Commentary on Psalms Volume 1 John Calvin (continued)
JOHN CALVIN
been marvellously delivered from present death, as if he had been restored to life after he had been dead. And assuredly, it appears from sacred history, how completely he was overwhelmed with despair on every side.
Psalm 30:4-5
4. Sing unto Jehovah, O ye who are his meek ones! and acknowledge the memorial of his holiness. 624 5. For his anger is only for a moment 625 but life 626 is in his favor; weeping will lodge in the evening, and rejoicing shall come in the morning.
4. Sing unto Jehovah. The better to testify his gratitude, David calls upon all the saints to join with him in singing the praises of God; and under one class he describes the whole body. As he had been preserved beyond all expectation, and by this instance had been instructed concerning God's continual and infinite goodness towards all the godly, he breaks forth into this exhortation, in which he includes the general deliverance of the whole church as well as his own. He rehearses not only what God had been to himself, but also how bountifully and promptly he is accustomed to assist his people. In short, confirmed by one particular instance he turns his thoughts to the general truth. The meaning of the Hebrew term,חסידיםchasidim, which we have translated meekness, by which David often describes the faithful, has been already shown in the sixteenth Psalm. Their heavenly adoption ought to excite them to the exercise of beneficence, that they may imitate their Father's disposition, "who maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good," (Matthew 5:45.) There is nothing in which men resemble God more truly than in doing good to others. The memorial of his holiness, in the second clause of the verse, may refer to the tabernacle; as if David had exhorted all the children of God to go before the ark of the covenant, which was the memorial of God's presence. The Hebrew letter 627,לlamed, often denotes a place.
"Ou chantez afin qu'il soit memoire." — Fr. marg. "Or sing, that he may be remembered."
Literally, "There is but a moment in his anger;" and this is also the literal rendering of the Hebrew.
"C'est, un long temps." — Note, Fr. marg. "That is, a long time."