For surely You, O LORD, bless the righteous; You surround them with the shield of Your favor. Sermons
This second strophe of the psalm is very much like the first in substance, the matter running parallel with vers. 3-7. The fundamental thought on which all is based is that of the righteousness of God. The whole prayer is framed on that conception. I. A PRAYER FOR RIGHTEOUS DELIVERANCE AND GUIDANCE. 1. For righteous guidance. "Lead me in thy righteousness; make thy way [the right way] plain to me." 2. For righteous deliverance. The unrighteous lay in wait for him - threatened his safety. There was "no faithfulness in their mouth;" they used slander and treachery when they dared not use open violence. Their inward part, their souls. were full of evil designs and purposes. "Their throat is like an open sepulchre," which yawns for his destruction. Their speech, fair and smooth, to flatter and put him off his guard and lure him on. With them, mouth, heart, throat, and tongue are all instruments of evil; and their malice was such that he needed the care and guidance of the righteous power above. II. A PRAYER FOR RIGHTEOUS RETRIBUTION. (Ver. 10.) Punish. "The word properly signifies such a decision and judgment as would show and manifest what sort of neighbours they are when their ungodly dispositions are disclosed and every one is made known." Show them guilty. Let them fall through or because of their own counsels. Their counsels are of such an evil nature that they must in the end ensure their destruction. By means of their transgressions thrust them away - the same thought in substance as the last. But the great argument for retribution is - they have rebelled against thee. The enemies of the psalmist are the enemies of God. God's cause and that of his people are the same. Whoso toucheth you, toucheth the apple of mine eye; "Saul, Saul, why porsecutest thou me?" III. PRAYER FOR THE REALIZATION OF A RIGHTEOUS JOY. ("Vers. 11, 12.) This joy proceeds: 1. From the sense of refuge and defence we have in God. 2. From the love we have to God, for his goodness and righteousness. 3. From the knowledge we have that God does assuredly bless the righteous. - S. Because Thou defendest them. I. THE LORD IS OUR GOOD PROTECTOR. 1. A sympathising Protector. He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of His eye. 2. A sure Protector. He will save us with His right hand. 3. A personal Protector. He does not deal with the mass, but with the individual. 4. An everlasting Protector. Underneath us are the everlasting arms. 5. A loving Protector. The most endearing images are used in the Bible to tell us of the love of our God. II. THE CONDITION REQUIRED. They who would be protected must trust themselves in His care and be guided by His wishes. Is it not easy to trust in Him when we remember His almighty power, His perfect wisdom, and that He is our loving Father? III. THE PROTECTION HE AFFORDS TO HIS TRUSTING PEOPLE. He protects us — 1. From the slavery of sin. 2. From the penalty of transgression. 3. From the penalty which our sin leaves on us. 4. From the despair of failure. () At an early period of his life Mozart, the composer, gave his heart to God. When he was twenty-one years of age he wrote, "I have God always before me. Whatever is according to His will is according to mine, therefore I cannot fail to be happy and contented.". O Lord, rebuke me not in Thine anger. It is needless to look for a historical occasion of the Psalm; but to an oar that knows the tones of sorrow, or to a heart that has itself uttered them, the supposition that in these pathetic cries we hear only a representative Israelite bewailing the national ruin sounds singularly artificial. If ever the throb of personal anguish found tears and a Voice, it does so in this Psalm. Whoever wrote it wrote with his blood. There are in it no obvious references to events in the recorded life of David, and hence the ascription of it to him must rest on something else than the interpretation of the Psalm. The worth of this little plaintive cry depends on quite other considerations than the discovery of the name of the singer, or the nature of his sorrow. It is a transcript of a perennial experience, a guide fern road which all feet have to travel. Its stream runs turbid and broken at first, but calms and clears as it flows. It has four curves or windings, which can scarcely be called strophes without making too artificial a framework for such a simple and spontaneous gush of feeling.() The strains of this Psalm are two — vers. 1-7, the petition to God for himself; and vers. 8-10, an insultation over his enemies.I. THE PETITION. 1. A deprecation of evil. He prays God to avert His wrath. 2. A petition of good. He entreats to be partaker of God's favour, both to his body and to his soul. The petition he enforceth upon divers and weighty reasons: from the quantity and degrees of his calamity; from the continuance of it; from the consequences that were like to follow. That he was brought to death's door is seen by three symptoms, sighs and groans, tears, eyes melted away. Moreover, he had many ill-willers. II. THE INSULTATION. At last, receiving joy and comfort from his penitential tears, he begins to look up, and from his complaint he turns upon his enemies, who gaped after his death, and over them he insults (an old word for "he glories"). He rejects these reprobates from him with scorn and indignation. He assigns the cause in effect, because God had been moved by his prayer to reject them. Then follows his imprecation; made up of three ingredients, which he prays may light on them — shame and confusion, vexation, eversion. These two last he aggravates by the weight and speed. He desires that their vexation should be nor easy, nor mild, but very sore; and that their shame and overthrow linger not, but be present, hasty, and sudden. () Though God will be no example of upbraiding or reproaching repented sins, when God hath so far expressed His love as to bring that sinner to that repentance, and so to mercy, yet, that He may perfect His own care, He exercises that repentant sinner with such medicinal corrections as may enable him to stand upright for the future.I. THE PERSON UPON WHOM DAVID TURNED FOR SUCCOUR. His first access is to God only. It is to God by name, not to any universal God. That name in which he comes to Him here is the name Jehovah, His radical, fundamental, primary, essential name. II. FOR WHAT HE SUPPLICATES. His prayer is but deprecatory; he does but pray that God would forbear him. He pretends no error, he enterprises no reversing of judgment; at first he dares not sue for pardon, he only desires a reprieve, a respite of execution, and that not absolutely either; but he would not be executed in hot blood, not in God's anger, not in His hot displeasure. To be rebuked was but to be chidden, to be chastened, to be beaten; and yet David was heartily afraid of the first, of the least of them, when it was done to him in anger. "Rebuke" here means reprove, convince by way of argument and disputation. What David deprecates is not the disputing, impleading, correcting, but that anger which might change the nature of all and make the physic poison. When there was no anger in the case David was a forward scholar to hearken to God's reasoning. Both these words "chasten" and "hot displeasure" are words of a heavy, vehement significance. David foresees that if God rebuke in anger it will come to chastening in hot displeasure. () 1. In our afflictions we must look to God, and not to secondary causes.2. To go to God for help in our distresses. When, then, we are wounded, we must go to one who can cure us, even Him who hath heaved us up, and cast us down again, and will again raise us up. 3. Prayer is our wings to fly to God in our affliction. 4. Means by which God brings us to obedience. (1)His Word.(2)His rod. If we refuse to be ruled by God's Word, then God will not fail to correct us with His rod.() As I deserve it for my sin, so I need it for my amendment, for without rebuking what amending? — what amending, indeed, without Thy rebuking? for, alas! the flesh flatters me, the world abuseth me, Satan deludes me; and now, O God, if Thou also shouldst hold Thy peace and wink at my follies, whom should I have — alas I whom could I have — to make me sensible of their foulness? If Thou shouldst not tell me, and tell me roundly, I went astray, how should I ever — alas I how could I ever — be brought to return into the right way? To Thy rebuking, therefore, I humbly submit myself. I know Thou intendest it for my amendment, and not for my confusion; for my conversion, and not for my subversion. It may be bitter in the tasting, but is most comfortable in the working; hard, perhaps, to digest, but most sovereign being digested. Yet I cannot endure Thou shouldst rebuke me in anger; I cannot endure it in affection, but I can less endure it in ability. When I consider with myself the many favours — undeserved favours — Thou hast vouchsafed unto me, and consider withal how little use, how ill use I have made of them all, though I know I have justly deserved Thy rebuking, yet my hope is still Thou wilt add this favour also, not to rebuke me in Thine anger.() If Thy chastening be intended for reforming or for polishing, what wouldst Thou do with indignation, that tends to abolishing?() Thy rebuking, O God, is to me as thunder, but Thine anger is as lightning; and is it not enough that Thou terrify my soul with the thunder of Thy rebuking, but Thou wilt also set this flax of my flesh on fire with the lightning of Thine anger? Thy rebuking of itself is a precious balm, but mixed with anger turns to a corrosive.() A certain king, being once very sad, his brother asked what ailed him. "Oh, brother," he said, "I have been a great sinner, and am afraid to die and appear before God in judgment." His brother only laughed at him for his melancholy thoughts. The king said nothing, but in the dead of night sent the executioner to sound his trumpet before his brother's door, that being the signal for a man to be led out to execution. Pale and trembling, his brother came in haste to the king and asked to know his crime. "Oh, brother," said the king, "you have never offended against me; but if the sight of the executioner be so dreadful, shall not I, who have grievously offended God, fear to be brought before the judgment seat of Jesus Christ?"There was a boy at Norfolk Island who had been brought from one of the rougher and wilder islands, and was consequently rebellious and difficult to manage. One day Mr. Selwyn spoke to him about something he had refused to do, and the lad, flying into a passion, struck him in the face. This was an unheard of thing for a Melanesian to do. Mr. Selwyn, not trusting himself to speak, turned on his heel and walked away. The boy was punished for the offence; and, being still unsatisfactory, was sent back to his own island without being baptized, and there relapsed into heathen ways. Many years afterwards Mr. Bice, the missionary who worked on that island, was sent for to a sick person who wanted him. He found this very man in a dying state, and begging to be baptized. He told Mr. Bice how often he thought of the teaching on Norfolk Island; and when the latter asked him by what name he should baptize him, he said, "Call me John Selwyn, because he taught me what Christ was like that day when I struck him; and I saw the colour mount in his face, but he never said a word except of love afterwards." Mr. Bice then baptized him, and he died soon after.() David deprecates not God's rebukes or corrections, but that He would not rebuke him in His anger. It is tree there is a great similitude between a curse and a cross, and oftentimes God's children have been deceived thereby, and through His hard handling of them have judged Him to have become their enemy; but indeed there is a great difference. And to the end ye may know whether they come from the hands of a loving God or no, consider these marks and tokens.1. If they lead thee to a consideration of thy sin, which is the ground and cause of them, so that thou lookest not to the instrumental or second cause, but to thyself, the cause of all, they come from the hand of a loving God. 2. If they make thee leave off to sin and reject it, they come from a loving God. 3. If under thy cross thou run unto God, whom thou hast pierced, that He may deliver thee, and not say with that godless King Jehoram, Why should I attend any more upon the Lord? they come from a loving God. 4. The Cross worketh in the godly a wonderful humility and patience, so that they submit themselves under the hand of the living God, that they under it may be tamed, and from lions be made lambs. The wicked either howl (as do dogs that are beaten) through sense of their present stroke, or if they be humbled and seem patient, it is perforce as a lion which is caged and cannot stir. () But alas, those persons did not consider the difference betwixt the qualities that are in our sinful nature, and the essential properties which are in God; for He is angry and sins not. His anger is as pure as His mercy, for His justice is His anger, but our anger is mixed with sin, and therefore evil.() God will be angry at nothing in His creatures, but only sin, which bringeth man to destruction; for as if a father saw a serpent in his child's bosom, he would hate the serpent notwithstanding his love to the boy: so we are God's children, He loves that which He made of us, our body and soul, and hates that which the devil hath put in us, our sin.() Neither chasten me in Thy hot displeasure. Homilist. There are two knowledges of God; the one is the absolute, the other is the relative. The former comprehends God as He is, embraces the Infinite; the other comprehends only glances of Him, as He appears to the mind of the observer. There is but one being in the universe who has the former knowledge, and that is Christ. "No man hath seen God at any time; the Only Begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father, hath declared Him." David's idea of God here was relative. He represents the Eternal as He appeared to him in the particular state of mind which he experienced. We make two remarks on his idea of God's "hot displeasure."I. IT WAS GENERATED IN A GUILTY CONSCIENCE BY GREAT SUFFERING. The writer of this Psalm was involved in the greatest distress both in body and in mind. 1. That he was conscious of having wronged his Maker. His conscience robes infinite love with vengeance. 2. He was conscious of having deserved God's displeasure. He felt that the sufferings he was enduring were penal inflictions, and he justly deserved them. Had his conscience been appeased by atoning love, the very sufferings he was enduring would have led him to regard the great God as a loving Father disciplining him for a higher life, and not as a wrathful God visiting him in His hot displeasure. God is to you according to your moral state. II. IT WAS REMOVED FROM HIS GUILTY CONSCIENCE BY EARNEST PRAYER. His prayer for mercy is intensely importunate. "O Lord, rebuke me not in Thine anger," etc. "Have mercy upon me, O Lord." "O Lord, heal me." "O Lord, deliver soul," etc. What is the result of his prayer? "Depart from me all ye workers of iniquity, for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping," etc. True prayer does two things. 1. Modifies for the better the mind of the suppliant. It tends to quicken, to calm, to elevate the soul. 2. Secures the necessary assistance of the God of love. One great truth that comes up from the whole of these remarks is that man's destiny depends upon his moral state, and that no system can effectually help him, that does not bring his heart into a right relation with God. So long as God appears to him burning with hot displeasure he must be in an agony like that which the Psalmist here describes. The mission of Christianity is to bring men into this happy relation. ()
People David, PsalmistPlaces JerusalemTopics Bless, Blesses, Blessest, Blessing, Buckler, Chief, Compass, Cover, David, Encompass, Favor, Favour, Grace, Instruments, Musician, O, Psalm, Righteous, Round, Sheminith, Shield, Strength, Stringed, Surround, Upright, WiltOutline 1. David prays, and professes his study in prayer
4. God favors not the wicked
7. David, professing his faith, prays to God to guide him
10. to destroy his enemies
11. and to preserve the godly
Dictionary of Bible Themes Psalm 5:12 1055 God, grace and mercy
1330 God, the provider
5527 shield
7150 righteous, the
8158 righteousness, of believers Library A Staircase of Three Steps
'All those that put their trust in Thee ... them also that love Thy name ... the righteous.'--PSALM v. 11, 12. I have ventured to isolate these three clauses from their context, because, if taken in their sequence, they are very significant of the true path by which men draw nigh to God and become righteous. They are all three designations of the same people, but regarded under different aspects and at different stages. There is a distinct order in them, and whether the Psalmist was fully conscious …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy ScriptureMorning Hymn.
"My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord."--Psalm 5:3. "Morgen glanz der Ewigkeit." [35]Knov. von Rosenroth. transl., Jane Borthwick, 1855 Jesus, Sun of righteousness, Brightest beam of Love Divine, With the early morning rays Do Thou on our darkness shine, And dispel with purest light All our night! As on drooping herb and flower Falls the soft refreshing dew, Let Thy Spirit's grace and power All our weary souls renew; Sbowers of blessing over all Softly fall! Like the sun's reviving …
Jane Borthwick—Hymns from the Land of Luther Morning Hymns
Morning Hymns. [2] My voice shalt Thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee, and will look up. Psalm 5:3 …
Catherine Winkworth—Lyra Germanica: The Christian Year Moreover what is Written "Thou Wilt Destroy all that Speak Leasing...
35. Moreover what is written "Thou wilt destroy all that speak leasing:" [2360] one saith that no lie is here excepted, but all condemned. Another saith: Yea verily: but they who speak leasing from the heart, as we disputed above; for that man speaketh truth in his heart, who hateth the necessity of lying, which he understands as a penalty of the moral life. Another saith: All indeed will God destroy who speak leasing, but not all leasing: for there is some leasing which the Prophet was at that time …
St. Augustine—On Lying But if no Authority for Lying Can be Alleged...
9. But if no authority for lying can be alleged, neither from the ancient Books, be it because that is not a lie which is received to have been done or said in a figurative sense, or be it because good men are not challenged to imitate that which in bad men, beginning to amend, is praised in comparison with the worse; nor yet from the books of the New Testament, because Peter's correction rather than his simulation, even as his tears rather than his denial, is what we must imitate: then, as to those …
St. Augustine—On Lying A Great Deal for Me to Read Hast Thou Sent...
1. A great deal for me to read hast thou sent, my dearest brother Consentius: a great deal for me to read: to the which while I am preparing an answer, and am drawn off first by one, then by another, more urgent occupation, the year has measured out its course, and has thrust me into such straits, that I must answer in what sort I may, lest the time for sailing being now favorable, and the bearer desirous to return, I should too long detain him. Having therefore unrolled and read through all that …
St. Augustine—Against Lying On the Other Hand, those who Say that we must Never Lie...
6. On the other hand, those who say that we must never lie, plead much more strongly, using first the Divine authority, because in the very Decalogue it is written "Thou shall not bear false witness;" [2306] under which general term it comprises all lying: for whoso utters any thing bears witness to his own mind. But lest any should contend that not every lie is to be called false witness, what will he say to that which is written, "The mouth that lieth slayeth the soul:" [2307] and lest any should …
St. Augustine—On Lying What Then, if a Homicide Seek Refuge with a Christian...
22. What then, if a homicide seek refuge with a Christian, or if he see where the homicide have taken refuge, and be questioned of this matter by him who seeks, in order to bring to punishment a man, the slayer of man? Is he to tell a lie? For how does he not hide a sin by lying, when he for whom he lies has been guilty of a heinous sin? Or is it because he is not questioned concerning his sin, but about the place where he is concealed? So then to lie in order to hide a person's sin is evil; but …
St. Augustine—On Lying Since the Case is So, what is Man...
19. Since the case is so, what is man, while in this life he uses his own proper will, ere he choose and love God, but unrighteous and ungodly? "What," I say, "is man," a creature going astray from the Creator, unless his Creator "be mindful of him," [2683] and choose [2684] him freely, and love [2685] him freely? Because he is himself not able to choose or love, unless being first chosen and loved he be healed, because by choosing blindness he perceiveth not, and by loving laziness is soon wearied. …
St. Augustine—On Patience Second Sunday after Trinity Exhortation to Brotherly Love.
Text: 1 John 3, 13-18. 13 Marvel not, brethren, if the world hateth you. 14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not abideth in death. 15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. 16 Hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 17 But whoso hath the world's goods, and beholdeth his brother in need, and shutteth …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. III Question of the Division of Life into the Active and the Contemplative
I. May Life be fittingly divided into the Active and the Contemplative? S. Augustine, De Consensu Evangelistarum, I., iv. 8 " Tractatus, cxxiv. 5, in Joannem II. Is this division of Life into the Active and the Contemplative a sufficient one? S. Augustine, Of the Trinity, I., viii. 17 I May Life be fittingly divided into the Active and the Contemplative? S. Gregory the Great says[291]: "There are two kinds of lives in which Almighty God instructs us by His Sacred Word--namely, the active and …
St. Thomas Aquinas—On Prayer and The Contemplative Life Covenanting a Duty.
The exercise of Covenanting with God is enjoined by Him as the Supreme Moral Governor of all. That his Covenant should be acceded to, by men in every age and condition, is ordained as a law, sanctioned by his high authority,--recorded in his law of perpetual moral obligation on men, as a statute decreed by him, and in virtue of his underived sovereignty, promulgated by his command. "He hath commanded his covenant for ever."[171] The exercise is inculcated according to the will of God, as King and …
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting Covenant Duties.
It is here proposed to show, that every incumbent duty ought, in suitable circumstances, to be engaged to in the exercise of Covenanting. The law and covenant of God are co-extensive; and what is enjoined in the one is confirmed in the other. The proposals of that Covenant include its promises and its duties. The former are made and fulfilled by its glorious Originator; the latter are enjoined and obligatory on man. The duties of that Covenant are God's law; and the demands of the law are all made …
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting Psalms
The piety of the Old Testament Church is reflected with more clearness and variety in the Psalter than in any other book of the Old Testament. It constitutes the response of the Church to the divine demands of prophecy, and, in a less degree, of law; or, rather, it expresses those emotions and aspirations of the universal heart which lie deeper than any formal demand. It is the speech of the soul face to face with God. Its words are as simple and unaffected as human words can be, for it is the genius …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament Links Psalm 5:12 NIV
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