Psalm XXXI
David, shewing his confidence in God, craveth his help.—He rejoiceth in his mercy.—He prayeth in his calamity.—He praiseth God for his goodness.
To the chief Musician, a Psalm of David.
In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed: deliver me in thy righteousness.
Bow down thine ear to me; deliver me speedily: be thou my strong rock, for an house of defence to save me.
For thou art my rock and my fortress: therefore, for thy name’s sake, lead me and guide me.
Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for me; for thou art my strength.
Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth.
I have hated them that regard lying vanities: but I trust in the Lord.
I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy: for thou hast considered my trouble; thou hast known my soul in adversities;
And hast not shut me up into the hand of the enemy: thou hast set my foot in a large room.
Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am in trouble; mine eye is consumed with grief, yea, my soul and my belly.
For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing: my strength faileth because of mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed.
I was a reproach among all mine enemies, but especially among my neighbours, and a fear to mine acquaintance: they that did see me without fled from me.
I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind; I am like a broken vessel.
For I have heard the slander of many: fear was on every side: while they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life.
But I trusted in thee, O Lord: I said, Thou art my God.
My times are in thy hand: deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me.
Make thy face to shine upon thy servant: save me for thy mercies’ sake.
Let me not be ashamed, O Lord; for I have called upon thee: let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave.
Let the lying lips be put to silence; which speak grievous things proudly and contemptuously against the righteous.
Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee; which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men!
Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man; thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues.
Blessed be the Lord; for he hath shewed me his marvellous kindness in a strong city.
For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes: nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplications, when I cried unto thee.
O love the Lord, all ye his saints: for the Lord preserveth the faithful, and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer.
Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord.
This Psalm is a thanksgiving, and contains also prayers and consolations. And the way to arrive at a right understanding of the deep feelings and circumstances contained in this Psalm, is to know that this Psalm is the general and continual cry of Christ and his members, groaning and sighing under the cross and various afflictions. For the Church is a congregation of afflicted, poor, and tried persons. The wicked men of the world, the rich, the despisers of all religion, and the atheistical Epicureans have, as Christ saith, their consolation; while the godly, the spiritual, and those that believe, being exposed to the horrible hatred and envy of the devil, are exercised and distressed through all their life, inwardly with fears and terrors in their hearts, and outwardly by persecutions, blasphemies, and contempt for the word of God’s sake; and yet, from all these they are delivered: for, as St. Paul saith, “Where afflictions abound, there consolations abound also.”
This Psalm belongs to the second and third precept, and to the first and third petition of the Lord’s Prayer.
Admonitory Observations
And here I will cease to show, like a schoolmaster, to which precept of the Decalogue, and to which member of the Lord’s Prayer each Psalm belongs; for from what I have already said upon these points, my seriously-disposed readers will be enabled to observe and judge for themselves. All the supplicatory Psalms belong to the second precept and to the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer, for they honour and sanctify the name of the Lord. And the Psalms which teach, console, and give thanks for deliverance, belong to the second and third precepts of the Decalogue, and also to the first and third petitions of the Lord’s Prayer: for they teach us how, in truth, to keep holy the Sabbath day, how to worship God with the true and highest worship, and how to offer the most acceptable sacrifice; namely, the sacrifice of praise. And most of the Psalms refer to all those three precepts of the Decalogue, and to all those petitions of the Lord’s Prayer.
My reason for giving these hints respecting the commandments, and petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, to which the different Psalms belong, in this my brief summary of the contents of the Psalms, is this: to show that the whole Scripture flows from the Decalogue as from a fountain; and that in the Ten Commandments and in the Lord’s Prayer are contained the sum and substance of all theology or divinity; and that nothing can be taught in the Church more sublime or more excellent than these two parts of Divine revelation. For we see how the greatest prophets and Moses himself, drew their great and divine discourses from the first, the second, and the third Commandments; and, in a word, from the whole of the Decalogue; how diligently they weighed every thing and made it harmonize with this; and how they continually delivered new things, yet all with reference to this great general Decalogue. Hence indeed it was that Moses, that most eminent man of God, gave this precept, “These words (says he,) thou shalt meditate, when thou standest up and when thou liest down; and thou shalt teach them diligently to thy children,” &c.
In all their discourses and writings, therefore, the prophets and apostles allude and refer to the Decalogue or Ten Commandments. From these Ten Commandments flow all the doctrines, and all the godly living of the saints: for there is no holiness or godliness of life or true religion, apart from the Ten Commandments: because they are the never-failing inexhaustible fountain of all wisdom, righteousness, and of all perfection in the saints. Nor is there any of the complaints uttered by the Prophets or Apostles, nor will you find any other in all their discourses, but that against false prophets, hypocrites and false teachers, who, disregarding, nay, totally despising and spitting upon, the true and highest worship of God, (which is that of the first Commandment, that requires faith and the fear of God,) teach their own human dreams, which have nothing whatever to do with the Decalogue, and do not at all belong to it.
Against these characters it is, (as we see in Moses himself, in Isaiah, in Jeremiah, and in the epistles of Paul and Peter,) that the Prophets and Apostles complain bitterly, and that with tears; against these it is that they cry aloud and wage war with all their powers; that they might preserve this true and highest worship of God, and might destroy from among men, hypocrisy and all human doctrines and fanatical dreams.