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David

Title.

Christ in it.

4 Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge?

Who eat up my people as they cat up bread, and call not upon the Lord.

5 There were they in great fear: for God is in the generation of the

righteous.

6 Ye have shamed the counsel of the poor, because the Lord is his refuge.
7 Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion!

When the Lord bringeth back the captivity of his people,
Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad.

As we read these verses, we seem to pass from gloom to deeper gloom; and when ver. 7 suggests a remedy, it is as if a "spark of light had been struck out from solid darkness." David wrote it under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, but we know not when; it may have been in his wilderness-days, when Judah seemed nearly as indifferent to Jehovah as were the realms of the Gentiles. The title "Upon Mahalath," as in Psalm lxxxviii., has been considered by Hengstenberg, to be not a name for a musical instrument, but as meaning "Upon the sickness," the moral sore and sickness described in the Psalm. Perhaps the title of Psalm lxxxviii. favours this view. But after all, some special instrument, used for melancholy subjects, may be meant, and Gesenius has found for it an Ethiopic root signifying, "to sing.

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Messiah is the speaker far more than David; for though David could call the sheep of the house of Israel "my people,” as being given him by the Lord, yet it is Messiah that is wont to speak in this manner. He is the shepherd whose voice we recognise here, saying, "They eat up MY people." (ver. 4.) He it is who describes our world's condition-Oh, how unlike the heaven He had left! But amid the flood, He descries the waters receding. He sees the overthrow of the ungodly (ver. 5), and whence the grand deliverance is to come, (ver. 7.) Deliverance is to appear on the walls of Zion. "Salvation is of the Jews." (John iv. 22.) From Israel comes the Saviour, born at Bethlehem, but crucified, rising, ascending at Jerusalem. Out of Israel too, comes life from the dead to the world, when the Redeemer returns again; for, " Behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon thee. And

the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising," (Isaiah lx. 2, 3).

Let us, then, read this Psalm as our Lord's report regarding the state in which earth and its multitudes are found.

(Ver. 1.) O Father, they are denying that thou hast any The contents. being. The whole earth is replenished with fools, who say in their heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt; they are doing abominable deeds; there is none that doeth good.

(Ver. 2.) O sons of men, the cry of earth's wickedness came up to heaven. The Lord looked down to see if there were any that understood and sought after God.

(Ver. 3.) Alas! it is altogether according to the cry, They are all gone aside. They are altogether become filthy. There is none that doeth good: NO, NOT ONE.

(Ver. 4) Yet they see not their folly. Who has bewitched them? Have they no knowledge, that they eat up my people, and call not on Jehovah ?

(Ver. 5.) But their damnation slumbereth not. On the On the very spot where their folly has been wrought I see them trembling. “Terror overtakes them; for God is among the generation of the righteous."

(Ver. 6.) Where is now your mouth, wherewith ye said, Who is the Lord that we should serve Him? Is not this the people whom ye despised? (Jud. ix. 38.) Ye cast shame on the counsel of the poor, because he made the Lord his refuge. Ye scorned the policy of those who made the Lord their wisdom; but the Lord has now laughed you to scorn.

(Ver. 7.) O let the day dawn and the shadows flee away! Come quickly, year of my redeemed! (Isaiah lxiii. 4.)

"Let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad,

At the Lord's bringing back the captivity of His people."

Let the time come when earth shall hear Israel's shouts of joy at the opening of their prison, at the termination of their exile, at the restoration of their long-lost prosperity, at the return of their Shepherd to dwell among them. For when earth shall hear that shout of joy, it shall be a token that now at length has the time arrived when the full accomplishment shall take

place of that promise to Abraham, "In thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed."

Thus does the true Righteous One survey the world lying in wickedness, and turn his eye toward the dawn of day, every member sympathizing with the Head. We may describe the Psalm as being a setting forth of

The Righteous One's view of earth, and its prospects.

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PSALM XV.

A Psalm of David.

ORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy

hill?

2 He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness,

And speaketh the truth in his heart.

He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, Nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour.

In whose eyes a vile person is contemned;-but he honoureth them that fear the Lord.

He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.

5 He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent.

He that doeth these things shall never be moved.

WE heard of a "righteous generation" in last Psalm, and here is one of them as a representative of the whole. None can be said to have fulfilled the conditions, or come up to the character here sketched, excepting Christ, if we view the matter in its strictness; although every member of His body lays claim to His imputed obedience, and exhibits a goodly specimen of the effect of this imputation in producing personal holiness. We consider this Psalm as descriptive of our Head in His personal holiness, and of his members as made holy by Him.

It is one thing to state how holiness is attained, and quite another to assert that perfect holiness is possessed. When you describe a worshipper in the Holy Hill as one who is holy, you do not on that account maintain that his holiness was self-de

rived, or that it was his primary qualification. Far less do you assert that holiness of character stands in the place of the blood that cleanses the conscience. There are several links in the golden chain, and my pointing to one of these does in no way interfere with my conviction of the necessity of the rest. If I find it said of our Lord:

"It is Christ that died;

Yea, rather, that is risen again!

Who is even at the right hand of God!

Who also maketh intercession for us,"

I may take up one feature of this Redeemer, and may say, "He who saves us is One who is risen again;" but by so saying I do not deny, but rather necessarily include, the assertion, that He died first of all. So also if I say, "He who is saved is one who has holiness ;" I do not, by saying this, deny that the man has first of all been made clean by the blood: on the contrary, I imply that as a thing of course, necessarily preceding the other. Again, if I say, "That Priest has washed his hands and feet in the laver," I do not deny, but, on the contrary, necessarily imply, that first of all he was at the Altar, and touched the blood there. Or, once more, if I read 1 Tim. i. 5,-

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"Now the end of the commandment is charity

Out of a pure heart,

And out of a good conscience,

And out of faith unfeigned,"

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may fix on the middle clause and say, the love, or charity, aimed at by the law, is the product of a "good conscience.” But do I, on account of that statement, at all deny that “ faith unfeigned" is needful in order to arrive at a good conscience? It is even thus with our Psalm, when received as stating what belongs to the members of Christ. It tells of their " pure heart;" but then that pure heart came from "a good conscience;" and that good conscience was the effect of" unfeigned raith" in the blood.

It is, however, only our Head that can fully realize the cha- christ. racter here given. Holiness to the Lord" is on our High Priest's mitre, while we, as inferior priests, go forward in his

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The contents. steps, to dwell in the Tabernacle.* The question is asked, ver. 1, “Who shall dwell?" abide, be a guest for ever, in the palace of our King and God? Verse 2 tells the outward purity required, and the inward guilelessness. Verse 3, the purity of word; verse 4, company; verse 5, disinterested and self-denied love to His neighbours; ver. 5, uprightness, if He once promise he will not "exchange" his promise for anything more convenient to himself, and will not fail to shew the heart of a brother in everyday transactions. These are signs of a renewed nature, very rare in our world, and such as manifest the man to be, "though in the world, yet not of the world." In verse 4, we have the key to the difference between such a one and the man of earth. "He honoureth them that fear the Lord;" his heart lies in the company of those who fear Jehovah; and if so, then he himself prefers Jehovah's company to all besides. He is one who has fellowship with God.

The holy hill.

But we must not fail to notice the “ Tabernacle” and the Holy Hill," where this man's dwelling shall be for ever. The Tabernacle of Moses, which, in David's days, was pitched on the slopes of Zion-hill, is the type of greater things. In that figure we see God in the cloud of glory over the mercyseat, dwelling with men, and the Priest entering in on the atonement-day, to His presence. All this was typical of what is now before us in clearer light. The redeemed go in with the blood of the Redeemer through the rent veil, (for the atonement-day is "now") to Him who is in heaven. And when the Lord returns, and the "Tabernacle of God is with men,"when Christ, the true mercy-seat, is here-then shall we go to that Tabernacle, and see Him, on that Holy Hill, where his presence shall be manifested. (See this more at large in Psalm xxiv.) But on that day none shall ascend that Hill, or approach that Tabernacle, who are not "sanctified." On this point Revelation xxi. 27 corresponds with our Psalm—into

* As Barclay puts it, with truth though not with poetic taste,—

"Now who is He? Say if ye can
Who so shall gain the firm abode?
Pilate shall say, 'Behold the Man!'
And John, Behold the Lamb of God !'"

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