Commentary on Psalms Volume 2 John Calvin (continued)
COMMENTARY ON PSALMS - VOLUME
calumniating. 370 Those have mistaken the meaning of David who give a passive signification to the word which I have translated to speak, and understand him as saying that the wicked would be accounted examples of divine vengeance, the plain and notorious marks of which were written upon them.
Psalm 59:13-17
13. Consume, consume them in wrath, that they may not be, and let them know unto the ends of the earth that God ruleth in Jacob. Selah. 14. And at evening they will return; they will make a noise like a dog, and go round about the city. 15. They will wander up and down to eat;
371 if they be not satisfied, 372 they will even lodge all night long. 16. But I will sing of thy power, I will praise thy mercy in the morning; 373 for thou hast been my fortress and refuge in the day of my trouble. 17. My strength is with thee, I will sing psalms; for God is my defence, the God of my mercy.
The Syriac translation of the first part of the verse is, "The discourse of their mouth is the sin of their lips." That is, whatever their lips speak is sin; so many words, so many sins.
"The literal translation, to eat, i.e., to devour, may be best." — Archbishop Secker. From the great attention which is paid to external purity in the East, and in consequence of dogs being reckoned unclean, as they were by the Jews under the law, the inhabitants do not admit them into their houses, and even carefully avoid touching them in their streets, by which they would consider themselves defiled. But though not there domesticated as with us, dogs are to be found in great numbers, and crowd the streets. They are not attached to any particular person or family, nor accounted the property of any one; and though it is not uncommon for some of the inhabitants, from motives of superstition, to give money weekly or monthly to butchers and bakers to feed them at stated times, and though some even leave legacies at their death for the same purpose, yet they must necessarily subsist in a great measure on what they can seize or steal; and, being very numerous, they are perpetually wandering about in large troops seeking for something to devour. — (Harmer's Observations, volume 1, p. 344.) To these circumstances the Psalmist clearly alludes in the 14th and 15th verses, when he compares the behavior of his enemies to that of dogs. He repeats what he had said in the 5th verse; but here he intends to convey a different idea. "Let them do what they may;" as if he had said, "I am safe under the protection of God."
"C'est, combien qu'ils ne soyent." — Fr. marg. "That is, though they be not satisfied."
"In the morning. It should seem this hath a relation to Saul's servants watching for him in the morning to kill him, (1 Samuel 19:11;) meaning, At that time when those people imagine to have me in their hands I shall be in safety, and have cause to praise and bless thee for my deliverance." — Annotations on the Bible by English Divines.
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13 Consume, consume them in wrath, that they may not be David may seem to contradict himself in praying for the utter destruction of his enemies, when immediately before he had expressed his desire that they might not be exterminated at once. 374 What else could he mean when he asks that God would consume them in wrath, but that he would cut them off suddenly, and not by a gradual and slower process of punishment? But he evidently refers in what he says here to a different point of time, and this removes any apparent inconsistency, for he prays that when they had been set up for a sufficient period as an example, they might eventually be devoted to destruction. It was customary with the victorious Roman generals, first to lead the captives which had been kept for the day of triumph through the city, and afterwards, upon reaching the capital, to give them over to the lictors for execution. Now David prays that when God had, in a similar manner, reserved his enemies for an interval sufficient to illustrate his triumph, he would upon this consign them to summary punishment. The two things are not at all inconsistent; first, that the divine judgments should be lengthened out through a considerable period, to secure their being remembered better, and that then, upon sufficient evidence being given to the world of the certainty with which the wicked are subjected in the displeasure of God to the slower process of destruction, he should in due time bring them forth to final execution, the better to awake, by such a demonstration of his power, the minds of those who may be more secure than others, or less affected by witnessing moderate inflictions of punishment. He adds, accordingly, that they may know, even to the ends of the earth, that God ruleth in Jacob Some would insert the copulative particle, reading, that they may know that God rules in Jacob, and in all the nations of the world, an interpretation which I do not approve, and which does violence to the sense. The allusion is to the condign nature of the judgment, which would be such that the report of it would reach the remotest regions, and strike salutary terror into the minds even of their benighted and godless inhabitants. He was more especially anxious that God should be recognised as ruling in the Church, it being preposterous that the place where his throne was erected should present such an aspect of confusion as converted his temple into a den of thieves.
14 And at evening they shall return It is of no consequence whether we read the words in the future tense or in the subjunctive, understanding it to be a continuance of the preceding prayer. But it seems more probable that David, after having brought his requests to a close, anticipates the happy issue which he desired. And he makes an apt allusion to what he had
Williams observes, that the Hebrew rendered consume "literally means to finish, bring to an end; namely, the banditti. The Psalmist, verse 11, prays, 'Slay them not;' i.e., take not away their lives as individuals, but put an end to the conspiracy."
already said of their insatiable hunger. The words which he had formerly used he repeats, but with a different application, ironically declaring that they would be ravenous in another sense, and that matters would issue otherwise than they had looked for. Above he had complained that they made a noise like dogs, adverting to the eagerness and fierceness with which they were bent upon mischief; now he derides their malicious efforts, and says, that after wearying themselves with their endless pursuit all day, they would go disappointed of their purpose. He uses no longer the language of complaint, but congratulates himself upon the abortive issue of their activity. The Hebrew word which I have translated, if not, in the close of the fifteenth verse, is by some considered to be the form of an oath. But this is an over-refined interpretation. Others would have the negation repeated, reading, if they shall not have been satisfied, neither shall they lodge for the night But this also is far-fetched. The simple and true meaning suggests itself at once, that, although they might not be satisfied, they would be forced to lay themselves down, and the misery of their hunger would be aggravated, by the circumstance that they had passed the whole day in fruitless application, and must lie down for the night empty, wearied, and unsatisfied. 375
16 But I will sing of thy power By this he does not mean merely that he would have occasion to sing at some future period, but prepares himself presently for the exercise of thanksgiving; and he proceeds to acknowledge that his deliverance would be at once an illustrious effect of Divine power, and conferred of mere grace. It may be true, that David escaped at this time from the hands of his enemies without stir, and with secrecy, through the dexterity of his wife; still, by means of this artifice, God disappointed the preparations and forces of Saul, and may, therefore, with propriety be said to have exerted his power. We may suppose, however, that David takes occasion, from this particular instance, to look further back, and embrace, in his view, the various Divine interpositions which he had experienced.
17 My strength is with thee, I will sing psalms He expresses still more explicitly the truth, that he owed his safety entirely to God. Formerly he had said that the strength of his enemy was with God, and now he asserts the same thing of his own. The expression, however, which admits of two meanings, he elegantly applies to himself in a different sense. 376 God has the strength of the wicked in his hands, to curb and to restrain it, and to
Street translates, "If they be not satisfied, they spend the night in howling;" and observes, that there seems to be a word lost after the original verb,לוןlun, which he renders, they spend the night; and he supplies h; by the words, in howling The meaning of the verb,לוםlun, is ambiguous. It signifies both to continue all night, and to growl, or murmur Either sense will be appropriate in this passage. The Chaldee and Syriac understand it in the former sense; and the Septuagint in the latter.
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show that any power of which they boast is vain and fallacious. His own people, on the other hand, he supports and secures, against the possibility of falling, by supplies of strength from himself. In the preceding part of the psalm, David had congratulated himself upon his safety, by reflecting that Saul was so completely under the secret restraint of God's providence as to be unable to move a finger without his permission. Now, weak as he was in himself, he maintains that he had strength sufficient in the Lord; and accordingly adds, that he had good reason to engage in praise, as James the inspired apostle exhorts those who are merry to sing psalms, (James 5:13.) As to the reading which some have adopted, I will ascribe my strength with praises unto thee, the reader cannot fail to see that it is forced. It is clear that the two clauses must be taken separately, as I have already observed.
"Sed eleganter ambiguam locutionem diverso sensu ponit." — Lat. In the French version, "Mais c'est une bonne rencontre et qui a grace, quand il met deux fois un propos ambigu, mais en divers sens."
Psalm 60
PSALM 60
David, who was now settled upon the throne, and had gained several signal victories, tending to confirm him in the kingdom, in this Psalm exalts the goodness of God, that he might at once express his gratitude, and by conciliating the favor of such as still stood out against his interests, unite the community, which had been rent into factions. Having first adverted to the clear indications of the Divine favor, which proved that God had chosen him to be king, he more particularly calls the attention of the faithful to the oracle itself, in order to convince them that they could only comply with the mind of God, by yielding their consent and approbation to the anointing which he had received from Samuel. Prayers also are offered up throughout the psalm, urging God to perfect what he had begun.
To the chief musician upon Shushan-eduth, Michtam 377 of David, to teach; when he strove with the Syrians of Mesopotamia, and with the Syrians of Zoba, and when Joab returned, and smote of the Edomites in the valley of Salt twelve thousand.
Of the first part of this title I have spoken in another place, and shall not insist upon it further than to repeat, that Shushan-eduth, the lily of witness, 378 or of beauty, seem to have been the first words of some song which was
Michtam is prefixed to six psalms, of which this is the last. The others are, the 16th, 56th, 57th, 58th, and 59th.
What that means it is not easy to ascertain: from the lily being a six-leafed flower, it has been supposed that the word may also mean a six-stringed instrument.
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commonly known at the time. It is added, to teach; and this, as some have thought, because the psalm was given to the Levites, that they might learn it. But others have very properly rejected this idea, as we cannot suppose that a title, which is equally applicable to all the psalms, would have been here used as a term of distinction. More probably it points at a particular instruction or doctrine, which would be taught by the following psalm. We may suppose that David, who had gained so many decisive victories, but had not the satisfaction, as yet, of seeing the kingdom finally settled under him, employs the word to denote that he had a special lesson to enforce, which was, the duty of all who had hitherto opposed him to put an end to factions, and, after such convincing evidences, acknowledge that he was their divinely-appointed king. Let experience, at least, as if he had said, prove that the sovereignty which I hold meets with the approbation of God, crowned, as it is, in the eyes of all, with so many tokens of his favor. The psalm is described as being a kind of triumphal song for victories obtained over the Syrians and other allied nations. As the Jews reckon Mesopotamia, and other countries, to be included in Syria, which they call Aram, they are forced subsequently to distinguish it into different parts, as here we find Syria Naharim put for Mesopotamia, which some of the Latins have named Interamnis, (or, between two rivers,) following the Greek etymology; for Mesopotamia in Greek means between two rivers, that is, between the Tigris and Euphrates. 379 Next, we have Syria Soba mentioned, which some have considered upon good grounds to be Sophene, because adjacent to the bank of the Euphrates; and David is said (2 Samuel 8:3) to have smitten Rehob, king of Soba, as he went to recover his border at the river. In the same passage, we read of a third Syria, that of Damascus, nearer to Judea, and almost touching upon it. Syria is, in other places of Scripture, represented as still more extensive, and has epithets attached to it according to the different territories which are meant to be pointed out. As David had war with the more adjacent part of Syria, and routed the army which had come out from it to the assistance of the Ammonites, it may be asked why he speaks only of the inhabitants of Mesopotamia and Soba. I think it probable that he specifies the more distant nations, as being the most formidable, and as affording a more illustrious proof of the Divine favor which accompanied his arms. For this reason, he passes over the more neighboring nations, and mentions those which were situated at a distance, the terror of which was known only by report, and whose overthrow was something unheard of, and almost incredible. In the inspired history, two-and-twenty thousand are said
We have here adopted the French version, which is fuller than the Latin, "laquelle aucuns des Latins a l'imitation des Grecs (car Mesopotamie en Grec signifie entre les fleuves, pource qu'elle est entre Tigris et Euphrates) ont nommee Interamnis."