Psalm 77:6 I call to remembrance my song in the night: I commune with my own heart: and my spirit made diligent search. Among all those pains and pleasures which make up so large a part of every human lot, none are more real and more vivid than the pains and the pleasures of memory. Much that is sad, and tragic, and lamentable in the past would die but that it is kept alive in the memory, and much that is joyful and inspiring would perish out of life altogether but that it has become a property of the memory. There is not a little courage implied in this testimony of the psalmist: "I call to remembrance my song in the night" — for you cannot recall the song without recalling the night. And the song seems so slight a thing — some poor, thin, quavering notes that perhaps aimed to be melody and were not. But the night — that was vast and awful. Its gloom was absolute; its darkness a darkness that could be felt. It wrapped the spirit round until heaven and earth alike were lost, beauty a dream, and light a legend. That was the night upon which that trembling song broke; and into the depths of which it wandered. And to recall the song is to remember the night. It needs some courage deliberately to do that. There is something in this well worthy of our thought. There should be nothing in life we are afraid to recall. Even our sins should be so associated with memories of penitence and God's pardoning mercy that there is room for the note of praise even out of so desolate a night as that. We are not really "more than conquerors" until we can dare to look steadily at the darkest dispensations of earth. The suggestion with some people is that they can only continue to believe by hiding some of their trials out of sight, and resolutely refusing to think of them. If this be so, the victory is surely against, them. Will you now take yet another point in our meditation? It was the night that made the song. Not entirely, of course, for have we not already seen that the song had been impossible but for a communication of the reality of the Divine love. But the fact remains that but for the night the song had not been what it was. He whose love-song is the eternal inspiration and solace of our race was the Man of Sorrows, and His life was a song in the night. (C. S. Horne, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: I call to remembrance my song in the night: I commune with mine own heart: and my spirit made diligent search.WEB: I remember my song in the night. I consider in my own heart; my spirit diligently inquires: |
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