Commentary on Psalms - Volume 3 - Bible Study Guides

Comm on Psalms (V3)John Calvinit was an image. As God has not only withdrawn our shoulders from a burden of brick, and notonly removed our hands from the kilns, but has also redeemed us from the cruel and miserabletyranny of Satan, and drawn us from the depths of hell, the obligations under which we lie to himare of a much more strict and sacred kind than those under which he had brought his ancient people.7 Thou didst cry in trouble, and I delivered thee. Here the same subject is prosecuted. By theircrying when they were in distress, I understand the prayers which they then offered to God. Itsometimes happens that those who are reduced to extremity bewail their calamities with confusedcrying; but as this afflicted people still had in them some remains of godliness, and as they had notforgotten the promise made to their fathers, I have no doubt that they directed their prayers to God.Even men without religion, who never think of calling upon God, when they are under the pressureof any great calamity, are moved by a secret instinct of nature to have recourse to Him. This rendersit the more probable that the promise was, as it were, a schoolmaster to the Israelites, leading themto look to God. As no man sincerely calls upon Him but he who trusts in him for help; this cryingought the more effectually to have convinced them that it was their duty to ascribe to Him alonethe deliverance which was offered them. By the secret place of thunder some, in my opinion, withtoo much refinement of interpretation, understand that God by thundering rendered the groaningsof the people inaudible to the Egyptians, that by hearing them the Egyptians might not become themore exasperated. But the meaning simply is, that the people were heard in a secret and wonderfulmanner, while, at the same time, manifest tokens were given by which the Israelites might besatisfied that they were succoured by the Divine hand. God, it is true, was not seen by them faceto face; but the thunder was an evident indication of his secret presence among them. 410 To makethem prize more highly this benefit, God upbraidingly tells them that they were unworthy of it,having given such a manifest proof at the waters of Meribah, 411 that they were of a wicked andperverse disposition, Exodus 17:7. Your wickedness, as if he had said, having at that time so openlyshown itself, surely it must from this be incontrovertible that my favor to you did not proceed fromany regard to your good desert. This rebuke is not less applicable to us than to the Israelites; forGod not only heard our groanings when we were afflicted under the tyranny of Satan, but beforewe were born appointed his only begotten Son to be the price of our redemption; and afterwards,when we were his enemies, he called us to be partakers of his grace, illuminating our minds by hisgospel and his Holy Spirit; while we, notwithstanding, continue to indulge in murmuring, yea, evenproudly rebel against Him.410 Bishop Lowth understands by “the secret place of thunder” the communication of the Israelites with God upon mount Sinai,the awfulness of which is expressed by these few words. (Lowth’s Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews, volume 2,page 220.) Walford reads, “I answered thee by thunder, from a hidden retreat;” and he observes, that this contains “a referenceto the majestic display on Sinai, where, though the symbols of the present Deity were seen and heard, the lightnings and thunders,he himself was concealed from all human view.” The only objection which can be made against interpreting this of Sinai is, thatthe murmuring at Meribah, Exodus 17, was before the thundering on Sinai, Exodus 19; whereas here the thunder is mentionedfirst, and then what took place at Meribah in the end of the verse. But this objection is easily removed; for in the poeticalcompositions of Scripture strict order is not, always observed in the narration of facts. Thus in Psalm 83:9, the victory over theMidianites (Judges 7) is mentioned before that over Sisera, (Judges 4,) which was the victory first achieved.411 Literally “the waters of contradiction;” , meribah, from , rub, to quarrel, being a noun signifying contention, strife Itis therefore fitly used as the name of the place in the desert where the Israelites quarrelled with Moses. “The local specification,”observes Bishop Mant, “as used in our Bible translation, is much more poetical than the rendering in the Common Prayer-Book,‘the waters of strife.’” “The mention of Meribah,” says Lowth, “introduces another idea, namely, the ingratitude and contumacyof the Israelites, who appear to have been ever unmindful of the favors and indulgence of their heavenly Benefactor.”189