the wicked, which is
stretched out against me, prevail to remove me, either from my
purity and integrity, by any temptation, or from my peace and comfort,
by any trouble.” Let not those who fight against God triumph over those
who desire to cleave to him. Those that have experienced the pleasure
of communion with God cannot but desire that nothing may ever remove
them from him.
3. He rejoices in hope of the downfall of all his enemies in due time
(v. 12):
“There, where they thought to gain the point against me, they
have themselves fallen, been taken in that snare which they
laid for me.” There, in the other world (so some), where the
saints stand in the judgment, and have a place in God’s house, the
workers of iniquity are cast in the judgment, are cast down into
hell, into the bottomless pit, out of which they shall assuredly never
be able to rise from under the insupportable weight of God’s wrath and
curse. It is true we are not to rejoice when any particular enemy of
ours falls; but the final overthrow of all the workers of iniquity will
be the everlasting triumph of glorified saints.
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