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We have a Name to trust to, tenderer and deeper than those which evoked the Psalmist's triumphant confidence. Let us see to it that, as the basis of our faith is firmer, our faith be stronger than his. We have a plea to urge, more persuasive and mighty than those which he pressed on God and gathered to his own heart. 'For Christ's sake' includes all that he pled, and stretches beyond it.
Why hast Thou forsaken Me? Whatever may be our views as to its authorship, and as to the connection between the Psalmist's utterances and his own personal experiences, none to whom that voice that rang through the darkness on Calvary is the voice of the Son of God, can hesitate as to who it is whose very griefs and sorrows are thus the spiritual food that gives life to the whole world.
The Psalmist's closing declaration is something very much deeper than that they who trust in God 'shall not be desolate. If you look at the previous clause, you will see that we must expect something more than such a particular blessing as that: 'The Lord redeemeth the soul of His servants. It is a great drop from that thought, instead of being a climax, to follow it with nothing more than, 'None of them that trust in Him shall be desolate. But the Revised Version accurately renders the words: 'None of them that trust in Him shall be condemned. There we have something that is worthy to follow 'The Lord redeemeth the soul of His servants, and we have a most striking anticipation of the clearest and most Evangelical teaching of the New Testament.
"When my parents looked astonished at the number, one of the daughters quietly said: 'You see that here we marry our children while very young, so that the Psalmist's words are very often fulfilled in Palestine, and nearly everyone has his quiver full. When all were quiet, our aged friend repeated a prayer over the wine, and the large silver cup was passed from one to the other.
Good Meekin, in the fullness of his stupidity, had selected the fiercest denunciations of bard and priest. The most notable of the Psalmist's curses upon his enemies, the most furious of Isaiah's ravings anent the forgetfulness of the national worship, the most terrible thunderings of apostle and evangelist against idolatry and unbelief, were grouped together and presented to Dawes to soothe him.
'A glorious privacy of light is Thine. There is a wonderful metaphor in the New Testament of a woman 'clothed with the sun, and caught up into it from her enemies to be safe there. And that is just an expansion of the Psalmist's grand paradox, 'Thou shalt hide them in the secret of Thy face. Light conceals when the light is so bright as to dazzle.
No other possession corresponds to our capacities so as to fill up all our needs and satisfy all our being. No other possession passes into our very substance and becomes inseparable from ourselves. So the mystical fervour of the psalmist's devotion spoke a simple prose truth when he exclaimed, 'The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup. We have squandered our inheritance.
The psalmist's query came naturally to the mind, "Why hop ye so ye hills?" and our Kobuk boy Roxy, whose enjoyment of fine landscapes and strange sights was always a pleasure to witness, answered the unspoken question. "God make mountains dance because spring come," he said prettily enough.
'His word was upon my tongue. There we have the utterance succeeding the inward voice, and the guarantee that the Psalmist's word was a true transcript of the inward voice. 'The God of Israel said, and therefore Israel is concerned in the divine word, which is not of private reference, but meant for all.
Thou hast the words of eternal life. IV. And lastly, we have here, as the final trait in the temper which becomes such times, healthy opposition to the ways which make void the word of the Lord. That is the Psalmist's last movement of feeling, and you see that it comes second, not first, in the order of his emotions.
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