Psalm LX

To the chief Musician. Upon Shushan-eduth. Michtam of David, to teach: when he stiove with Aram-naharaim and with Aram-zobah, when Joah returned, and smote of Edom in the

valley of salt twelve thousand.

1 O God, thou hast cast us off, thou hast scattered us, Thou hast been displeased; O turn thyself to us again.

2 Thou hast made the earth to tremble; thou hast broken it: Heal the breaches thereof; for it shaketh.

3 Thou hast shewed thy people hard things:

Thou hast made us to drink the wine of astonishment.

4 Thou hast given a banner to them that feared thee, That it may be displayed because of the truth. Selah.

5 That thy beloved may be delivered; save with thy right hand, and hear me.

6 God hath spoken in his holiness;

I will rejoice, I will divide Shechem, and mete out the valley of Succoth.

7 Gilead is mine, and Manasseh is mine;

Ephraim also is the strength of mine head; Judah is my lawgiver;

8 Moab is my washpot; over Edora will I cast out my shoe: Philistia, triumph thou because of me.

10 Wilt not thou, O God, which hadst cast us off?

And thou, O God, which didst not go out with our armies?

12 Through God we shall do valiantly: for he it is that shall tread down our

The speaker
and the title.

The Sweet Singer outlived the dismal days of Saul. Seated firmly on his throne, he saw his armies go forth and return crowned with victory. One of his victories, gained by Joab, was over the king of Zobah, who, it appears, had engaged the men of Mesopotamia (Aram-naharaim) to take his side. When the trophies of victory from the river Euphrates (2 Sam. viii. 3) were brought in, David’s harp awoke, touched by the Spirit of God. It sang of a happier day to come — happier than that triumphant day of Israel in the birth-land of their father Abraham — a day when Israel’s breaches shall be for ever healed, and Israel’s strongest foes for ever subdued.

Sometimes it is the nation, sometimes it is the leader of the nation, that sings. (See ver. 1, 5, 9.) It may be used by Israel, or by Israel’s Lord as one of themselves. But what is “upon Shushan-eduth?” It must be connected with “joy,” or with “lilies,” {]^^Uy), and may speak of some instrument such as Psalm xlv. and Psalm lxxx. refer to. But no writer has come nearer certainty in regard to “Edutli” than that it may allude to Israel as the nation that had the “Testimony” (/IH^), or the Ark of Testimony. “To teach” — as if pointing back to Moses’ song, Deut. xxxi. 19, and indicating that this also is such a national song as that.

The Psalm may be said to take up the preceding one’s hope xiie pian expressed at the close. The dispersion of Israel does not last for ever. Though they have been broken, and though God has put into their hand a cup of wrath that stuns them (Isa. li. 22), yet they shall arise. Their’s is not the malefactor’s cup of myrrh that deadens pain just as a prelude to death and utter extinction. Though Israel be broken, and his land cleft asunder a thousandfold more terribly than David’s wars or any of the desolations of his time ever threatened, yet that desolation ends. (See verse 4.)

“Thou hast given a Banner to them that fear thee.’^

Here is the voice of Israel ovsning Jehovah’s gift of Messiah to them. Messiah is the ensign or banner, Isaiah xi. 10. “2h be lifted up as an ensign, because of truth.”

Holding up this banner* — in other words, owning God’s truth, or the fulfilment of his ancient promise to Adam, to Abraham, to all the fathers — Israel may expect favour; and they find it. For suddenly, verse 5, Messiah appears, himself urging their request, and at verse 6 he gets a favourable answer; “God speaks in holiness,” (or, as Israel’s Holy One,) and grants the desire of him who asks. Shechem, on the west side of Jordan, where Jacob’s first altar was raised, and where he bought the first parcel of ground (Gen. xxxiii. 18), and where afterwards destruction threatened the whole feeble family because of Levi and Simeon’s enormity, is now re-possessed in peace. Succoth, on the east side of Jordan, where Jacob first erected a dwelling (Gen. xxxiii. 17), and booths for cattle, as one intending to remain, is next claimed permanently. The country eastward beyond Jordan, under the name Gilead, where stood the mountain famed for healing balm, emblematic of healing to Israel, and which was one of the first districts settled and peopled by Israel, comes next, as well as westward Manasseh, on the opposite side; thus shewing us the stretching of the wing over the breadth of the land. Ephraim, full of power, comes in as being to push the foe with his horns (Deut. xxxiii. 17), while Judah appears as “Lawgiver,” or “Ruler,” the tribe of Messiah. The nations round submit; Moab stands as a slave at his master’s foot; Edom picks up the sandal cast down at his feet by his lord (Hengst.) ;t and Philistia is compelled to receive the king with triumphant shouts.

“Philistia, shout to mc The conqueror /” And whose power is it that accomplished all this? Who is it that leads the conquering nation and its king to the

* Harmer says, that delivering a banner into the hands of a supjilicant, was a sure pledge of protection in the East.

t Tholuck says, that the casting of the shoe is still an emblem of subjugation in India and Abyssinia.

strong city? even to Edom’s strongholds, and to the battle-field of Edom in the latter day? (Isaiah lxiii. 1.) It is the very God who once cast them off — the very God that scattered them. Glory to the Lord of hosts, and to Him only! Israel and Israel’s Leader rest on him, and so do valiantly — as Balaam, pointing to Moab and Edom, long since foretold (Num. xxiv. 18, 19). And thus the scene of Psalm lix. is happily reversed at length. The Righteous One asks, and rejoices in, Israel’s restoration.