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P S A L M S
PSALM XCV.
For the expounding of this psalm we may borrow a great deal of light
from the apostle’s discourse,
where it appears both to have been penned by David and to have been
calculated for the days of the Messiah; for it is there said expressly
that the day here spoken of
(ver. 7)
is to be understood of the gospel day, in which God speaks to us by his
Son in a voice which we are concerned to hear, and proposes to us a
rest besides that of Canaan. In singing psalms it is intended,
I. That we should “make melody unto the Lord;” this we are here
excited to do, and assisted in doing, being called upon to praise God
as a great God
(ver. 3-5)
and as our gracious benefactor,
II. That we should teach and admonish ourselves and one another; and we
are here taught and warned to hear God’s voice
(ver. 7),
and not to harden our hearts, as the Israelites in the wilderness did
(ver. 8, 9),
lest we fall under God’s wrath and fall short of his rest, as they did,
This psalm must be sung with a holy reverence of God’s majesty and a
dread of his justice, with a desire to please him and a fear to offend
him.
| Invitation to Praise God; Motives to Praise. | |
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1 O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful noise
to the rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a
joyful noise unto him with psalms.
3 For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all
gods.
4 In his hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength
of the hills is his also.
5 The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the
dry land.
6 O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the
LORD our maker.
7 For he is our God; and we are the people of his
pasture, and the sheep of his hand.
The psalmist here, as often elsewhere, stirs up himself and others to
praise God; for it is a duty which ought to be performed with the most
lively affections, and which we have great need to be excited to, being
very often backward to it and cold in it. Observe,
I. How God is to be praised.
1. With holy joy and delight in him. The praising song must be a
joyful noise,
v. 1
and again
v. 2.
Spiritual joy is the heart and soul of thankful praise. It is the will
of God (such is the condescension of his grace) that when we give glory
to him as a being infinitely perfect and blessed we should, at the same
time, rejoice in him as our Father and King, and a God in
covenant with us.
2. With humble reverence, and a holy awe of him
(v. 6):
“Let us worship, and bow down, and kneel before him, as becomes
those who know what an infinite distance there is between us and God,
how much we are in danger of his wrath and in need of his mercy.”
Though bodily exercise, alone, profits little, yet
certainly it is our duty to glorify God with our bodies by the outward
expressions of reverence, seriousness, and humility, in the duties of
religious worship.
3. We must praise God with our voice; we must speak forth, sing forth,
his praises out of the abundance of a heart filled with love, and joy,
and thankfulness–Sing to the Lord; make a noise, a joyful noise to
him, with psalms–as those who are ourselves much affected with his
greatness and goodness, are forward to own ourselves so, are desirous
to be more and more affected therewith, and would willingly be
instrumental to kindle and inflame the same pious and devout affection
in others also.
4. We must praise God in concert, in the solemn assemblies: “Come,
let us sing; let us join in singing to the Lord; not others without
me, nor I alone, but others with me. Let us come together
before his presence, in the courts of his house, where his
people are wont to attend him and to expect his manifestations of
himself.” Whenever we come into God’s presence we must come with
thanksgiving that we are admitted to such a favour; and, whenever we
have thanks to give, we must come before God’s presence, set
ourselves before him, and present ourselves to him in the ordinances
which he has appointed.
II. Why God is to be praised and what must be the matter of our praise.
We do not want matter; it were well if we did not want a heart. We must
praise God,
1. Because he is a great God, and sovereign Lord of all,
v. 3.
He is great, and therefore greatly to be praised. He is infinite
and immense, and has all perfection in himself.
(1.) He has great power: He is a great King above all gods,
above all deputed deities, all magistrates, to whom he said, You are
gods (he manages them all, and serves his own purposes by them, and
to him they are all accountable), above all counterfeit deities, all
pretenders, all usurpers; he can do that which none of them can do; he
can, and will, famish and vanquish them all.
(2.) He has great possessions. This lower world is here particularly
specified. We reckon those great men who have large territories, which
they call their own against all the world, which yet are a very
inconsiderable part of the universe: how great then is that God whose
the whole earth is, and the fulness thereof, not only under
whose feet it is, as he has an incontestable dominion over all the
creatures and a propriety in them, but in whose hand it is, as he has
the actual directing and disposing of all
(v. 4);
even the deep places of the earth, which are out of our sight,
subterraneous springs and mines, are in his hand; and the
height of the hills which are out of our reach, whatever grows or
feeds upon them, is his also. This may be taken figuratively:
the meanest of the children of men, who are as the low places of the
earth, are not beneath his cognizance; and the greatest, who are as the
strength of the hills, are not above his control. Whatever strength is
in any creature it is derived from God and employed for him
(v. 5):
The sea is his, and all that is in it (the waves fulfil his
word); it is his, for he made it, gathered its waters and fixed
its shores; the dry land, though given to the children of men,
is his too, for he still reserved the property to himself; it is his,
for his hands formed it, when his word made the dry land
appear. His being the Creator of all makes him, without dispute, the
owner of all. This being a gospel psalm, we may very well suppose that
it is the Lord Jesus whom we are here taught to praise. He is a
great God; the mighty God is one of his titles, and God over
all, blessed for evermore. As Mediator, he is a great King above
all gods; by him kings reign; and angels, principalities, and
powers, are subject to him; by him, as the eternal Word, all
things were made
(John i. 3),
and it was fit he should be the restorer and reconciler of all who was
the Creator of all,
To him all power is given both in heaven and in earth, and into his
hand all things are delivered. It is he that sets one foot on the sea
and the other on the earth, as sovereign Lord of both
(Rev. x. 2),
and therefore to him we must sing our songs of praise, and before him
we must worship and bow down.
2. Because he is our God, not only has a dominion over us, as he has
over all the creatures, but stands in special relation to us
(v. 7):
He is our God, and therefore it is expected we should praise
him; who will, if we do not? What else did he make us for but that we
should be to him for a name and a praise?
(1.) He is our Creator, and the author of our being; we must kneel
before the Lord our Maker,
v. 6.
Idolaters kneel before gods which they themselves made; we kneel before
a God who made us and all the world and who is therefore our rightful
proprietor; for his we are, and not our own.
(2.) He is our Saviour, and the author of our blessedness. He is here
called the rock of our salvation
(v. 1),
not only the founder, but the very foundation, of that work of wonder,
on whom it is built. That rock is Christ; to him therefore we
must sing our songs of praises, to him that sits upon the throne and
to the Lamb.
(3.) We are therefore his, under all possible obligations: We are
the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. All the
children of men are so; they are fed and led by his Providence, which
cares for them, and conducts them, as the shepherd the sheep. We must
praise him, not only because he made us, but because he preserves and
maintains us, and our breath and ways are in his hand. All the
church’s children are in a special manner so; Israel are the people
of his pasture and the sheep of his hand; and therefore he demands
their homage in a special manner. The gospel church is his flock.
Christ is the great and good Shepherd of it. We, as Christians, are led
by his hand into the green pastures, by him we are protected and well
provided for, to his honour and service we are entirely devoted as a
peculiar people, and therefore to him must be glory in the
churches (whether it be in the world or no) throughout all
ages,
Eph. iii. 21.
| Warning against Hardness of Heart. | |
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7–To day if ye will hear his voice,
8 Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in
the day of temptation in the wilderness:
9 When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work.
10 Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and
said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have
not known my ways:
11 Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter
into my rest.
The latter part of this psalm, which begins in the middle of a verse,
is an exhortation to those who sing gospel psalms to live gospel lives,
and to hear the voice of God’s word; otherwise, how can they expect
that he should hear the voice of their prayers and praises?
Observe,
I. The duty required of all those that are the people of
Christ’s pasture and the sheep of his hand. He expects that they
hear his voice, for he has said, My sheep hear my voice,
John x. 27.
We are his people, say they. Are you so? Then hear his
voice. If you call him Master, or Lord, then do
the things which he says, and be his willing obedient people. Hear
the voice of his doctrine, of his law, and, in both, of his Spirit;
hear and heed; hear and yield. Hear his voice, and not the
voice of a stranger. If you will hear his voice; some take it as
a wish, O that you would hear his voice! that you would be so
wise, and do so well for yourselves; like that, If thou hadst
known
(Luke xix. 42),
that is, O that thou hadst known! Christ’s voice must be heard
to-day; this the apostle lays much stress upon, applying it to
the gospel day. While he is speaking to you see that you attend to him,
for this day of your opportunities will not last always; improve it,
therefore, while it is called to-day,
Heb. iii. 13, 15.
Hearing the voice of Christ is the same with believing. To-day,
if by faith you accept the gospel offer, well and good, but to-morrow
it may be too late. In a matter of such vast importance nothing is more
dangerous than delay.
II. The sin they are warned against, as inconsistent with the believing
obedient ear required, and that is hardness of heart. If you will
hear his voice, and profit by what you hear, then do not harden
your hearts; for the seed sown on the rock never brought any fruit
to perfection. The Jews therefore believed not the gospel of
Christ because their hearts were hardened; they were not
convinced of the evil of sin, and of their danger by reason of sin, and
therefore they regarded not the offer of salvation; they would not bend
to the yoke of Christ, nor yield to his demands; and, if the sinner’s
heart be hardened, it is his own act and deed (he hardening it himself)
and he alone shall bear the blame for ever.
III. The example they are warned by, which is that of the Israelites in
the wilderness.
1. “Take heed of sinning as they did, lest you be shut out of the
everlasting rest as they were out of Canaan.” Be not, as your
fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation,
Ps. lxxxviii. 8.
Thus here, Harden not your heart as you did (that is, your
ancestors) in the provocation, or in Meribah, the place
where they quarrelled with God and Moses
and in the day of temptation in the wilderness,
v. 8.
So often did they provoke God by their distrusts and murmurings that
the whole time of their continuance in the wilderness might be called a
day of temptation, or Massah, the other name given to
that place
because they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us or is he
not? This was in the wilderness, where they could not help
themselves, but lay at God’s mercy, and where God wonderfully helped
them and gave them such sensible proofs of his power and tokens of his
favour as never any people had before or since. Note,
(1.) Days of temptation are days of provocation. Nothing is more
offensive to God than disbelief of his promise and despair of the
performance of it because of some difficulties that seem to lie in the
way.
(2.) The more experience we have had of the power and goodness of God
the greater is our sin if we distrust him. What, to tempt him in the
wilderness, where we live upon him! This is as ungrateful as it is
absurd and unreasonable.
(3.) Hardness of heart is at the bottom of all our distrusts of God and
quarrels with him. That is a hard heart which receives not the
impressions of divine discoveries and conforms not to the intentions of
the divine will, which will not melt, which will not bend.
(4.) The sins of others ought to be warnings to us not to tread in
their steps. The murmurings of Israel were written for our
admonition,
1 Cor. x. 11.
2. Now here observe,
(1.) The charge drawn up, in God’s name, against the unbelieving
Israelites,
God here, many ages after, complains of their ill conduct towards him,
with the expressions of high resentment.
[1.] Their sin was unbelief: they tempted God and proved
him; they questioned whether they might take his word, and insisted
upon further security before they would go forward to Canaan, by
sending spies; and, when those discouraged them, they protested against
the sufficiency of the divine power and promise, and would make a
captain and return into Egypt,
This is called rebellion,
Deut. i. 26, 32.
[2.] The aggravation of this sin was that they saw God’s work;
they saw what he had done for them in bringing them out of Egypt, nay,
what he was now doing for them every day, this day, in the bread he
rained from heaven for them and the water out of the rock that followed
them, than which they could not have more unquestionable evidences of
God’s presence with them. With them even seeing was not believing,
because they hardened their hearts, though they had seen what
Pharaoh got by hardening his heart.
[3.] The causes of their sin. See what God imputed it to: It is a
people that do err in their hearts, and they have not known my
ways. Men’s unbelief and distrust of God, their murmurings and
quarrels with him, are the effect of their ignorance and mistake.
First, Of their ignorance: They have not known my ways.
They saw his work
(v. 9)
and he made known his acts to them
(Ps. ciii. 7);
and yet they did not know his ways, the ways of his providence,
in which he walked towards them, or the ways of his commandments, in
which he would have them to walk towards him: they did not know, they
did not rightly understand and therefore did not approve of these.
Note, The reason why people slight and forsake the ways of God is
because they do not know them. Secondly, Of their mistake:
They do err in their heart; they wander out of the way; in heart
they turn back. Note, Sins are errors, practical errors, errors in
heart; such there are, and as fatal as errors in the head. When the
corrupt affections pervert the judgment, and so lead the soul out of
the ways of duty and obedience, there is an error of the heart.
[4.] God’s resentment of their sin: Forty years long was I grieved
with this generation. Not, The sins of God’s professing people do
not only anger him, but grieve him, especially their distrust of him;
and God keeps an account how often
and how long they grieve him. See the patience of God towards provoking
sinners; he was grieved with them forty years, and yet those years
ended in a triumphant entrance into Canaan made by the next generation.
If our sins have grieved God, surely they should grieve us, and nothing
in sin should grieve us so much as that.
(2.) The sentence passed upon them for their sin
(v. 11):
“Unto whom I swore in my wrath, If they shall enter into my
rest, then say I am changeable and untrue:” see the sentence at
large,
&c. Observe,
[1.] Whence this sentence came–from the wrath of God. He swore
solemnly in his wrath, his just and holy wrath; but let not men
therefore swear profanely in their wrath, their sinful brutish wrath.
God is not subject to such passions as we are; but he is said to be
angry, very angry, at sin and sinners, to show the malignity of sin and
the justice of God’s government. That is certainly an evil thing which
deserves such a recompence of revenge as may be expected from a
provoked Deity.
[2.] What it was: That they should not enter into his rest, the
rest which he had prepared and designed for them, a settlement for them
and theirs, that none of those who were enrolled when they came out of
Egypt should be found written in the roll of the living at their
entering into Canaan, but Caleb and Joshua.
[3.] How it was ratified: I swore it. It was not only a purpose,
but a decree; the oath showed the immutability of his counsel; the
Lord swore, and will not repent. It cut off the thought of any
reserve of mercy. God’s threatenings are as sure as his promises.
Now this case of Israel may be applied to those of their posterity that
lived in David’s time, when this psalm was penned; let them hear God’s
voice, and not harden their hearts as their fathers did, lest, if they
were stiffnecked like them, God should be provoked to forbid them the
privileges of his temple at Jerusalem, of which he had said, This is
my rest. But it must be applied to us Christians, because so the
apostle applies it. There is a spiritual and eternal rest set before
us, and promised to us, of which Canaan was a type; we are all (in
profession, at least) bound for this rest; yet many that seem to be so
come short and shall never enter into it. And what is it that puts a
bar in their door? It is sin; it is unbelief, that sin against the
remedy, against our appeal. Those that, like Israel, distrust God, and
his power and goodness, and prefer the garlick and onions of Egypt
before the milk and honey of Canaan, will justly be shut out from his
rest: so shall their doom be; they themselves have decided it. Let
us therefore fear,
Heb. iv. 1.
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