Psalm 18:35 You have also given me the shield of your salvation: and your right hand has held me up, and your gentleness has made me great. It is remarkable that the Psalmist should speak of God as gentle, and of himself as great, and that he should ascribe his own greatness to God's gentleness, as the effect to the cause. This would appear to reverse the natural order of things. The greatness of God might well teach us a lesson of gentleness. I. THE IMPORT OF THAT GENTLENESS WHICH IS ASCRIBED TO GOD. Contrast it with His infinite power and universal sovereignty. There is united in the Divine character surpassing gentleness and transcendant greatness. To what but the Lord's gentleness, forbearance, long suffering, and tender mercy is it owing that our rebellious and guilty race haw been so long spared and so graciously dealt with? But it is in the person of His well-beloved Son, the meek and lowly Saviour, that the gentleness of God is exhibited to us in a visible and palpable form. Was not the Spirit of Christ emphatically one of gentleness? Did not that lovely Spirit, so aptly typified by the similitude of a dove, characterise His every word and action? Such a combination of gentleness with fortitude; of meekness with dignity; of the tenderest love with the most inflexible firmness, belongs only to Immanuel. The delineation of the character is far above human power. II. THE NATURE OF THE GREATNESS WHICH THE PSALMIST AFFIRMS TO BE THE EFFECT OF THE DIVINE GENTLENESS. Is it the grandeur of wealth, power, fame, or royal dignity to which he refers? His own testimony negatives the supposition. It is of moral greatness, as distinct from earthly grandeur, — greatness of principle, of soul, of destiny — that greatness which teaches man to contemn sensual indulgences, that greatness which consists in spiritual endowments, and heavenly relationships — this is the only greatness which really dignifies and ennobles a never-dying spirit. This true spiritual greatness is at once the evidence and the effect of a Divine nature. To such heavenly greatness God's gentleness would lead us by Christ Jesus. The one subject of our everlasting songs will be, the gentleness of God in Christ. (W. F. Vance, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation: and thy right hand hath holden me up, and thy gentleness hath made me great. |
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