barbarously exposed to be devoured by ravenous beasts and birds. Ver. 3. Their bland have they shed like water round about Jerusalem: and there was none to bury them.] For they valued the shedding of their blood no more than the pouring out of water; which flowed in such abundance about Jerusalem, that they left not men enough alive to take care of the interment of the dead. Ver. 4. We are become a reproach to our neighbours a scorn and derision to them that are round about us.] And we that remain lead a most despicable life, being not only scorned and abused, but openly derided, and made the sport of the Edomites and other nations, which formerly stood in awe of us. : Ver. 5. How long, LORD, wilt thou be angry? for ever? shall thy jealousy burn sike fire?] And, which is saddest of all, we have long complained of this, and find no relief; but only in our most passionate cries to thee, O Lord: the effects of whose just anger and jealousy we groan under, (because we have forsaken thee, and been unfaithful to our covenant with thee), but hope it will not always last; nor proceed to make an utter end of us. Ver. 6. Pour out thy wrath upon the heathen that have not known thee, and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon thy name.] Pour it out rather (in as full a measure, and with as little pity, as they did our blood, ver. 3.) upon the Babylonians; who, though they have conquered many kingdoms, do not acknowledge thee at all, nor ascribe their successes to thy power, but to their idols, whom they serve and honour with that worship which is due to thee alone. Ver. 7. For they have devoured Jacob, and laid waste his dwelling-place.] They have been the instruments indeed of thy vengeance; but have executed it with such cruelty, that, not content with the conquest of us, they have sought our total extirpation; having depopulated our country, and made that pleasant land a wilderness, which thou gavest to Jacob and his seed for their habitation. Ver. 8. O remember not against us former iniquities: let thy tender mercies speedily prevent us; for we are brought very lov.] Olet not his virtue, and the covenant thou madest with him, be forgotten, when thou reckonest with us for the sins of our forefathers; the punishment of which we beseech that we may bear no longer speed our deliverance, good Lord; and how unworthy soever we be, let thy tender compassion prevail with thee to save us from utter ruin, which is very near; so few, so broken and spent we are, unless seasonably prevented by thy mercy. Ver. er. 9. Help us, O Gel of our salvation, for the glory of thy name: and deliver us, and purge away our sins, for thy name's sake.] Send us that seasonable help, O God, from whom alone we expect it, and have heretofore very often received it; for it will tend much to the honour of thy almighty goodness, (which in former times was much celebrated, but of late hath been exceedingly disparaged), to save us now, when none is able to preserve us; upon that account be pleased to pass by our sins, and to interpose for our deliverance, lest thou suffer together with us. Ver. 10. Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is their God? let him be known among the heathen in our sight, by the revenging of the blood of thy servants which is shed.] While the idolatrous nations utter this insolent language, (which is exceeding grievous, nay, insupportable to us), If their God be so great in himself, and so kind to them, as they pretend, why doth he not take their part, and appear for their deliverance? O that thou wouldest put them to silence, by taking such an open and remarkable vengeance on these blasphemous nations for the blood they have shed, that not only we, but all the world, may see, thou hast a care of us thy servants. Ver. 11. Let the sighing of the prisoner come before. thee, according to the greatness of thy power: preserve thou those that are appointed to die.] Let the sighs and groans of those who lie in prison be as prevalent with thee as these prayers; and magnify thy power, by preserving the lives of those whom they have condemned to die. Ver. 12. Aud render unto our neighbours seven-feld into their bosom, their reproach ruherewith they have reproached thee, O LORD.] And when thou hast done. with the Babylonians, reckon with our neighbours also who have insulted over us, and derided us, or rather, have spoken so reproachfully of thee, O God, that they justly deserve not only to be paid home in their kind, but to be made seven times more contemptible than we have been. Ver. 13. So we thy people, and sheep of thy pasture, will give thee thanks for ever; we will she forth thy praise to all generations.] So we thy people, being conducted again to thy land, and happily restored to live under thy government there, will never cease to give thanks unto thee, for thy benefits bestowed upon. us: and be careful to transmit the memory of them to those who shall come after us, that all future generations may perpetuate thy praises. PSALM LXXX. To the chief musician upon Shoshannim-eduth. A Psalm of Asaph. THE ARGUMENT -This psalm is something of kin to the former; deprecating the displeasure of the Almighty in a time of great calamity. Which, as all that I have met withal think, was either in the captivity of Judah and Benjamin by Nebuchadnezzar; or of the ten tribes by Salmanazar. But it seems to me rather to have been penned between these two, in the time of Hezekiah; who had wrote a letter, you find, (2 Chron. xxx. 6.), to the remnant that were escaped out of the hand of the king of Assyria; especially to Ephraim and Manasseh, the tribes nearest to them, that they would come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, and keep the passover with them; which summons, several of them obeyed, ver. 11. 13. and kept the But after this happy settlement, you read there, xxxii. 1. that the land was invaded by Sennacherib, and sorely distressed; to the great discouragement no doubt of those who had joined in the reformation: which moved Asaph (mentioned 2 Chron. xxix. 30. see the argument of Psal. Ixxiii.) most earnestly to be seech God, (ver. 2. of this psalm), that he would be pleased to stir up himself before Ephraim and Manasseh, as well as Benjamin, (who was so link ed to Judah, that part of Jerusalem and of the temple stood in that tribe), and let them see, by a remarkable deliverance, that their zeal for the purity of their religion was acceptable to him. Another reason indeed there may be given (which I have not omitted in my paraphrase) why these three are joined together, rather than any other, because they were the tribes (as we read in the 2d of Numbers) who, when they were in the wilderness, always marched behind the tabernacle when it moved; and had that part where the propitiatory was, from whence God sent his oracles, and the tokens of his power, just before them. But then there is this to be added, to make it probable that this psalm was not penned in the time of the captivity, because as then there was no ark; nor did God sit between the cherubims, (concerning which phrase, the learned reader may see Lud. de Dieu upon I Sam. iv. 4.), as he is said here to do; nor were Ephraim and Manasseh then mixed with them, that we read of: so, first of all, it is too full of elegancies for that time of utter desolation; and, secondly, the Greek expressly calls it, A Psalm concerning the Assyrian, (who is the wild boar, I suppose, that broke into God's vineyard, mentioned ver. 13.); and, lastly, Hezekiah, I observe, applies himself to God (in the times of that distress by the king of Assyria) in the very language of the psalmist; and begins his prayer just as Asaph doth here, to him that sits between the cherubims, desiring him to incline his ear to his requests, 2 Kings, xix. 15. 16. Isa. xxxvii. 16. 17. It was delivered to the chief master of music, to be sung as the 60th psalm, upon the instruments of six strings, which were wont to be used in solemn thanksgivings, (see the argument of that psalm); for he nothing doubted God would hear their prayers, and destroy Sennacherib; or perhaps it was ordered afterward to be sung in that manner. Ver. 1. GI GIVE ear, O Shepherd of Israel; thou that leadest Joseph like a flock, thou that drvellest between the cherubims, shine forth.] O thou, who art the ruler and protector of thy people Israel, who didst long ago give a famous instance of thy power, in preserving Joseph, when he fell, like an innocent lamb, among a company of wolves, (Gen. xxxvii. 18. &c.), and conducting him to the highest preferment; reject not our humble petitions, which we put up unto thee in the like distress; but shew that thou favourest us, by some illustrious token of thy presence among us, in thy holy place; from whence thou canst send angels to defend and deliver us, 2 Kings, xix. 35. Ver. 2. Before Ephraim, and Benjamin, and Manasseh, stir up thy strength, and come and save us.] Let the posterity of Joseph, who beheld heretofore so many enemies fall before thee, when they attended upon the ark of thy presence in the wilderness, (Numb. ii. 18. 20. 22.), and have lately been very zealous in thy service, (2 Chron. xxx. 1. xxxi. 1.), see thy power to be as great as ever, (though for some time.it hath not appeared at all for us), and that thou art as forward in due time to grant us a glorious deliverance. Ver. 3. Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.] Restore us, O God, to our former happiness; and for that end restore us into thy favour, and then there will soon be an end of our calamities. Ver. 4. O LORD God of hosts, how long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy people 2] For what can the greatest armies (2 Kings, xviii. 17.) do against thee, who art the supreme Lord of all, the absolute commander of the hosts of heaven? Whose help we have most importunately implored, and long waited for, as men impatient to see our enemies so prevalent; though hitherto thou hast been so exceeding angry with us, that thou hast not heard the prayers of thy people; Ver. 5. Thou feedest them with the bread of tears, and givest them tears to drink in great measure.] But hast turned our joyful feasts unto fasting and weeping, and our plenty into scarcity of all things, but only of tears; which we pour out in large measure, when we think of the danger we are in to perish by famine and by thirst, 2 Chron. xxxii. 21. Ver. 6. Thou makest us a strife unto our neighbours ; and our enemies laugh among themselves.] Our neighbours, the Edomites and others, either pick quarrels with us, or strive among themselves who shall make the greatest booty of us: while our enemies that besiege us, mock at our inability to help ourselves, and at our confidence which we place in thee, 2 Kings, xviii. 22. 23. 2 Chron. xxxii. 15. Ver. 7. Turn us again, O God of hosts, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.] Convince them, O Lord, that it is not vainly placed, by restoring us again to our former happiness; which it is easy for thee to do, who hast all the hosts of heaven at thy command, if thou wilt but be pleased to favour us, (as we again beseech thee thou wilt), and then no harm shall befal us. Ver. 8. Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt: thou bast cast out the heathen, and planted it.] We were once very dear unto thee, when thou didst transplant us, like a choice vine, out of Egypt into this country; from whence thou didst drive out the ancient inhabitants, that we might be settled in their place. Ver. 9. Thou preparedst room before it, and didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land.] Thou preparedst the way for us, making our terror to fall upon them before we came, (Josh. ii. 9. 10. 11.), so that we easily expelled them: and being there firmly established, like a vine deeply rooted in a fruitful soil, we increased and multiplied, till we peopled all the land; Ver. 1o. The bills were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars.] And as a rich vine covers the hill, on the side of which it is planted, or over-tops the lofty cedars which support it; so we obscured the splendour of the greatest kingdoms, and made mighty kings become tributaries to us, Kings, iv. 24. Ver. 11. She sent out her boughs unto the sea, and her branches unto the river.] For our empire extended itself (just like such a luxuriant vine, which spreads its branches every way) from the mid-land sea to the river Euphrates, 1 Kings, iv. 21. (see Psal. lxxii. 8.) Ver. 12. Why hast thou then broken down her hedges, so that all they which pass by the way, do pluck ber?] But now, alas! thou hast withdrawn thy protection from us, and we are left like a vineyard without its hedges: All our strong-holds and fenced cities are taken, (2 Kings, xviii. 3.), so that we lie open to be made a prey to every one that hath a mind to spoil us. Ver. 13. The boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it.] The Assyrian king, like a wild bear, that breaks into a vineyard, treads down all under his feet, and seeks to root us up: There is no savage beast can make greater havock among the vines, than his barbarous soldiers have done throughout all the land; which they have eaten up, 2 Kings, xix. 29. Ver. 14. Return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts: look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine ;] Our only hope is, that thou, the great Lord of hosts, on whom the event of wars, as of all things else, depends, wilt be reconciled unto us, and drive him out again; deny us not this request, we beseech thee; but though we be destitute of all help on earth, yet send us some from heaven; and though very unworthy, yet graciously take us into thy care, and repair the breaches which they have made. Ver. 15. And the vineyard which thy right hand hath planted, and the branch that thou madest strong for thyself.] Be favourable to the remnant of us, which, by thy powerful preservation, is still left; like the root of stock of a vine, which may sprout out again, (2 Kings, xix. 30. 31.); and especially to our king, whom thou hast endued with zeal and courageous resolution for thy service, (Chron. xxx. 32.), and for our defence, xxxii. 5. 6. 7. 8. Ver. 16. It is burnt with fire; it is cut down: they perish at the rebuke of thy countenance.] Great numbers of us are destroyed already, and may be compared to the numerous branches of that remaining stock, which, being cut off, are burnt with fire: And all the rest of us must perish, if thou wilt not be reconciled unto us, but still persevere in thy anger towards us. Ver. 17. Let thy hand be upon the Man of thy right band, upon the Son of man, whom thou madest strong for VOL. III. thyself] Which we beseech thee turn away; and be the mighty helper of our sovereign, who is dearly beloved by thee; of that excellent prince, whom thou hast endued with zeal and courageous resolution for thy service, and for our defence and preservation, (ver. 15.) Ver. 18. So will not we go back from thee: quicken us, and we will call upon thy name.] Which shall be an everlasting obligation upon us, never to revolt from thee to our former idolatry: Do but free us from these deadly enemies, and we will worship thee alone; and never cease to praise thee, and acknowledge that we owe our very lives to thy almighty goodness. Ver. 19. Turn us again, O LORD God of hosts; cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved.] Hear us, O great Lord, who hast all the angels in heaven at thy command; hear us, we once more beseech thee, and restore us perfectly to our former happiness; and in order to it, restore us to thy favour; and let there be a speedy end of all these calamities. PSALM LXXXI. To the chief musician upon Gittith. A Psalm of THE ARGUMENT.-There was a special command of But of what this blowing trumpets or cornets was a memorial, is not easy to resolve; the Hebrews themselves being at such a loss about it, that they are fain to go as far back as the deliverance of Isaac, and the offering a ram in his stead, for the reason of it. The clearest account of which, it seems to me, may be fetched from this psalm, which plainly intimates, that the blowing of trumpets at that time related to something which ensued upon their happy deliverance out of Egypt. Which, though it began upon the first day of the first month, according to their new computation, (which took its original from that deliverance, in A a memory of which God ordained the feast of the passover to begin on that day, Lev. xxiii. 6.), yet they had not a complete body of laws delivered to them by Moses, till the first day of the seventh month, which was the feast of blowing trumpets. Moses received indeed several laws in the third month, Exod. xix. 1. 3. &c. on the third day whereof (ver. 11. 16. 19. 20.) God himself appeared on the top of Mount Sinai, with the sound of a trumpet exceeding loud and prolonged, (to which I believe this feast hath respect), and spake the ten commandments; after which Moses delivered to them a body of civil laws, Exod. xxi. xxii. xxiii. But they did not know the manner of the divine service for which they came out of Egypt into the wilderness, till Moses had been twice forty days, one after the other, in the mount; and likewise (as several of the Jews understand those passages in Deut. ix. relating to this matter) had forty days longer bewailed their sin, in making the golden calf. Which six score days, if we add to the time between their coming out of Egypt, and the giving of the law on Mount Sinai, and to the six days which passed before Moses was called up into the cloud, it will fall out exactly to be the first day of the seventh month, when he began to give orders for the building of the tabernacle, and making all things belonging to God's house, according to the direction he had received in the mount. I am sure this was the precise time of their setting up the altar, and beginning to offer burnt-offerings after their return from the captivity of Babylon, before the foundation of the temple was laid. For you read, Ezra, iii. 1. 6. it was upon the first day of the seventh month; in the middle of which they also kept the feast of tabernacles, as Moses had appointed, in memory of their dwelling in booths in the wilderness, under the government of the Almighty; unto which the psalmist here hath respect in the next words, which we translate in the time appointed, that is, at the full moon, (as De Dieu hath demonstrated), on which the feast of tabernacles was kept in this seventh month; at which feast Solomon dedicated his temple, 1 Kings, viii. 2. where it is called the feast, and may well be meant here in the last words of the third verse of this psalm, our solemn feast-day; unless we take both the new-moon feast, and the full moon (i. e. feast of tabernacles) to be meant, and translate it, on the day of our feast. The same first day was also kept holy by Nehemiah with great solemnity, viii. 1. 8. 9. 10. where you find how the book of the law was distinctly read to the people on this day, and the sense of it explained; so that they came the next day again for farther it struction, ver. 13. Nw, that they might be more mindful of those divine benefits which in this month they commemorated more than in any other month in the year, Asaph (in the days of David, it is likely) composed this psalm, and directed it to the master of music, to be sung (as the 8th psalm, upon Gittith) in the be ་ ginning of it, upon the feast of trumpets. And he introduces God himself (before whom they were summoned, as I said, by these trumpets, to appear) in the end of this solemnity; and complaining of the forgetfulness of his benefits, in giving them such a deliverance out of the Egyptian slavery; and of their hard-heartedness in preferring their own inventions, and the miseries they brought thereby upon themselves, before his counsels, and the happiness he intended for them. Which happiness is expressed in the last verse, by satisfying them with honey out of the rock; concerning which the learned may consult Bochartus de Sacris Animal. part 2. l. 4. c. 12. Ver. 1. SING aloud unto God our strength: make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob.] Sing praises aloud unto God, to whose almighty power alone we owe the deliverance which we now commemorate; shout with the voice of triumph in honour of him, who was so good unto your forefathers. Ver. 2. Take a psalm, and bring hither the timbrel, the pleasant barp, with the psaltery.] Offer to him your chearful hymns; and to complete the melody, and express the greatness of your joy, let some with timbrels, others with the pleasant harp, and others with the psaltery, celebrate the memory of his mercies. Ver. 3. Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, in the time appointed on our solemn feast-day.] And let the priests especially (Numb. x. 8.) take care to blow with the trumpets at the sacred solemnity, on the first day of the seventh month, the principal moon in the year, (which is attended with another feast at the full moon of this month), that all the people may call to mind the trump of God, (Exod. xix. 16. 19.), which our fathers heard at his dreadful appearance on mount Sinai, to give his law unto them. Ver. 4. For this was a statute for Israel, and a law of the God of Jacob] For thus hath the Lord decreed in that law, where the God of our father Jacob requires this service of us, Lev. xxiii. 24. &c. Ver. 5. This he ordained in Joseph for a testimony, when he went out through the land of Egypt: where I beard a language that I understood not.] This he appointed unto the children of Joseph, as well as the rest of the tribes of Israel, for a perpetual memorial of his benefits, when he, going out over all the land of Egypt, (Exod. xi. 4. xii. 23. 29.), and destroying all the first-born, forced them to let us depart into the wilderness, where we heard to our great astonishment, (for we were never before acquainted with it), the voice of God. Ver. 6. 1 removed his shoulder from the burden; bis bands were delivered from the pots.] Who, considering with himself what a title he had to our service, (hav ing taken off the heavy burdens which the Egyptians laid upon our backs, and rid our hands of those sordid and dirty employments wherein they made us labour), Ver. 7. Thou callest in trouble, and I delivered thee; I answered thee in the secret place of thunder; Iproved thee at the waters of Meribah. Selah.] Admonished us to this effect, saying, You cried to me by reason of your cruel servitude under Pharaoh's task-masters, (Exod. ii. 23.), and I delivered you out of it, (iii. 8.), and again answered your prayers when you cried unto me in a new distress at the RedSea, (Exod. xiv. 10. 13.), but confounded the Egyptians with thunder and lightning out of the cloudy pillar, (Exod. xiv. 24. 25. Psalm, lxxvii. 18.) After all which I might well expect you should depend upon me, but presently found you full of distrust and infidelity at the waters of strife, (Exod. xvii. 7.), where I gave you a new proof of my power. Ver. 8. Hear, O my people, and I will testify unto thee; O Israel, if thou wilt hearken unto me;] Of which if you will still enjoy the benefit. then give ear, O my people, and I will solemnly declare my will, and give a severe charge unto you, O ye Israelites, if you resolve to be obedient to my admo nitions. Ver. 9. There shall no strange god be in thee; neither shalt thou worship any strange god.] Then this is the principal thing upon which all the rest depends, you shall not suffer any other gods to be acknowledged among you, but only me, (Exod. xx. 3. 23.), nor shall you worship the gods of other nations, Exod. xxiii. 13. 24. 32. Ver. 10. I am the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt; open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.] For I, and I alone, am the living Lord, the eternal God, who gave a being to all things, and who am your peculiar benefactor, having brought you out of the Egyptian bondage, (Exod. xix. 4. xx. 2.) And if you will be faithful and obedient to me, enlarge your desires as far as you please, and I will satisfy them, for all the world is mine, Exod. xix. 5. xxiii. 25. Ver. 11. But my people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of me.] But notwithstanding their seeming compliance with him, and the fair promises they made him, (Exod. xix. 8. xx. 19. xxiv. 3. 7.), he presently complained, (Exod. xxxii. 7. 8. 9. as I hear him still do at this day), my people would not be obedient to me, and Israel would not rest contented with me alone: Ver. 12. So I gave them up unto their own hearts' lust: and they walked in their own counsels.] So, provoked by their long stubbornness, I took no further care of them, but left them to do as they pleased, saying, Let them follow their own inventions. Ver. 13. Ob that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways!] But it had been better for them to have adhered to me, who, out of my tender affection to their good, still wished, even when they were so refractory, that my people Israel had been so wise as to have followed my directions, and been led by my advice, and not their own foolish imaginations. Ver. 14. I should soon have subdued their enemies, and turned my hand against their adversaries.] Then I should in a short time have quelled all their enemies, and by one victory after another, have quite destroyed those adversrries which (since I brought them into Canaan) have often miserably afflicted and oppressed them, Judges, ii. 2. 3. 14. 15. 19. 2c. iii. 1. &c. iv. 2. Ver. 15. The haters of the LORD should have submitted themselves unto him: but their time should have endured for ever.] And all that maligned their prosperity, and set themselves against the design of the Lord to make them victorious over their enemies, should have been so daunted, that they should have dissembled their inward hatred, and been forced at least to a counterfeit submission; but his people should have seen blessed days, and enjoyed a substantial and durable happiness without any interruption. Ver. 16. He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat; and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee.] He should have made their country exceeding fruitful, and fed them with the richest wheat; and I myself, saith the Lord, would have blessed thee with such plenty, that in the desarts thon shouldest have found the sweetest refreshments, and without any care of thine, the bees should have laboured honey for thee, in the rocks, and holes of trees, and such like places, Deut. xxxii. 13. Judges, xiv. 8. 1 Sam. xiv. 25. 26. PSALM LXXXII. A Psalm of Asaph. no THE ARGUMENT.-Though there had been a table reformation made by Jehosaphat, (2 Chron. xix. 5. 6. &c.), of those corruptions which had been growing in the supreme court of judicature, at Jerusalem, as well as the lesser in other cities, ever since the times of David and Solomon, (who took care to see justice done, 1 Chron. xvii. 14. Kings, iii. 9. 28.), yet it appears, by the frequent com plaints of Isaiah, that when Hezekiah (in those days that prophet lived) came to the crown, there was a general depravation again, and that notw hstanding the amendment he had made in matters of the divine worship, (2 Chron. xxx. xxxi.), and his resolutions and endeavour, no question to reform the abuses which were in their civil judicatures, (as I have expounded Psal. lxxv. 23.), they continued still exceeding corrupt. Insomuch that Isaiah calls their judges, rulers of Sodom, Isa. i. 10. (when he finds no fault with their religious services, ver. II. 12. &c.) and says, "their princes were rebellious, companions of thieves, loving gifts, and following after rewards," ver. 23. Where it is evident he describes the judges in the highest court of all, who are called by the name of princes in several places, particularly in Jeremiah; who being condemned by the priests, and prophets, and people, as a man worthy to die, Jer. |