Paraphrase Upon the Books of the Psalms, Book 1 · Psalm 40
The Fortieth Psalm.
TO the chief Musitian, A Psalm of David.
Paraphrase. The fortieth Psalm is an acknowledgement of Gods mercies to David, and of his obligations to God; and contains a prophetick mention of the mutual contract betwixt God the Father and Christ the Son. It was composed by David, and committed to the Prefect of his Musick.
1. I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.
In the greatest of my troubles, I reposed my full trust and confidence on the Lord; I waited his good time, and continued my constant prayers unto him, and in due season he heard and granted my request.
2. He brought me also out of‖a sounding pit. ana. horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.
And though I were very deeply immerst in calamities, and so as my condition was well nigh desperate; yet he rescued me out of all, and set me in a condition of safety and stability.
3. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.
Thus hath he given me abundant matter of praise and thanksgiving unto his blessed name, who hath thus magnified his mercy to me. And this dealing of his with me may well allure all men to the consideration of it, and thereby to the performing of all faithfull obedience, and placing their full trust and adherence on him.
4. Blessed is the man thatb. maketh the Lord his trust, and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.
There being no such happy man as he that relyes not on any wit or aid or strength of man, but reposeth his full trust in God, and on that security, never applyes himselfe to the practises of atheisticall, insolent, deceitfull men, in hope to gain any thing by such arts as these.
5. †Many things hast thou done, O Lord my God: thy wonders and thy thought … ward us I am not able to set in order before thee.Many, O Lord my God, are the wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to usward;c. they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbred.
O thou God of power, and fatherly goodness toward me, thou hast abounded to me in thy rich mercies: thy works, and thy counsels of grace to us are wonderfull, and inexpressible: I would fain make some acknowledgement thereof to thee; but they surpasse my arithmetick to recite; much more to make a just valuation of them.
6. Sacrifice and offering thou didst not*delight in foreign desire;d. mine eare hast thou opened: Burnt-offering and sacrifice thou hast not required.
Above all is that admirable work of thy mercy in giving the Messias. Instead of the legal sacrifices of all sorts, which were but shadows of this great evangelical mercy, thou hast decreed that thine eternal son shall assume our humane nature, and therein abundantly fulfill all that which the sacrifices and oblations did faintly prefigure, and thereby take away sin, which the legal observances were not able to doe.
7. Then said I, Lo, I come:e. in the†folding of the bill, or roll of writing. volume of the Book it is written of me:
8. ‖To do, or that I should do thy will, O my God, I have delighted therein. foreign &cI delight to doe thy will, O my God; yea thy law is†in the midst of my bowels, foreign see Psal. xxii. 14. within my heart.
At this coming of the Messias therefore, the ordinances of Mosaical sacrifices shall be abolished; and the eternal son of God shall agree and contract with his Father, to performe that perfect obedience to his laws, and to offer up himselfe such a divine and spotlesse sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, as shall most effectually tend to the working an expiation for sin, and bringing men to the performance of holy sincere obedience to God, (thus visibly exemplified to them by Christ,) and consequently to salvation. And upon this intuition, he shall most gladly, and with all delight and joy, set about the whole will and counsel of God, and go through the office assigned him very chearfully and heartily. (Another sense of the words as understood of David himself, see in note d.)
9. I have preach't righteousness in the great congregation: loe I have not‖confined, foreign refrained my lips, O Lord, thou knowest.
I will proclaim this, and all other thy works of evangelical infinite mercy before all that acknowledge and professe thy service: my tongue shall never be confined, or silent in this matter, any more than, as thou knowest, hitherto it hath been.
10. I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation: I have not concealed thy righteousness and thy truth from the great congregation.
This goodness of thine, this performance of all thy rich promises, this work of redemption and spiritual deliverance, is too great to be meditated on in silence: 'tis fit to be proclaimed aloud, to be promulgated to all men in the world.
11. †confine, foreignWithhold not thou thy tender mercies from me, O Lord: let thy loving-kindness and thy truth continually preserve me.
Be thou therefore pleased not to be confined or restrained in thy bowels toward me at this time, but shew forth thy compassions to me: Thou art good and gratious, and faithfully performest all that thou ever promisest: O let thy promised mercy be continually made good to me, for my deliverance from all dangers.
12. For innumerable evils have compassed me about; mine iniquities have taken hold upon me,*and I could not see foreign that I am not able to look up: they are more than the hairs of my head; therefore my heart faileth me.
And this most seasonably at this time, now that I am surrounded with so many dangers, now that the punishments which my sins have most justly deserved, my multiplyed crying innumerable sins, have so violently seised upon me, cast me into a black and comfortlesse condition.
13. Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me: O God, make hast to help me.
O blessed Lord, let it be thy good pleasure to afford me speedy deliverance out of it.
14. ‖or, They shall.Let them be ashamed and confounded together that seek after my soul to destroy it; let them be driven backward and put to shame that wish me evill.
Let not them prosper and succeed in their attempts, that designe to take away my life, or doe me any other mischief; but doe thou please to discomfit and disappoint them all: And this I am confident thou wilt doe.
15. †or, They shall.Let them be desolatef. for a reward of their*turpitude. shame, that say unto me, Aha, Aha.
And reward their abominable actions with confusion and desolation, that triumph over me in my distress, and scoffe at my placing my affiance and trust in God.
16. Let all those that seek thee rejoyce and be glad in thee:‖and say alwayes, Let the Lord magnifie them that love thy salvation. foreign Let such as love thy salvation say continually, The Lord be magnified.
By this means shall all pious men, that place their trust in thee, and depend onelyonly on thy aids and rescue, be incouraged for ever in their hopes and adherence on thee, and praise and magnifie thy mercies, and applaud thee for them.
17. But I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me. Thou art my help and my deliverer; make no tarrying, O my God.
How low soever my condition is, my comfort is, that God hath a fatherly care of me. On thee, O Lord, is all my trust, whether for deliverance or relief: O deferre not the interposition of thy hand, but hasten speedily to my succour.
Annotations on Psalm XL.
V. 2. Horrible pit] From foreign personuit, is foreign foreignhere, a noise or loud sounding, and being applied to a pit, is a resounding pit, or a pit of sounding; it signifies the depth and watryness of it, from the conjunction of which proceeds a profound noise, or sound, when a stone, or any such thing is thrown into it. Thus the Chaldee understand it, rendring it foreign, from foreign to make a tumultuous noise. The LXXII. read foreign misery, and so the Latine miseriae, the Syriack, foreign sadness, the Arabick, perdition; either by way of Paraphrase, to signifie the miserable sad estate of him that is ingulfed in such a pit, or else referring to another notion of foreign, for a vast or desolate place, ruine or perdition. But the notion of the word is best fetcht from Isa. xvii. 12. where we have the foreign noise of the people, foreign like the noise of many waters, foreign so shall they make a noise; foreign saith the Chaldee, they shall sound tumultuously.
V. 4. Maketh] For foreign foreignposuit, set, or put, the LXXII. read foreign name, and so render it foreign, whose hope is the name of the Lord; and so the Latine, Syriack, Arabick, and Aethiopick: and the sense is not at all wronged by it. OnelyOnly the Chaldee reads foreign which hath put. In the end of the verse, where the Hebrew hath foreign those that decline to a ly, foreign(for which the Chaldee hath those that speak lies) from foreign to goe out of the way, the Lxxii. read foreign and lying madnesses, as if it were from foreign, used among the Chaldees for being mad. The Latine follow the Lxxii. insanias falsas; but the Syriack agree with the Chaldee, lying speech, and the Arabick, lying fables.
V. 5. Cannot be reckoned up] For the Hebrew foreign,foreign which is best rendred, I cannot set in order, i. e. recount, dispose or enumerate before thee, the Lxxii. read, by way of paraphrase, foreign, there is none that shall be likened to thee; perhaps from another notion of foreign to compare or assimilate. So Psal. Lxxxix. 7. Who in heaven foreign shall be compared, or likened to the Lord? But the clear rendring of them, and of the whole verse, lyes thus; foreign,foreign Thou hast done great or many things, O Lord my God, foreign thy wonders and thy thoughts to us-ward I cannot recount before thee: foreign &c. I will declare, or, If, or, when I would declare and speak of them, foreign they are too strong, or, according to the ordinary notion of the word in Arabick, too great, or many above numbering, or to be numbred. The Lxxii. express it rightly, foreign, they are multiplyed above number.
V. 6. Mine eare] foreign is literally to be rendred [thou hast bored or opened my ear] so the Chaldee and Syriack understand it.foreign Boring the ears, we know, was a ceremony used to a slave, that would not have his liberty, but loved his Master, and would not goe out free, Deut. xv. 17. Exod. xxi. 6. and the ceremony significative; for boring of the eare signified opening it, and the opening the eare is a signe of hearkning, as that is in order to, and all one with obedience, The Hebrew foreign signifies also to cut; and 'tis possible it may so signifie here, the circumcising of the ear, a phrase frequent in Scripture, to denote ready and willing obedience. For this the Lxxii. read foreign, thou hast prepared me a body; either from this of circumcising the ear, which denotes the fitting and preparing the whole body, or perhaps from a second notion of foreign to prepare meat, to provide a feast, 2 King. vi. 23. he prepared foreign great provision foreign for them. But this account will not serve for foreign body, which they read instead of ears: herein it is hard to define with any certainty. Only it is not improbable, that this reading of the modern copies of the LXXII. was not the original reading, but instead of foreign body, foreign ears. The antient Scholiasts acknowledge this reading; and the Latine which generally follows the LXXII. in their variations from the Hebrew, doth here read, aures autem perfecisti mihi, thou hast perfected ears for me: by which they must be thought literally to have rendered the Greek foreign, in the notion of foreign for perficio. And that thus it was read in S. Jeroms time, may be concluded from his Epistle ad Suniam et Fretellam, who had objected to him the most minute differences between the Latine and the Lxxii. but take no notice of any difference in this. The same reading Eusebius Caesariensis follows, and so interprets it, thou hast perfected to me ears, and obedience to thy words. See Caten. Gr. Pat. in Psal. à Dan. Barbaro, Venet. 1569. p. 463. and the Expos. Graec. Patr. in Psalm. set out by Balthasar Corderius, Tom. 1. Ed. Antwerp. p. 735. & 749. foreign. Ears hast thou prepared me, thou hast required of me obedience only, for ears signifie obedience. And then it is most likely, that the Apostle Heb. x. 5. reading foreign, but a body thou hast prepared me, by that means to fit it more perfectly to the incarnation of Christ, the copiers of the Lxxii. here thought fit to accord it to the Apostolick style, and so put foreign instead of foreign. If then it be demanded, how it comes to pass, that the Apostle reads it with that variation, both from the Hebrew and the Lxxii. also; the answer is obvious, that the Apostle attended more to the sense, than to the words, and citing it from the Lxxii, changed it into those words which more fully and perspicuously exprest the mystery of Christs incarnation. This the Hebrew somewhat obscurely exprest, by my ear hast thou bored, or opened, thereby noting his taking on him the form of a servant, such as had their ears bored or opened; which implies his incarnation, and withall addes to it the principal end of it, to obey and doe the will of him who sent him. This was yet more obscure in the reading of the Lxxii. (that which I suppose to be theirs, for the reasons forementioned) thou hast prepared or made me ears:] where yet ears being parts of a body, the making him them, is still the making him a body, and that in order to his hearing and observing his Fathers will exactly. But the Apostles reading, though it be far distant from the letter of the Hebrew, and in part from the Lxxii. (as I suppose it to have been originally) yet is the most perspicuous interpretation of the*foreign. Expos: Graec. Patr. a Balthas. Corder. ed. p. 749. meaning of it; Christs body comprehending the ears, and that assumed on purpose to perform in it the utmost degree of obedience to the will of God, to be obedient even to death, and thereby to be as the Priest, so the Sacrifice also, that of which all the sacrifices and burnt-offerings under the law were but types and shadows, and at the presence of which they were to cease, as we know they did, and as is exprest here in the following words, Burnt-offering and sin-offering hast thou not required: Then said I, Loe I come— That this whole passage is an eminent prophecy of Christ, appears by the Apostle Heb. x. 5. who makes Christ, not David, to be the speaker here; wherefore when he, i. e. Christ, cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice— which makes it less necessary for us in this place to seek for any first sense, wherein David might be interpreted to speak this of himself; but rather to account of it, as the great signal wonder of mercy, done by God to men, which, in the recounting of Gods wonderfull works and thoughts to us-ward, v. 5. he seasonably brings in by the spirit of prophecy, viz. the birth of the Messias, and the sacrifice of himself, wherein so many, even innumerable, and unexpressible mercies were comprised, and folded up. If it may be thus understood, as an instance brought in by David (prophetically) of Gods wonderfull mercies, then will these three verses be no more but a description of Christs coming into the world; after which David again proceeds to the recounting of Gods mercies more generally, ver. 9. But because there is no assurance of this, and the Apostles words Heb. x. 5. may refer only to the higher and Prophetick completion of the words, and yet not prejudice a first immediate sense of them, as belonging to David, it is not amiss therefore here (though not in the paraphrase) to annex that, viz. that God prefers obedience, noted, as was said, by opening the ear, before the richest oblations and holocausts; and that therefore David designes that, as his way of rendring his humblest thanks for Gods mercies, by performing faithfull obedience to his commands. This is the literal meaning of [Sacrifices and burnt-offerings thou wouldest not desire, mine ears hast thou opened;] the latter, that of ready willing obedience, thou hast much preferred before the former. And again to the same purpose, Burnt-offerings and sacrifice thou hast not required: Then said I, Loe, I come to doe thy will, O my God, i. e. They are not sacrifices, in their greatest multitude, that God requires and expects of Kings, or such as David, as their returns for the greatest mercies; but a ready and cheerfull obedience to his commands, such a discharge of the regall office, as may tend most to the honour and glory of God, such as was prescribed Deut. xvii. 16. &c. where the duties of a King are set down, and in the close of them this, of his writing him a copy of the law in a book, and reading therein all the dayes of his life, v. 18.19. In reference to which, as it may truly be said, In the volume of the book it is written of me, (of David, as of all other Kings, in this place of Deuteronomy;) so may that be fitly interpreted that follows, O my God, I have delighted therein, made thy service, the study and practice thereof, the great imployment and pleasure of my life: yea thy law is in the midst of my bowels; which was much more then the command of having it written in a book; I am perfect in the knowledge, and continually exercised in the practice and performance of thy commandments.
V. 7. In the Volume] From foreign to roll or fold, comes foreign foreignwhich Symmachus literally renders foreign folding, and Theophylact on Heb. x. 7. foreign a roll. The Lxxii. read foreign, which must be understood in that sense, denoting the round form that a writing is in, when it is folded up (as in Architecture some round parts are called foreign in the Lxxii.) and so saith Suidas, foreign foreign, the word being applyed to a book or writing, (as here) which some call the folding. As for foreign foreigna book, that signifies any writing among the Jews, whole custome it was to write in a long roll, (see note on Luk. iv. a.) and that folded up to preserve it: and so here foreign is no more than a folded paper or parchment of writing, a roll. Now as by this phrase any kinde of writing is signified, and so, as it belongs to Davids person, it may fitly referre to the book of the Law, wherein the duty of Kings was set down, Deut. xvii: So it must be remembred, that in such rolls were contained their contracts, as among us in indentures; and so here the roll of the book (as it belongs to Christ) is no more but a bill or roll of contract betwixt God the Father and him, wherein is supposed to be written the agreement preparatory to that great work of Christs incarnation, wherein he undertaking perfectly to fulfill the will of God, to performe all active, and also passive obedience, even to death, had the promise from God, that he should become the author of eternal salvation to all those that obey him.
V. 15. For a reward] For foreign foreignfor a reward, the LXXII. seem to have read foreign at the heel, and so render it foreign presently. As for foreign foreignit signifies their turpitude, or filthy actions, and so their shame in that sense, as it is taken for any shamefull thing; for that is it which is to be rewarded with desolation.