Jeduthun, whose name stands at the head of Psalm 39, 62, and 77, was one of a musical family entrusted with the conduct of the musical service in the time of David. The psalms having his name at the head were probably intended to be sung by his choir. It would thus seem that in the Hebrew service of sacred song the prayers and plaints of the individual believer were included, when set to music. If so, the "service of song in the house of the Lord" covered a much wider ground than is usually supposed, and was made to include not only direct address to God, whether of prayer or praise, but also the rehearsal of personal experience; and thus a holy fellowship of song would arise, anticipating long ages before, the expression of the apostle, "Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs;" only it should be noted that these would be musical utterances of an actual experience going on then and there. It does not follow that the like utterances would be suitable for the service of song now. Discretion and discrimination are needed in the use thereof. This is evidently an individual psalm; it is neither national, prophetic, nor Messianic; it is one of those which reflect the care and anxiety with which David was bowed down at one crisis of his life, though to which of his numerous crises it refers it is not easy to decide, Nor, indeed, is that of moment. It will profit us more to note the course taken by the psalmist at a time of crushing sorrow, and then to see how far the course which he took may be a guide for us under like circumstances.

I. LET US NOTE THE COURSE ADOPTED BY THE PSALMIST AT A TIME OF CRUSHING SORROW. There is a somewhat wide divergence among expositors in their estimate of this psalm, and of the mental revelations therein contained. But we feel bound to look at the psalmist's words tenderly rather than harshly, knowing as we do, how often, in agonies of soul, the best men may utter words which would not escape them in their calmer hours (cf. Psalm 116:11).

1. Here is a case of sore affliction. "Thy stroke" (ver. 10); "the blow of thine hand" (ver. 10). Whatever the sorrow may have been to which reference is made, it is regarded as coming directly from God. "Thou didst it" (ver. 9). It was so heavy that David was "consumed" thereby (ver. 10). And it was looked on by him as a chastisement for his transgressions (cf. vers. 8, 11).

2. It is, under such circumstances, very hard to be absolutely still. So the first verse implies. There is little indication that the disturbing trouble arose (as some suggest) from seeing the prosperity of the wicked; but evidently there is some distinctively personal trouble, probably sickness and weakness, which, with all the public demands made upon him, weighs heavily upon his soul, and he is tempted to complain and to seek sympathy from without. But:

3. He is in the midst of uncongenial souls. (Ver. 1.) "The wicked is before me." Note: Earthly men are poor companions in the distresses of spiritual men. To the natural man the sorrows of a spiritual man would be altogether unintelligible. And supposing that the troubles here referred to arose about the time of and in connection with Absalom's rebellion, the majority of those round about David would be men whose thoughts and aims moved entirely in the military or political sphere. Hence:

4. Here is a wise resolve. (Vers. 1, 2.) He will say nothing. There would be many reasons for this.

(1) No one would enter into his feelings.

(2) What he said would be misunderstood.

(3) He would consequently be misrepresented.

(4) The more he said, the worse matters would be. And

(5) if he told men what he thought and felt, he would be very likely to say something which he would afterwards regret. That I sin not with my tongue. Hence silence is his wisest course.

5. But suppressed grief consumes like a fire. (Ver. 3.) There is nothing which so wears out the soul, nor which so burns within, as woe to which no vent can be given; so David found it, and consequently:

6. The silence is broken. "Then spake I with my tongue." But, in breaking the silence, he speaks not to man, but to God. After the word "tongue," the Authorized Version has a comma, but the Revised Version a colon, indicating that what he said is about to follow. What an infinite mercy that when we cannot say a word to man, through fear of being misunderstood, we can speak to God, and tell him exactly what we feel, as we feel it, knowing that then we touch a heart infinitely tender, and address an intelligence infinitely wise!

7. In speaking to God he moans and groans. (Vers. 4-6.) Does David speak petulantly? Is he asking God to let him know how long he has to endure all this? Is he adducing the frailty and nothingness of man as an argument against his being allowed to suffer thus? So many think, and some, as Calvin, are very hard on David - very. But why? There is a vast difference between the fretfulness of an overburdened man and the waywardness of a rebellious man. And he who knows our frame, takes the difference into account. When Elijah pettishly said, "Now, O Lord, take away my life I" God did not rebuke him; he sent an angel to him, and said, "Arise and eat; the journey is too great for thee."

8. He declares that his expectation of relief is in God alone. (Ver. 7.) Just so. These are not the words of a rebellious, but of a trusting one. And from that point of view the whole psalm must be regarded (cf. Psalm 62.).

9. He will not utter a word of complaint. (Ver. 9.) Render, "I am dumb; I open not my mouth, because thou hast done it" ('Variorum Bible'). "Thyself hast done it." On this fact faith fastens; and when this is the case, not a word of murmuring will escape the lips. The cry of a trusting soul is, "Here am I; let him do with me as seemeth him good" (2 Samuel 15:26).

10. Yet he supplicates. (Vers. 8, 10, 13.) First, he desires deliverance from sin, then a mitigation of the suffering; such is the order, and the order which only a saint would name. The last verse is, in our versions, obscure. The word "spare ' should not be read in the sense intended when we say, "If I am spared," etc., but in the sense of "O spare me this sorrow!" It is a repetition of ver. 10, "Remove this stroke away from me." It asks not for prolongation of life, but for mitigation of pain. The Revised Version margin gives a more correct translation of the phrase, "that I may recover strength;" rather, "that I may brighten up." No conclusion can be drawn from the end of the thirteenth verse, as to the psalmist's view of another life. The Prayer-book Version, "and be no more seen," gives the sense.

11. The supplication is accompanied by a tender plea. (Ver. 12.) "I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were." Archbishop Leighton beautifully expresses the force of this plea, "In this world, wherein thou hast appointed me to sojourn a few days, and I betake myself to thy protection in this strange country. I seek shelter under the shadow of thy wings, therefore have compassion upon me."

II. HOW FAR IS THE COURSE TAKEN BY DAVID, IN HIS AFFLICTION, A GUIDE FOR US?

1. In some respects we may well imitate him. In restraining our words before man, and in telling all our cares and woes to God exactly as we feel them, and in such a way as will best relieve an overburdened heart.

2. In other respects we should go far beyond him. Believers ought not to confine themselves now within the limits of such a prayer as this; they should always transcend it. We know more of God's Fatherly love; we know of our great High Priest; we know the fellowship of the Spirit; we know of "the unsearchable riches of Christ;" and hence our prayers should rise above those of David as much as the prayer of Ephesians 3:14-21 is above the level of this psalm. Note: The best preventive of sins of the tongue is the fuller and more frequent outpouring of the heart to God. - C.

Bishop Horsley says that David, moved by a godly contrition, pours forth this prayer, that he might know his end and the measure of his days.

I. WHY SHOULD CONTRITION LEAD TO SUCH A PRAYER? David speaks not of forgiveness, though that is what the contrite heart first asks for. But he does not here pray even for this. Apparently he does not, but really he does. For the prayer to be taught how frail we are, is virtually a prayer that we may be made holier, more averse from sin, and more devoted to the great end of our being. That it is this is shown —

1. By the fact that the interval between the evil work and the execution of the sentence against it causes the hearts of men to be steadfastly set in them to do evil. If penalty followed immediately on crime, men would not dare to sin as now they fearlessly do. They trust themselves to the hope that delay in punishment ever inspires. There is a sort of unacknowledged idea that what is protracted and indefinite will never take effect. A thousand things may intervene to prevent execution.

2. Or there is at work another, and not wholly different feeling. It is confessed that sin must be repented and forsaken, seeing that otherwise there will come a fearful retribution hereafter; but it is imagined that life will yet afford many opportunities, so that it is safe, or at least not imminently dangerous, to persist a while longer in criminal indulgence, which keeps up the sinner in this his procrastination. If you could practically overthrow this his theory, and substitute for it the persuasion, that "in the midst of life he is in death," he would be almost compelled, by his felt exposure to danger, to make provision for the coming eternity, on the threshold of which he may be at any moment standing, and which may be upon him, in its awfulness and unchangeableness, ere he draw another breath. How many still believe the ancient lie with which the tempter deceived Eve, "Ye shall not surely die." How few live "as strangers and pilgrims" here on earth. Instead of that there is a great settling themselves down, as if earth were their home; a slackness in religious duties, as if there were no great cause for diligence; a deferring of many sacrifices and performances, as though the case were not urgent; and this, too, where the parties not only avouch themselves careful for the soul, but are clearly to be distinguished from the great mass around them, by a general endeavour to do the will of their God. And what should we say is needed, in order to the correcting these errors and inconsistencies? What, at least, would be a mighty engine in producing greater steadfastness in the righteous, greater abstraction from earth, greater devotedness to religion? We reply without hesitation — a deep conviction of the uncertainty of life. Had men such conviction they could not live, as now they do, so entangled in the world, so eager in its service. It would warn him back from the inordinate pursuit of earthly things.

II. But note THE PETITION ITSELF. What a curious fact it is that such a petition should be offered unto God. Its terms are explicit enough, at least there can be little doubt as to its drift. He does not mean that God should show him the exact measure of his days and the precise number of them tie had yet to live. Such a petition would be unlawful, for it would be an intrusion into those "secret things" which "belong only unto God." But that which the psalmist seeks to know is, the frailty of his life. This is the drift and scope of the petition, that he may have an abiding sense of the shortness and uncertainty of life. Now, is it not strange that such a prayer should be offered? I do not ask God to make me know that such and such substances are poisonous when all example testifies that they are; or that the weather is variable, when I have such continual proof of it. I do not pray to know anything, which I know indubitably from books, or testimony, or observation. Why, then, pray to be made to know how frail I am? It seems like praying to be made to know that the sun rises and sets; that storms may .suddenly overcast the sky, or that any other thing may happen which we already know is wont to happen. And yet David, who was as little likely as we are to shut his eyes to well-known truths — he offers up this prayer, "Lord, make me to know mine end," etc. I cannot but draw a lesson from this for one's own ministerial guidance in the discharge of the ministerial office. If there is one thing more than another I would desire to have impressed on all classes of my hearers, it is the simple, self-evident, universally confessed truth, that they are frail beings liable at any moment to death, and certain at no very distant time to be removed to another, even to an invisible world. I have already shown you that there is little needed, beyond the abiding consciousness of this truth, to produce in those who have hitherto neglected religion, an earnest heedfulness to the things of eternity; and in others, who have devoted themselves to God, an increased and increasing diligence in the culture of personal holiness. So that it will naturally be one great aim of the minister to gain power for the truth of the uncertainty of life; to withdraw it from the mass of facts, which are acknowledged rather than felt, and to place it amongst those which influence the conduct. How is tie to proceed in the accomplishment of this aim? You know very well what is ordinarily tried; and if reason sit in judgment on the matter, it might possibly pronounce it best fitted to succeed. There are arrayed all the affecting evidences that can be gathered together of human frailty. But, however fair and admirable in theory, is this course practically effective when the fact of which we desire to produce conviction is the uncertainty of life? Alas! no. The universal testimony from ministerial experience, is that a well wrought sermon on the frailty of life is commonly ineffectual to the making men on the watch for the approaches of death. Here it is that our text comes in with a great lesson. It does but echo this result of ministerial experience. The psalmist prays to be made to know his frailty; as though quite aware that meditation and observation would never bring it home to him, notwithstanding that it seemed impossible for him to shut his eyes to the fact. And if it be a thing for prayer, it is evident enough that all meditations amongst the tombs, and all musings over the dead, will be practically of no avail, except as they bring men to their knees. Here, then, is the great lesson which, as a minister, [ gather from the text. I wish to impress on you your frailty, and entreat you to let this be part of your daily prayer to the Almighty — "Make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am."

(Henry Melvill, B. D.)