Paraphrase Upon the Books of the Psalms, Book 4 · Psalm 94
The Ninety Fourth Psalm.
The ninety fourth Psalm is an earnest prayer to God, and a confident assurance of him, that he will dissipate the attempts of wicked men, and uphold the righteous. 'Tis†So R. Gaon, Sol. Jarchi, and Kimchi. thought to have been composed in Babylon, for redemption from thence.
1. *O Lord, thou God of revenges, thou God of revenges foreignO Lord God to whom vengeance belongeth, O God to whom vengeance belongeth, shew thy selfe.
Paraphrase. Thou Lord of heaven and earth, to thee onelyonly pertains that great judicial office of distributing punishments and rewards in the world; we that are injured and opprest, as we are not able, so neither is it our duty to avenge our selves; this is the divine prerogative annext to thy soveraignty. Be thou now pleased to interpose on our side, and testifie to all, that at length thou takest the matter into thine own hands.
2. Lift up thy selfe, thou judge of the earth, render a reward to the proud.
Thou art the one supreme Governour of the world, against whose Edicts it is that these proud oppressors exalt themselves. It is just with thee to depress those that exalt themselves, to punish the injurious; O be thou now pleased to execute thy justice upon them.
3. Lord, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph?
4. How long shall they utter and speak hard things? and all the workers of iniquity boast themselves?
Wicked men, if they be long permitted to thrive and prosper in their course, are apt to talk Atheistically, to perswade themselves and others that they have mastered heaven, that there is no power superior to theirs, that they can carry all before them. Blessed Lord, permit them not to go on in this proud error; subdue at length and humble, and let them no longer continue under so dangerous a temptation to impiety and profaneness, as their prosperities have proved unto them.
5. They break in pieces thy people, O Lord, and afflict thine heritage.
6. They slay the widow and the stranger, and murther the fatherless.
7. Yet they say, The Lord shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it.
When they oppress and grind the faces of the people and servants of God, riot and glut themselves with the blood of those whom by all obligations of charity they ought to relieve and support, tyrannizing over all that are weaker than they, they flatter themselves that God either doth not see, or will not call them to any account for all this.
8. Understand, O ye brutish among the people; and ye fools, when will ye be wise?
This is a strange, brutish, irrational, mad folly, for any that hath the understanding of a man to be guilty of.9. He that planted the eare, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see?
10. a.He that‖instructs the nations, he that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he rebuke? chastiseth the heathen, shall not he correct? he that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know?
Certainly the Creator of eyes and ears, he by whose only power it is that any creature is indued with those faculties, cannot be imagined to want himself, or not to possess in a more eminent manner what he out of his own fulness hath derived in some lower degree to others. 'Twere hard to think that the sole omnipotent Creator should want any power or excellence which he alone hath imparted to his creatures: And so there can be no question of his most exact seeing and knowing all which is here done by wicked men. And as strange it were, that having taken such care as God hath done to reveal his will, to give laws to the sons …f Adam and Noah, and after by Moses to the Jews (and at last to send his own son and spirit, and by those divine means to disperse his commands of transcendent purity and charity to all the men in the world) he should not after all, demand exact obedience to these commands, and chastise and punish all disobedience.
11. The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man, that they areb. vanity.
Let those that thus flatter themselves and blaspheme God, and think that they shall carry it away unpunished, know this, that even these very thoughts of theirs, so false, so foolish and Atheistical, are perfectly discerned by God the searcher of all hearts, and shall one day be severely punisht by him.
12. Blessed is he whom thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy law.
The prosperity of impious men is so farre from being a felicity to them that injoy it, (as these men deem) that the direct contrary to it, viz. to be punisht and rebuked by God for all that we do amiss, and by that means to be reduced to the sense and practice of our duty, is indeed the greatest savour and mercy of God, and so the most valuable felicity, and evidence of Gods tender care of us (whereas they that are left in their sins unpunished, permitted to go on securely in their course, have reason to look on it as an act of the feverest vengeance from God, a leaving them and delivering them up unto themselves.)
13. That thou mayest give him rest from the dayes of adversity,†whilst c.untill the pit*is be digged for the wicked.
And withall makes us capable of Gods farther mercies, in removing afflictions and persecutions, when they have obtained their desired end upon us, rectified and reformed what was amiss: for then without question God will at once restore rest and tranquillity to the opprest pious man, and destroy and consume the ungodly oppressor, cast the rod into the fire, when his children have been sufficiently corrected by it.
14. For the Lord will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance.
For though God may and sometime will fatherly correct and chastise his children, and permit them a while to abide under sharp oppressions; yet will he not utterly forsake them, but in his own chosen season restore their prosperity and subdue their enemies.
15. But judgment shall returnd. ‖even tounto righteousness, and†after it all the upright in heart. all the upright in heart shall follow it.
The time shall certainly come, that all wrong judgments shall be reverst, that the sufferings of good men shall be turned into their greatest advantages, that the righteous and truly pious man shall be the most thriving and prosperous even in this world, and all impious opposers and oppressors the most improsperous (This was eminently fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem and heathen Rome, the crucifiers of Christ, and bitter persecutors of Christians, and the halcyonian dayes that the Christians had after each of these, see Psal. xcvi. 13. and Isa. xlii. 1. and Rev. i. 6.) and then shall good men have all kinde of incouragements to follow and adhere to goodness, (hereby the profession of Christianity shall be propagated over all the world) as that which, though with some mixture of persecutions, hath the promise, and is sure to be rewarded even in this life, Matth. xix. 29. and 1 Tim. iv. 8. (and not only in that which is to come.)
16. Who will rise up for me against the evil doers? or who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?
17. Unless the Lord had been my helpe, my soule had allmost dwelt in silence.
But this is to be wrought, not by any humane aids or means, by armies raised to defend piety against impiety; when these are wanting, and impiety is backt with the greatest visible strength, then shall God himself by his own wayes and means in his due time interpose, and rescue his faithfull people from the utmost imminent destruction.
18. ‖If foreign Chald. foreign Lxxii. foreignWhen I said, My foot slippeth, thy mercy, O Lord, held me up.
If at any time the danger appear greater then ordinary, that the pious man is ready to think himself lost, then is Gods special season to interpose his hand for his relief.
19. In the multitude of my thoughts within me, thy comforts†have cherished or refreshed e.delight my soule.
When he is in the greatest anxiety and sollicitude, incompast with apparent hazards on every side, and from thence disquieted and troubled, God then chooseth most seasonably to interpose, to deal with him as a tender parent with a querulous child, provides for him whatsoever may be most gratefull and satisfactory in this condition.
20. Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law?
Let men sin never so confidently, make laws for impiety, as*So Sol. Jarchi expounds it. Nebuchadnezar did for the worshiping his golden image, Dan. 3.4. and set up wickedness on the throne or tribunal, confound all justice, and substitute oppression and rapine instead of it; the comfort is, God will never be drawn to take part with them, to favour or countenance their impiety.
21. They gather themselves together against the soule of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood.
22. But the Lord*to me for a defense foreign is my defence, and my God‖for a rock of my trust foreign is the rock of my refuge.
Be they never so violent and unanimous in their pursuit of the life of blameless pious men, and their formes of process never so solemn and legal, there is yet an appeal behinde to the unerring supreme tribunal, and my resort to that shall never fail to bring me a rescue from their bloudiest sentence; God shall reverse that, and protect me, and all that chearfully depend on him.
23. And he shall†render or returne foreign bring upon them their own iniquity, and shall cut them off in their own wickedness; yea the Lord our God shall cut them off.
And he shall most certainly requite and punish the wicked oppressors, returne that mischief on them which they designed to bring on others, and by making their sins their own scourges and certain ruine, manifest his fatherly care and providence over his obedient faithfull servants.
Annotations on Psalm XCIV.
V. 10. He that chastiseth] foreign,foreign from foreign to instruct and institute, (as well as to correct) is in all reason so to be understood and rendred here, he that instructs foreign the nations, all the people in the world. The Lxxii. duly render it foreign, he that instructs the nations; but the Chaldee more fully foreign — he that gives the law to his people. This is here said of God, as in the end of the verse to the same sense foreign he that teacheth Adam or man (all the men in the world) knowledge: the first man, saith the Chaldee, referring to those precepts which were given in the creation, called the precepts of the sons of Adam (as after of Noah.) Now these two being the attributes of God (as well as that of planting and forming the eye and eare in the creation, and ever since in procreation v. 9.) that which is in the midst, foreign foreignshall not he rebuke or punish? from foreign increpavit, corripuit) must in all reason belong foreign to both those, and to that purpose be best rendred in the end, after both, He that instructeth— and he that teacheth — shall not he rebuke or punish? Is it possible, saith the Chaldee, that God shall have given law, foreign and when they have sinned, shall they not be rebuked or punished? what is added by the English translation in the end of the verse, shall not he know? is not in the Hebrew, but was added as a supply to a supposed Ellipsis. But the right rendring of the verse hath no need of that aid, the sense is much more perspicuous without it.
V. 11. Vanity] From foreign foreignwhich first signifies to vanish or come to nought, (Jer. ii. 5. they walked after foreign vanity, foreign and vanisht, or came to nought) is foreign here; and if in that notion, then it must signify vanishing, transient, that soon comes to nothing: and so the Syriack renders it, foreign a vapour, (as they do Ja. iv. 14. where our life is called a vapour) and thus we have it Ps. cxliv. 4. man is like foreign to a vanishing transitory thing, for as it follows, his dayes are as a shadow that passeth away. But there is another notion of foreign, by metaphor lightly varied from hence, for stultescere growing foolish; so Ps. Lxii. 11. it is best rendred from the Hebrew, trust not in oppression and rapine, foreign foreignbecome not vaine, i. e. fools, to signify that those that so trust, that depend on unlawfull means for the enriching themselves, will certainly be deceived, finde this the most perfect folly in the event. And this of folly being that by which the Atheist is most frequently exprest in Scripture, will be most agreeable to this place, where the Atheists cogitations are described, v. 7. confident of Gods not seeing, not regarding; which thoughts of his, as they are Atheistical, and so false, and so foolish in one sense, as folly is ignorance, so are they most impudent, (which is practical, and the greatest folly) will never secure his wicked actions of impunity, but on the contrary will betray him to all the ruine in the world. And to this sense it is, that verse 8. we finde in the like style, Understand, O ye brutish; and ye fools, when will ye be wise? and so this is the adaequate notion of the word here.
V. 13. Untill] The rendring of foreign foreignuntill, in this place, may much disturbe the sense, and make it believed that the rest foreign foreignfrom the evil dayes, i. e. from persecution (see Eph. v. 16.) which God gives to good men, is to continue till the pit be digged up for the ungodly, i. e. till the measure of their sins be filled up, and so destruction be ready for them: whereas the contrary to this is evident, that either the destruction of the wicked is first, and the quiet and rest of the good, (oppressed by them) a natural effect of that, and so subsequent to it; or that both of them are of the same date, at once tribulation to them that trouble you, and to you who are troubled, rest, 2 Thess. i. 6, 7. And this is evidently the meaning of it here, and so will be discerned, if only the foreign be rendred dum, whilst, (as it is elsewhere used, Jon. iv. 2. foreign whilst I was, Job i. 16. foreign whilst he was speaking) for then thus it will run very fitly, That thou mayst give him rest — whilst the pit is digged —
V. 15. Unto righteousness] The notion of foreign righteousness for charity and mercy hath oft been observed;foreign only the Emphasis of the preposition foreign unto here offers it selfe to consideration, which will best be exprest by even unto, as when Gen. xiv. 23. we read, from a thred foreign even to a shooe latchet, and Gen. vii. 23. Every living substance was destroyed from man to beast, to creeping things, foreign & usque ad saith the Interlinear, and even to the souls of heaven (which were in least danger to be destroyed with water.) And thus here it seems to import, that the present rigour of their enemies shall by Gods judging, or taking their part, not only be removed, but be even converted into the greatest mercies. Thus in every revolution of state it is ordinary, none are so likely to escape and be favoured by the conquerer, as they that were opprest by the former government. And so was it to the Jews of the Captivity (of whom the learned Jews understand this Psalm) when the Persian executes judgment on the Babylonian, when the sacrilegious drunken. Tyrant is taken in his city, as in a pit or snare, v. 13. the Jews then are no losers by their former oppressions, but receive preferments in the commonwealth, Dan. vi. 5. and licence to returne to their own countrey. And the same observation held both in the destruction of the Jewish and Heathen enemies of Christ, the Christians were not only freed from their persecutions, but became most flourishing. And this is the full importance of judgments returning even to righteousness; God not only pleading their cause and delivering them (which is meant by judgment) but even converting their former sufferings into their greatest advantages. To this is added foreign and after it all the pure in heart. What foreign foreignsignifies, may be learned from Judg. v. 14. foreign after thee Benjamin, i. e. saith the Chaldee, Saul the son of Benjamin succeeded Joshuah, noted before by Ephraim. And so after this all the upright in heart, i. e. to this shall immediately succeed the flourishing prosperous condition of all pious men: foreign they shall be redeemed, saith the Chaldee; but it is somewhat more, they shall returne to a flourishing condition; and so this very fitly agrees to what went before, and is as the proof of it. The severity of their enemies is turned into mercy, and then follows the prosperity of all pious men.
V. 19. Delight] foreign,foreign from foreign to look upon with delight, is in Piel doubled, and used for looking kindly and lovingly, imbracing, and making much of, doing any thing that is gratefull to another. So the Chaldee understood it, rendring it foreign, from foreign to make much of: so they use the word Prov. xxix. 21. for that which we render, delicately bringeth up. And hence it is that the Lxxii. render it here foreign, have loved, i. e. behaved themselves in a loving manner, so as they which love are wont to do. Isa. xi. 8. it is used for playing or sporting, dealing friendly and with confidence with any; and Isa. Lxvi. 12. for being dandled on the knees like a child by the nurse or parent: and by analogy with all these, being here applied to Gods consolations, it will most significantly be rendred, have cherished, or refresh't, caressed, or gratified my soule.