mh_parser/vol_split/19 - Psalms/Chapter 42.xml

<div2 id="Ps.xliii" n="xliii" next="Ps.xliv" prev="Ps.xlii" progress="36.03%" title="Chapter XLII">
<h2 id="Ps.xliii-p0.1">P S A L M S</h2>
<h3 id="Ps.xliii-p0.2">PSALM XLII.</h3>
<p class="intro" id="Ps.xliii-p1">If the book of Psalms be, as some have styled it,
a mirror or looking-glass of pious and devout affections, this
psalm in particular deserves, as much as any one psalm, to be so
entitled, and is as proper as any to kindle and excite such in us:
gracious desires are here strong and fervent; gracious hopes and
fears, joys and sorrows, are here struggling, but the pleasing
passion comes off a conqueror. Or we may take it for a conflict
between sense and faith, sense objecting and faith answering. I.
Faith begins with holy desires towards God and communion with him,
<scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p1.1" osisRef="Bible:Ps.42.1-Ps.42.2" parsed="|Ps|42|1|42|2" passage="Ps 42:1,2">ver. 1, 2</scripRef>. II. Sense
complains of the darkness and cloudiness of the present condition,
aggravated by the remembrance of the former enjoyments, <scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p1.2" osisRef="Bible:Ps.42.3-Ps.42.4" parsed="|Ps|42|3|42|4" passage="Ps 42:3,4">ver. 3, 4</scripRef>. III. Faith silences the
complaint with the assurance of a good issue at last, <scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p1.3" osisRef="Bible:Ps.42.5" parsed="|Ps|42|5|0|0" passage="Ps 42:5">ver. 5</scripRef>. IV. Sense renews its
complaints of the present dark and melancholy state, <scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p1.4" osisRef="Bible:Ps.42.6-Ps.42.7" parsed="|Ps|42|6|42|7" passage="Ps 42:6,7">ver. 6, 7</scripRef>. V. Faith holds up the
heart, notwithstanding, with hope that the day will dawn, <scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p1.5" osisRef="Bible:Ps.42.8" parsed="|Ps|42|8|0|0" passage="Ps 42:8">ver. 8</scripRef>. VI. Sense repeats its
lamentations (<scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p1.6" osisRef="Bible:Ps.42.9-Ps.42.10" parsed="|Ps|42|9|42|10" passage="Ps 42:9,10">ver. 9, 10</scripRef>)
and sighs out the same remonstrance it had before made of its
grievances. VII. Faith gets the last word (<scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p1.7" osisRef="Bible:Ps.42.11" parsed="|Ps|42|11|0|0" passage="Ps 42:11">ver. 11</scripRef>), for the silencing of the complaints
of sense, and, though it be almost the same with that (<scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p1.8" osisRef="Bible:Ps.42.5" parsed="|Ps|42|5|0|0" passage="Ps 42:5">ver. 5</scripRef>) yet now it prevails and
carries the day. The title does not tell us who was the penman of
this psalm, but most probably it was David, and we may conjecture
that it was penned by him at a time when, either by Saul's
persecution or Absalom's rebellion, he was driven from the
sanctuary and cut off from the privilege of waiting upon God in
public ordinances. The strain of it is much the same with 63, and
therefore we may presume it was penned by the same hand and upon
the same or a similar occasion. In singing it, if we be either in
outward affliction or in inward distress, we may accommodate to
ourselves the melancholy expressions we find here; if not, we must,
in singing them, sympathize with those whose case they speak too
plainly, and thank God it is not our own case; but those passages
in it which express and excite holy desires towards God, and
dependence on him, we must earnestly endeavour to bring our minds
up to.</p>
<scripCom id="Ps.xliii-p1.9" osisRef="Bible:Ps.42" parsed="|Ps|42|0|0|0" passage="Ps 42" type="Commentary"/>
<scripCom id="Ps.xliii-p1.10" osisRef="Bible:Ps.42.1-Ps.42.5" parsed="|Ps|42|1|42|5" passage="Ps 42:1-5" type="Commentary"/><div class="Commentary" id="Bible:Ps.42.1-Ps.42.5">
<h4 id="Ps.xliii-p1.11">Desiring Communion with God; Mourning for
the Loss of Public Ordinances.</h4>
<div class="Center" id="Ps.xliii-p1.12">
<p id="Ps.xliii-p2">To the chief musician, Maschil, for the sons of Korah.</p>
</div>
<p class="passage" id="Ps.xliii-p3">1 As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so
panteth my soul after thee, O God.   2 My soul thirsteth for
God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?
  3 My tears have been my meat day and night, while they
continually say unto me, Where <i>is</i> thy God?   4 When I
remember these <i>things,</i> I pour out my soul in me: for I had
gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with
the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday.
  5 Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and <i>why</i> art thou
disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him
<i>for</i> the help of his countenance.</p>
<p class="indent" id="Ps.xliii-p4">Holy love to God as the chief good and our
felicity is the power of godliness, the very life and soul of
religion, without which all external professions and performances
are but a shell and carcase: now here we have some of the
expressions of that love. Here is,</p>
<p class="indent" id="Ps.xliii-p5">I. Holy love thirsting, love upon the wing,
soaring upwards in holy desires towards the Lord and towards the
remembrance of his name (<scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p5.1" osisRef="Bible:Ps.42.1-Ps.42.2" parsed="|Ps|42|1|42|2" passage="Ps 42:1,2"><i>v.</i> 1,
2</scripRef>): "<i>My soul panteth, thirsteth, for God,</i> for
nothing more than God, but still for more and more of him." Now
observe,</p>
<p class="indent" id="Ps.xliii-p6">1. When it was that David thus expressed
his vehement desire towards God. It was, (1.) When he was debarred
from his outward opportunities of waiting on God, when he was
banished to the land of Jordan, a great way off from the courts of
God's house. Note, Sometimes God teaches us effectually to know the
worth of mercies by the want of them, and whets our appetite for
the means of grace by cutting us short in those means. We are apt
to loathe that manna, when we have plenty of it, which will be very
precious to us if ever we come to know the scarcity of it. (2.)
When he was deprived, in a great measure, of the inward comfort he
used to have in God. He now went mourning, but he went on panting.
Note, If God, by his grace, has wrought in us sincere and earnest
desires towards him, we may take comfort from these when we want
those ravishing delights we have sometimes had in God, because
lamenting after God is as sure an evidence that we love him as
rejoicing in God. Before the psalmist records his doubts, and
fears, and griefs, which had sorely shaken him, he premises this,
That he looked upon the living God as his chief good, and had set
his heart upon him accordingly, and was resolved to live and die by
him; and, casting anchor thus at first, he rides out the storm.</p>
<p class="indent" id="Ps.xliii-p7">2. What is the object of his desire and
what it is he thus thirsts after. (1.) He pants after God, he
thirsts for God, not the ordinances themselves, but the God of the
ordinances. A gracious soul can take little satisfaction in God's
courts if it do not meet with God himself there: "<i>O that I knew
where I might find him!</i> that I might have more of the tokens of
his favour, the graces and comforts of his Spirit, and the earnests
of his glory." (2.) He has, herein, an eye to God as the living
God, that has life in himself, and is the fountain of life and all
happiness to those that are his, the living God, not only in
opposition to dead idols, the works of men's hands, but to all the
dying comforts of this world, which perish in the using. Living
souls can never take up their rest any where short of a living God.
(3.) He longs to <i>come and appear before God,</i>—to make
himself known to him, as being conscious to himself of his own
sincerity,—to attend on him, as a servant appears before his
master, to pay his respects to him and receive his commands,—to
give an account to him, as one from whom our judgment proceeds. To
appear before God is as much the desire of the upright as it is the
dread of the hypocrite. The psalmist knew he could not come into
God's courts without incurring expense, for so was the law, that
<i>none should appear before God empty;</i> yet he longs to come,
and will not grudge the charges.</p>
<p class="indent" id="Ps.xliii-p8">3. What is the degree of this desire. It is
very importunate; it is his soul that pants, his soul that thirsts,
which denotes not only the sincerity, but the strength, of his
desire. His longing for the water of the well of Bethlehem was
nothing to this. He compares it to the <i>panting of a hart,</i> or
deer, which is naturally hot and dry, especially of a hunted buck,
<i>after the water-brooks.</i> Thus earnestly does a gracious soul
desire communion with God, thus impatient is it in the want of that
communion, so impossible does it find it to be satisfied with any
thing short of that communion, and so insatiable is it in taking
the pleasures of that communion when the opportunity of it returns,
still thirsting after the full enjoyment of him in the heavenly
kingdom.</p>
<p class="indent" id="Ps.xliii-p9">II. Holy love mourning for God's present
withdrawings and the want of the benefit of solemn ordinances
(<scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p9.1" osisRef="Bible:Ps.42.3" parsed="|Ps|42|3|0|0" passage="Ps 42:3"><i>v.</i> 3</scripRef>): "<i>My tears
have been my meat day and night</i> during this forced absence from
God's house." His circumstances were sorrowful, and he accommodated
himself to them, received the impressions and returned the signs of
sorrow. Even the royal prophet was a weeping prophet when he wanted
the comforts of God's house. His tears were mingled with his meat;
nay, they were <i>his meat day and night;</i> he fed, he feasted,
upon his own tears, when there was such just cause for them; and it
was a satisfaction to him that he found his heart so much affected
with a grievance of this nature. Observe, He did not think it
enough to shed a tear or two at parting from the sanctuary, to weep
a farewell-prayer when he took his leave, but, as long as he
continued under a forced absence from that place of his delight, he
never looked up, but wept day and night. Note, Those that are
deprived of the benefit of public ordinances constantly miss them,
and therefore should constantly mourn for the want of them, till
they are restored to them again. Two things aggravated his
grief:—</p>
<p class="indent" id="Ps.xliii-p10">1. The reproaches with which his enemies
teased him: <i>They continually say unto me, Where is thy God?</i>
(1.) Because he was absent from the ark, the token of God's
presence. Judging of the God of Israel by the gods of the heathen,
they concluded he had lost his God. Note, Those are mistaken who
think that when they have robbed us of our Bibles, and our
ministers, and our solemn assemblies, they have robbed us of our
God; for, though God has tied us to them when they are to be had,
he has not tied himself to them. We know where our God is, and
where to find him, when we know not where his ark is, nor where to
find that. Wherever we are there is a way open heaven-ward. (2.)
Because God did not immediately appear for his deliverance they
concluded that he had abandoned him; but herein also they were
deceived: it does not follow that the saints have lost their God
because they have lost all their other friends. However, by this
base reflection on God and his people, they added affliction to the
afflicted, and that was what they aimed at. Nothing is more
grievous to a gracious soul than that which is intended to shake
its hope and confidence in God.</p>
<p class="indent" id="Ps.xliii-p11">2. The remembrance of his former liberties
and enjoyments, <scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p11.1" osisRef="Bible:Ps.42.4" parsed="|Ps|42|4|0|0" passage="Ps 42:4"><i>v.</i> 4</scripRef>.
<i>Son, remember thy good things,</i> is a great aggravation of
evil things, so much do our powers of reflection and anticipation
add to the grievance of this present time. David remembered the
<i>days of old,</i> and then <i>his soul was poured out in him;</i>
he melted away, and the thought almost broke his heart. He poured
out his soul within him in sorrow, and then poured out his soul
before God in prayer. But what was it that occasioned this painful
melting of spirit? It was not the remembrance of the pleasures at
court, or the entertainments of his own house, from which he was
now banished, that afflicted him, but the remembrance of the free
access he had formerly had to God's house and the pleasure he had
in attending the sacred solemnities there. (1.) He <i>went to the
house of God,</i> though in his time it was but a tent; nay, if
this psalm was penned, as many think it was, at the time of his
being persecuted by Saul, the ark was then in a private house,
<scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p11.2" osisRef="Bible:2Sam.6.3" parsed="|2Sam|6|3|0|0" passage="2Sa 6:3">2 Sam. vi. 3</scripRef>. But the
meanness, obscurity, and inconveniency of the place did not lessen
his esteem of that sacred symbol of the divine presence. David was
a courtier, a prince, a man of honour, a man of business, and yet
very diligent in attending God's house and joining in public
ordinances, even in the days of Saul, when he and his great men
<i>enquired not at it,</i> <scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p11.3" osisRef="Bible:1Chr.13.3" parsed="|1Chr|13|3|0|0" passage="1Ch 13:3">1 Chron.
xiii. 3</scripRef>. Whatever others did, David and his house would
serve the Lord. (2.) He <i>went with the multitude,</i> and thought
it no disparagement to his dignity to be at the head of a crowd in
attending upon God. Nay, this added to the pleasure of it, that he
was accompanied with a multitude, and therefore it is twice
mentioned, as that which he greatly lamented the want of now. The
more the better in the service of God; it is the more like heaven,
and a sensible help to our comfort in the communion of saints. (3.)
He went <i>with the voice of joy and praise,</i> not only with joy
and praise in his heart, but with the outward expressions of it,
proclaiming his joy and speaking forth the high praises of his God.
Note, When we wait upon God in public ordinances we have reason to
do it both with cheerfulness and thankfulness, to take to ourselves
the comfort and give to God the glory of our liberty of access to
him. (4.) He went to keep holy-days, not to keep them in vain mirth
and recreation, but in religious exercises. Solemn days are spent
most comfortably in solemn assemblies.</p>
<p class="indent" id="Ps.xliii-p12">III. Holy love hoping (<scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p12.1" osisRef="Bible:Ps.42.5" parsed="|Ps|42|5|0|0" passage="Ps 42:5"><i>v.</i> 5</scripRef>): <i>Why art thou cast down, O my
soul?</i> His sorrow was upon a very good account, and yet it must
not exceed its due limits, nor prevail to depress his spirits; he
therefore communes with his own heart, for his relief. "Come, my
soul, I have something to say to thee in thy heaviness." Let us
consider, 1. The cause of it. "Thou art cast down, as one stooping
and sinking under a burden, <scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p12.2" osisRef="Bible:Prov.12.25" parsed="|Prov|12|25|0|0" passage="Pr 12:25">Prov. xii.
25</scripRef>. Thou art disquieted, in confusion and disorder; now
why are thou so?" This may be taken as an enquiring question: "Let
the cause of this uneasiness be duly weighed, and see whether it be
a just cause." Our disquietudes would in many cases vanish before a
strict scrutiny into the grounds and reasons of them. "<i>Why am I
cast down?</i> Is there a cause, a real cause? Have not others more
cause, that do not make so much ado? Have not we, at the same time,
cause to be encouraged?" Or it may be taken as an expostulating
question; those that commune much with their own hearts will often
have occasion to chide them, as David here. "Why do I thus
dishonour God by my melancholy dejections? Why do I discourage
others and do so much injury to myself? Can I give a good account
of this tumult?" 2. The cure of it: <i>Hope thou in God, for I
shall yet praise him.</i> A believing confidence in God is a
sovereign antidote against prevailing despondency and disquietude
of spirit. And therefore, when we chide ourselves to hope in God;
when the soul embraces itself it sinks; if it catch hold on the
power and promise of God, it keeps the head above water. <i>Hope in
God,</i> (1.) That he shall have glory from us: "<i>I shall yet
praise him;</i> I shall experience such a change in my state that I
shall not want matter for praise, and such a change in my spirit
that I shall not want a heart for praise." It is the greatest
honour and happiness of a man, and the greatest desire and hope of
every good man, to be unto God for a name and a praise. What is the
crown of heaven's bliss but this, that there we shall be for ever
praising God? And what is our support under our present woes but
this, that we shall yet praise God, that they shall not prevent nor
abate our endless hallelujahs? (2.) That we shall have comfort in
him. We shall praise him <i>for the help of his countenance,</i>
for his favour, the support we have by it and the satisfaction we
have in it. Those that know how to value and improve the light of
God's countenance will find in that a suitable, seasonable, and
sufficient help, in the worst of times, and that which will furnish
them with constant matter for praise. David's believing expectation
of this kept him from sinking, nay, it kept him from drooping; his
harp was a palliative cure of Saul's melancholy, but his hope was
an effectual cure of his own.</p>
</div><scripCom id="Ps.xliii-p12.3" osisRef="Bible:Ps.42.6-Ps.42.11" parsed="|Ps|42|6|42|11" passage="Ps 42:6-11" type="Commentary"/><div class="Commentary" id="Bible:Ps.42.6-Ps.42.11">
<h4 id="Ps.xliii-p12.4">Complaints and Consolations.</h4>
<p class="passage" id="Ps.xliii-p13">6 O my God, my soul is cast down within me:
therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the
Hermonites, from the hill Mizar.   7 Deep calleth unto deep at
the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are
gone over me.   8 <i>Yet</i> the <span class="smallcaps" id="Ps.xliii-p13.1">Lord</span> will command his lovingkindness in the
daytime, and in the night his song <i>shall be</i> with me,
<i>and</i> my prayer unto the God of my life.   9 I will say
unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me? why go I mourning
because of the oppression of the enemy?   10 <i>As</i> with a
sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily
unto me, Where <i>is</i> thy God?   11 Why art thou cast down,
O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God:
for I shall yet praise him, <i>who is</i> the health of my
countenance, and my God.</p>
<p class="indent" id="Ps.xliii-p14">Complaints and comforts here, as before,
take their turn, like day and night in the course of nature.</p>
<p class="indent" id="Ps.xliii-p15">I. He complains of the dejections of his
spirit, but comforts himself with the thoughts of God, <scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p15.1" osisRef="Bible:Ps.42.6" parsed="|Ps|42|6|0|0" passage="Ps 42:6"><i>v.</i> 6</scripRef>. 1. In his troubles. His
soul was dejected, and he goes to God and tells him so: <i>O my
God! my soul is cast down within me.</i> It is a great support to
us, when upon any account we are distressed, that we have liberty
of access to God, and liberty of speech before him, and may open to
him the causes of our dejection. David had communed with his own
heart about its own bitterness, and had not as yet found relief;
and therefore he turns to God, and opens before him the trouble.
Note, When we cannot get relief for our burdened spirits by
pleading with ourselves, we should try what we can do by praying to
God and leaving our case with him. We cannot still these winds and
waves; but we know who can. 2. In his devotions. His soul was
elevated, and, finding the disease very painful, he had recourse to
that as a sovereign remedy. "My soul is plunged; therefore, to
prevent its sinking, I will remember thee, meditate upon thee, and
call upon thee, and try what that will do to keep up my spirit."
Note, The way to forget the sense of our miseries is to remember
the God of our mercies. It was an uncommon case when the psalmist
<i>remembered God and was troubled,</i> <scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p15.2" osisRef="Bible:Ps.77.3" parsed="|Ps|77|3|0|0" passage="Ps 77:3">Ps. lxxvii. 3</scripRef>. He had often remembered God and
was comforted, and therefore had recourse to that expedient now. He
was now driven to the utmost borders of the land of Canaan, to
shelter himself there from the rage of his persecutors—sometimes
<i>to the country about Jordan,</i> and, when discovered there, to
<i>the land of the Hermonites,</i> or to a hill called
<i>Mizar,</i> or <i>the little hill;</i> but, (1.) Wherever he went
he took his religion along with him. In all these places, he
remembered God, and lifted up his heart to him, and kept his secret
communion with him. This is the comfort of the banished, the
wanderers, the travellers, of those that are strangers in a strange
land, that <i>undique ad cælos tantundem est viæ—wherever they are
there is a way open heavenward.</i> (2.) Wherever he was he
retained his affection for the courts of God's house; from the land
of Jordan, or from the top of the hills, he used to look a long
look, a longing look, towards the place of the sanctuary, and wish
himself there. Distance and time could not make him forget that
which his heart was so much upon and which lay so near it.</p>
<p class="indent" id="Ps.xliii-p16">II. He complains of the tokens of God's
displeasure against him, but comforts himself with the hopes of the
return of his favour in due time.</p>
<p class="indent" id="Ps.xliii-p17">1. He saw his troubles coming from God's
wrath, and that discouraged him (<scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p17.1" osisRef="Bible:Ps.42.7" parsed="|Ps|42|7|0|0" passage="Ps 42:7"><i>v.</i> 7</scripRef>): "<i>Deep calls unto deep,</i>
one affliction comes upon the neck of another, as if it were called
to hasten after it; and thy water-spouts give the signal and sound
the alarm of war." It may be meant of the terror and disquietude of
his mind under the apprehensions of God's anger. One frightful
thought summoned another, and made way for it, as is usual in
melancholy people. He was overpowered and overwhelmed with a deluge
of grief, like that of the old world, when the windows of heaven
were opened and the fountains of the great deep were broken up. Or
it is an allusion to a ship at sea in a great storm, tossed by the
roaring waves, which go over it, <scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p17.2" osisRef="Bible:Ps.107.25" parsed="|Ps|107|25|0|0" passage="Ps 107:25">Ps.
cvii. 25</scripRef>. Whatever waves and billows of affliction go
over us at any time we must call them God's waves and his billows,
that we may humble ourselves under his mighty hand, and may
encourage ourselves to hope that though we be threatened we shall
not be ruined; for the waves and billows are under a divine check.
<i>The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of these many
waters.</i> Let not good men think it strange if they be exercised
with many and various trials, and if they come thickly upon them;
God knows what he does, and so shall they shortly. Jonah, in the
whale's belly, made use of these words of David, <scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p17.3" osisRef="Bible:Jonah.2.3" parsed="|Jonah|2|3|0|0" passage="Jon 2:3">Jonah ii. 3</scripRef> (they are exactly the same in the
original), and of him they were literally true, <i>All thy waves
and thy billows have gone over me;</i> for the book of psalms is
contrived so as to reach every one's case.</p>
<p class="indent" id="Ps.xliii-p18">2. He expected his deliverance to come from
God's favour (<scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p18.1" osisRef="Bible:Ps.42.8" parsed="|Ps|42|8|0|0" passage="Ps 42:8"><i>v.</i> 8</scripRef>):
<i>Yet the Lord will command his lovingkindness.</i> Things are
bad, but they shall not always be so. <i>Non si male nunc et olim
sic erit—Though affairs are now in an evil plight, they may not
always be so.</i> After the storm there will come a calm, and the
prospect of this supported him when deep called unto deep. Observe
(1.) What he promised himself from God: <i>The Lord will command
his lovingkindness.</i> He eyes the favour of God as the fountain
of all the good he looked for. That is life; that is better than
life; and with that God will gather those from whom he has, <i>in a
little wrath, hid his face,</i> <scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p18.2" osisRef="Bible:Isa.54.7-Isa.54.8" parsed="|Isa|54|7|54|8" passage="Isa 54:7,8">Isa.
liv. 7, 8</scripRef>. God's conferring his favour is called his
<i>commanding</i> it. This intimates the freeness of it; we cannot
pretend to merit it, but it is bestowed in a way of sovereignty, he
gives like a king. It intimates also the efficacy of it; he speaks
his lovingkindness, and makes us to hear it; speaks, and it is
done. He <i>commands deliverance</i> (<scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p18.3" osisRef="Bible:Ps.44.4" parsed="|Ps|44|4|0|0" passage="Ps 44:4">Ps. xliv. 4</scripRef>), <i>commands the blessing</i>
(<scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p18.4" osisRef="Bible:Ps.133.3" parsed="|Ps|133|3|0|0" passage="Ps 133:3">Ps. cxxxiii. 3</scripRef>), as one
having authority. By commanding his lovingkindness, he commands
down the waves and the billows, and they shall obey him. This he
will do <i>in the daytime,</i> for God's lovingkindness will make
day in the soul at any time. Though <i>weeping</i> has <i>endured
for a night,</i> a long night, yet <i>joy will come in the
morning.</i> (2.) What he promised for himself to God. If God
command his lovingkindness for him, he will meet it, and bid it
welcome, with his best affections and devotions. [1.] He will
rejoice in God: <i>In the night his song shall be with me.</i> The
mercies we receive in the day we ought to return thanks for at
night; when others are sleeping we should be praising God. See
<scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p18.5" osisRef="Bible:Ps.119.62" parsed="|Ps|119|62|0|0" passage="Ps 119:62">Ps. cxix. 62</scripRef>, <i>At
midnight will I rise to give thanks.</i> In silence and solitude,
when we are retired from the hurries of the world, we must be
pleasing ourselves with the thoughts of God's goodness. Or in the
night of affliction: "Before the day dawns, in which God commands
his lovingkindness, I will sing songs of praise in the prospect of
it." Even in tribulation the saints can <i>rejoice in hope of the
glory of God,</i> sing in hope, and praise in hope, <scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p18.6" osisRef="Bible:Rom.5.2-Rom.5.3" parsed="|Rom|5|2|5|3" passage="Ro 5:2,3">Rom. v. 2, 3</scripRef>. It is God's prerogative
to <i>give songs in the night,</i> <scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p18.7" osisRef="Bible:Job.35.10" parsed="|Job|35|10|0|0" passage="Job 35:10">Job xxxv. 10</scripRef>. [2.] He will seek to God in a
constant dependence upon him: <i>My prayer shall be to the God of
my life.</i> Our believing expectation of mercy must not supersede,
but quicken, our prayers for it. God is the God of our life, in
whom we live and move, the author and giver of all our comforts;
and therefore to whom should we apply by prayer, but to him? And
from him what good may not we expect? It would put life into our
prayers in them to eye God as the God of our life; for then it is
for our lives, and the lives of our souls, that we stand up to make
request.</p>
<p class="indent" id="Ps.xliii-p19">III. He complains of the insolence of his
enemies, and yet comforts himself in God as his friend, <scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p19.1" osisRef="Bible:Ps.42.9-Ps.42.11" parsed="|Ps|42|9|42|11" passage="Ps 42:9-11"><i>v.</i> 9-11.</scripRef></p>
<p class="indent" id="Ps.xliii-p20">1. His complaint is that his enemies
oppressed and reproached him, and this made a great impression upon
him. (1.) They oppressed him to such a degree that he went mourning
from day to day, from place to place, <scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p20.1" osisRef="Bible:Ps.42.9" parsed="|Ps|42|9|0|0" passage="Ps 42:9"><i>v.</i> 9</scripRef>. He did not break out into
indecent passions, though abused as never man was, but he silently
wept out his grief, and went mourning; and for this we cannot blame
him: it must needs grieve a man that truly loves his country, and
seeks the good of it, to see himself persecuted and hardly used, as
if he were an enemy to it. Yet David ought not hence to have
concluded that God had forgotten him and cast him off, nor thus to
have expostulated with him, as if he did him as much wrong in
suffering him to be trampled upon as those did that trampled upon
him: <i>Why go I mourning?</i> and <i>why hast thou forgotten
me?</i> We may complain to God, but we are not allowed thus to
complain of him. (2.) They reproached him so cuttingly that it was
a <i>sword in his bones,</i> <scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p20.2" osisRef="Bible:Ps.42.10" parsed="|Ps|42|10|0|0" passage="Ps 42:10"><i>v.</i>
10</scripRef>. He had mentioned before what the reproach was that
touched him thus to the quick, and here he repeats it: <i>They say
daily unto me, Where is thy God?</i>—a reproach which was very
grievous to him, both because it reflected dishonour upon God and
was intended to discourage his hope in God, which he had enough to
do to keep up in any measure, and which was but too apt to fail of
itself.</p>
<p class="indent" id="Ps.xliii-p21">2. His comfort is that God is his
<i>rock</i> (<scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p21.1" osisRef="Bible:Ps.42.9" parsed="|Ps|42|9|0|0" passage="Ps 42:9"><i>v.</i> 9</scripRef>)
—a rock to build upon, a rock to take shelter in. The rock of
ages, in whom is everlasting strength, would be his rock, his
strength in the inner man, both for doing and suffering. To him he
had access with confidence. To God his rock he might say what he
had to say, and be sure of a gracious audience. He therefore
repeats what he had before said (<scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p21.2" osisRef="Bible:Ps.42.5" parsed="|Ps|42|5|0|0" passage="Ps 42:5"><i>v.</i> 5</scripRef>), and concludes with it (<scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p21.3" osisRef="Bible:Ps.42.11" parsed="|Ps|42|11|0|0" passage="Ps 42:11"><i>v.</i> 11</scripRef>): <i>Why art thou cast
down, O my soul?</i> His griefs and fears were clamorous and
troublesome; they were not silenced though they were again and
again answered. But here, at length, his faith came off a conqueror
and forced the enemies to quit the field. And he gains this
victory, (1.) By repeating what he had before said, chiding
himself, as before, for his dejections and disquietudes, and
encouraging himself to trust in the name of the Lord and to stay
himself upon his God. Note, It may be of great use to us to think
our good thoughts over again, and, if we do not gain our point with
them at first, perhaps we may the second time; however, where the
heart goes along with the words, it is no vain repetition. We have
need to press the same thing over and over again upon our hearts,
and all little enough. (2.) By adding one word to it; <i>there</i>
he hoped to praise God for the salvation that was in his
countenance; <i>here,</i> "I will praise him," says he, "as the
salvation of my countenance from the present cloud that is upon it;
if God smile upon me, that will make me look pleasant, look up,
look forward, look round, with pleasure." He adds, <i>and my
God,</i> "related to me, in covenant with me; all that he is, all
that he has, is mine, according to the true intent and meaning of
the promise." This thought enabled him to triumph over all his
griefs and fears. God's being with the saints in heaven, and being
their God, is that which will <i>wipe away all tears from their
eyes,</i> <scripRef id="Ps.xliii-p21.4" osisRef="Bible:Rev.21.3-Rev.21.4" parsed="|Rev|21|3|21|4" passage="Re 21:3,4">Rev. xxi. 3,
4</scripRef>.</p>
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