Commentary on Psalms - Volume 3 - Bible Study Guides

Comm on Psalms (V3)John Calvin5 Thou carriest them away as with a flood. Moses confirms what he had previously said, Thatmen, so long as they are sojourners in this world, perform, as it were, a revolution which lasts onlyfor a moment. I do not limit the expression to carry away as with a flood to calamities of a moregrievous kind, but consider that death is simply compared in general to a flood; for when we havestaid a little while in the world, we forthwith fall into the grave and are covered with earth. Thusdeath, which is common to all, is with propriety called an inundation. While we are breathing thebreath of life, the Lord overflows us by death, just as those who perish in a shipwreck are engulfedin the ocean; so that death may be fitly called an invisible deluge. And Moses affirms, that it is thenevidently seen that men who flatter themselves that they are possessed of wonderful vigor in theirearthly course, are only as a sleep. The comparison of grass which is added, amounts to this, Thatmen come forth in the morning as grass springs up, that they become green, or pass away within ashort time, when being cut down, they wither and decay. The verbs in the 6th verse being in thesingular number, it is better to connect them with the word grass. But they may also be appropriatelyreferred to each man; and as it makes little difference as to the sense of the text, whether we makegrass or each man the nominative to the verbs, I am not disposed to expend much labor upon thematter. This doctrine requires to be continually meditated upon; for although we all confess thatnothing is more transitory than our life, yet each of us is soon carried away, as it were, by a franticimpulse to picture to his own imagination an earthly immortality. Whoever bears in mind that heis mortal, restrains himself, that instead of having his attention and affections engrossed beyondmeasure with earthly objects, he may advance with haste to his mark. When we set no limit to ourcares, we require to be urged forward by continual goadings, that we may not dream of a thousandlives instead of one, which is but as a shadow that quickly vanishes away.7 For we fail by thy anger. Moses makes mention of the anger of God advisedly; for it isnecessary that men be touched with the feeling of this, in order to their considering in good earnest,what experience constrains them to acknowledge, how soon they finish their course and pass away.He had, however, still another reason for joining together the brevity of human life and the angerof God. Whilst men are by nature so transitory, and, as it were, shadowy, the Israelites were afflictedby the hostile hand of God; and his anger is less supportable by our frail natures, which speedilyvanish away, than it would be were we furnished with some tolerable degree of strength.8 Thou hast set our iniquities before thee. To show that by this complaint he is far from intendingto murmur against God, he asserts that the Divine anger, however terrible it had been, was just,inasmuch as the people had provoked it by their iniquities; for those who, when stricken by theDivine hand, are not brought to genuine humiliation, harden themselves more and more. The trueway to profit, and also to subdue our pride, is to feel that He is a righteous judge. AccordinglyMoses, after having briefly taught that men by nature vanish away like smoke, gathers from thencethat it is not to be wondered at if God exanimates and consumes those whom he pursues with hiswrath. The manner of the expression by which God is described as showing the tokens of his angeris to be observed — he sets the iniquities of men before his eyes Hence it follows, that whateverintermission of punishment we experience ought in justice to be ascribed to the forbearance of.God, who buries our sins that he may spare us. The word , alumim, which I have rendered oursecret sins, is translated by some, our youth; 567 as if Moses had said that the faults committed in567 “In the Indies,” says Sir John Chardin, “the parts of the night are made known, as well by instruments (of music,) in greatcities, as by the rounds of the watchmen, who, with cries and small drums, give notice that a fourth part of the night is passed.281