Commentary on Psalms - Volume 3 - Bible Study Guides

Comm on Psalms (V3)John Calvinof God, was reduced to heaps. By these words is denoted a hideous overthrow. The profanation ofthe temple, and the destruction of the holy city, involving, as they did, heaven-daring impiety,which ought justly to have provoked the wrath of God against these enemies — the prophet beginswith them, and then comes to speak of the slaughter of the saints. The atrocious cruelty of thesepersecutions is pointed out from the circumstance that they not only put to death the servants ofGod, but also exposed their dead bodies to the beasts of the field, and to birds of prey, to be devoured,instead of burying them. Men have always had such a sacred regard to the burial of the dead, as toshrink from depriving even their enemies of the honor of sepulture. 370 Whence it follows, that thosewho take a barbarous delight in seeing the bodies of the dead torn to pieces and devoured by beasts,more resemble these savage and cruel animals than human beings. It is also shown that thesepersecutors acted more atrociously than enemies ordinarily do, inasmuch as they made no moreaccount of shedding human blood than of pouring forth water. From this we learn their insatiablethirst for slaughter. When it is added, there was none to bury them, this is to be understood asapplying to the brethren and relatives of the slain. The inhabitants of the city were stricken withsuch terror by the indiscriminate butchery perpetrated by these ruthless assassins upon all whocame in their way, that no one dared to go forth. God having intended that, in the burial of men,there should be some testimony to the resurrection at the last day, it was a double indignity for thesaints to be despoiled of this right after their death. But it may be asked, Since God often threatensthe reprobate with this kind of punishment, why did he suffer his own people to be devoured ofbeasts? We must remember, what we have stated elsewhere, that the elect, as well as the reprobate,are subjected to the temporal punishments which pertain only to the flesh. The difference betweenthe two cases lies solely in the issue; for God converts that which in itself is a token of his wrathinto the means of the salvation of his own children. The same explanation, then, is to be given oftheir want of burial which is given of their death. The most eminent of the servants of God may beput to a cruel and ignominious death — a punishment which we know is often executed uponmurderers, and other despisers of God; but still the death of the saints does not cease to be preciousin his sight: and when he has suffered them to be unrighteously persecuted in the flesh, he shows,by taking vengeance on their enemies, how dear they were to him. In like manner, God, to stampthe marks of his wrath on the reprobate, even after their death, deprives them of burial; and, therefore,he threatens a wicked king, “He shall be buried with the burial of all ass, drawn and cast forthbeyond the gates of Jerusalem,” (Jeremiah 22:19; see also Jeremiah 36:30.) 371 When he exposeshis own children to the like indignity, he may seem for a time to have forsaken them; but heafterwards converts it into the means of furthering their salvation; for their faith, being subjectedto this trial, acquires a fresh triumph. When in ancient times the bodies of the dead were anointed,that ceremony was performed for the sake of the living whom they left behind them, to teach them,when they saw the bodies of the dead carefully preserved, to cherish in their hearts the hope of abetter life. The faithful, then, by being deprived of burial, suffer no loss, when they rise by faithabove these inferior helps, that they may advance with speedy steps to a blessed immortality.370 If this psalm was written on the taking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, or during the Babylonish captivity, it would appear,from this verse, that when the Chaldeans destroyed Jerusalem, they left the bodies of the slain unburied, to be devoured by beastsand birds of prey.371 Similar threatenings are to be found in Isaiah 14:19, 20; Jeremiah 8:2.170