Paraphrase Upon the Books of the Psalms, Book 5 · Psalm 138
The Hundred Thirty Eighth Psalm.
A Psalm of David. The hundred thirty eighth is a Psalm of thanksgiving to God for his mercies, his gracious audiences afforded to the prayers of his lowly servants, his powerfull deliverances of them, most admirable in the sight of their heathen enemies: And being first composed by David, is said by the Lxxii. to have been made use of by‖foreign. Haggee and Zacharie at the rebuilding of the Temple.
1. I Will praise thee with my whole heart: before thea. Gods will I sing praise unto thee.
2. I will worship towards thy holy Temple, and praise thy name†above for thy loving kindness and*above for thy truth; for thou hastb. magnified thy word above all thy name.
Paraphrase. Blessed Lord, thou hast been exceeding gratious to thy servants, and never failed to answer them that rely on thee, thy mercies and fidelity are much spoken of, thou art known by this title of mercifull and gracious, and one that never fails to performe his part of the Covenant with any. But thou hast infinitely exceeded all that is or can be either said or believed of thee, thou hast made us admirable divine promises (that especially of giving us thy Son, and in him all things) and wilt certainly performe them all to the utmost importance of them. And now what returne shall we make unto thee for all this? having nothing else, we must in all equity pay thee the humblest acknowledgments of our very soules, and in thy publick assembly, in the presence of the holy Angels, the witnesses of our performances, and assistants and partners of our praises, bless, and laud, and magnify thy glorious name for all thine abundant mercy toward us.
3. In the day when I cryed, thou answeredst me,‖thou shalt strengthen foreign and strengthenedst me with strength in my soule.
Whensoever I have addrest by prayer to thee, thou hast never failed to answer me and relieve me; which, together with thine own free promise, gives me full confidence to begge and crave thy grace, to strengthen and support my soule against whatsoever danger, and to rest secure in thee, that thou wilt grant it me.
4. All the Kings of the earth shall praise thee, O Lord, †or, for they shall foreignwhen they hear the words of thy mouth.
5. Yea they shall sing in thec. wayes of the Lord: for great is the glory of the Lord.
These magnificent promises of thine v. 2. shall be proclaimed and made known (thy Gospel preached) to all the world, and thereby the greatest potentates on earth, they and their kingdomes with them, shall at length be brought in to worship, and serve, and glorify thee, and in so doing, never give over singing, and praising, and magnifying thy great, and gracious, and glorious works of mercy, those wonderfull dispensations of thine in the gift of thy Son, and that gracious divine Law given us by him.
6. *For the Lord is high, and hath— foreignThough the Lord be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly: but the proud he knoweth afar off.
The summe whereof is this, that as the supreme God of heaven hath humbled himselfe to this earth and flesh of ours, so he will favourably behold and deal with all lowly, humbled, penitent sinners, but proceed most severely with all proud, obdurate impenitents.
7. Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me: thou shalt stretch forth th…ne hand againstd. the‖nose wrath of mine enemies, and thy right hand shall save me.
8. The Lorde. will†performe for me, perfect that which concerneth me: thy mercy, O Lord, endureth for ever:*do not thou let goe forsake not the works of thine own hands.
And as for spiritual, so for temporal mercies, God will not fail to performe them also to his faithfull servants; whatever their distresses be, he will relieve or support them, repel and subdue and repress their enemies, and secure them by his immediate divine interposition, if humane means do fail: what they are not able, and what indeed belongs not to them to do for themselves, he will most certainly perform in their stead, having begun a work of mercy, he will not leave it imperfect, he will certainly goe thorough with it. Thus doth God abound in mercies of all sorts to all his humble faithfull servants. Lord, be thou thus graciously pleased to deal with me, and with all thy poor helpless creatures, which being made by thee, have none other to fly to but thy selfe.
Annotations Psalm CXXXVIII.
V. 1. Gods] Of the notion of foreign foreignfirst for Angels, then for Magistrates, Judges, Kings, somewhat hath been said, Note on Psal. Lxxxii. b. Now to which of these it shall be applied in this place, is not agreed among the antient Interpreters. The Chaldee reads foreign Judges, the Syriack foreign Kings, the Jewish Arab, the Nobles, but the Lxxii. (and the Arabick and Aethiopick and Latine follow them) foreign angels. And considering that in the next words v. 2. he mentions worshipping toward the foreign (not temple, if it were, as the Title directs, composed by David, but) palace of holiness, i. e. the Sanctuary, where the Cherubims of glory, representations of Angels, shadowed the mercy-seat, Heb. ix. 5. and that in that house of God, and house of prayer, the Angels were present, according to that of Saint Chrysostome, foreign, thou singest and chantest with the Angels, and on this place, foreign, I will strive to sing with the Angels, contending with them in this holy strife and emulation, who shall praise him loudest, joyning in quire with the supernal powers; 'tis not improbable that this should be the notion of the word in this place, and so singing praises to God before the Angels, be the praising him in the Sanctuary appointed for his worship, and where by his Angels he is present to his worshippers. So Eccles. v. 6. Say not before the Angel, viz. the Angel that is present in the house of God v. 1. So Agrippa (in Josephus de Bell. Jud. l. ii. c. xvi.) speaking to the people near the Temple, saith, foreign, I call your Sanctuary to witness, and the holy Angels of God, those that are there present,) Angelus orationis, saith Tertullian de Orat. the Angel of prayer) which the Jews still believe to be present with them, and meet them, and praise God with them in their Synagogues; and of which that speech heard in the Temple, before the destruction of it by Titus, is most probably to be understood, Migremus illinc, Let us depart thence. The Lxxii. render foreign before, by foreign over against, referring probably to the way of alternate singing, one part of the quire singing over against and answering the other, singing together by courses, Ezra iii. 11. and that S. Chrysostomes foreign contention, and foreign emulation, and foreign joyning in quire with the Angels, seems to refer to. In the end of this first verse the Lxxii. adde, above what is in the Hebrew, foreign, because thou hast heard all the words of my mouth, which the Latine affixe to the first part of the verse, Confitebor tibi, Domine, in toto corde meo, quoniam audisti verba oris mei, I will confess to thee, O Lord, with my whole heart, because thou hast heard the words of my mouth. But this is sure some Scholion, which crept from the margin into the text, and is not owned either by the Chaldee or the Syriack.
V. 2. Magnified thy word] For word here the copies of the Lxxii. which now we have and which S. Hierome, S. Augustine, S. Hilarie, S. Chrysostome and Theodoret used, read foreign, thy holy; which therefore the Latine joyning with foreign, name, read, magnificasti super omne, nomen sanctum tuam, thou hast magnified thy holy name above all; and so the Arabick, thy holy name above all things. But in all probability foreign and foreign being so near, the true original reading of the Lxxii. was foreign word or speech, by which they render the Hebrew foreign foreignno less than five and twenty times, and never by foreign, save in this one place. However it be, the Syriack as well as Chaldee adhere to the Hebrew, and read the one foreign thy word, the other foreign the words of thy praise. All the difficulty will be, what is meant by God's magnifying his word. His word, being here annext to loving kindness and truth, must needs be that part of his word to which these two are applicable, i. e. his promise, the matter whereof is mercy or loving-kindness, and in the performance of which is truth or fidelity. And then to magnify this word of promise seems to signify two things; 1. the making very great and excellent promises, and then 2. the performing them most punctually, (and so that double meaning of the phrase will be perfectly answerable to the foreign and foreign benignity and fidelity foregoing:) and the doing it foreign foreignabove all his name, is promising and performing most superlative mercies, above all that is famed or spoken or believed of God. This will be yet more manifest, if we render the foreign foreigntwice used in the former part of the verse, not for (proportionably to the Lxxii. their foreign with the Dative case) but above (proportionable to their use of it with an Accusative) as in this place it is acknowledged to signify. For then thus it will run, I will worship &c. and praise thy name above thy loving-kindness, and above thy truth; i. e. 'twill be too low, too short a compellation, to call thee mercifull or veracious, or style thee after any other of thy Attributes, thou art all these, and more then so, thou hast magnified thy word, given and performed most glorious promises, above all thy name, above all that men have apprehended or spoken of thee. The Jewish Arab reads, I will give thanks unto thy name for thy bounty and beneficence, seeing thou hast magnified above all thy Attributes, (or thy description, or whereby thou art described) thy word. And in this sense, though not from the importance of thy word for the eternal Word, or Son of God, this Verse and Psalm may reasonably be interpreted of Gods mercies in Christ, so farr above what could be famed, or said, or believed, or apprehended of him.
V. 5. Ways] What is here meant by in the ways of the Lord hath some difficulty.foreign foreign hath many significations. 1. Its local importance for a way by which we pass, and then the ways of the Lord, will mean the coming to worship at Jerusalem, foretold in several of the Prophets; and then singing there will be very proper, because in the march to Jerusalem at the solemn feasts, the people were accustomed thus to entertein themselves with singing the praises of God. 2. 'Tis taken for the Law, as was observed on Psal. cxix. Note a. and in that sense it will well cohere with the end of the foregoing verse, the Kings &c. shall praise thee, when they hear the words of thy mouth; Yea they shall sing in the wayes of the Lord, rejoyce and praise his name, and solace themselves in the Law of God. 3. 'Tis taken for the manner of Gods dispensations, his nature, and Attributes, and dealing with men, according to the request of Moses, that God would shew him his way, Exod. xxxiii. 13. And this also will be a convenient rendring in regard of the subsequent verses, though the Lord be high, yet hath he respect to the lowly, &c. And the full sense will be compounded of all these, that in the serving of God, in considering his dealings to us, and performing obedience to him, they shall rejoyce, and bless his name and chearfully entertein themselves.
V. 7. The wrath] Of the notion of foreign for a nose see Psal. cxxxv.foreign Note b. and so the Interlinear renders it here, super nasum upon the nose; so the Chaldee, foreign thou shalt put thy hand upon the nose. Thus in our common speech, to lead one by the nose, imports a perfect rule over him that is so dealt with; and in a like proverbial speech, to put a hook into the nostrills signifies restreining of the insolent, Isa. xxxvii. 29. And so it will fitly signify here, foreign thou shalt put thy hand upon the nose of mine enemies, repress, and turne them which way thou pleasest. The Jewish Arab reads foreign, which, according to the common use of the word, signifies in our English usual expression, in spite of the nose of mine enemies.
V. 8. Perfect that which concerneth me] The Hebrew here read foreign foreignshall performe for me; so Psal. Lvii. 2. the Lord foreign which performeth for me. The Chaldee here express it by way of paraphrase, foreign &c. the Lord shall repay evill to them for me, and so the Lxxii. foreign, Lord, thou shalt repay or retribute in my stead: and so the word foreign will possibly bear, being interpretable either to a good or ill sense, but here by the context inclined to the ill sense, punishing the enemies foregoing, as in that other place Psal. lvii. 2. 'tis by the Lxxii. rendred in a good sense, foreign doing good to him. But the word foreign foreignin the close, from foreign to slacken or let goe, either what we hold in our hand, or are in pursuit of, makes it probable that foreign is here to have its primary notion of perfecting, performing or making good, according to that frequent forme of prayer, that God will perfect the work of mercy begun, or taken in hand by him. Abu Walid explains it, by shall perfect or complete his goodness on or towards me, and saith that foreign here signifies foreign on me, or towards me.