{"commentary":{"id":"matthew-henry","name":"Matthew Henry Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Henry","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Matthew Henry Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"ad2850450a1e5c0546c275f4bd09b9325ae47424d83311120ca7ced5724c4bc8","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/matthew-henry/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/matthew-henry/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":65,"totalNumberOfChapters":1167,"totalNumberOfVerses":4124,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"PSA","commentaryId":"matthew-henry","name":"Psalms","commonName":"Psalms","introduction":"An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Book of Psalms\n\nWe have now before us one of the choicest and most excellent parts of all the Old Testament; nay, so much is there in it of Christ and his gospel, as well as of God and his law, that it had been called the abstract, or summary, of both Testaments. The History of Israel, which we were long upon, let us to camps and council-boards, and there entertained and instructed us in the knowledge of God. The book of Job brought us into the schools, and treated us with profitable disputations concerning God and his providence. But this book brings us into the sanctuary, draws us off from converse with men, with the politicians, philosophers, or disputers of this world, and directs us into communion with God, by solacing and reposing our souls in him, lifting up and letting out our hearts towards him. Thus may we be in the mount with God; and we understand not our interests if we say not, It is good to be here. Let us consider,\n\nI. The title of this book. It is called, 1. The Psalms; under that title it is referred to, Luk 24:44. The Hebrew calls it Tehillim, which properly signifies Psalms of praise, because many of them are such; but Psalms is a more general word, meaning all metrical compositions fitted to be sung, which may as well be historical, doctrinal, or supplicatory, as laudatory. Though singing be properly the voice of joy, yet the intention of songs is of a much greater latitude, to assist the memory, and both to express and to excite all the other affections as well as this of joy. The priests had a mournful muse as well as joyful ones; and the divine institution of singing psalms is thus largely intended; for we are directed not only to praise God, but to teach and admonish ourselves and one another in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, Col 3:16. 2. It is called the Book of Psalms; so it is quoted by St. Peter, Act 1:20. It is a collection of psalms, of all the psalms that were divinely inspired, which, though composed at several times and upon several occasions, are here put together without any reference to or dependence upon one another; thus they were preserved from being scattered and lost, and were in so much greater readiness for the service of the church. See what a good master we serve, and what pleasantness there is in wisdom's ways, when we are not only commanded to sing at our work, and have cause enough given us to do so, but have words also put in our mouths and songs prepared to our hands.\n\nII. The author of this book. It is, no doubt, derived originally from the blessed Spirit. They are spiritual songs, words which the Holy Ghost taught. The penman of most of them was David the son of Jesse, who is therefore called the sweet psalmist of Israel, Sa2 23:1. Some that have not his name in their titles yet are expressly ascribed to him elsewhere, as Psa 2:1-12 (Act 4:25) and Psa 96:1-13 and 105 (1 Chr. 16). One psalm is expressly said to be the prayer of Moses (Ps. 90); and that some of the psalms were penned by Asaph is intimated, Ch2 29:30, where they are said to praise the Lord in the words of David and Asaph, who is there called a seer or prophet. Some of the psalms seem to have been penned long after, as Psa 137:1-9, at the time of the captivity in Babylon; but the far greater part of them were certainly penned by David himself, whose genius lay towards poetry and music, and who was raised up, qualified, and animated, for the establishing of the ordinance of singing psalms in the church of God, as Moses and Aaron were, in their day, for the settling of the ordinances of sacrifice; theirs is superseded, but his remains, and will to the end of time, when it shall be swallowed up in the songs of eternity. Herein David was a type of Christ, who descended from him, not from Moses, because he came to take away sacrifice (the family of Moses was soon lost and extinct), but to establish and perpetuate joy and praise; for of the family of David in Christ there shall be no end.\n\nIII. The scope of it. It is manifestly intended, 1. To assist the exercises of natural religion, and to kindle in the souls of men those devout affections which we owe to God as our Creator, owner, ruler, and benefactor. The book of Job helps to prove our first principles of the divine perfections and providence; but this helps to improve them in prayers and praises, and professions of desire towards him, dependence on him, and an entire devotedness and resignation to him. Other parts of scripture show that God is infinitely above man, and his sovereign Lord; but this shows us that he may, notwithstanding, be conversed with by us sinful worms of the earth; and there are ways in which, if it be not our own fault, we may keep up communion with him in all the various conditions of human life. 2. To advance the excellencies of revealed religion, and in the most pleasing powerful manner to recommend it to the world. There is indeed little or nothing of the ceremonial law in all the book of Psalms. Though sacrifice and offering were yet to continue many ages, yet they are here represented as things which God did not desire (Psa 40:6, Psa 51:16), as things comparatively little, and which in time were to vanish away. But the word and law of God, those parts of it which are moral and of perpetual obligation are here all along magnified and made honourable, nowhere more. And Christ, the crown and centre of revealed religion, the foundation, corner, and top-stone, of that blessed building, is here clearly spoken of in type and prophecy, his sufferings and the glory that should follow, and the kingdom that he should set up in the world, in which God's covenant with David, concerning his kingdom, was to have its accomplishment. What a high value does this book put upon the word of God, his statutes and judgments, his covenant and the great and precious promises of it; and how does it recommend them to us as our guide and stay, and our heritage for ever!\n\nIV. The use of it. All scripture, being given by inspiration of God, is profitable to convey divine light into our understandings; but this book is of singular use with that to convey divine life and power, and a holy warmth, into our affections. There is no one book of scripture that is more helpful to the devotions of the saints than this, and it has been so in all ages of the church, ever since it was written and the several parts of it were delivered to the chief musician for the service of the church. 1. It is of use to be sung. Further than David's psalms we may go, but we need not, for hymns and spiritual songs. What the rules of the Hebrew metre were even the learned are not certain. But these psalms ought to be rendered according to the metre of every language, at least so as that they may be sung for the edification of the church. And methinks it is a great comfort to us, when we are singing David's psalms, that we are offering the very same praises to God that were offered to him in the days of David and the other godly kings of Judah. So rich, so well made, are these divine poems, that they can never be exhausted, can never be worn thread-bare. 2. It is of use to be read and opened by the ministers of Christ, as containing great and excellent truths, and rules concerning good and evil. Our Lord Jesus expounded the psalms to his disciples, the gospel psalms, and opened their understandings (for he had the key of David) to understand them, Luk 24:44. 3. It is of use to be read and meditated upon by all good people. It is a full fountain, out of which we may all be drawing water with joy. (1.) The Psalmist's experiences are of great use for our direction, caution, and encouragement. In telling us, as he often does, what passed between God and his soul, he lets us know what we may expect from God, and what he will expect, and require, and graciously accept, from us. David was a man after God's own heart, and therefore those who find themselves in some measure according to his heart have reason to hope that they are renewed by the grace of God, after the image of God, and many have much comfort in the testimony of their consciences for them that they can heartily say Amen to David's prayers and praises. (2.) Even the Psalmist's expressions too are of great use; and by them the Spirit helps our praying infirmities, because we know not what to pray for as we ought. In all our approaches to God, as well as in our first returns to God, we are directed to take with us words (Hos 14:2), these word, words which the Holy Ghost teaches. If we make David's psalms familiar to us, as we ought to do, whatever errand we have at the throne of grace, by way of confession, petition, or thanksgiving, we may thence be assisted in the delivery of it; whatever devout affection is working in us, holy desire or hope, sorrow or joy, we may there find apt words wherewith to clothe it, sound speech which cannot be condemned. It will be good to collect the most proper and lively expressions of devotion which we find here, and to methodize them, and reduce them to the several heads of prayer, that they may be the more ready to us. Or we may take sometimes one choice psalm and sometimes another, and pray it over, that is, enlarge upon each verse in our own thoughts, and offer up our meditations to God as they arise from the expressions we find there. The learned Dr. Hammond, in his preface to his paraphrase on the Psalms (sect. 29), says, \"That going over a few psalms with these interpunctions of mental devotion, suggested, animated, and maintained, by the native life and vigour which is in the psalms, is much to be preferred before the saying over the whole Psalter, since nothing is more fit to be averted in religious offices than their degenerating into heartless dispirited recitations.\" If, as St. Austin advises, we form our spirit by the affection of the psalm, we may then be sure of acceptance with God in using the language of it. Nor is it only our devotion, and the affections of our mind, that the book of Psalms assists, teaching us how to offer praise so as to glorify God, but, it is also a directory to the actions of our lives, and teaches us how to order our conversation aright, so as that, in the end, we may see the salvation of God, Psa 50:23. The Psalms were thus serviceable to the Old Testament church, but to us Christians they may be of more use than they could be to those who lived before the coming of Christ; for, as Moses's sacrifices, so David's songs, are expounded and made more intelligible by the gospel of Christ, which lets us within the veil; so that if to David's prayers and praises we all St. Paul's prayers in his epistles, and the new songs in the Revelation, we shall be thoroughly furnished for this good work; for the scripture, perfected, makes the man of God perfect.\n\nAs to the division of this book, we need not be solicitous; there is no connexion (or very seldom) between one psalm and another, nor any reason discernable for the placing of them in the order wherein we here find them; but it seems to be ancient, for that which is now the second psalm was so in the apostles' time, Act 13:33. The vulgar Latin joins the 9th and 10th together; all popish authors quote by that, so that, thenceforward, throughout the book, their number is one short of ours; our 11 is their 10, our 119 is their 118. But they divide the 147th into two, and so make up the number of 150. Some have endeavoured to reduce the psalms to proper heads, according to the matter of them, but there is often such a variety of matter in one and the same psalm that this cannot be done with any certainty. But the seven penitential Psalms have been in a particular manner singled out by the devotions of many. They are reckoned to be Psa 6:1-10, Psa 32:1-11, 38, 51,102, Psa 130:1-8, and Psa 143:1-12. The Psalms were divided into five books, each concluding with Amen, Amen, or Hallelujah; the first ending with Psa 41:1-13, the second with Ps. 72, the third with Ps. 89, the fourth with Ps. 106, the fifth with Psa 150:1-6. Others divide them into three fifties; others into sixty parts, two for every day of the month, one for the morning, the other for the evening. Let good Christians divide them for themselves, so as may best increase their acquaintance with them, that they may have them at hand upon all occasions and may sing them in the spirit and with the understanding.","order":19,"numberOfChapters":150,"sha256":"df919b9cec19ec4d2b0e2a8d7571052f58de07c3fc34101c6fe45db7041273b6","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/matthew-henry/PSA/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"matthew-henry","book":"PSA","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":150,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/matthew-henry/PSA/150.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"matthew-henry","book":"PSA","chapter":150},"totalNumberOfVerses":443},"chapter":{"number":11,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":1,"content":["Here is, I. David's fixed resolution to make God his confidence: In the Lord put I my trust, Psa 11:1. Those that truly fear God and serve him are welcome to put their trust in him, and shall not be made ashamed of their doing so. And it is the character of the saints, who have taken God for their God, that they make him their hope. Even when they have other things to stay themselves upon, yet they do not, they dare not, stay upon them, but on God only. Gold is not their hope, nor are horses and chariots their confidence, but God only; and therefore, when second causes frown, yet their hopes do not fail them, because the first cause is still the same, is ever so. The psalmist, before he gives an account of the temptation he was in to distrust God, records his resolution to trust in him, as that which he was resolved to live and die by.\nII. His resentment of a temptation to the contrary: \"How say you to my soul, which has thus returned to God as its rest and reposes in him, Flee as a bird to your mountain, to be safe there out of the reach of the fowler?\" This may be taken either,\n1. As the serious advice of his timorous friends; so many understand it, and with great probability. Some that were hearty well-wishers to David, when they saw how much Saul was exasperated against him and how maliciously he sought his life, pressed him by all means to flee for the same to some place of shelter, and not to depend too much upon the anointing he had received, which, they thought, was more likely to occasion the loss of his head than to save it. That which grieved him in this motion was not that to flee now would savour of cowardice, and ill become a soldier, but that it would savour of unbelief and would ill become a saint who had so often said, In the Lord put I my trust. Taking it thus, the two following verses contain the reason with which these faint-hearted friends of David backed this advice. They would have him flee, (1.) Because he could not be safe where he was, Psa 11:2. \"Observe,\" say they, \"how the wicked bend their bow; Saul and his instruments aim at thy life, and the uprightness of thy heart will not be thy security.\" See what an enmity there is in the wicked against the upright, in the seed of the serpent against the seed of the woman; what pains they take, what preparations they make, to do them a mischief: They privily shoot at them, or, in darkness, that they may not see the evil designed, to avoid it, nor others, to prevent it, no, nor God himself, to punish it. (2.) Because he could be no longer useful where he was. \"For,\" say they, \"if the foundations be destroyed\" (as they were by Saul's mal-administration), \"if the civil state and government be unhinged and all out of course\" (Psa 75:3, Psa 82:5), \"what canst thou do with thy righteousness to redress the grievances? Alas! it is to no purpose to attempt the saving of a kingdom so wretchedly shattered; whatever the righteous can do signifies nothing.\" Abi in cellam, et dic, Miserere mei, Domine - Away to thy cell, and there cry, Pity me, O Lord! Many are hindered from doing the service they might do to the public, in difficult times, by a despair of success.\n2. It may be taken as a taunt wherewith his enemies bantered him, upbraiding him with the professions he used to make of confidence in God, and scornfully bidding him try what stead that would stand him in now. \"You say, God is your mountain; flee to him now, and see what the better you will be.\" Thus they endeavoured to shame the counsel of the poor, saying, There is no help for them in God, Psa 14:6; Psa 3:2. The confidence and comfort which the saints have in God, when all the hopes and joys in the creature fail them, are a riddle to a carnal world and are ridiculed accordingly. Taking it thus, the two following verses are David's answer to this sarcasm, in which, (1.) He complains of the malice of those who did thus abuse him (Psa 11:2): They bend their bow and make ready their arrows; and we are told (Psa 64:3) what their arrows are, even bitter words, such words as these, by which they endeavour to discourage hope in God, which David felt as a sword in his bones. (2.) He resists the temptation with a gracious abhorrence, Psa 11:3. He looks upon this suggestion as striking at the foundations which every Israelite builds upon: \"If you destroy the foundations, if you take good people off from their hope in God, if you can persuade them that their religion is a cheat and a jest and can banter them out of that, you ruin them, and break their hearts indeed, and make them of all men the most miserable.\" The principles of religion are the foundations on which the faith and hope of the righteous are built. These we are concerned, in interest as well as duty, to hold fast against all temptations to infidelity; for, if these be destroyed, if we let these go, What can the righteous do? Good people would be undone if they had not a God to go to, a God to trust to, and a future bliss to hope for. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["The shaking of a tree (they say) makes it take the deeper and faster root. The attempt of David's enemies to discourage his confidence in God engages him to cleave so much the more closely to his first principles, and to review them, which he here does, abundantly to his own satisfaction and the silencing of all temptations to infidelity. That which was shocking to his faith, and has been so to the faith of many, was the prosperity of wicked people in their wicked ways, and the straits and distresses which the best men are sometimes reduced to: hence such an evil thought as this was apt to arise, Surely it is vain to serve God, and we may call the proud happy. But, in order to stifle and shame all such thoughts, we are here called to consider,\nI. That there is a God in heaven: The Lord is in his holy temple above, where, though he is out of our sight, we are not out of his. Let not the enemies of the saints insult over them, as if they were at a loss and at their wits' end: no, they have a God, and they know where to find him and how to direct their prayer unto him, as their Father in heaven. Or, He is in his holy temple, that is, in his church; he is a God in covenant and communion with his people, through a Mediator, of whom the temple was a type. We need not say, \"Who shall go up to heaven, to fetch us thence a God to trust to?\" No, the word is nigh us, and God in the word; his Spirit is in his saints, those living temples, and the Lord is that Spirit.\nII. That this God governs the world. The Lord has not only his residence, but his throne, in heaven, and he has set the dominion thereof in the earth (Job 38:33); for, having prepared his throne in the heavens, his kingdom ruleth over all, Psa 103:19. Hence the heavens are said to rule, Dan 4:26. Let us by faith see God on this throne, on his throne of glory, infinitely transcending the splendour and majesty of earthly princes - on his throne of government, giving law, giving motion, and giving aim, to all the creatures - on his throne of judgment, rendering to every man according to his works - and on his throne of grace, to which his people may come boldly for mercy and grace; we shall then see no reason to be discouraged by the pride and power of oppressors, or any of the afflictions that attend the righteous.\nIII. That this God perfectly knows every man's true character: His eyes behold, his eye-lids try, the children of men; he not only sees them, but he sees through them, not only knows all they say and do, but knows what they think, what they design, and how they really stand affected, whatever they pretend. We may know what men seem to be, but he knows what they are, as the refiner knows what the value of the gold is when he has tried it. God is said to try with his eyes, and his eye-lids, because he knows men, not as earthly princes know men, by report and representation, but by his own strict inspection, which cannot err nor be imposed upon. This may comfort us when we are deceived in men, even in men that we think we have tried, that God's judgment of men, we are sure, is according to truth.\nIV. That, if he afflict good people, it is for their trial and therefore for their good, Psa 11:5. The Lord tries all the children of men that he may do them good in their latter end, Deu 8:16. Let not that therefore shake our foundations nor discourage our hope and trust in God.\nV. That, however persecutors and oppressors may prosper and prevail awhile, they now lie under, and will for ever perish under, the wrath of God. 1. He is a holy God, and therefore hates them, and cannot endure to look upon them: The wicked, and him that loveth violence, his soul hateth; for nothing is more contrary to the rectitude and goodness of his nature. Their prosperity is so far from being an evidence of God's love that their abuse of it does certainly make them the objects of his hatred. He that hates nothing that he has made, yet hates those who have thus ill-made themselves. Dr. Hammond offers another reading of this verse: The Lord trieth the righteous and the wicked (distinguishes infallibly between them, which is more than we can do), and he that loveth violence hateth his own soul, that is, persecutors bring certain ruin upon themselves (Pro 8:36), as follows here. 2. He is a righteous Judge, and therefore he will punish them, Psa 11:6. Their punishment will be, (1.) Inevitable: Upon the wicked he shall rain snares. Here is a double metaphor, to denote the unavoidableness of the punishment of wicked men. It shall be rained upon them from heaven (Job 20:23), against which there is no fence and from which there is no escape; see Jos 10:11; Sa1 2:10. It shall surprise them as a sudden shower sometimes surprises the traveller in a summer's day. It shall be as snares upon them, to hold them fast, and keep them prisoners, till the day of reckoning comes. (2.) Very terrible. It is fire, and brimstone, and a horrible tempest, which plainly alludes to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and very fitly, for that destruction was intended for a figure of the vengeance of eternal fire, Jde 1:7. The fire of God's wrath, fastening upon the brimstone of their own guilt, will burn certainly and furiously, will burn to the lowest hell and the utmost line of eternity. What a horrible tempest are the wicked hurried away in at death! What a lake of fire and brimstone must they make their bed in for ever, in the congregation of the dead and damned! It is this that is here meant; it is this that shall be the portion of their cup, the heritage appointed them by the Almighty and allotted to them, Job 20:29. This is the cup of trembling which shall be put into their hands, which they must drink the dregs of, Psa 75:8. Every man has the portion of his cup assigned him. Those who choose the Lord for the portion of their cup shall have what they choose, and be for ever happy in their choice (Psa 16:5); but those who reject his grace shall be made to drink the cup of his fury, Jer 25:15; Isa 51:17; Hab 2:16.\nVI. That, though honest good people may be run down and trampled upon, yet God does and will own them, and favour them, and smile upon them, and that is the reason why God will severely reckon with persecutors and oppressors, because those whom they oppress and persecute are dear to him; so that whosoever toucheth them toucheth the apple of his eye, Psa 11:7. 1. He loves them and the work of his own grace in them. He is himself a righteous God, and therefore loves righteousness wherever he finds it and pleads the cause of the righteous that are injured and oppressed; he delights to execute judgment for them, Psa 103:6. We must herein be followers of God, must love righteousness as he does, that we may keep ourselves always in his love. He looks graciously upon them: His countenance doth behold the upright; he is not only at peace with them, and puts gladness into their hearts, by letting them know that he is so. He, like a tender father, looks upon them with pleasure, and they, like dutiful children, are pleased and abundantly satisfied with his smiles. They walk in the light of the Lord.\nIn singing this psalm we must encourage and engage ourselves to trust in God at all times, must depend upon him to protect our innocence and make us happy, must dread his frowns as worse than death and desire his favour as better than life. \n"]}],"introduction":"In this psalm we have David's struggle with and triumph over a strong temptation to distrust God and betake himself to indirect means for his own safety in a time of danger. It is supposed to have been penned when he began to feel the resentments of Saul's envy, and had had the javelin thrown at him once and again. He was then advised to run his country. \"No,\" says he, \"I trust in God, and therefore will keep my ground.\" Observe, I. How he represents the temptation, and perhaps parleys with it, (Psa 11:1-3). II. How he answers it, and puts it to silence with the consideration of God's dominion and providence (Psa 11:4), his favour to the righteous, and the wrath which the wicked are reserved for (Psa 11:5-7). In times of public fear, when the insults of the church's enemies are daring and threatening, it will be profitable to meditate on this psalm.\nTo the chief musician. A psalm of David. \n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/matthew-henry/PSA/11.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"matthew-henry","book":"PSA","chapter":11},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/matthew-henry/PSA/12.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"matthew-henry","book":"PSA","chapter":12},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/matthew-henry/PSA/10.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"matthew-henry","book":"PSA","chapter":10},"numberOfVerses":2}