Paraphrase Upon the Books of the Psalms, Book 5 · Psalm 116
The Hundred and Sixteenth Psalm.
The hundred and sixteenth is a gratefull acknowledgment of Gods seasonable deliverances, and gracious returns to the prayers of his afflicted distressed servant, which are to be answered with vows of new obedience, and intire affiance in God. It is thought to have been composed by David upon his delivery from the rebellion of Absolom, after which he immediately had the liberty to returne to the sanctuary and publick assembly at Jerusalem, v. 14, and 18, and 19. but may possibly, and not unfitly, belong to the return from the captivity (see note a.)
1. ‖I desired that the Lord would hear my voice, mya.I Love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications.
2. †That he would inclineBecause he hath inclined his eare unto me,*and in my dayes I will call upon him. therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.
Paraphrase. I made my prayer to the Lord the God of heaven, that he would in his good time give audience to my cryes which I daily poured out before him, that he would at length be gratiously pleased to consider my distresse. When calamities approach or seize upon me, I have nothing to apply my selfe to, but my prayers to heaven, and those I shall not faile to poure out before God.
3. The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell‖found me foreign gate hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow.
4. Then called I upon the name of the Lord; O Lord, I beseech thee deliver my soule.
At this time my dangers were very great, I was pursued close, and incompassed with my enemies, who were purposely sent as the messengers of death unto me; and having no way of rescue from any humane means, I then addrest my selfe to the over-ruling help and providence of God, and to him I humbly and importunately came, beseeching this seasonable deliverance from him.
5. Gratious is the Lord and righteous, yea our God is mercifull.
And thus I concluded with my selfe, that whatever my pressures were, yet God was both mercifull and faithfull, and would certainly make good his promised mercy to me;
6. The Lord preserveth the†or little ones foreign simple: I was brought low, and he helped me.
That 'twas his proper attribute to be the supporter of the weak, the reliever of them that are in distress: and accordingly so hath he dealt with me in my greatest destitution.
7. Returne unto thy rest, O my soule, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.
8. For thou hast delivered my soule from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling.
9. I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.
And now being thus rescued by him, and delivered out of the sad condition that incompassed me, I have nothing to doe, but to serve God in all sincerity and integrity of conversation, chearfully and constantly, all my dayes which God shall afford me in this world; at the present devoutly to returne to the Ark, the place where God is pleased to presentiate himselfe, and there in great tranquillity to celebrate that mercy which hath afforded me this signal deliverance.
10. I believed, therefore have I spoken: I was greatly afflicted.
11. I said in my*flight, (see note on Psal. xxxi. g.) haste, All men are liars.
I had a full trust and repose and affiance in God, and therefore I did and spake thus: When my afflictions were at the greatest (see 2 Cor. iv. 13.) when I was in my flight, I was sufficiently convinced that the arme of flesh was unable to yeeld me any relief (Psal. cviii. 12.) men might promise, and either prove false (as those now did that David had most reason to depend on, his own son, Achitophel, &c.) or impotent: there was, I know, but one sure hold, to which it is tolerably prudent to resort, the never-failing omnipotent hand of God, and to that I betook my selfe intirely, and from that I received my deliverance.
12. What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits toward me?
13. I will take theb. cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord.
14. I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people.
15. c.Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.
For this and all other the abundant mercies which I have received from God, I am now by all obligations concerned to make my most thankfull acknowledgments, and to do it in the solemnest manner, in the presence of the whole assembly, by way of publick festival, blessing and magnifying his holy name, that he hath not permitted my enemies to have their will of me, that he hath preserved my life, and not delivered it up into their hands, that he hath kept it as a jewel of his own cabinet, as being by me humbly deposited with and intrusted to him. And thus he allwayes deals with those that rely and depend on him (see note b. on Psal. Lxxxvi.)
16. O Lord,‖I pray thee foreign truly I am thy servant, I am thy servant, and the son of thy handmaid; thou hast loosed my bands.
17. I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord.
18. I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people,
19. In the courts of the Lords house, in the mids of thee O Jerusalem. Praise ye the Lord.
O blessed Lord, how am I obliged to thee by all the bonds that any ingagement can lay upon me? No servant bought with a price or borne in a mans house can be more closely bound to him, than I who have been rescued from the utmost danger by thee. What remains but that I should returne to thee the humblest offerings of praise and prayer, spend my whole life as a vow'd oblation to thy service, render thee all possible praise in the publick assembly, in thy sanctuary, in the solemnest manner that is possible? Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Annotations on Psalm CXVI.
V. 1. I love the Lord] For the right understanding of the two first verses, we must observe one special use of foreign (when it stands by it selfe absolutely without any noune after it,foreign as here it doth) for wishing or desiring. So Am. iv. 5. for so foreign ye have desired. So Jer. v. 31. my people foreign wished, desired it so. Thus foreign, by which the Lxxii. render it in all these places, signifies in Greek to desire; foreign, saith Phavorinus. Hence foreign 'tis a verbe of wishing. And then foreign will be best rendred, I wisht that the Lord would hear; and so I suppose the Lxxii. meant by foreign, I desired that (not because) he will or would hear. Accordingly the Syriack renders it foreign, and the Chaldee foreign from foreign, which is of the same importance with foreign, I wisht that the Lord would hear. So the Jewish Arab, I desire not but that the Lord would hear my voice, and my supplication, and that he would hearken unto me when I call, in or by reason of what I finde (or meet with) in my dayes. And then v. 2. follows currently, foreign that he would incline his eare to me; the Syriack reads, foreign, and that he would incline his care to me, in conjunction with the former verse. Then follows foreign and in my dayes will I call, foreignby dayes, I suppose, signifying calamities, as Ps. xxxvii. 12 his day is coming, i. e. his distress, foreign the day of his calamity, saith the Targum. So Obad. 12. the day of thy brother is the time of their being carried captive v. 11. So the day of Jerusalem, Ps. cxxxvii. 7. So Isa. xiii. 22. foreign his dayes shall not be removed farre, his time is come, is the time of his contrition, saith the Targum. The Syriack indeed leave out the ו there, as redundant, and read foreign in the (not my) day wherein I call him. In which also they depart from the Hebrew punctation of foreign. Without either of those changes the rendring will be most facile, I wished or desired that the Lord would hear foreign my voice; or perhaps the voice (so foreign may be rendred, the י being oft redundant, & so both the Syriack and the Lxxii. understands it, foreign, the voice) foreign of my supplications, in the genitive case; or by apposition, my voice, my supplications, that he would incline his eare unto me, In my dayes will I invoke or call upon him. The rendring these verses in the praeter sense, he hath heard, he hath inclined, is quite contrary to the following verses, which mention the distresses as approaching, and growing still more and more upon him, v. 3, 4. To what times this referrs, and what were those his dayes must be uncertain, and onelyonly matter of conjecture. 'Tis ordinarily thought to be a Psalm of David, and then it most probably belongs to the time of his flight from Absolom, to which his haste, or speed, or flight, ver. 11. probably determins it; and then ver. 14, 18, 19. must referre to his returne to the sanctuary at Jerusalem, after the quelling of that rebellion: and to this, as being the most received sense, I have set the paraphrase. Yet some indications there are which make it probable to have been written after the Captivity (and then the dayes here must be like the day of thy brother, and of Jerusalem forementioned, denoting the captivity, and so their flight also v. 9. their being carried captive, and v. 14, 18, 19. the celebrating of their returne to the service of God in the Temple) viz. the Chaldee idiome observable v. 7. in the words foreign, and foreign, and v. 12. in foreign, where the Chaldee or Syriack suffix foreign is visible.
V. 13. Cup of salvation] foreign the cup of deliverances, foreignfor which the Chaldee read foreign the Cup of redemptions. This was either more solemn in the Temple, by the Priest, or more private in the family. The former the drink-offering, or strong wine poured out in the holy place Num. xxviii. 7. Of this R. Sol. Jarchi interprets it, foreign &c. I will bring the drink-offering of praise which I vowed. And to this of the Temple the Praise may most reasonably be applied, because, as the Jewish Doctors tell us, foreign the Levites repeat not the song of the oblation, but only over the drink-offering. Yet there was also the more private in their families, the cup of thanksgiving or commemoration of any deliverance received. This the master of the family was wont to begin, and was followed by all his guests. S. Paul calls it foreign foreign, the cup of blessing, that which was drank as a symbol of thanksgiving and blessing, and had forms of commemoration and praise joyned with it; and so by the Fathers, Justin Martyr, &c. (used of the Sacrament) is called foreign, the wine that hath thanksgiving said over it. The use of it was either daily after each meale, or more solemn at a festival. In the daily use of it, they had this forme, foreign, Blessed be our God the Lord of the world, who hath created the fruit of the vine. But on festival dayes there was joyned with it an hymne proper for the day (as upon the Passeover, for the deliverance out of Aegypt) as we see Mat. xxvi. 30. where the Paschal commemoration or postcoenium, advanced by Christ into the Sacrament of his blood, was concluded after the Jewish custome, with an hymne. And so here with the cup of salvations is joyned foreign a calling upon the name of the Lord. And both the more private and the solemn performance of this, with all the magnificent rites of solemnity belonging to it, is called the paying of vowes to the Lord, that thanksgiving and acknowledgment which men in distresse may be supposed to promise, upon condition of deliverance, or if they promise not, are however bound to performe, as a due returne or payment for their deliverance.
V. 15. Pretious] The notion of foreign in this place for rare or pretious, foreignmust be so taken, as not to signify that which is spoken of to be desirable to, or in the presence of the Lord, for it is the life, not the death of his servants, that is pretious in that sense to God the preserver of their lives. But for their death to be pretious is in effect no more, than that it is so considered, rated at so high a price by God, as that he will not easily grant it to any one that most desires it of him. Absolom here hostilely pursued David, and desired his death, he would have been highly gratified with it, taken it for the greatest boon that could have befallen him: but God would not thus gratify him; nor will he grant this desire easily to the enemies of godly men, especially of those that commit themselves to his keeping, as David here did, and therefore is called Gods foreign (see note b. on Psal. Lxxxvi.) for to such his most signal preservations doe belong peculiarly. The Jewish Arab here reads, Pretious with the Lord foreign the putting to death his saints, or giving up to death.