Psalm CXVIII
1 O «ivE thanks unto the Lord! for he is good: because his mercy endureth for ever.
2 Let Israel now say, that his mercy endureth for ever.
3 Let the house of Aaron now say, that his mercy endureth for ever.
4 Let them now that fear the Lord say, that his mercy endureth for ever.
5 I called upon the Lord in distress: the Lord answered me, and set me in
a large place.
6 The Lord is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?
7 The Lord taketh my part with them that help me: Therefore shall I see my desire upon them that hate me.
8 It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.
9 It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes.
10 All nations compassed me about: but in the name of the Lord will I destroy them.
11 They compassed me about; yea, they compassed me about: But in the name of the Lord I will destroy them.
12 They compassed me about like bees; they are quenched as the fire of
thorns:
For in the name of the Lord 1 will destroy them.
13 Thou hast thrust sore at me that I might fall: but the Lord helped me.
14 The Lord is my strength and song, and is become my salvation.
15 The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacles of the righteous: The right hand of the Lord doeth valiantly.
16 The right hand of the Lord is exalted: the right hand of the Lord doeth
valiantly.
17 1 shall not die, hut live, and declare the works of the Lord.
18 The Lord hath chastened me sore: but he hath not given me over unto
death.
19 Open to me the gates of righteousness: I will go into them, and I will
praise the Lord:
20 This gate of the Lord, into which the righteous shall enter.
21 I will praise thee: for thou hast heard me, and art become my salvation.
22 The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the
corner.
23 This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvellous in our eyes.
24 This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.
25 Save now, I beseech thee, O Lord: O Lord, I beseech thee, send now
prosperity.
26 Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord: We have blessed you out of the house of the Lord.
27 God is the Lord, which has shewed us light:
Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar.
28 Thou art my God, and I will praise thee: thou art my God, I will exalt
thee.
29 0 give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for
ever.
Luther wrote on his study-wall, “The 118th Psalm is my The tone. Psalm, which I love. Without it, neither emperor nor king, though wise and prudent, nor saints, could have helped me,” Tholuck).
PSALM CXVIIL — MESSIAH S CONFLICT AND TRIUMPH.
Christ uses it. Still remembering that there is reason to believe that our Lord used these Psalms, which formed the “Great Hallel,” on the last night he sat with his disciples at the passover-supper, and now specially remembering that this was the hymn they must in that case have sung just before “He went to the Mount of Olives,” every verse will appear lighted up with peculiar attractiveness.
“What pleasing seemed, for Him now pleases more.”
The plan. The plan of it is as follows: — In verses 1-4,” Oh let Israel
say,” &c., the Saviour is calling upon others to help him in
Christ in it. P^aise; at verse 5 begins his thanksgiving narrative; while verses 6, 7, states a holy axiom, verified in his own case, and left for the use of all his own, to this effect —
“Let Jehovah be with me! I fear not.
What can man do to me?
Let Jehovah he with me, among my helpers I
Then I will look in triumph on mine enemies.”*
Believers. In all this, every member of Christ can join, even as in Rom. viii. 31 we find Paul, and those in whose name he speaks, using language equally bold. Nor is there need of other help (vers. 8, 9), for “human dust and royal clay” cannot add to the Lord’s strength. Proceeding in his narrative, from verses 10 to 13, he tells the strength of his foes. The term used for their destruction (ver 10), p“‘^ijfj may have been chosen because it calls up the idea that” these foes are all b)f2, “uncircumcised” (Hengst.), and so he is the true David going forth against this Goliath (1 Sam. xvii. 36).
“In tJie name of the Lord (I go forth) I for I toill destroy them.”
This seems the force of p, though some insert, “1 swear that” The figure of bees (ver. 1 2) sends our thoughts to the Amorites, in Deut. i. 44; he chases and destroys them. Then, the special foe (v. 18) that seems addressed, who is this? He speaks to some person, “Thou didst sore thrust:” is he speaking to the host as one? the army of all nations? or is he
Wyckliffe’s spirited application of this verse to the monks who came to his bedside, hoping that his sickness would end in speedy dissolution, was an accommodation of the words; but the incident may be used as emblematic.
singling- out their chief? Were this last idea adopted, we might suppose we saw the Serpent combating the Woman’s Seed, the “sore thrust” being the Serpent’s bruising the heel of the Saviour.
See next the victory won by Jehovah’s aid alone (vers. 1 4-1 6). As Moses, the leader of the host, sang in Exod. xv. 2, “The Lord is my strength, my salvation,” so does Jesus; bvit at the same time there are sharers in the victory. Hearken!
“The voice of rejoicing and salvation in the tents of the righteous /” And what do they sing: —
“Ihe right hand of the Lord hath done valiantly.”
They sing this as at the Red Sea; and three times they sing of that right hand that has won an infinitely greater victory.
But next he refers to death, and his triumph over it (ver. 17, 18). The curse, “Thou shaft die,” cannot now fall on me; it is past and gone; it is exhausted:
‘• I shall not die; for I shall live /” It is the voice of Jesus; “I am the living one” (Rev. i. 1 8), “and I was dead, and, behold, I am alive for evermore V And as he added then, “And I have the keys of Hades and of death,” so here he adds (vers. 1 9, 20) —
“Open to me the gates of righteousness /” — the gates of the holy temple above that shut out iniquity, and admit only what is pure and righteous. The temple on earth was typical of the better temple above.
“This is Jehovah’s gate” (this “righteousness-gate”); “The righteous go in thereby.”
He enters singing (ver. 21), “I will praise thee, for thou hast heard me, and art become my salvation.” Upon which the shout of congratulation arises from “the righteous” who go in after him. They it is who sing from verses 22 to 26, rejoicing in “the stone” become the head, or main stone of the corner, the corner-piece foundation-stone, bearing the weight of two walls and uniting both — a beautiful figure of Christ reconciling God and man, as well uniting all the saved in one. It is they, too, who sing, “This is the day which the Lord Tnade,” i. e., set apart, consecrated {TWV as in Deut. v. 15, nwy’?) — this day of the Saviour’s victory. And then another shout arises from Israel, owning their King and Lord now risen and glorified —
“Tea, Lord, hosanna! {i. e., give us a share in thy victory). Yea, yea. Lord, send prosperity /”
Another shout from happy Israel! —
“Blessed is he that cometh! in the name of the Lord!” And looking, it would seem, on his attendants — “the righteous,” of verse 20 — they shout again,
“We pronounce you blessed Ii is plural D3~), You that are of the Lords house.” In such strains are set forth the triumphs of the Saviour, when he had overcome death and the grave. When himself sung his Psalm, would not his eye look onward, not to Resurrection only, but to Ascension, too, when he entered “the gates of righteousness” above — but not least to his Second Coming and his passing in with his ransomed into the New Jerusalem, when they together “enter in through the gates into the city,” (Rev. xxii. 14). The multitudes, who almost unwittingly (yet prophetically, in the sense wherein Caiaphas spoke pi’ophetically, John xi. 51) applied to him verse 26, were, after all, presenting a type of the great and final triumph at which the innumerable ransomed shall raise the cry, “Hosanna!” In that day, Israel, looking on with opened eyes, shall join in blessing him, and blessing all that are his, though they so long were the builders who rejected that tried stone. And this last feature of the scene leads us to notice verse 27, where Israel specially look on Him and cry,
“Jehovah is God iyi mighty one); and has shined ujwn us,” (Exod. sin. 21, Tit. ii. 11, Icrsipai/jj). They see what had been hid from their eyes so long; they see Jesus of Nazareth to be the Saviour, their God, Jehovah. In transports of grateful wonder, they exhort one another to offer thanksgiving-offerings, hastening to the altar,
“Bind the sacrifce” (yn as Isa. xxis. 1, &c.) “with sfrovff cords!”
“Let us away to the horns of the altar I”
Christ with his
The last line is peculiar; for Jni“1|^ TV, “to the horns,” can scarcely be connected with the verb to bind, in the sense of, Hold fast the victim till you reach the horns of the altar. The word TV is rather a particle of locality. In Lament, iii. 40 it occurs thus: “Let us search and try our ways; and let us return (let us go) to the Lord!” And so we take it here. The restored and grateful people are hastening to bring their offerings of praise to their God and King, stimulating one another’s zeal; “Sursum corda!” to the altar! to the altar! whose horns hold up to view the blood of sacrifice.
It seems to be the Redeemer himself, now surrounded by this multitude of ransomed ones, in whom he sees of the travail of his soul and is satisfied, who closes the Psalm (in verses 28, 29) by a thanksgiving to his Father for these results, and by an invitation (as at ver. 1) to all the universe to join in praise to the God of love. In anticipation of these results, He, in the days of his First Coming, sang it as his hymn while rising from table to go to the garden of Gethsemane; but at his Second Coming, he will sing it with the tone of the more than conqueror, having realized the whole. We may entitle a Psalm that contains such stirring incidents, past and prospective,
The Redeemer s Gonjiict, Trium’ph, and Glorification, shared in by his Redeeraed.