Commentary on Psalms - Volume 3 - Bible Study Guides

Comm on Psalms (V3)John Calvincontinue till it reach its end or consummation. In the second clause of the verse something must besupplied. The sense, in short, is, that the Divine promise is no less stable than the settled course ofthe heavens, which is eternal and exempt from all change. By the word heavens I understand notonly the visible skies, but the heavens which are above the whole frame of the world; for the truthof God, in the heavenly glory of his kingdom, is placed above all the elements of the world.3 I have made a covenant with my chosen. 524 The more effectually to confirm himself and allthe godly in the faith of the Divine promise, he introduces God himself as speaking and sanctioning,by his authority, what had been said in the preceding verse. As faith ought to depend on the Divinepromise, this manner of speaking, by which God is represented as coming forward and alluring usto himself by his own voice, is more forcible than if the prophet himself had simply stated the fact.And when God in this way anticipates us, we cannot be charged with rashness in coming familiarlyto him; even as, on the contrary, without His word we have no ground to presume that he will begracious to us, or to hope, at the mere suggestion of our own fancy, for what he has not promised.Moreover, the truth of the promise is rendered still more irrefragable, when God declares that hehad made a covenant with his servant David, ratified by his own solemn oath. It having beencustomary in ancient times to engrave leagues and covenants on tables of brass, a metaphor is hereused borrowed from this practice. God applies to David two titles of distinction, calling him bothhis chosen and his servant. Those who would refer the former appellation to Abraham do notsufficiently attend to the style of the Book of Psalms, in which it is quite common for one thing tobe repeated twice. David is called the chosen of God, because God of his own good pleasure, andfrom no other cause, preferred him not only to the posterity of Saul, and many distinguishedpersonages, but even to his own brethren. If, therefore, the cause or origin of this covenant is soughtfor, we must necessarily fall back upon the Divine election.The name of servant, which follows immediately after, is not to be understood as implying thatDavid by his services merited any thing at the hand of God. He is called God’s servant in respectof the royal dignity, into which he had not rashly thrust himself, having been invested with thegovernment by God, and having undertaken it in obedience to his lawful call. When, however, weconsider what the covenant summarily contains, we conclude that the prophet has not improperlyapplied it to his own use, and to the use of the whole people; for God did not enter into it withDavid individually, but had an eye to the whole body of the Church, which would exist from ageto age. The sentence, I will establish thy throne for ever, is partly to be understood of Solomon,and the rest of David’s successors; but the prophet well knew that perpetuity or everlasting duration,in the strict and proper sense, could be verified only in Christ. In ordaining one man to be king,God assuredly did not have a respect to one house alone, while he forgot and neglected the peoplewith whom he had before made his covenant in the person of Abraham; but he conferred thesovereign power upon David and his children, that they might rule for the common good of all therest, until the throne might be truly established by the advent of Christ.524 “The word , ‘I have said,’ is used, in the Book of Psalms, to express two things; either a fixed purpose, or a settledopinion of the person speaking. The Psalmist, therefore, delivers the whole of this second verse in his own person, and introducesnot God speaking till the next verse.” — Horsley254