Commentary on Psalms - Volume 3 - Bible Study Guides

Comm on Psalms (V3)John Calvinrather mocked him, intending to put him off with false pretences, their impiety was the less excusable.If a man who has lost his judgment does not feel his own calamities, he is excusable because he isinsensible; but he who is forced to acknowledge that he is culpable, and yet always continues thesame, or after having lightly sought pardon, in fair but deceitful words, suddenly returns to hisformer state of mind, manifestly shows by such hollowness of heart that his disease is incurable.It is here tacitly intimated, that the punishments, by which a people so obstinate were constrainedto seek God, were of no common or ordinary kind; and we are informed, (verse 35, 339 ) not onlythat they were convinced of wickedness, but also that they were affected with a sense and aremembrance of the redemption from which they were fallen. By this means they are the moreeffectually deprived of all excuse on the ground of ignorance. The language implies that they werenot carried away inadvertently, or deceived through ignorance, but that they had provoked the wrathof God, by dealing treacherously, as it were with deliberate purpose. And, indeed, God openedtheir eyes with the view of more openly discovering their desperate wickedness, as if, shaking offtheir hypocrisy and flatteries, he drew them from their lurking-places into the light.36. And they flattered him with their mouth, and lied to him with their tongue. Here they arecharged with perfidiousness, because they neither confessed their guilt with sincerity of heart, nortruly ascribed to God the glory of their deliverance. We are not to suppose that they made noacknowledgement at all; but it is intimated that the confession of the mouth, as it did not proceedfrom the heart, was constrained and not voluntary. This is well worthy of being noticed; for fromit we learn, not only the duty incumbent upon us of guarding against that gross hypocrisy whichconsists in uttering with the tongue, before men, one thing, while we think a different thing in ourhearts, but also that we ought to beware of a species of hypocrisy which is more hidden, and whichconsists in this, that the sinner, being constrained by fear, flatters God in a slavish manner, whileyet, if he could, he would shun the judgment of God. The greater part of men are mortally smittenwith this disease; for although the divine majesty extorts from them some kind of awe, yet it wouldbe gratifying to them were the light of divine truth completely extinguished. It is, therefore, notenough to yield an assent to the divine word, unless that assent is accompanied with true and pureaffection, so that our hearts may not be double or divided. The Psalmist points out the cause andsource of this dissimulation to be, that they were not steadfast and faithful By this he intimates,that whatever does not proceed from unfeigned purity of heart is accounted lying and deceit in thesight of God. Since this uprightness is every where required in the law, he accuses the people withbeing covenant-breakers, because they had not kept the covenant of God with that fidelity whichbecame them. As I have observed elsewhere, there is always to be presupposed a mutual relationand correspondence between the covenant of God and our faith, in order that the unfeigned consentof the latter may answer to the faithfulness of the former.Psalm 78:38-41339 In the Hebrew Bible, a masoretic note is inserted after the 35th verse, , chatsi ha-sepher, the middle of the book, thatis, with respect to verses.152