Paraphrase Upon the Books of the Psalms, Book 1 · Psalm 33
The Thirty Third Psalm.
Paraphrase. THe thirty third Psalm is an acknowledgment of the great power and wisdome and goodness of God, in his works of creation and providence, wherein all are obliged to sing praises to his name, and faithfully to serve and depend on him.
1. Rejoyce in the Lord, O ye righteous; for praise is‖or, desireable, foreign comely for the upright.
O blesse and magnifie the name of God, all ye that apply your selves to a carefull performance of all offices of justice and goodness, and herein delight and please your selves. 'Tis the imployment of the blessed Saints in heaven, to be continually singing praises to God; and there can be none other more proper for saints on earth, who have innumerable obligations to it, and from whom it is most gratiously accepted by God, and to whom it is also matter of the greatest present delight, to be busied in recounting Gods glories, and abundant mercies to them.
2. Praise the Lord with harp, sing unto him with the‖Psaltery of ten strings. Psaltery, and ana. instrument of ten strings.
To this purpose those musical instruments that are in use among men in festivities, the Harp and Viol, &c. will be most fitly used in the singing of Psalms and hymns unto God.
3. Sing unto the Lord a new song; play skilfully with a loud noise.
And the choisest and rarest ditties, and the best composed Musick, and the most excellent melodious voices, are all to be called in, to perform this great duty of thanksgiving unto God.
4. For the word of the Lord is right, and all his works are done in truth.
For all that God saith or doth is excellently good; his commands are of those things which are infinitely best for us, his promises abundantly gratious, and certain to be performed, and his very threats and prohibitions acts of special mercy, to keep us from those things which are most pernicious to us. As for all his works of providence, they are most just and mercifull.
5. He loveth righteousness and judgment: the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.
Mercifulnesse and justice are of all things in the world most approved and valued by him, and are by him exemplified to us, in all the daily acts of his providence among us.
6. By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.
The whole body of the heavens and all that is in them, the Sun, Moon, and all the planets and lesser stars, were created by his bare speaking the word, commanding that they should have a being. Which as it is a most illustrious evidence of his absolute omnipotence, so is it of his great goodness also to us, for whose benefit they were all created.
7. He gathereth the waters of the Sea together,b. as an heap;†he layeth them up in the store-houses of the deeps. he layeth up the deep in store-houses.
So in like manner did he sever the waters, which covered the face of the earth, and confined them to hollow places; where though they swell much higher then the shore, yet they doe not overrun it, but are gathered into a round gibbous form, and so remain constant within their channel. And in those vast cavities of an unfathomable depth he hath laid up the whole Ocean, as safe, and as far from hurting, or drowning, or overrunning the earth, as corn laid up in a granary, as money in a treasury, is safe from running out of it. (A joynt evidence again of his infinite power and goodness.)
8. Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.
As therefore he is thus able to set bounds to that vast element, so can he and doth he to the most enormous power of men; which may therefore be a just cause of awe and dread to all the men in the world.
9. For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.
For as a bare word of his immediately created all the world: so is every command of his now most certainly obeyed: as he pleaseth to dispose, so shall it infallibly be.
10. The Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought; he maketh the devices of the people of none effect.c.
Whatsoever godlesse men (see note on Psal. 10. m.) designe, or propose to themselves, contrary to his will, he blasts and frustrates it, dissipates all their contrivances, be they never so prudently managed by whole multitudes and assemblies of them.
11. The counsel of the Lord standeth for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations.
OnelyOnly that which he hath decreed and purposed, shall immutably come to pass.
12. Blessed is the man whose God is the Lord, and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.
O then thrice happy is that nation and people, which have betaken themselves to the sincere service of so great, and powerful, and gratious a God, and whom he hath in so special a sor… made choice of, to be peculiarly his, among them to reveal himself in so eminent a manner.
13. The Lord looketh from heaven, he beholdeth all the sons of men:
14. From the place of his habitation he looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth.
All the men that are in the earth, the inhabitants of the whole world, are within the compasse of his most particular providence: though he reside in heaven, in a peculiar manner; yet from thence he exactly surveighs and beholds all and every their actions, and even most secret thoughts.
15. He fashioneth their hearts‖together, or, one & one. d.alike; he considereth all their thoughts.
As he is severally and equally the creator of them all, and former of their souls, as well as bodies, so he is certainly able to discern particularly all the operations of their very hearts; and is no idle spectator, but weigheth and judgeth all, and accordingly rewards every man.
16. There is no King saved by the multitude of an host: a mighty man is not delivered by much strength.
'Tis not the multitude or strength of an army, that hath power to secure any Potentate; not the valour or puissance of the most giantly person, to preserve himselfe.
17. An horse is a † vain thing for safety,‖ly foreign neither shall he deliver any by his great strength.
An horse is the most valiant and docile beast, and generally the most used in military affairs, in respect both of his courage, and swiftness, vigour, and activity: yet he that depends thereon for his safety, or good success in a battel, oft finds him a very deceitfull false aid, is pitifully disappointed by him.
18. Behold the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy;
The only security is to be sought from the favour and protection of God; and the way to qualifie our selves for that is, by conjoyning our uniform sincere obedience to him, and our unshaken constant relyance on his mercy.
19. To deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine.
To such as are thus qualified, his protection will not faile, whatsoever the danger be, how great soever the seeming destitution.
20. Our soul*gaspe… foreign waiteth for the Lord: he is our help and our shield.
The Lord is our only aid and protector; to him therefore is all the desire of our souls.
21. For our heart shall rejoyce in him, because we have trusted in his holy name.
And whatsoever befalls us, we shall most cheerfully (and not only patiently) support it, as having full assurance, and confidence in him, that he will either rescue us out of it, or else convert it to our greatest advantage.
22. Let thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us, according as we hope in thee.
O Lord, our full trust is in thee; let thy mercy come down upon us, we beseech thee.
Annotations on Psalm XXXIII.
V. 2. Instrument of ten strings] From foreign foreignaruit, emarcuit, to be shriveld or withered, is foreign a lethern bottle, or vessel to put wine in, 1 Sam. 1.24. and from the likeness, a musical instrument, called nablium in Latine,
De Arte Am. l. iii.Disce etiam duplici genialia nablia palmâ
Vertere, conveniunt dulcibus illa modis.
in Ovid. Answerable to it is the Greek foreign (and so 'tis here rendred by the Lxxii.) of which Grammarians tell us, that it is an instrument more sweet and pleasant than a harp; like it in forme, but differing from it. Accordingly we render it sometimes a Psaltery, as here, and Psal. cxLiv. 9. sometimes a Viol, Isa. xiv. 11. As for foreign,foreign which is added to it, and signifies decachord or instrument of ten strings, it is not set (as here, and Psal. cxLiv. 11. it is in our English) for a third sort of Instrument, but in apposition with foreign, a Psaltery or Viol of ten strings. And so all the antient Interpreters uniformly render it: the Lxxii. foreign, on a decachord Psaltery; the Chaldee, foreign on a nablium of ten strings; who yet Psal. xcii. 4. where foreign and foreign are disjoyned, foreign upon the decachord, and upon the Psaltery] render it, upon the harp of ten strings, and upon the nablium,] signifying that of ten strings to belong to both harp and Psaltery, cithara and nablium, which yet (as was said) differ one from the other.
V. 7. As an heap] From foreign and foreign to be moved, to flie, is foreign foreignan heap, and foreign a bladder, or skin, or bottle. In this place all the antient interpreters seem to have read the latter of these foreign, as a bottle; signifying the waters of the Sea to be so kept within the banks, as water is which is put into a bottle. And so in like manner it is rendred, Psal. Lxxviii. 13. where yet it belongs to another matter, the receding of the red sea to the Israelites, and not the framing of the Ocean in the creation. But the modern copies of the Hebrew have in both places foreign,foreign which is best rendred, as an heap. Thus the word is used Exod. xv. 8. the floods stood up foreign as an heap: where the Targum read foreign as a wall; the Lxxii. foreign as a wall; and so the Samaritan; the Arabick, as mountains: but the Syriack, as in bottles (so as here,) but certainly amiss, as will appear from the passage of storie (both there and Psal. Lxxviii. referred to) Exod. xiv. 22. where 'tis said, that the waters were a wall unto them. In this variety, the context here will be fittest to determine, and that may be thought in one respect to incline it in this one place to the former sense, in which the antient interpreters read it, foreign, as a bottle. For the matter in hand is the miraculous congregating of the waters in the creation, that is set down Gen. 1.9. God said, let the waters under the heaven be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear, and v. 10. the gathering together of the waters called he Seas. Here the one place for the waters, or the one place whereto they are confined, may be fitly compared to a vessel, or bottle, which keeps them from running over, and so severs them from dry land. And this also agrees with what here follows, he layeth them up in the deep, as in store-houses: for thus the words are to be rendred, foreign giving, foreignor he gives, or puts them, foreign in the treasures of the deeps; so the Chaldee verbatim reads it, he puts them, i. e. the waters, in the store-houses of the deeps: and so the sense exacts, the deep or abysse (the great cavities which God created) being the place wherein the water of the Sea is put, and laid up, as in a repositorie store-house, or treasury, where it is kept safe from hurting any thing. Accordingly Seb. Castellio renders it, undis in cellas conditis, the waters being laid up in cellars or repositories. The Lxxii. indeed read foreign the deeps in treasures; and so the Syriack and Arabick; but the former, that of the Chaldee, is as literal, and that which the sense exacteth, for 'tis the waters that are laid up in the deeps, and not the deeps themselves. And so still to this consideration very fitly accords the notion of foreign for bottle, or other such vessel, that gathers and holds water; and not the other of foreign for an heap, which in Exodus it certainly signifies. But beside this act of Gods mercy in restraining the Ocean, and so keeping it as a bottle doth, there is another act of Gods providence very remarkable in the creation of the Ocean, viz. that it is demonstrably of a gibbous, circular form, and stands above the shore, which yet confines it. And this instance of providence is most perspicuously adumbrated by this scheme of an heap, viz. that it riseth into a cumulus: and to that most properly belongs the gathering here mentioned, for that any collection naturally makes an heap. And therefore it seems best not to sollicite the ordinary reading, but to take it in the notion of foreign an heap, which most certainly belongs to it in those other places, Exod. xv. 8. and Psal. Lxxviii. 13.
V. 10.] In the end of this v. 10. the Lxxii. over and above what we finde in the Hebrew, adde foreign, and frustrates the counsels of Princes; and so from them the Latine, Arabick, and Aethiopick. But the Chaldee and Syriack have it not, but agree with our Hebrew copies, and give us reason to resolve that those Greek translators took the liberty of Paraphrase, and kept not themselves to the strict bounds of literal interpreters.
V. 15. Alike] For foreign foreignsimul, the Lxxii. read foreign, the Latine sigillatim severally; they are therefore thought to have read foreign unicum, separatum, and that taken adverbially. But 'tis more likely that they took foreign in that sense, from the verb that signifies to make one, and so may in the adverb fitly signifie, one by one; and that is all that is meant by foreign, or severally.