Commentary on Psalms - Volume 3 - Bible Study Guides

Comm on Psalms (V3)John Calvindistress. The danger of their being thus discouraged he now lays before God; not that God has everneed of being put in mind of any thing, but because he allows us to deal familiarly with him at thethrone of grace. The word wait is properly to be understood of hope, and the expression to seekGod, of prayer. The connecting of the two together teaches us the profitable lesson, that faith is notall inactive principle, since it is the means of stirring us up to seek God.7 For on thy account I have suffered reproach He now expresses more distinctly what he hadstated ironically in the fifth verse, where he asserts that his faults were not hidden from God. Nay,he proceeds farther, declaring not only that the evil treatment which he met with from his enemieswas unjust and altogether unmerited, but also that his cause was really God’s cause, since whateverhe had undertaken and engaged in was expressly in obedience to the command of God. Saul nodoubt had other reasons, or at least other pretences, for persecuting David; but as the hatred whichhe entertained against him most unquestionably proceeded from God’s having called and anointedhim to be king, David here justly protests that it was not for any wickedness which he had committed,but because he had obeyed God, that men in general disapproved of and rashly condemned him. Itis a source of great consolation to true believers when they can protest that they have the warrantand call of God for whatever they undertake or engage in. If we are hated by the world for makinga public confession of the faith, a thing which we are to expect, it being evident from observationthat the wicked ordinarily are never more fierce than when they assault the truth of God and thetrue religion, we have ground to entertain double confidence. 74 We also learn from this passagehow monstrous is the malice of men, who convert into a ground for reproach and reprehension thezeal for the Divine glory by which true believers are animated. 75 But it is well for us that God notonly wipes away the reproaches with which the wicked load us, but also so ennobles them, thatthey surpass all the honors and triumphs of the world. The Psalmist farther aggravates his complaintby the additional circumstance, that he was cruelly cast off by his own relations and friends; fromwhich we are taught, that when by our devotedness to the cause of religion we cannot avoid excitingthe displeasure of our brethren against us, it is our duty simply to follow God, and not to conferwith flesh and blood.9 For the zeal of thy house hath eaten me up 76 David’s enemies, no doubt, professed that nothingwas farther from their mind than to touch the sacred name of God; but he reproves their hypocriticalpretences, and affirms that he is fighting in God’s quarrel. The manner in which he did this, heshows, was by the zeal for the Church of God with which his soul was inflamed. He not only assignsthe cause of the evil treatment which he received — his zeal for the house of God — but alsodeclares that whatever evil treatment he was undeservedly made the object of, yet, as it were,forgetting himself, he burned with a holy zeal to maintain the Church, and at the same time theglory of God, with which it is inseparably connected. To make this the more obvious, let it beobserved, that although all boast in words of allowing to God the glory which belongs to him; yet74 That is, the confidence arising from the reflection that we are, in the first place, suffering unjustly; and, secondly, that weare suffering in the cause of God.75 “Qui convertissent en diffame et blasme le desir que les fideles ont de sa gloire.” — Fr.76 The verb means not only ‘to eat up, to devour,’ but ‘to corrode or consume,’ by separating the parts from each other, asfire, (see Parkhurst on 2;) and the radical import of the Hebrew word for ‘zeal,’ seems to be ‘to eat into, corrode, as fire.’ Theword (says Parkhurst) is, in the Hebrew Bible, generally applied to the fervent or ardent affections of the human frame, theeffects of which are well known to be even like those of fire, corroding and consuming; and, accordingly, the poets, both ancientand modern, abound with descriptions of these ardent and consuming affections, taken from fire and its effects. (See on .)” —Mant33