Expositions of Holy Scripture: Psalms. Alexander Maclaren

SPARROWS AND ALTARS

       HAPPY PILGRIMS

       BLESSED TRUST

       'THE BRIDAL OF THE EARTH AND SKY'

       A SHEAF OF PRAYER ARROWS

       CONTINUAL SUNSHINE

       THE CRY OF THE MORTAL TO THE UNDYING

       THE SHELTERING WING

       THE HABITATION OF THE SOUL

       THE ANSWER TO TRUST

       WHAT GOD WILL DO FOR US

       FORGIVENESS AND RETRIBUTION

       INVIOLABLE MESSIAHS AND PROPHETS

       GOD'S PROMISES TESTS

       SOLDIER PRIESTS

       GOD AND THE GODLY

       EXPERIENCE, RESOLVE, AND HOPE

       REQUITING GOD

       A CLEANSED WAY

       LIFE HID AND NOT HID

       A STRANGER IN THE EARTH

       'TIME FOR THEE TO WORK'

       SUBMISSION AND PEACE

       LOOKING TO THE HILLS

       MOUNTAINS ROUND MOUNT ZION

       THE CHARGE OF THE WATCHERS IN THE TEMPLE

       GOD'S SCRUTINY LONGED FOR

       THE INCENSE OF PRAYER

       THE PRAYER OF PRAYERS

       THE SATISFIER OF ALL DESIRES

VOLUME I: PSALMS I to XLIX

       Table of Contents

BLESSEDNESS AND PRAISE

       Table of Contents

      'Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. 2. But his delight is in the law of the Lord.'—PSALM i. 1, 2.

      'Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the

       Lord.'—PSALM cl. 6.

      The Psalter is the echo in devout hearts of the other portions of divine revelation. There are in it, indeed, further disclosures of God's mind and purposes, but its especial characteristic is—the reflection of the light of God from brightened faces and believing hearts. As we hold it to be inspired, we cannot simply say that it is man's response to God's voice. But if the rest of Scripture may be called the speech of the Spirit of God to men, this book is the answer of the Spirit of God in men.

      These two verses which I venture to lay side by side present in a very remarkable way this characteristic. It is not by accident that they stand where they do, the first and last verses of the whole collection, enclosing all, as it were, within a golden ring, and bending round to meet each other. They are the summing up of the whole purpose and issue of God's revelation to men.

      The first and second psalms echo the two main portions of the old revelation—the Law and the Prophets. The first of them is taken up with the celebration of the blessedness and fruitful, stable being of the man who loves the Law of the Lord, as contrasted with the rootless and barren life of the ungodly, who is like the chaff. The second is occupied with the contemplation of the divine 'decree' by which the coming King is set in God's 'holy hill of Zion,' and of the blessedness of 'all they who put their trust in Him,' as contrasted with the swift destruction that shall fall on the vain imaginations of the rebellious heathen and banded kings of earth.

      The words of our first text, then, may well stand at the beginning of the Psalter. They express the great purpose for which God has given His Law. They are the witness of human experience to the substantial, though partial, accomplishment of that purpose. They rise in buoyant triumph over that which is painful and apparently opposed to it; and in spite of sorrow and sin, proclaim the blessedness of the life which is rooted in the Law of the Lord.

      The last words of the book are as significant as its first. The closing psalms are one long call to praise—they probably date from the time of the restoration under Ezra and Nehemiah, when, as we know, 'the service of song' was carefully re-established, and the harps which had hung silent upon the willows by the rivers of Babylon woke again their ancient melodies. These psalms climb higher and higher in their rapturous call to all creatures, animate and inanimate, on earth and in heaven, to praise Him. The golden waves of music and song pour out ever faster and fuller. At last we hear this invocation to every instrument of music to praise Him, responded to, as we may suppose, by each, in turn as summoned, adding its tributary notes to the broadening river of harmony—until all, with gathered might of glad sound blended with the crash of many voices, unite in the final words, 'Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord.'

      I. We have here a twofold declaration of God's great purpose in all His self-revelation, and especially in the Gospel of His Son.

      Our first text may be translated as a joyful exclamation, 'Oh! the blessedness of the man—whose delight is in the law of the Lord.' Our second is an invocation or a command. The one then expresses the purpose which God secures by His gift of the Law; the other the purpose which He summons us to fulfil by the tribute of our hearts and songs—man's happiness and God's glory.