saint, David 'a man after God's own heart,' David a Christian; and
This psalm consists of two parts, the first exegetical or narrative, the
second eutical or precative.2 1. Narration and prayer take up the
whole. In the former, you have the prophet's disease discovered; and
in the latter, the remedy applied. My text falls in the latter part,
where you have the way of David's cure, or the means by which his
soul was reduced to a still and quiet temper. I shall give a little light
into the words, and then come to the point that I intend to stand
upon.
'I was dumb.' The Hebrew word נאלמתי from אלם signifies to be mute,
tongue-tied, or dumb. The Hebrew word signifies also to bind, as
well as to be mute and dumb, because they that are dumb are as it
were tongue-tied; they have their lips stitched and bound up. Ah! the
sight of God's hand in the afflictions that was upon him, makes him
lay a law of silence upon his heart and tongue.
'I opened not my mouth, because thou didst it.' He looks through all
secondary causes to the first cause, and is silent: he sees a hand of
God in all, and so sits mute and quiet. The sight of God in an
affliction is of an irresistible efficacy to silence the heart, and to stop
the mouth of a gracious man. In the words you may observe three
things:
1. The person speaking, and that is, David; David a king, David a
saint, David 'a man after God's own heart,' David a Christian; and
here we are to look upon David, not as a king, but as a Christian, as a
man whose heart was right with God.