Psalm XXVIII
1 Unto thee will I cry, O Lord my rock; be not silent to me:
Lest if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit.
2 Hear the voice of ray supplications, when I cry unto thee, When I lift up my hands toward thy Holy Oracle.
3 Draw me not away with the wicked, and with the workers of iniquity, Which speak peace to their neighbours, but mischief is in their hearts.
4 Give them according to their deeds, and according to the wickedness of
their endeavours: Give them after the work of their hands; render to them their desert.
5 Because they regard not the works of the Lord, nor the operation of his
hands,
He shall destroy them, and not build them up.
6 Blessed be the Lord, because he hath heard the voice of my supplications.
7 The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I
am helped: Therefore my heart greatly rejoleeth; and with my song will I praise him.
8 The Lord is their strength, and he is the saving strength of his anointed.
9 Save thy people, and bless thine inheritance: feed them also, and lift them
up for ever.
The cry at the commencement is the appeal heavenward of “^’’^ ^vo^”^ one who anticipates, in the future (ver. 9), full salvation to the Lord’s people, and a time when their Shepherd shall feed them in green pastures, and lift them up as his heritage to their place of dignity and dominion. The secret persuasion of this final issue pervades his song. If the preceding Psalm took us up to a field of Zophim, whence we might espy the encamped legions, this Psalm shews us from the same height these hosts of the ungodly shattered and dissipated, in answer to the prayer of Him who makes intercession against them. We may imagine the Psalmist, — whether David or David’s Son,* the Church’s head, or any member of the Church — ascending an eminence, overlooking the tents of the ungodly, and there listening to their mirth and witnessing their revelry! He is a Moses, crying to heaven against Amalek. It may be David, who is the original “Anointed” of verse 8; but he is so as uttering what the Lord and all his own might use in other days.
What intensity of earnest vehemence in verse 1! Not to be I’f’e ormi heard, will be death! it will be the black despair of those who go down to the pit! But his reasons for being heard are powerful, — “/ lift up my hand toward thy Holy Oracle” (ver. 2). This is the Holy of Holies, where the Mercy-seat stood: for the “oracle” is, in Hebrew, “‘T’4*!’” the spot where Jehovah spoke to men, referring probably to his promise in Exodus xxv. 22, “There will I meet thee, and commune (TI131) with thee.” The supplicant refers God, in this brief way, to his own provision for sinful men, and his own promise of blessing whenever that provision should be used. If we take the words as uttered by Christ, how interesting to find him pleading with reference to the types of his own person and work, presenting them to the Father for us! If we use them as the words of
“Ipsius Mediatoris vox est, manu fortis, conflictu i)asslonh.’” — A>iffiiMiiie.
98 PSALM XXVIIl. — THANKSGIVING OF THE RIGHTEOUS.
David, or any saint, they still convey the same truth, namely, that the strongest plea which can rise from earth to heaven is drawn from the person and work of Jesus. No doubt, when Daniel prayed “with his windows open in his chamber toward Jerusalem” (Dan. vi. 10), he had his eye on “the Holy Oracle,” — on the person and work of Him who was set forth in Jerusalem in the significant types that were to be found in the Holy of Holies,
In verse 3, the sympathy of the Righteous One in God’s love of holiness appears; and in verse 4, his sympathy in God’s justice, even when his burning wrath descends. It is full acquiescence that is expressed — nay, almost positive desire. But it is only as the redeemed in Rev. xix. 1, 3, are enabled to shout “Alleluia” over the lost; or as the Redeemer (Luke xiii. 9), in the parable of the Fig-tree, promised to cease at last from intercession, and bid the axe take its swing.
Verse 5 is the answer whispered to the conscious heart of those who pray; which causes thanksgiving and rapturous triumph in the Lord, reviving faith bestowing strength, (in verses 6, 7, 8)* and raising the anticipation of bright days approaching, when full “salvation” comes out of Zion (verse 9), and there shall be no more casting down. Every stream seems to flow onward to the future day when joy shall no more be pent up within narrow banks, but have unlimited scope — the people “saved” — the “blessing” come — there being no more curse — the heirs arrived at their inheritance, joint-heirs of Him who is “Heir of all things” — the shepherd leading them to living fountains — and reproach all fled away!
We express the tone and substance of the Psalm if we describe it as — The apj)eal and thanksgiving of the righteous as they view the tents of the ungodly.
* In verse 7 it is literally, ^’- 1 will give praise to him from out of my song,’’ — as if it were a fountain. In verse 8, “The Lord is f/iezV strength.” This mode of expression seems to be equivalent to “The strength of yonder ones,” or, of such as possess the character just described. So in Psalm cxv. 9-11. Isa. xxxiii. 2. So also Psalm ix. 6 is to be explained, where, after addressing the foe directly, the Psalmist turns to those Mho stand by and sings, “Their memorial is perished;” /. e., the memorial of such men as these.