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Expositor's Bible Commentary Psalm 9:1 To the chief Musician upon Muthlabben, A Psalm of David. I will praise thee , O LORD, with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvellous works. Psalm 9:1-20 Psalm 7:1-17 ; Psalm 9:1-20 are connected by the recurrence of the two thoughts of God as the Judge of nations and the wicked falling into the pit which he digged. Probably the original arrangement of the Psalter put these two next each other, and Psalm 8:1-9 was inserted later. Psalm 9:1-20 is imperfectly acrostic. It falls into strains of two verses each, which are marked by sequence of thought as well as by the acrostic arrangement. The first begins with Aleph, the second with Beth, and so on, the second verse of each pair not being counted in the scheme. The fourth letter is missing, and Psalm 9:7 , which should begin with it, begins with the sixth. But a textual correction, which is desirable on other grounds, makes the fifth letter (He) the initial of Psalm 9:7 , and then the regular sequence is kept up till Psalm 9:19 , which should begin with the soft K, but takes instead the guttural Q. What has become of the rest of the alphabet? Part of it is found in Psalm 10:1-18 , where the first verse begins with the L, which should follow the regular K for Psalm 9:19 . But there is no more trace of acrostic structure in 10 till Psalm 10:12 , which resumes it with the Q which has already appeared out of place in Psalm 9:19 ; and it goes on to the end of the alphabet, with only the irregularity that the R strain { Psalm 10:14 } has but one verse. Verses with the missing letters would just about occupy the space of the non-acrostic verses in Psalm 10:1-18 , and the suggestion is obvious that the latter are part of some other psalm which has been substituted for the original; but there are links of connection between the non-acrostic and acrostic portions of Psalm 10:1-18 , which make that hypothesis difficult. The resemblances between the two psalms as they stand are close, and the dissimilarities not less obvious. The psalmist’s enemies are different. In the former they are foreign, in the latter domestic. Psalm 8:1-9 rings with triumph; Psalm 10:1-18 is in a minor key. The former celebrates a judgment as accomplished which the latter almost despairingly longs to see begun. On the whole, the two were most probably never formally one, but are a closely connected pair. There is nothing to discredit the Davidic authorship. The singer’s enemies are "nations" and the destruction of these foreign foes is equivalent to "maintaining his cause." That would be language natural in the mouth of a king, and there were foreign wars enough in David’s reign to supply appropriate occasions for such a song. The psalm falls into two parts, Psalm 9:1-12 and Psalm 9:13-20 , of which the second substantially repeats the main thoughts of the first, but with a significant difference. In the first part the sequence is praise and its occasion (Aleph and Beth verses, Psalm 9:1-4 ), triumphant recounting of accomplished judgment (Gimel Psalm 9:5-6 ), confident expectation of future wider judgment (amended He and Vav pairs, Psalm 9:7-10 ), and a final call to praise. { Psalm 7:12 } Thus set, as it were, in a circlet of praise, are experience of past and consequent confidence of future deliverance. The second part gives the same order, only, instead of praise, it has prayer for its beginning and end, the two central portions remaining the same as in part 1. The Cheth pair ( Psalm 9:13-14 ) is prayer, the deliverance not being perfected, though some foes have fallen; the past act of accomplished judgment is again celebrated in the Teth pair ( Psalm 9:15-16 ), followed, as before, by the triumphant confidence of future complete crushing of enemies (Yod strain, Psalm 9:17-18 ); and all closes with prayer (Qoph pair, Psalm 9:19-20 ). Thus the same thoughts are twice dwelt on; and the different use made of them is the explanation of the repetition, which strikes a cursory reader as needless. The diamond is turned a little in the hand, and a differently tinted beam flashes from its facet. In the first pair of verses, the song rushes out like some river breaking through a dam and flashing as it hurries on its course. Each short clause begins with Aleph; each makes the same fervid resolve. Wholehearted praise is sincere, and all the singer’s being is fused into it. "All Thy marvellous works" include the great deliverances of the past, with which a living sense of God’s working associates those of the present, as one in character and source. Today is as full of God to this man as the sacred yesterdays of national history, and his deliverances as wonderful as those of old. But high above the joy in God’s work is the joy in Himself to which it leads, and "Thy name, O thou Most High," is the ground of all pure delight and the theme of all worthy praise. The second stanza (Beth, Psalm 9:3-4 ) is best taken as giving the ground of praise. Render in close connection with preceding "because mine enemies turn back; they stumble and perish at [or from] Thy presence." God’s face blazes out on the foe, and they turn and flee from the field, but in their flight they stumble, and, like fugitives, once fallen can rise no more. The underlying picture is of a battlefield and a disastrous rout. it is God’s coming into action that scatters the enemy, as Psalm 9:4 tells by its "for." When he took His seat on the throne (of judgment rather than of royalty), they fled; and that act of assuming judicial activity was the maintaining of the psalmist’s cause. The third pair of verses (Gimel, Psalm 9:5-6 ) dwells on the grand picture of judgment, and specifies for the first time the enemies as "the nations" or "heathen," thus showing that the psalmist is not a private individual, and probably implying that the whole psalm is a hymn of victory, in which the heat of battle still glows, but which writes no name on the trophy but that of God. The metaphor of a judgment seat is exchanged for a triumphant description of the destructions fallen on the land of the enemy, in all which God alone is recognised as the actor. "Thou hast rebuked"; and just as His creative word was all powerful, so His destructive word sweeps its objects into nothingness. There is a grand and solemn sequence in that "Thou hast rebuked; Thou hast destroyed." His breath has made; His breath can unmake. In Psalm 9:6 the rendering to be preferred is substantially that of the R.V: "The enemy are ended, [they are] ruins forever, and cities hast Thou rooted out; perished is their memory." To take "enemy" as a vocative breaks the continuity of the address to God, and brings in an irrelevant reference to the former conquests of the foe ("Thou hast destroyed cities") which is much more forcible if regarded as descriptive of God’s destruction of his cities. "Their memory" refers to the enemy, not to the cities. Utter, perpetual ruin, so complete that the very name is forgotten, has fallen on the foe. In the fourth pair of verses a slight emendation of the text is approved of by most critics. The last word of Psalm 9:6 is the pronoun "they," which. though possible in such a position, is awkward. If it is transferred to the beginning of Psalm 9:7 , and it is further supposed that "are perished" has dropped out, as might easily be the case, from the verb having just occurred in the singular, a striking antithesis is gained: "They perish, but Jehovah shall sit," etc. Further, the pair of verses then begins with the fifth letter; and the only irregularity in the acrostic arrangement till Psalm 9:19 is the omission of the fourth letter: Daleth. A very significant change in tenses takes place at this point. Hitherto the verbs have been perfects, implying a finished act; that is to say, hitherto the psalm has been dealing with facts of recent but completed experience. Now the verbs change to imperfects or futures, and continue so till Psalm 9:12 ; that is to say, "experience doth attain to something of prophetic strain," and passes into confidence for the future. That confidence is cast in the mould supplied by the deliverance on which it is founded. The smaller act of judgment, which maintained the psalmist’s cause, expands into a world wide judgment in righteousness, for which the preparations are already made. "He hath prepared His throne for judgment" is the only perfect in the series. This is the true point of view from which to regard the less comprehensive acts of judgment thinly sown through history, when God has arisen to smite some hoary iniquity or some godless conqueror. Such acts are premonitions of the future. and every "day of the Lord" is a miniature of that final dies ira . The psalmist probably was rather thinking of other acts of judgment which would free him and his people from hostile nations, but his hope was built on the great truth that all such acts are prophecies of others like them, and it is a legitimate extension of the same principle to view them all in relation to the last and greatest of the series. The fifth pair (Vav stanza, Psalm 9:9-10 ) turns to the glad contemplation of the purpose of all the pomp and terror of the judgment thus hoped for. The Judge is seated on high, and His elevation makes a "lofty stronghold" for the crushed or downtrodden. The rare word rendered "extremity" in Psalm 9:9 occurs only here and in Psalm 10:1 . It means a cutting off, i.e. , of hope of deliverance. The notion of distress intensified to despair is conveyed. God’s judgments show that even in such extremity He is an inexpugnable defence, like some hill fortress, inaccessible to any foe. A further result of judgment is the (growing) trust of devout souls ( Psalm 9:10 ). To "know Thy name" is here equivalent to learning God’s character as made known by His acts, especially by the judgments anticipated. For such knowledge some measure of devout trust is required, but further knowledge deepens trust. The best teacher of faith is experience; and, on the other hand, the condition of such experience is faith. The action of knowledge and of trust is reciprocal. That trust is reinforced by the renewed evidence, afforded by the judgments, that Jehovah does not desert them that seek Him. To "seek Him" is to long for Him, to look for His help in trouble, to turn with desire and obedience to Him in daily life; and anything is possible rather than that He should not disclose and give Himself to such search. Trust and seeking, fruition and desire, the repose of the soul on God and its longing after God, are inseparable. They are but varying aspects of the one thing. When a finite spirit cleaves to the infinite God, there must be longing as an element in all possession and possession as an element in all longing; and both will be fed by contemplation of the self-revealing acts which are the syllables of His name. Section 6, the last of the first part (Zayin, Psalm 9:11-12 ), circles round to section 1, and calls on all trusters and seekers to be a chorus to the solo of praise therein. The ground of the praise is the same past act which has been already set forth as that of the psalmist’s thanksgiving, as is shown by the recurrence here of perfect tenses (hath remembered; hath not forgotten). The designation of God as "dwelling" in Zion is perhaps better rendered, with allusion to the same word in Psalm 9:7 , "sitteth." His seat had been there from the time that the Ark was brought thither. That earthly throne was the type of his heavenly seat, and from Zion He is conceived as executing judgment. The world wide destination of Israel’s knowledge of God inspires the call to "show forth His doings" to "the peoples." The "nations" are not merely the objects of destructive wrath, but are to be summoned to share in the blessing of knowing His mighty acts. The psalmist may not have been able to harmonise these two points of view as to Israel’s relation to the Gentile world, but both thoughts vibrate in his song. The designation of God as "making inquisition for blood" thinks of him as the Goel, or Avenger. To seek means, here to demand back as one who had entrusted property to another who had destroyed it would do, thence to demand compensation or satisfaction, and thus finally comes to mean to avenge or punish (so Hupfeld, Delitzsch, etc.). "The poor" or "meek" (R.V and margin) whose cry is heard are the devout portion of the Jewish people, who are often spoken of in the Psalms and elsewhere as a class. The second part of the psalm begins with Psalm 9:13 . The prayer in that verse is the only trace of trouble in the psalm. The rest is triumph and exultation. This, at first sight discordant, note has sorely exercised commentators; and the violent solution that the whole Cheth stanza ( Psalm 9:13-14 ) should be regarded as "the cry of the meek," quoted by the psalmist, and therefore be put in inverted commas (though adopted by Delitzsch and Cheyne), is artificial and cold. If the view of the structure of the psalm given above is adopted, there is little difficulty in the connection. The victory has been completed over certain enemies, but there remain others; and the time for praise unmingled with petition has not yet come for the psalmist, as it never comes for any of us in this life. Quatre Bras is won, but Waterloo has to be fought tomorrow. The prayer takes account of the dangers still threatening, but it only glances at these, and then once more turns to look with hope on the accomplished deliverance. The thought of how God had lifted the suppliant up from the very gates of death heartens him to pray for all further mercy needed. Death is the lord of a gloomy prison house, the gates of which open inwards only and permit no egress. On its very threshold the psalmist had stood. But God had lifted him thence, and the remembrance wings his prayer. "The gates of the daughter of Zion" are in sharp, happy contrast with the frowning portals of death. A city’s gates are the place of cheery life, stir, gossip, business. Anything proclaimed there flies far. There the psalmist resolves that he will tell his story of rescue, which he believes was granted that it might be told. God’s purpose in blessing men is that they may open their lips to proclaim the blessings and so bring others to share in them. God’s end is the spread of his name, not for any good to Him, but because to know it is life to us. The Teth pair ( Psalm 9:15-16 ) repeats the thoughts of the Gimel Stanza ( Psalm 9:5-6 ), recurring to the same significant perfects and dwelling on the new thought that the destruction of the enemy was self-caused. As in Psalm 7:1-17 , the familiar figure of the pitfall catching the hunter expresses the truth that all evil, and especially malice, recoils on its contriver. A companion illustration is added of the fowler’s (or hunter’s) foot being caught in his own snare. Psalm 9:16 presents the other view of retribution, which was the only one in Psalm 9:5-6 , namely that it is a Divine act. It is God who executes judgment, and who "snareth the wicked," though it be "the work of his own hands" which weaves the snare. Both views are needed for the complete truth. This close of the retrospect of deliverance which is the main motive of the psalm is appropriately marked by the musical direction " Higgaion. Selah ," which calls for a strain of instrumental music to fill the pause of the song and to mark the rapture of triumph in accomplished deliverance. The Yod stanza ( Psalm 9:17-18 ), like the He and Vav stanzas ( Psalm 9:7-10 ), passes to confidence for the future. The correspondence is very close, but the two verses of this stanza represent the four of the earlier ones; thus Psalm 9:17 answers to Psalm 9:7-8 , while Psalm 9:18 is the representative of Psalm 9:9-10 . In Psalm 9:17 the "return to Sheol" is equivalent to destruction. In one view, men who cease to be may be regarded as going back to original nothingness, as in Psalm 90:3 . Sheol is not here a place of punishment, but is the dreary dwelling of the dead, from the gates of which the psalmist had been brought up. Reduction to nothingness and yet a shadowy, dim life or death-in-life will certainly be the end of the wicked. The psalmist’s experience in his past deliverance entitles him to generalise thus. To forget God is the sure way to be forgotten. The reason for the certain destruction of the nations who forget God and for the psalmist’s assurance of it is ( Psalm 9:18 ) the confidence he has that "the needy shall not always be forgotten." That confidence corresponds precisely to Psalm 9:9-10 , and also looks back to the "hath remembered" and "not forgotten" of Psalm 9:12 . They who remember God are remembered by Him; and their being remembered- i.e . by deliverance-necessitates the wicked’s being forgotten, and those who are forgotten by God perish. The second clause of Psalm 9:18 echoes the other solemn word of doom from Psalm 9:3-6 . There the fate of the evil-doers was set forth as "perishing"; their very memory was to "perish." But the "expectation of the poor shall not perish." Apparently fragile and to the eve of sense unsubstantial as a soap bubble, the devout man’s hope is more solid than the most solid-seeming realities, and will outlast them all. The final stanza ( Psalm 9:19-20 ) does not take Kaph as it should do, but Qoph. Hence some critics suspect that this pair of verses has been added by another hand, but the continuity of sense is plain, and is against this supposition. The psalmist was not so bound to his form but that he could vary it, as here. The prayer of this concluding stanza circles round to the prayer in Psalm 9:13 , as has been noticed, and so completes the whole psalm symmetrically. The personal element in Psalm 9:13 has passed away; and the prayer is general, just as the solo of praise in Psalm 9:1 broadened into the call for a chorus of voices in Psalm 9:12 . The scope of the prayer is the very judgment which the previous stanza has contemplated as certain. The devout man’s desires are moulded on God’s promises, and his prayers echo these. "Let not mortal man grow strong," or rather "vaunt his strength." The word for man here connotes weakness. How ridiculous for him, being such as he is, to swell and swagger as if strong, and how certain his boasted strength is to shrivel like a leaf in the fire, if God should come forth, roused to action by his boasting! Psalm 9:20 closes the prayer with the cry that some awe-inspiring act of Divine justice may be flashed before the "nations," in order to force the conviction of their own weakness home to them. "Set terror for them," the word terror meaning not the emotion, but the object which produces it, namely an act of judgment such as the whole psalm has had in view. Its purpose is not destruction, but conviction, the wholesome consciousness of weakness, out of which may spring the recognition of their own folly and of God’s strength to bless. So the two parts of the psalm end with the thought that the "nations" may yet come to know the name of God, the one calling upon those who have experienced his deliverance to "declare among the peoples His doings," the other praying God to teach by chastisement what nations who forget Him have failed to learn from mercies. The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

I will praise Thee, O Lord. Psalm 9 Praise, trust, and prayer F. B. Meyer, B. A. In the Septuagint, this Psalm refers to the death of the Divine Son, and recites His victory over death, the grave, and all our foes. I. THERE IS A PREDOMINANT NOTE OF PRAISE. (Vers. 1-5, 11, 12, 14.) Let us not praise with a divided, but a whole heart. It is incited by recounting all God's works. Let memory heap fuel on the altar of praise. II. THERE IS AN ASSERTION OF TRUST. (Vers. 7-12, 18.) The oppressed, the humble, the needy, and the poor have strong encouragement. Calamity drives them to God, and so they come to know Him, and then the more they trust Him. Doubt is born of ignorance. Leave God to vindicate you; He will not forget. III. THERE IS A PETITION FOR FURTHER HELP. (Vers. 13, 19, 20.) What a contrast between the gates of death (ver. 13), and the gates of the Holy City (ver. 14)! See Haman as illustrating ver. 15. He who lifts the righteous, hurls down the wicked. It is a sin to forget God (ver. 17). ( F. B. Meyer, B. A. ) The ministry of praise J. H. Jowett, M. A. "I will praise Thee." That is the note that is too commonly silent in our religious life. We rarely gather together for the supremely exhilarating business of praise. In the Psalm is a man who sets himself to the business of praise, as though he were about to engage in a great matter. He sets about it with undivided attention — "with my whole heart." The word "heart" is a spacious word. It includes all the interior things, all the central things; when a man comes to praise, will, intellect, and imagination must all be active. He must bring to the ministry of praise the worship of his feelings. Come will, and make my praise forceful. Come intellect, and make it enlightened. Come feeling, and make it affectionate. In the words, "I will sow forth," is suggested that he will score it as with a mark, he will not allow it to slip by unrecorded. He will keep a journal of mercies. He will not only register the "marvellous works," he will publish them. The word is suggestive not only of a notebook, but of a proclamation. "I will rejoice," the word is suggestive of the exulting bubbling of the spring. The two words, "glad," "rejoice," together give us the image of the leaping waters with the sunshine on them. And such is always the joy of the Lord. It is fresh as the spring, and warm and cheering as the sunlight. ( J. H. Jowett, M. A. ) A praiseful heart We should praise God more, and thank Him more often for His ceaseless goodness. How can we forget His countless benefits? Dean Alford said, "It seems to me that five minutes of real thanksgiving for the love of our dear Saviour is worth a year of hard reasoning on the hidden parts of our redemption." Of the last days of the Venerable , his disciple wrote, "He was much troubled with shortness of breath, yet without pain, before the day of our Lord's resurrection, that is, for about a fortnight, and thus he afterwards passed his life cheerful and rejoicing, giving thanks to Almighty God every day and night, nay, every hour, till the day of our Lord's ascension. He also passed all the night awake in joy and thanksgiving, unless a short sleep prevented it, in which case he no sooner awoke than he presently repeated his wonted exercises, and ceased not to give thanks to God with uplifted hands. I declare with truth that I have never seen with my eyes, or heard with my ears, any man so earnest in giving thanks to the living God." Thou hast maintained my right. Thou satest in the throne judging right. Psalm 9:4 Man's right, and God's right Joseph Parker, D. D. The first part of the fourth verse seems to be merely personal, but the second clause of the verse is universal. In the first clause we may put so much emphasis upon the personal pronoun as to make this a merely individual instance, as if God had specialised one man as against many men, without inquiring into the merits of the ease. The second clause reads, "Thou sittest in the throne judging right." That is the universal tone. Not — God sitting in the throne selecting favourites, distributing prizes and rewards according to some arbitrary law, but God sitting in the throne judging right, whoever was upon one side or the other in the controversy. The whole encounter is delivered from the narrow limitation of personal misunderstanding and individual conduct, and is made one of rectitude, and God is indicated as taking part with the right. This is comfort; this, in fact, is the only true and lasting solace. If there were anything narrow, in the merely personal sense, in the government and providence of God, we should be thrown into unrest and faithlessness, or the most humiliating fear; but make the providence of God turn upon right, and then every man who does right, or who wishes to be right and to do right, may lift up his eyes to heaven and say: My help cometh front the everlasting hills; I will bear all difficulties bravely, with a really manful and sweet patience, because in the end right will be vindicated and crowned. Right is not with any set of persons, right is not a possession guaranteed to any one kind of office in the Church: it is a universal term; it rises like a universal altar, within whose shadow poor men and needy men, as well as rich and mighty men, may be gathered in the security of prayer, and in the gladness of assured hope. ( Joseph Parker, D. D. ) The Lord shall endure forever. Psalm 9:7, 8 The abiding God David Caldwell, A. M. David here draws a contrast between changing man and the unchanging God; between evermore vanishing thrones and the throne of God, high and lifted up — His throne of judgment — a throne erected to try and determine the cause, not of David only, nor of his people only, but all men — to judge the world in righteousness. He teaches that right and wrong everywhere are objects of the Divine regard, and will be through all time, and will be when time shall be no more; that the Divine judgment, like the Divine Omnipresence, embraces every creature in the vastness of its range. In this way David ascends in his reasoning from the particular to the general, and from the general to the universal, making the Lord's dealing with him, and His people Israel, the basis of the conclusion, that so He will deal with all men. He thus encourages all men everywhere to pursue the right, assuring them that, in pursuing it, the God of all righteousness is with them, and will in due time decide it in their favour. ( David Caldwell, A. M. ) And He shall judge the world in righteousness. The witness of conscience to righteousness Corwin, the great orator and humorist, was once talking with several gentlemen. The conversation, which had been witty and epigrammatic, became grave and serious. One of the company made a remark about the unknown future. Corwin took it up, and said, "When I reflect that I am to be judged by a righteous and omnipotent God, I nearly go mad." So it is that the conscience within bears unequivocal testimony to our responsibility, not to a Something, of which we can form no conception, but to a Personal Being, who is the "righteous and omnipotent God," whose "offspring" we are as a Father, and whose subjects we are as Sovereign Lord Supreme. The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed. Psalm 9:9, 10 The refuge of the oppressed J. C. Philpot. I. THE LORD ALSO WILL BE A REFUGE FOR THE OPPRESSED. 1. What is a refuge? Shelter — in the cities of refuge; strongholds ( 2 Samuel 22:23 ); a harbour of refuge, as on a rocky, dangerous coast. Thus the leading idea is shelter. Now the Lord Jehovah as Father, Son, and Spirit is such refuge. 2. But who are the oppressed? Not only those who are oppressed in natural things, as many are; but in things spiritual. The heavy burden of sin. By Satan. Daily conflict with sin. Now the Lord is a refuge for such. II. A REFUGE IN TIMES OF TROUBLE. The Scriptures always put together the malady and the remedy. As to these times of trouble, they are sometimes — 1. Seasons of temporal trouble; 2. Of spiritual trouble. These make us know that the Lord is our refuge, for we can find none elsewhere. There is no definition of what troubles, so that in all trouble we may claim this promise. III. AND THEY THAT KNOW THY NAME WILL PUT THEIR TRUST IN THEE. The name means the revealed perfections of God. His eternal faithfulness. His loving kindness and tender mercy. His infinite wisdom. But who are they that know His name? They to whom the name of God has been revealed to their consciences. It is an experimental knowledge, and here is the grand line betwixt life and death. IV. FOR THOU, LORD, HAST NOT FORSAKEN THEM THAT SEEK THEE. This takes in the poor, the halt, the lame, the little ones of God's family. In order to seeking God — 1. We must have a desire to find something; and then, 2. Know that God, from whom we seek what we would find. ( J. C. Philpot. ) The Lord our refuge John Trapp. It is reported of the Egyptians that, living in the fens, and being vexed with gnats, they used to sleep in high towers, whereby, these creatures not being able to soar so high, they were delivered from the biting of them. So would it be with us when bitten with cares and fear, did we but run to God for refuge, and rest confident of His help. ( John Trapp. ) A free refuge The Hospice of St. Bernard, and the wild scenery surrounding it. The place is so cold that fish will not live in the lake, and we have seen the snow lying knee deep at mid-summer. The Hospice is a refuge from the storm in which many travellers have rested securely, who otherwise might have been lost in the snow. This noble institution receives all passers freely, whoever they may be, without money and without price; and in this respect it is like the salvation of our Lord Jesus, for Jesus gives freely of His grace to those who have nothing to offer in return. They that know Thy name will put their trust in Thee. Psalm 9:10 The name of God Canon F. C. Cook. Know Thy name! What does that imply, but to know all that is included in the revelation of the nature and attributes of Almighty God? Every reader of Scripture is well aware of the infinite importance which it attaches to the word Name in speaking of God. It signifies not merely a designation, however expressive and full of meaning, but a manifestation of the Eternal Deity. The trust of His rational creatures in Him is commensurate with their knowledge of all that is involved in the name. The early patriarchs knew Him by the name Elohim, a marvellous name, containing implicitly the mystery hereafter to be revealed of a plurality of persons in the unity of the Divine nature. They knew Him so far, and adored Him with deep awe and absolute trust in His power, righteousness, and goodwill. That name raised them out of earthly and debasing associations, delivered them from the fetichism of idolatry, and brought them into near contact with the spiritual world; they trusted in Hint according to the measure of their knowledge, and were saved by their faith. A further disclosure of the Divine goodness and love was made by the revelation of the name Jehovah, when the Lord made all His goodness pass before Moses, and proclaimed, "Jehovah, Jehovah Elohim, merciful and gracious, long suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth." With that revelation was associated an entire system of typical institutions, preparing the way for a still more perfect discovery, at once quickening the conscience, making it sensible of the extent of human sinfulness, and indicating the conditions and principles of a future atonement. The forms of the living Word, of the living Spirit gradually disclosed themselves to the prophetic vision, never fully revealed, yet ever approaching nearer to a personal manifestation. But the Name itself in its highest sense was first suggested, then declared, by the voices which heralded the incarnation, and by the utterances of the incarnate Word. The full meaning of the words of angelic adoration, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts!" flashed upon the spirit of man when the Saviour commanded the initiatory rite, the pledge and condition of a new life, to be administered "in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." To the exposition of that meaning the purest and highest intellects of Christendom have devoted themselves from the beginning; and if the forms in which their exposition has been accepted by the Church are true and scriptural, can it be questioned that they involve issues of infinite importance to our souls? Can it be a matter of indifference to us whether any one of the leading propositions in such a confession is true or not? can it be a matter on which we can err in wilfulness or negligence without peril? We are responsible indeed only for so much truth as we have the means of knowing. Every man is judged "according to that he hath, not according to that he hath not"; but for so much as we have received we are, and must be, responsible. The warmth and earnestness of our devotions, of our endeavours to do God's work, will be proportionate to the sincerity and good faith with which we receive into our hearts that truth which the Eternal Father has communicated to us through the Son and by the Holy Spirit. Our salvation from evil here, and from the penalties of evil hereafter, can only be secured by the access which God the Holy Spirit opens through the Son to the Father — an access of which the conditions vary according to circumstances known only to our Judge, but of which the certain assurance is inseparably bound up with knowledge of the Name by which the Church adores the Triune Jehovah, three Persons, one God — Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. ( Canon F. C. Cook. ) Trusting in God A. J. F. Behrends, D. D. Few words are more frequently used in the Bible than the word faith, and the thing which it is intended to describe is of prime importance. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews devotes an entire chapter to showing its majesty and weight. In the Epistle to the Romans the word faith plays a leading part, but the word is not defined. Still, the word is not always used in the same sense. Sometimes it is applied to what a man believes, the body of doctrine which constitutes the Divine deposit of the Church. Sometimes the word is used to describe the firmness of a man's personal convictions, or the consistency of his conduct, as when it is said that whatever is not of faith is sin. In the great majority of instances, however, faith describes a personal relation of unqualified confidence between man and God. This is the simple root from which the other forms of faith grow. Faith is trust, a trust without suspicion or fear, trust passing into glad and habitual surrender, so that He in whom we trust becomes our teacher, guide, and master. Such trust, if intelligently exercised, promotes fixedness of conviction and steadiness of moral purpose — it issues in deliberate fidelity and loyalty. And when this trust is challenged by the reason, either the reason in me, or the reason in others, the answer forms a bed of truth which takes the name of "faith," because it represents the rational basis of trust or conviction. Faith as a system of doctrine simply states what I believe, or why I trust. Faith as fixedness of personal conviction simply describes trust as perfect and habitual. Primarily, therefore, faith is neither a body of doctrine nor a mental and moral quality, but a purely personal relation between myself and another, the relation of trust on the part of man in God. Saving faith is just this, confidence in God issuing in consecration. For it is plain that I can neither trust nor distrust an imaginary being, a being of whose existence I have no evidence. To trust in God is to affirm that He is. Still, that alone does not provoke confidence and surrender. We do not trust all whom we know. Knowledge of another may prevent confidence, as well as provoke it. His character may be such that we are repelled from him, instead of being attracted to him. They in whom we trust must be trustworthy. It depends altogether, therefore, upon what God really is, whether the knowledge of Him is fitted to provoke our trust. It is plain, therefore, that the statement of the Psalmist must not be made to mean that all men will put their trust in God when they come to have a right knowledge of Him. Ignorance is not the sole cause of unbelief and sin. The real thought is this, that wherever men come to put their trust in God, it will be because they have come to know what God really is. Knowledge may not issue in trust, but without knowledge trust cannot be. There is nothing magical about it. Faith, or trust, is not a supernatural gift of God, bestowed or withheld at His pleasure; it is His gift only so far as His enlightened Spirit is His gift, only so far as a true knowledge of what God is is the gift of God. Three conceptions of God we can trace in the history of the world; but of these three there is only one, the Christian conception, which provokes to sweet and sunny trust. We may think of God as the embodiment of almighty power, personally indifferent whether He creates or destroys, with countenance as cold, as impassive, as that of the Egyptian Sphinx, eternally rigid in His will, eternally frigid in His emotions, without either smiles or tears, without hate and without love. Or we may think of Him as the embodiment of almighty energy, rooted in and confluent with eternal reason and absolute justice, never Himself guilty of folly or of wrong, keeping Himself beyond the reach of deserved reproach, but enforcing His law with pitiless severity, claiming His pound of flesh, whether the surgery kills or cures, exacting the debt to the last farthing, deaf to all entreaty, granting no reprieve, proffering no help. Or, we may think of Him as in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, as righteousness and love incarnate. The first repels; the second chills; the third alone attracts and warms. The first is a monster of cruelty; the second is an iceberg; the third alone is a life-giving sun. The first deifies power; the second deifies reason; the third deifies love, love carrying the cross in its heart, and which is indifferent to none. The gods of paganism simply represented superior power and cunning. They were greater than men, but they were no better than men. Faith in the gods there was none, and there could not be. And it is not otherwise with that more refined conception of God which identifies Him with force, the energy by which all things are constituted, without personal consciousness and without moral qualities, without either love or hate, without either vice or virtue, hearing no prayer, rewarding no obedience, punishing no disobedience. Such a god is only a god in name. He does not care for me; He does not know what care is, and how then can I care for Him; how can I bring myself to trust in Him? Nor is the case much better with that truer and deeper conception of God which identifies Him with the absolute reason and the moral order of the universe. It was impossible for thoughtful men to rest in a conception of God which robbed Him of thought and character. The law of cause and effect assorted itself. The ground of the universe must be possessed of all that appears in the universe. But there is thought, at least in me, and there is conscience, at least in me. And if these be in me, they must be in the First and Universal Cause of all things, whether that cause be regarded as distinct from the universe or not. And so, even the ancients came to look upon the universe as embodied reason and justice. Things were not loose and disjointed; they were compact and ordered. regarded the Idea as formative and eternal energy. dilates at length, and with warmth of eloquence, upon the universal presence of design. Science has itself dug the grave of vulgar materialism. A rational origin and a moral end of the universe are everywhere recognised. The very word "evolution" is a confession of universal reason and of orderly movement, Neither the old nor the new philosophical theism can produce faith. It is like an iceberg, majestic and imposing, but chilling the air. It may produce, it has produced, moral awe and resignation to one's lot; but it has not produced, and it cannot produce, trust — with the quiet heart and the radiant face and the laughing, singing lips. It may produce Ecclesiastes, but it cannot write Psalm 23 . For in all this reign of reason it discovers no indulgence for ignorance; in. all this reign of justice it hears no gospel of mercy for the sinner. There is no pity for the weak and the wicked. The name of God is not unconscious and unfeeling energy, from which we shrink; nor is it crystallised and crystallising reason and justice, before which we are self-condemned and dumb; but it is Jesus Christ, who came to seek and to save the lost. The omnipotence of God does not make Him attractive to me. The omniscience of God sounds the death knell of my hope. The justice of God thrusts me into the dungeon of despair. In such an atmosphere there cannot be the first breath of faith. But when you make it clear to me that this omnipotent, omniscient, holy God is also infinite in His tenderness, that He loves me and wants me, that He is my Father, and that in Christ His Fatherhood has become Incarnate, so that when I see Him I see the Father, my faith is kindled and my trust knows no misgiving. "Perfect love casteth out fear." But perfect love in you and in me is the response to perfect love in God for you and for me. So faith will be perfect, trust in God will be fearless and sunny only as we know God's name, and hide ourselves beneath its sheltering wings. Here is the secret of peace; all is well, because God loves me. ( A. J. F. Behrends, D. D. ) The knowledge of God essential to trust in Him C. M. Merry. The secret of all holy living is trust in God. The eleventh chapter of Hebrews is the great Bible proof of this. But how to obtain this faith? that is the question. For nothing is harder to a human soul. Diverse answers might be given. 1. Ask it of God, for faith is His gift. But our text tells another way. 2. Know God better. "They that know Thy name will," etc. In earthly affairs we do not confide where we do not know. And so if God be unknown by us we shall not trust Him. Abraham was called the friend of God — he knew God so well, and so he got another name — the "Father of the faithful," because he so trusted in God. Now this knowledge must not be merely theoretical, but that of the heart. Then such "will" trust in Him; they cannot help it. ( C. M. Merry. ) Trust in God J. A. Picton. The Psalm expresses the confidence of Israel in Jehovah. Some say that these Psalms are only patriotic odes, and that we have no right to draw inferences from them in regard to spiritual religion. Now, no doubt, many have read into these Psalms ideas and feelings that are not and could not be there, for they are Christian in their origin. But still we are justified in using them so as to maintain our own faith. For the religion of the Old Testament (compare the old Roman law) had a wonderful expansiveness. No doubt the trust told of here meant Israel's confidence that when they went into battle Jehovah would be with them. Now consider — I. THE CONDITION OF THIS TRUST. Knowledge of Jehovah's name, true heartfelt and experimental knowledge. II. THE TRUST ITSELF — a confidence not for infallible success, but that life could not be in vain. III. THE REASON FOR THIS TRUST. "Thou hast not forsaken," etc. Experience proves this true. ( J. A. Picton. ) Confidence J. Blundell. Names in Scripture are descriptive of character in those to whom they are given. I. THE NAME OF GOD therefore tells of His character. The declaration of God's name ( Exodus 34 ). Now this name of God is different from our conceptions. Some rob Him altogether of the awful features of His character, and others of His goodness. All the attributes of Jehovah have met in Christ. Love, justice — see Gethsemane and the Cross as showing God's hatred of sin. II. THE KNOWLEDGE OF THIS NAME. It means the knowledge of approval, of heart assent to what he finds in God. If we wanted to get a child to trust his parent, we would speak not so much of the child's duty as of the parent's character. Hence, to awaken trust in God, we are to show the excellence and beauty of the character of God. ( J. Blundell. ) Vital knowledge necessary to real peace P. B. Power, M. A. At many a martyr's stake, at many a dying bed, in many a scene of trial, these words have been proved true. His people have felt God near to them at these times, and this is file God in whom we must all trust. And this trust is through knowledge. 1. It is not a commonplace possession of every man. Far from it. What is it? It is not mere hearsay nor any theoretical knowledge of God. 2. But it is the knowledge of love. Love gains knowledge as nothing else can. The world does not love, and so does not know God. 3. And it is in harmony with the convictions of the understanding. 4. It is the knowledge of experience, resulting from holding communion with God. Love leads to such communion, and that to experience. We learn by experience the delicate excellencies of a character, which we could never have seen by a momentary glance; we understand its harmonious proportions which a cursory look would never have shown us. The man that loves to hear the ocean breaking on the shore, will detect harmonies in what is monotonous to everyone beside. Now this knowledge of experience or of communion is what God's people have of Him. But you must make real effort to know His name. The mere repetition of Lord, Lord, will do but little. But to utter His name in the fulness of knowledge is to uncurtain heaven, and see its glories once. But if we will not know God as we should, then we are sure to misjudge Him. A guilty conscience makes everyone suppose that God is nothing but severe. And then you cannot trust. Look again; would you "see Him as He is"? See Him in His love, in His sacrifice for you, and then you will learn to trust Him. And this is most important, for there is DO shelter but in Him, and unless we trust Him we cannot enter that shelter. And that means death. Oh, then, may God give us to know His name. ( P. B. Power, M. A. ) The name of God D. Charles. The name of God is the revelation of the Divine perfections, through His works and Word. He is — I. A JUST GOD AND A SAVIOUR. Much was said in words and by promises under the old dispensation bearing witness to this name. The sacrifices did the same. But Christ was the great witness of this name. The servants of Benhadad believed in the name the kings of Israel had for mercy, and therefore submitted themselves. And the Publican believed in God as merciful, and therefore appealed to Him. Thus the Lord proclaimed His name to Moses. And at last that mercy of God appeared in Christ. All His works while on earth confirmed it. And He was made perfect through suffering, made perfect in mercy thereby. II. AS ALMIGHTY. That name is impressed upon creation, but is seen most in Christ in delivering His Church. And in His resurrection and His dominion over the empire of death, and His upholding of His kingdom in the world, and giving success to the preaching of the Gospel. III. AS RIGHTEOUSNESS. This is seen in His atonement, whereby God's righteousness is declared, so that He can be just, and yet the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. IV. AS WISDOM. This seen in creation, but yet more in redemption. For in it the law and its transgressor are exalted together. Once the law might have said, "To spare him will be my disgrace"; but the wisdom of God appointed that to spare him would be its highest honour. The person of Christ is the chief wonder of this wisdom. This is the treasury of the Divine name. In Him all fulness dwells. V. AND THIS NAME WILL BE TRUSTED BY ALL WHO KNOW IT. Many have heard of it who do not know it. The way to know it is to read it in Christ. ( D. Charles. ) The effect of knowing God Francis Hutchinson, D. D. By those who know God's name, are meant those who know God Himself and His nature. Trusting in God, does very naturally take in all the expectations we have of what He hath promised, and knowing His name is a raising our minds to a just sense of His nature, by the contemplation of His works of creation and providence. Apply to three points — I. THE IMMORTALITY OF MAN. Men stumble at this, that our weak race, which is hasting to a change that hath all the appearance of ending, should not really die, but live on, and have their share in all the revolutions which the world is to undergo, as long as God Himself shall have His being. Consider what we have in the knowledge of God, and His works, which may further us in the belief of it. There must be an eternity of time and duration. Through it God must surely preserve His being, and He surely will preserve a world. He will always have creatures before Him. Is it most likely that God should choose to continue creatures before Him, by giving eternity to the souls of men: or by letting these die, and end as they do in appearance, and by raising up other new ones in their places? If the souls of men are really abolished, and end at death, I do not know; but we may say that they are the only substances in the whole compass of beings that are so. If the eternal duration be granted, there is — II. THE GREATNESS OF THE GLORY AND REWARD. Descriptions of heaven are but borrowed expressions from such things as we understand, but the happiness itself is something that is greater than we can yet conceive. The fabric of the world, wonderful as it is, is really a thousand times greater, and more wonderful in itself than it is in our thoughts. For we only behold creation through a perspective. III. THE PUNISHMENTS OF THE OTHER WORLD. To their fears of these, unbelieving men oppose the great goodness of God. But consider God's providences and judgments upon us now. Evidently, we ought not to argue that God's goodness will not suffer Him to punish, for it does. ( Francis Hutchinson, D. D. ) Thou, Lord, hast not forsaken them that seek Thee. Dilemma and deliverance Let us note — I. A FIERY DART OF SATAN CONSTANTLY SHOT AT THE PEOPLE OF GOD. It is the suggestion that God has forsaken us. Of all the arrows of hell it is the most sharp, the most poisonous, the most deadly. It is sent against us — 1. When we have fallen into sin. Then comes the suggestion, this fiery dart, "Ah, wretch that you are, God will never forgive that sin; you have been so ungrateful, such a hypocrite, such a liar." 2. In time of great trouble. The deep waters are around and almost overflow you; just then, when in the very deepest part of the stream, Satan sends this suggestion into your very soul — thy God hath forsaken thee. 3. In prospect of some great toil and enterprise. When the trumpet is sounded for some dreadful battle, when there is a deep soil to be ploughed, there comes this dark thought. And this arrow is most grievous, and most dangerous; and it bears the full impress of its Satanic maker. II. THE DIVINE BUCKLER WHICH GOD HAS PROVIDED AGAINST THIS FIERY DART. It is the fact that God hath not, no never, forsaken them that fear Him. How dreadful to think that the child of God might fall and perish. What witnesses these are to the truth of the text. From Abraham down to Paul. And your own experience, if you will be honest with yourself, will prove it yet again. And look at the teachings of nature as to the fidelity of God. We believe in the truth and love of earthly friends. Shall we not believe in God? III. LET US WEAR THIS BUCKLER, and so use our precious privilege to seek God in the day of trouble. You, afflicted ones, you oppressed with the sense of sin. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) Consider my trouble. Psalm 9:13-20 A note of trouble in a triumph Psalm A. Maclaren, D. D. The second part of the Psalm begins with ver. 13. The prayer in that verse is the only trace of trouble in the Psalm. The rest is triumph and exaltation. This, at first discordant, note has sorely exercised commentators; and the violent solution that the whole of the Cheth stanza (vers. 13, 14) should be regarded as "the cry of the meek," quoted by the Psalmist, and therefore be put in inverted commas (though adopted by Delitzsch and Cheyne), is artificial and cold. There is little difficulty in the connection. The victory has been completed over certain enemies, but there remain others; and the time for praise unmingled with petition has not yet come for the Psalmist, as it never com

9:1-10 If we would praise God acceptably, we must praise him in sincerity, with our whole heart. When we give thanks for some one particular mercy, we should remember former mercies. Our joy must not be in the gift, so much as in the Giver. The triumphs of the Redeemer ought to be the triumphs of the redeemed. The almighty power of God is that which the strongest and stoutest of his enemies are no way able to stand before. We are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth, and that with him there is no unrighteousness. His people may, by faith, flee to him as their Refuge, and may depend on his power and promise for their safety, so that no real hurt shall be done to them. Those who know him to be a God of truth and faithfulness, will rejoice in his word of promise, and rest upon that. Those who know him to be an everlasting Father, will trust him with their souls as their main care, and trust in him at all times, even to the end; and by constant care seek to approve themselves to him in the whole course of their lives. Who is there that would not seek him, who never hath forsaken those that seek Him? 9:11-20 Those who believe that God is greatly to be praised, not only desire to praise him better themselves, but desire that others may join with them. There is a day coming, when it will appear that he has not forgotten the cry of the humble; neither the cry of their blood, or the cry of their prayers. We are never brought so low, so near to death, but God can raise us up. If he has saved us from spiritual and eternal death, we may thence hope, that in all our distresses he will be a very present help to us. The overruling providence of God frequently so orders it, that persecutors and oppressors are brought to ruin by the projects they formed to destroy the people of God. Drunkards kill themselves; prodigals beggar themselves; the contentious bring mischief upon themselves: thus men's sins may be read in their punishment, and it becomes plain to all, that the destruction of sinners is of themselves. All wickedness came originally with the wicked one from hell; and those who continue in sin, must go to that place of torment. The true state, both of nations and of individuals, may be correctly estimated by this one rule, whether in their doings they remember or forget God. David encourages the people of God to wait for his salvation, though it should be long deferred. God will make it appear that he never did forget them: it is not possible he should. Strange that man, dust in his and about him, should yet need some sharp affliction, some severe visitation from God, to bring him to the knowledge of himself, and make him feel who and what he is.