Bible Commentary

Expositor's Bible Commentary Psalm 31:1 To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed: deliver me in thy righteousness. Psalm 31:1-24 THE swift transitions of feeling in this psalm may seem strange to colder natures whose lives run smoothly, but reveal a brother-soul to those who have known what it is to ride on the top of the wave and then to go down into its trough. What is peculiar to the psalm is not only the inclusion of the whole gamut of feeling, but the force with which each key is struck and the persistence through all of the one ground tone of cleaving to Jehovah. The poetic temperament passes quickly from hope to fear. The devout man in sorrow can sometimes look away from a darkened earth to a bright sky, but the stern realities of pain and loss again force themselves in upon him. The psalm is like an April day, in which sunshine and rain chase, each other across the plain. "The beautiful uncertain weather, Where gloom and glory meet together" makes the landscape live, and is the precursor of fruitfulness." The stream of the psalmist’s thoughts now runs in shadow of grim cliffs and vexed by opposing rocks, and now opens out in sunny stretches of smoothness; but its source is "In Thee, Jehovah, do I take refuge" ( Psalm 31:1 ): and its end is "Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all ye that wait for Jehovah" ( Psalm 31:24 ). The first turn of the stream is in Psalm 31:1-4 , which consist of petitions and their grounds. The prayers reveal the suppliant’s state. They are the familiar cries of an afflicted soul common to many psalms, and presenting no special features. The needs of the human heart are uniform, and the cry of distress is much alike on all lips. This sufferer asks, as his fellows have done and will do, for deliverance, a swift answer, shelter and defence, guidance and leading, escape from the net spread for him. These are the commonplaces of prayer, which God is not wearied of hearing, and which fit us all. The last place to look for originality is in the "sighing of such as be sorrowful." The pleas on which the petitions rest are also familiar. The man who trusts in Jehovah has a right to expect that his trust will not be put to shame, since God is faithful. Therefore the first plea is the psalmist’s faith, expressed in Psalm 31:1 by the word which literally means to flee to a refuge. The fact that he has done so makes his deliverance a work of God’s "righteousness." The metaphor latent in "flee for refuge" comes into full sight in that beautiful plea in Psalm 31:3 , which unsympathetic critics would call illogical, "Be for me a refuge rock, for Thou art my rock." Be what Thou art; manifest Thyself in act to be what Thou art in nature: be what I, Thy poor servant, have taken Thee to be. My heart has clasped Thy revelation of Thyself and fled to this strong tower. Let me not be deceived and find it incapable of sheltering me from my foes. "Therefore for Thy name’s sake," or because of that revelation and for its glory as true in men’s sight, deliver me. God’s nature as revealed is the strongest plea with Him, and surely that cannot but be potent and acceptable prayer which says; Be what Thou art, and what Thou hast taught me to believe Thee. Psalm 31:5-8 prolong the tone of the preceding, with some difference, inasmuch as God’s past acts are more specifically dwelt on as the ground of confidence. In this turn of the stream, faith does not so much supplicate as meditate, plucking the flower of confidence from the nettle of past dangers and deliverances, and renewing its acts of surrender. The sacred words which Jesus made His own on the cross, and which have been the last utterance of so many saints, were meant by the psalmist to apply to life, not to death. He laid his spirit as a precious deposit in God’s hand, assured that He was able to keep that which was committed to Him. Often had he done this before, and now he does it once more. Petitions pass into surrender. Resignation as well as confidence speaks. To lay one’s life in God’s hand is to leave the disposal of it to Him, and such absolute submission must come as the calm close and incipient reward of every cry for deliverance. Trust should not be hard to those who can remember. So Jehovah’s past redemptions- i.e ., deliverances from temporal dangers-are its ground here; and these avail as pledges for the future, since He is "the God of truth," who can never falsify His past. The more nestlingly a soul clings to God, the more vehemently will it recoil from other trust. Attraction and repulsion are equal and contrary: The more clearly it sees God’s faithfulness and living power as a reality operating in its life, the more penetrating will be its detection of the falseness of other helpers. "Nothingnesses of emptiness" are they all to one who has felt the clasp of that great, tender hand; and unless the soul feels them to be such, it will never strongly clutch or firmly hold its true stay. Such trust has its crown in joyful experience of God’s mercy even before the actual deliverance comes to pass, as wind-borne fragrance meets the traveller before he sees the spice gardens from which it comes. The cohortative verbs in Psalm 31:7 may be petition ("Let me exult"), or they may be anticipation of future gladness, but in either case some waft of joy has already reached the singer, as how could it fail to do, when his faith was thus renewing itself, and his eyes gazing on God’s deeds of old? The past tenses in Psalm 31:7-8 refer to former experiences. God’s sight of the psalmist’s affliction was not idle contemplation, but implied active intervention. To "take note of the distresses of my soul" (or possibly, "of my soul in distresses") is the same as to care for it. It is enough to know that God sees the secret sorrows, the obscure trials which can be told to none. He loves as well as knows, and looks on no griefs which He will not comfort nor on any wounds which He is not ready to bind up. The psalmist was sure that God had seen, because he had experienced His delivering power, as he goes on joyfully to tell. The figure in Psalm 31:8 a points back to the act of trust in Psalm 31:5 . How should God let the hand of the enemy close round and crush the spirit which had been entrusted to His own hand? One sees the greedy fingers of the foe drawing themselves together on their prey as on a fly, but they close on nothing. Instead of suffering constraint the delivered spirit walks at liberty. They who are enclosed in God’s hand have ample room there; and unhindered activity, with the ennobling consciousness of freedom, is the reward of trust. Is it inconceivable that such sunny confidence should be suddenly clouded and followed, as in the third turn of thought ( Psalm 31:9-13 ), by plaintive absorption in the sad realities of present distress? The very remembrance of a brighter past may have sharpened the sense of present trouble. But it is to be noted that these complaints are prayer, not aimless, self-pitying wailing. The enumeration of miseries which begins with "Have mercy upon me, for-," has a hidden hope tinging its darkness, like the faint flush of sunrise on clouds. There is no such violent change of tone as is sometimes conceived; but the pleas of the former parts are continued in this section, which adds the psalmist’s sore need to God’s past and the suppliant’s faith, as another reason for Jehovah’s help. He begins with the effects of his trouble on himself in body and soul; thence he passes to its consequences on those around him, and finally he spreads before God its cause: plots against his life. The resemblances to Psalm 6:1-10 and to several parts of Jeremiah are unmistakable. In Psalm 31:9-10 the physical and mental effects of anxiety are graphically described. Sunken eyes, enfeebled soul, wasted body, are gaunt witnesses of his distress. Cares seem to him to have gnawed his very bones, so weak is he. All that he can do is to sigh. And worse than all, conscience tells him that his own sin underlies his trouble, and so he is without inward stay. The picture seems exaggerated to easy-going, prosperous people; but many a sufferer has since recognised himself in it as in a mirror, and been thankful for words which gave voice to his pained heart and cheered him with the sense of companionship in the gloom. Psalm 31:11-12 are mainly the description of the often-repeated experience of friends forsaking the troubled. "Because of all my adversaries" somewhat anticipates Psalm 31:13 in assigning the reason for the cowardly desertion. The three phrases "neighbours," "acquaintance," and "those who see me without" indicate concentric circles of increasing diameter. The psalmist is in the middle; and round him are, first, neighbours, who pour reproach on him, because of his enemies, then the wider range of "acquaintances," afraid to have anything to do with one who has such strong and numerous foes, and remotest of all, the chance people met on the way who fly from Him, as infected and dangerous. "They all forsook Him and fled." That bitter ingredient mingles in every cup of sorrow. The meanness of human nature and the selfishness of much apparent friendship are commonplaces, but the experience of them is always as painful and astonishing, as if nobody besides had ever suffered therefrom. The roughness of structure in Psalm 31:11 b, "and unto my neighbours exceedingly," seems to fit the psalmist’s emotion, and does not need the emendation of "exceedingly" into "burden" (Delitzsch) or "shaking of the head" (Cheyne). In Psalm 31:12 the desertion is bitterly summed up, as like the oblivion that waits for the dead. The unsympathising world goes on its way, and friends find new interests and forget the broken man, who used to be so much to them, as completely as if he were in his grave, or as they do the damaged cup, flung on the rubbish heap. Psalm 31:13 discloses the nature of the calamity which has had these effects. Whispering slanders buzz round him; he is ringed about with causes for fear, since enemies are plotting his death. The use of the first part of the verse by Jeremiah does not require the hypothesis of his authorship of the psalm, nor of the prophet’s priority to the psalmist. It is always a difficult problem to settle which of two cases of the employment of the same phrase is original and which quotation. The criteria are elastic, and the conclusion is very often arrived at in deference to preconceived ideas. But Jeremiah uses the phrase as if it were a proverb or familiar expression, and the psalmist as if it were the freshly struck coinage of his own experience. Again the key changes, and the minor is modulated into confident petition. It is the test of true trust that it is deepened by the fullest recognition of dangers and enemies. The same facts may feed despair and be the fuel of faith. This man’s eyes took in all surrounding evils, and these drove him to avert his gaze from them and fix it on Jehovah. That is the best thing that troubles can do for us. If they, on the contrary, monopolise our sight, they turn our hearts to stone; but if we can wrench our stare from them, they clear our vision to see our Helper. In Psalm 31:14-18 we have the recoil of the devout soul to God, occasioned by its recognition of need and helplessness. This turn of the psalm begins with a strong emphatic adversative: "But I-I trust in Jehovah." We see the man flinging himself into the arms of God. The word for "trust" is the same as in Psalm 31:6 , and means to hang or lean upon, or, as we say, to depend on. He utters his trust in his prayer, which occupies the rest of this part of the psalm. A prayer, which is the voice of trust, does not begin with petition, but with renewed adherence to God and happy consciousness of the soul’s relation to Him, and thence melts into supplication for the blessings which are consequences of that relation. To feel, on occasion of the very dreariness of circumstances, that God is mine, makes miraculous sunrise at midnight. Built on that act of trust claiming its portion in God, is the recognition of God’s all-regulating hand, as shaping the psalmist’s "times," the changing periods, each of which has its definite character, responsibilities, and opportunities. Every man’s life is a series of crises, in each of which there is some special work to be done or lesson to be learned, some particular virtue to be cultivated or sacrifice made. The opportunity does not return. "It might have been once; and we missed it, lost it forever." But the psalmist is thinking rather of the varying complexion of his days as bright or dark; and looking beyond circumstances, he sees God. The "hand of mine enemies" seems shrivelled into impotence when contrasted with that great hand, to which he has committed his spirit, and in which are his "times"; and the psalmist’s recognition that it holds his destiny is the ground of his prayer for deliverance from the foes’ paralysed grasp. They who feel the tender clasp of an almighty hand need not doubt their security from hostile assaults. The petitions proper are three in number: for deliverance, for the light of God’s face, and for "salvation." The central petition recalls the priestly blessing. { Numbers 6:25 } It asks for consciousness of God’s friendship and for the manifestation thereof in safety from present dangers. That face, turned in love to a man, can "make a sunshine in a shady place," and brings healing on its beams. It seems best to take the verbs in Psalm 31:17-18 , as futures and not optatives. The prayer passes into assurance of its answer, and what was petition in Psalm 31:1 is now trustful prediction: "I shall not be ashamed, for I cry to Thee." With like elevation of faith, the psalmist foresees the end of the whispering defamers round him: shame for their vain plots and their silent descent to the silent land. The loudest outcry against God’s lovers will be hushed some day, and the hands that threatened them will be laid motionless and stiff across motionless breasts. He who stands by God and looks forward, can, by the light of that face, see the end of much transient bluster, "with pride and contempt," against the righteous. Lying lips fall dumb; praying lips, like the psalmist’s, are opened to show forth God’s praise. His prayer is audible still across the centuries; the mutterings of his enemies only live in his mention of them. That assurance prepares the way for the noble burst of thanksgiving, as for accomplished deliverance, which ends the psalm, springing up in a joyous outpouring of melody, like a lark from a bare furrow. But there is no such change of tone as to warrant the supposition that these last verses ( Psalm 31:19-24 ) are either the psalmist’s later addition or the work of another, nor do they oblige us to suppose that the whole psalm was written after the Peril which it commemorates had passed. Rather the same voice which triumphantly rings out in these last verses has been sounding in the preceding, even in their saddest strains. The ear catches a twitter hushed again and renewed more than once before the full song breaks out. The psalmist has been absorbed with his own troubles till now. but thankfulness expands his vision, and suddenly there is with him a multitude of fellow dependants on God’s goodness. He hungers alone, but he feasts in company. The abundance of God’s "goodness" is conceived of as a treasure stored, and in part openly displayed, before the sons of men. The antithesis suggests manifold applications of the contrast, such as the inexhaustibleness of the mercy which, after all revelation, remains unrevealed, and after all expenditure, has not perceptibly diminished in its shining mass, as of bullion in some vault; or the varying dealings of God, who sometimes, while sorrow is allowed to have its scope, seems to keep his riches of help under lock and key, and then again flashes them forth in deeds of deliverance; or the difference between the partial unfolding of these on earth and the full endowment of His servants with "riches in glory" hereafter. All these carry the one lesson that there is more in God than any creature or all creatures have ever drawn from Him or can ever draw. The repetition of the idea of hiding in Psalm 31:20 is a true touch of devout poetry. The same word is used for laying up the treasure and for sheltering in a pavilion from the jangle of tongues. The wealth and the poor men who need it are stored together, as it were; and the place where they both lie safe is God Himself. How can they be poor who are dwelling close beside infinite riches? The psalmist has just prayed that God would make His face to shine upon him; and now he rejoices in the assurance of the answer, and knows himself and all like-minded men to be hidden in that "glorious privacy of light," where evil things cannot live. As if caught up to and "clothed with the sun," he and they are beyond the reach of hostile conspiracies, and have "outsoared the shadow of" earth’s antagonisms. The great thought of security in God has never been more nobly expressed than by that magnificent metaphor of the light inaccessible streaming from God’s face to be the bulwark of a poor man. The personal tone recurs for a moment in Psalm 31:21-22 , in which it is doubtful whether we hear thankfulness for deliverance anticipated as certain and so spoken of as past, since it is as good as done, or for some recently experienced marvel of lovingkindness, which heartens the psalmist in present trouble. If this psalm is David’s, the reference may be to his finding a city of refuge, at the time when his fortunes were very low, in Ziklag, a strange place for a Jewish fugitive to be sheltered. One can scarcely help feeling that the allusion is so specific as to suggest historical fact as its basis. At the same time it must be admitted that the expression may be the carrying on of the metaphor of the hiding in a pavilion. The "strong city" is worthily interpreted as being God Himself, though the historical explanation is tempting. God’s mercy makes a true man ashamed of his doubts, and therefore the thanksgiving of Psalm 31:21 leads to the confession of Psalm 31:22 . Agitated into despair, the psalmist had thought that he was "cut off from God’s eyes"- i.e ., hidden so as not to be helped-but the event has showed that God both heard and saw him. If alarm does not so make us think that God is blind to our need and deaf to our cry as to make us dumb, we shall be taught the folly of our fears by His answers to our prayers. These will have a voice of gentle rebuke, and ask us, "O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" He delivers first, and lets the deliverance stand in place of chiding. The whole closes with a summons to all whom Jehovah loves to love Him for His mercy’s sake. The joyful singer longs for a chorus to join his single voice, as all devout hearts do. He generalises his own experience, as all who have for themselves experienced deliverance are entitled and bound to do, and discerns that in his single case the broad law is attested that the faithful are guarded whatever dangers assail, and "the proud doer" abundantly repaid for all his contempt and hatred of the just. Therefore the last result of contemplating God’s ways with His servants is an incentive to courage, strength, and patient waiting for the Lord. The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

In Thee, O Lord, do I put my trust. Psalm 31:1-8 Man trusting in Jehovah Homilist. I. Here is man trusting in Jehovah Is GREAT TRIALS. 1. It seems strange that God should allow a man who trusts in Him to become involved in trials. Love is the reason. He knows that oven the best of His children are so fractious and wayward that they need the chastening rod. 2. It seems strange that a man should be able to trust God when in trial. Good men can, and have done so. Job: Paul. II. Here is man trusting in Jehovah and EARNESTLY PRAYING — 1. For the vindication of his trust. 2. For deliverance from trial. 3. For an audience with the Almighty. 4. For protection from danger. 5. For guidance in perplexity. 6. For extrication from the snares of enemies. III. Here is man trusting in Jehovah and SURRENDERING HIMSELF. 1. The language of dedication. 2. The motive — gratitude. IV. Here is man trusting in Jehovah and ABHORRING SINNERS. A God-loving soul must ever recoil with profound disgust from the false, the dishonest, the mean, the profane, whenever or wherever they appear. The soul cannot love moral opposites. To hate characters, however, does not necessarily imply the hating of man. Man's bad character is of himself, he made it: but his nature is of God, He formed it. V. Here is man trusting in Jehovah, and REJOICING IN DELIVERANCE. 1, When deliverance comes to a good man, it comes from mercy. 2. The soul in deliverance rejoices in its freedom and security. ( Homilist. ) Be Thou my strong rook,... for Thou art my rock, Psalm 31:2-8 "Be... for Thou art A. Maclaren, D. D. It sounds strange logic, "Be... for Thou art," and yet it is the logic of prayer, and goes very deep, pointing out both its limits and its encouragements. If we were to read thus: "Be Thou a strong Rock to me, for a house, a fortress, for Thou art my Rock and my Fortress," we should get the whole force of the parallelism. Of course the main idea is that of the "Rock," and "Fortress" is only an exposition of one phase of the meaning of that metaphor. I. WHAT GOD IS. "A rock, a fortress-house." What is the force of that metaphor? 1. Stable being is the first thought in it, for there is nothing that is more absolutely the type of unchangeableness and steadfast continuance. God the Unchangeable rises, like some majestic cliff, round the foot of which rolls for ever the tide of human life, and round which is littered the successive layers of the leaves of many summers. 2. Then besides this stable being, and the consequences of it, is the other thought which is attached to the emblem in Scripture, and that is defence. "His place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks." When the floods are out, and all the plain is being dissolved into mud, the dwellers on it fly to the cliffs. "Lead me to the rock that is higher than I." 3. But the Rock is a defence in another way. If a hard-pressed fugitive is brought to a stand and can set his back against a rock, he can front his assailants, secure that no unseen foe shall creep up behind and deal a stealthy stab and that he will not be surrounded unawares. II. OUR PLEA WITH GOD, FROM WHAT HE IS. "Be Thou to me a Rock... for Thou art a Rock." Is that not illogical? No, for notice that little word "to me" — be Thou to me what Thou art in Thyself, and hast been to all generations." That makes all the difference. It is not merely "Be what Thou art," although that would be much, but it is "be it to me," and let me have all which is meant in that great Name. But then, beyond that, let me point out to you how this prayer suggests to us that all true prayer will keep itself within God's Revelation of what He is. III. THE PLEA WITH GOD DRAWN FROM WHAT WE HAVE TAKEN HIM TO BE TO US. "Be Thou to me a strong Rock, for Thou art my Rock and my Fortress." What does that mean? It means that the suppliant has, by his own act of faith, taken God for his; that he has appropriated the great Divine revelation, and made it his own. Now a man by faith encloses a bit of the common for his very own. When God says that He "so loved the world that He gave His... Son," I should say, "He loved me , and gave Himself for me." When the great revelation is made that HE is the Rock of Ages, my faith says: " My Rock and my Fortress." Having said that, and claimed Him for mine, I can then turn round to Him and say, "Be to me what I have taken Thee to be." ( A. Maclaren, D. D. ) For Thy name's sake lead me and guide me. Divine guidance and leading Hugh Stowell. What a helpless, hopeless thing would a ship be, launched forth upon the deep without a helm, and without a pilot; how it would be drifted about by every current, and tossed to and fro by every wind and wave; how speedily it must be driven amid the shoals, or dashed upon the rocks. No better is man, launched forth on the waves of this troublesome world. Without a Divine helmsman, how must he inevitably be drifted into danger, and betrayed into ruin, if he follows his own wit, and will, and wisdom! The very essence of all Christian life is to walk by faith and not by sight, and the very essence of Divine wisdom in heaven-taught man is to "trust in the Lord" with all his might, and not to trust in himself, not to trust in his own understanding. How appropriate, then, is this prayer for us all. I. THE PETITION. "Lead me and guide me." It implies — 1. That a man feels that he cannot guide himself. 2. That he believes God does interpose in the affairs of men, and that He condescends to guide and lead all who trust in Him. 3. Expectation that God will direct us. Some pray but never wait for the answer. 4. And there must be leading as well as guiding. II. THE PLEA. Some plead that they do their best: but they do not. This is the true plea — "Thy name's sake," God's gracious character. It is a believer's prayer. God's providence, word, and spirit will make plain to us our way. Let us each adopt this prayer. ( Hugh Stowell. ) Into Thine hand I commit my spirit. Psalm 31:5 The last words of Christ on the Cross (with Luke 23:46 ; Acts 7:59 ): — I. I invite you first to consider OUR SAVIOUR'S WORDS JUST BEFORE HIS DEATH: "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit." 1. Observe how Christ lives and passes away in the atmosphere of the Word of God. Christ was a grand original thinker, and He might always have given us words of His own. He never lacked suitable language, for "never man spake like this Man." Yet the great majority of His expressions may be traced to the Old Testament. Even where they are not exact quotations, His words drop into Scriptural shape and form. You can see that the Bible has been His one Book. It was food to Him, as it is to us; and if He thus lived upon the Word of God, should not you and I do the same? 2. Notice that our Lord, in the moment of His death, recognized a personal God. We have far too much fiction in religion, and a religion of fiction will bring only fictitious comfort in the dying hour. Come to solid facts. Is God as real to thee as thou art to thyself? Come now; dost thou speak with Him "as a man speaketh unto his friend"? Canst thou trust Him, and rely upon Him as thou dost trust and rely upon the partner of thy bosom? If thy God be unreal, thy religion is unreal. 3. Observe how Jesus Christ here brings out, the Fatherhood of God. The psalm from which He quoted did not say, "Father." David did not get as far as that in words, though in spirit he often did; but Jesus had the right to alter the psalmist's words. He can improve on Scripture, though you and I cannot. He did not say, "O God, into Thine hand I commit My spirit"; but He said, "Father." Oh, how sweet, in life and in death, to feel in our soul the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, "Abba, Father!" 4. From this passage we learn that our Lord cheerfully rendered up His soul to His Father when the time had come for Him to die. "No man taketh it from Me," said He concerning His life; "I lay it down of Myself;" and there is here a cheerful willingness to yield up His spirit into His Father's hands. It is rather remarkable that none of the evangelists describe our Lord as dying. He did die, but they all speak of Him as giving up the ghost, — surrendering to God His spirit. You and I passively die; but He actively yielded up His spirit to His Father. In His case, death was an act; and He performed that act from the glorious motive of redeeming us from death and hell; so, in this sense, Christ stands alone in His death. But, oh, if we cannot render up our spirit as He did, yet, let us be perfectly ready to give it up. When God calls us to die, it will be a sweet way of dying if we can, like our Lord, pass away with a text of Scripture upon our lips, with a personal God ready to receive us, with that God recognized distinctly as our Father, and so die joyously, resigning our will entirely to the sweet will of the ever-blessed One, and saying, "It is the Lord," "My Father," "let Him do as seemeth Him good." II. My second text ( Psalm 31:5 ) is evidently the passage which our Saviour had in His mind just then: "Into Thine hand I commit My spirit: Thou hast redeemed Me, O Lord God of truth." It seems to me that THESE ARE WORDS TO BE USED IN LIFE, for this psalm is not so much concerning the believer's death as concerning his life. 1. Let us cheerfully entrust our souls to God, and feel that they are quite safe in His hands. Are you always doing this? 2. Notice that our second text has these words at the end of it: "Thou hast redeemed Me, O Lord God of truth." Is not that a good reason for giving yourself up entirely to God? Christ has redeemed you, and therefore you belong to Him. So, every day, go to Him with this declaration, "Into Thine hand I commit my spirit." Nay, not only every day, but all through the day. Have you to go into a house where there is fever; I mean, is it your duty to go there? Then go saying, "Father, into Thine hand I commit my spirit." I would advise you to do this every time you walk down the street, or even while you sit in your own house. III. My third text ( Acts 7:59 ) is intended to explain to us THE USE OF OUR SAVIOUR'S DYING WORDS FOR OURSELVES. 1. If we can die as Stephen did, we shall die with a certainty of immortality. An infidel once said to a Christian man, "Some of you Christians have great fear in dying because you believe that there is another state to follow this one. I have not the slightest fear, for I believe that I shall be annihilated, and therefore all fear of death is gone from me." "Yes," said the Christian man, "and in that respect you seem to me to be on equal terms with that bullock grazing over there, which, like yourself, is free from any fear of death. Pray, sir, let me ask you a simple question, Have you any hope? .... Hope, sir? No, I have no hope; of course, I have no hope, sir." "Ah, then!" replied the other, "despite the fears that sometimes come over feeble believers, they have a hope which they would not and could not give up." And that hope is, that our spirit — even that spirit which we commit into Jesus Christ's hands, — shall be "for ever with the Lord." 2. To a man who can die as Stephen did, there is a certainty that Christ is near, — so near that the man speaks to Him, and says, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." 3. There is a certainty that we are quite safe in His hands. 4. There is the other certainty, that He is quite willing to take us into His hands. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) "Into, Thy hands A. Maclaren, D. D. This psalm is the heart-cry of a man in great trouble, surrounded by all sorts of difficulties, with his very life threatened. He was down in the very depths of darkness, and ringed about by all sorts of enemies at that moment. "Into Thine hands I commit my spirit," as a man standing in the midst of enemies, and bearing some precious treasure in his hand might, with one strong cast of his arm, fling it into the open hand of some mighty helper, and so baulk the enemies of their prey. I. WHERE TO LODGE A SOUL FOR SAFE KEEPING, "Into Thine hands" — a banker has a strong room, and a wise man sends his securities and his valuables to the bank and takes an acknowledgment, and goes to bed at night, quite sure that no harm will come to them, and that he will get them when he wants them. And that is exactly what the psalmist does here. He deposits his most precious treasure in the safe custody of One who will take care of it. The great hand is stretched out, and the little soul is put into it. 1. Trusting Him for the salvation of our souls. Take your stand on the fact, and with emancipated and buoyant hearts, and grateful ones, work from it, and because of it. 2. Trusting Him in reference to daily life, and all its difficulties and duties. The act of trust is to run through everything that we undertake and everything that we have to fight with. Self-will wrenches our souls out of God's hands. A man that sends his securities to the banker can get them back when he likes. And if we undertake to manage our own affairs, or fling ourselves into our work without recognition of our dependence upon Him, or if we choose our work without seeking to know what His will is, that is recalling our deposit. Then you will get it back again. 3. This must be accompanied with corresponding work. Peter tells us that it is vain for us to talk about committing the keeping of our soul to God unless we back up the committing with consistent, Christlike lives. 4. This committing of our souls into God's hands does not mean that we are absolved from taking care of them ourselves. II. THE BLESSEDNESS OF THUS LIVING IN AN ATMOSPHERE OF CONTINUAL DEPENDENCE ON, AND REFERENCE TO, GOD, about great things and little things. Whenever a man is living by trust, even when the trust is mistaken, or when it is resting upon some mere human, fallible creature like himself, in the measure of his confidence is the measure of his tranquillity. III. THE GROUND UPON WHICH THIS GREAT VENTURE OF FAITH MAY BE MADE. "Thou hast redeemed me, Lord God of Truth." ( A. Maclaren, D. D. ) Committing ourselves to God R. W. Evans, B. D. "Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth." Hence — I. HE TESTIFIES, BY HIS COMMITTING HIMSELF TO GOD, TO THE POWER OF THE LORD'S REDEMPTION. He has felt it and acknowledges it. II. To GOD'S FAITHFULNESS. God is the "Lord God of truth." To which class do we belong? ( R. W. Evans, B. D. ) The dying Christian come, rifting his soul to God C. Bradley. I. WITH WHOM DOES THE DYING CHRISTIAN WISH TO ENTRUST HIS SOUL? There are only two beings who can have charge of it when it quits the body — the Lord or Satan. Into the hands of one of these our souls must go when they die, and with one of these we must spend eternity. But men generally are quite indifferent on this matter. They feel no real concern. They have a vague hope of heaven and fear of hell. But neither influences their conduct in any important degree. Christians, however, must desire that which David so desired — that the Lord God should receive his spirit. II. WHAT IS IMPLIED IN COMMITTING HIS SOUL INTO HIS HANDS IN A DYING HOUR. 1. A firm persuasion that the soul will outlive the body. Not by reason but by the Gospel only does he first learn really and habitually to regard himself as the heir of eternity. And this conviction deepens as he grows in grace. 2. A high value for the soul. The body is as nothing compared to it. The body is the casket, but the soul is the jewel, and that he would, indeed, have saved. 3. A lively sense of the serious, and awful nature of death, a conviction of our need of help in a dying hour. The soul in such an hour will cling more closely to its God. No man will think lightly of death who has ever thought himself near death. 4. A belief that God is willing to receive the soul. III. THE WARRANT AND ENCOURAGEMENT THUS TO DO. 1. God is the Christian's Redeemer. 2. The faithfulness of God. He is the "God of truth," and He has promised to save them that trust in Him. IV. THE LESSON OF THIS SUBJECT. 1. The great value of Christian faith. 2. Here is a source of comfort under the loss of friends. 3. How confidently we may commit into the same hand all other things. 4. How important that now we should become the redeemed of the Lord. ( C. Bradley. ) A watchword /or life and death J. Parker, D. D. I. THE TRUE WATCHWORD OF LIFE. 1. We approach the duties of life through a series of the most elevating considerations. (1) We are not our own. (2) We are parts of a great system. (3) We are servants, not masters. (4) The things that are round about us are beneath our serious notice, except for momentary convenience or instruction. 2. We accept the trials of life with the most hopeful patience. They are — (1) Disciplinary. (2) Under control. (3) Needful. 3. We recognize the mercies of life with the most joyful thankfulness. The name of God is upon the smallest of them. II. THE TRUE WATCHWORD OF DEATH. This watchword, as spoken by Jesus and Stephen, shows — 1. Their belief in a state of being at present invisible. They must at least be credited with speaking their deepest personal convictions. It is something to us in our ignorance and weakness to know who have believed this doctrine of a future state. 2. Their assurance of the limitations of human malice. The spirit was free! 3. Application. (1) Where the spirit is fit for the presence of God, there is no fear of death. (2) All who have died in the faith are present with the Lord. (3) Jesus Himself knows what it is to pass through the valley of the shadow of death. (4) The prayer for entrance amongst the blest may come too late. We have no authority for the encouragement of death-bed repentance. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) The saints' dying prayer W. Hoyt, D. D. I. These words are full of the fact of OUR HUMAN IMMORTALITY. Man has and is a spirit, which he can commit. II. A MAN MUST DO SOMEWHAT WITH HIS SPIRIT. Some commit their spirit to the dream of theosophy; spiritualism; a worldly carelessness about its destiny; an external morality; external rites; purging punishments. III. TO WHOM IT IS MOST RIGHT AND REASONABLE TO COMMIT ONE'S SPIRIT. 1. To a personal God. 2. To a redeeming God. 3. To a God of truth. ( W. Hoyt, D. D. ) The redeemed soul in God's hand Thos. Evans. I. THE BELIEVER HAS BEEN REDEEMED BY GOD. This Divine redemption — 1. Is a deliverance from the greatest of all evils, the service of Satan — ignorance, disease, remorse, death, hell. 2. Was effected at an infinite cost — the death of Him who is one with the Father. 3. Is an eternal redemption of the entire nature. II. THE BELIEVER IS ASSURED OF HIS REDEMPTION. 1. This assurance comes of faith. 2. Feeling thus assured of our redemption, God should constantly be the object of our love, and our lives be dedicated to His service. III. THE BELIEVER, FEELING ASSURED OF HIS REDEMPTION, TRUSTFULY YIELDS HIS SPIRIT INTO THE HAND OF HIS MAKER, WHEN HE DEPARTS THIS LIFE. "Be ye also ready." "Prepare to meet your God." ( Thos. Evans. ) Redemption a ground of encouragement to commit the soul to God J. Hawes, D. D. No question so important to us as this — how can we be just with God. Reason and philosophy cannot answer it, but the Bible does. I. TAKE A BRIEF VIEW OF GOD'S PLAN OF REDEMPTION. It includes — 1. The free and full pardon of sin. 2. Provision for our sanctification. 3. Adoption into God's family. II. All this furnishes ample ground for THE COMMITTAL OF OUR SOULS INTO THE HANDS OF GOD. What is it to do this? It implies — 1. Conviction of guilt. 2. Persuasion of His readiness to receive and keep what is committed to Him. 3. Choosing to be ruled by Him. III. THE ENCOURAGEMENT THERE IS IN REDEMPTION TO DO THIS. You are assured — 1. That all obstacles are put out of the way. 2. That all you need is provided for you and freely offered to you 3. No conditions are required but that you simply commit your soul to God. 4. It is the only way of being saved. IV. CONCLUSION. 1. None may say, there is no hope for me. 2. The work of redemption illustrates the goodness of God. 3. Are we now trusting in Christ? if so, we have committed, etc. 4. How great our obligations to live to the Divine glory. ( J. Hawes, D. D. ) The language of a dying saint Samuel Lavington. I. WHAT IS IMPLIED IN HIS COMMITTING HIS SPIRIT TO GOD. 1. A deep conviction of the soul's immortality. 2. A preferable concern for his soul. 3. A firm persuasion that his spirit would be safe with God. The soul is as a precious jewel, hence a great trust. II. His ENCOURAGEMENT HEREIN. "Thou hast redeemed me," etc. For in this redemption the believer finds — 1. Love, wonderful, matchless, divine ( 1 John 4:10 ; 1 Peter 1:18 ). Hence he is greatly encouraged. 2. Property ( Ezekiel 13:4 ; 1 Corinthians 6:19 ; Ezekiel 16:8 ; Isaiah 43:21 ). And then — 3. Power. God "is able to keep that," etc. 4. Faithfulness. III. IMPROVEMENT. 1. Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord. 2. Acquaint now thyself with God and be at peace. 3. Rejoice in the prospect of the glorious resurrection day. ( Samuel Lavington. ) From the text learn Anon. I. DYING IN A SAINT'S ACCOUNT IS A DIFFICULT WORK. 1. It is an untried work. 2. It is a final farewell to the present world. 3. It is to put off or lay down the body, no more to be re-assumed till the general resurrection at the end of the world. 4. Our probation is at an end. 5. To die is a great and difficult work, seeing thereupon the soul removes into a new state and world. To remove from one kingdom or country to another, is a great thing; but how much greater to remove into a new world! a world we have not seen, and are little acquainted with. 6. We have to meet God as our Judge, who will order our soul to its unchangeable state and place in the eternal world. For all these reasons to die is always difficult. And it is more so if death find us in the dark as to our title to the life to come. Conscience may be filled with terror under the sense of sin, and dread of deserved wrath. Sin, unpardoned sin, is the sting of death, as drawing after it an everlasting hell; and the very suspicion of this is enough to make the heart to tremble. God in our last moments may hide Himself, or withdraw the light of His countenance; and what distress follows upon this, none can tell but those that have felt it. It is no wonder that such circumstances make dying work peculiarly hard. II. THE CHILDREN OF GOD CONSIDERING THEMSELVES AS DYING, ARE CHIEFLY CONCERNED ABOUT THEIR IMMORTAL SOULS. The psalmist here was so; he had prayed for temporal salvation in the words of this psalm before my text, but did not insist mainly upon it. However it was as to his body, his great care was with reference to his soul; O Lord, into Thy hand I commit my spirit: let that be safe, and I shall be satisfied. ( Anon. ) I have hated them that regard lying vanities, but I trust in the Lord. Psalm 31:6 Trust the antidote of superstitious vanities F. D. Maurice, M. A. Many think that superstition is but an exaggerated faith; that it will diminish with the growth of intelligence, and that it is necessary in appealing to ignorant and vulgar people. But some who have been alive to its mischiefs and horrors have been willing to risk the loss of faith in order to get rid of it; but when the reaction has come, and we have felt that the world could not go on safely without some faith, we have been ready to tolerate a considerable amount of superstition, lest faith, its companion, should perish with it. But the psalmist looks at it from quite a different point of view. He opposes "superstitious vanities" to "trust in the Lord." One is the protest against, the deliverance from, the other. This is the very spirit of the Old Testament. Trust in God — invisible and righteous, is the principle which every lawgiver, prophet, priest, is to exhibit in his actions, to enforce upon his land. So far as his trust fails, he fails to do the work he is called to do. Losing trust, they are told that they will infallibly bow down to objects of Nature, to idols of wood and stone; they will listen to wizards who peep and mutter; they will fear where no fear is; they will make their cruel imaginations into gods and worship them. Such was the message of Elijah. The people to whom he was sent were busy with religious acts and exercises. But he goes to turn them from these acts that they may trust in the Lord. So Hezekiah. The general of Sennacherib accused him of taking away altars: what hope, therefore, could he have of deliverance? But those very acts proved that Hezekiah trusted in the Lord more than all the kings that were before him. And so it is in the New Testament. The apostles found men everywhere bowing down to visible gods, trembling at the future, seeking for diviners who could penetrate its secrets. Wherever they went, they found men fearing gods, trying to conciliate their favour or avert their wrath. To interfere with them was not ill their power: state force, and mob. opinion, were leagued in support of them. All they could do was to proclaim a Being whom men might trust. They did proclaim such a Being, they did incite men to trust in Him. And by so doing they struck such a blow at superstitious vanities as no iconoclast ever struck. They testified a hatred of them which they could not have testified, if they had had power to lay low every heathen altar, to cast every idol into the fire. They earned the hatred of those who held to these superstitious vanities. Not a martyr fell under the axe, or was tied to the stake, or was fastened to a cross, but because he would not do sacrifice to the likeness of some emperor, or some god whom the emperor sanctioned with his divine fiat. Not one had courage to make that denial, but because he trusted in the Lord, who had given His Son to be the perfect sacrifice for the sins of the world. And so Trust, because the object of it was more fully revealed, was a mightier destroyer of superstition than it had ever been. And our own experience confirms all this. Each one has some superstitious vanity or other to which he is prone: some dark shadow which haunts him; some visible or invisible terror, which is always ready to make a coward of him. And we cannot rid ourselves of it by reason or arguments of science, These often fail when they are wanted most. There is no help but in trust in God. It alone answers our dark fears. God has spoken to us sinners, and bid us confide in Him. And as we trust, so we conquer our sin; as we fail to trust, so are we overcome. What greater proof could there be that Superstition and Faith are not of the same kin, but are deadly and everlasting foes? And the history of Christendom leads to the same conclusion. ( F. D. Maurice, M. A. ) I will be glad and rejoice in Thy mercy, for Thou hast considered my trouble. Psalm 31:7 Divine chastisements Daniel Moore, M. A. I. That THE SOULS OF ALL GOD'S PEOPLE MUST HAVE THEIR DAY OF ADVERSITY, This, indeed, follows from the universal methods by which God governs and upholds the world. The present life is not a state of retribution, or a place where God professes to discriminate visibly between the good and the evil. If God make His sun to shine both on the just and the unjust, what shall forbid His judgments from alighting also on both? II. WHATEVER OUR TROUBLES MAY BE THERE IS ONE TO CONSIDER OUR CALAMITIES AND TO KNOW HOW LONG WE CAN BEAR THEM, "Thou hast considered and known my soul in adversities." Affliction often appears to move both God and man; it moves God to consider man's infirmities, and it moves man to consider his own soul. Behold, then, why we "count them happy which endure" — because endurance has a tendency to bring God and the sinner together. Prosperity, health, and comfort too often form a great gulf betwixt us and God — a gulf which must either be crossed by a bridge of sighs, or else filled up with the fragments of those earthly idols which our hearts had worshipped instead of God. And when the poor sinner is thus brought unto God, the first petition he prefers is, "Lord, consider my affliction; look upon my distress; let Thine eye fasten itself upon my misery and pain." For his faith tells him all will be well, if God can be brought to take notice of his low estate. Our faith in the Divine promises warms and brightens by the very earnestness with which we plead them; we move God to pity, by moving ourselves to feel that we need pity, and are enabled to draw nigh to God, by the very act of asking God to "draw nigh to us." III. THAT OUR HEAVENLY FATHER'S CONSIDERATION OF THE TROUBLES OF HIS PEOPLE SHOULD SUPPLY US WITH MATTER FOR JOY AND PRAISE. "I will be glad and rejoice in Thy mercy." We are all more forward to ask for blessings than we are to render God thanks when we have received them. Ten lepers would ask the Saviour for health, but one alone returned to thank Him for it. A day could be taken from our labours to humble ourselves under a scourge, but a day could not be afforded to return thanks for our deliverance. Brethren, this backwardness in thanksgiving ought not so to be. We are hastening to a world where praise is all we shall have to do, and it surely were but fitting that we should begin our rehearsal now. Here we can forbear, and hope, and believe, and pray; but what room will there be for such like works in heaven? ( Daniel Moore, M. A. ) Thou hast set my feet in a large room. Psalm 31:8 The "large room Canon Wynne. I. THE CHRISTIAN CREED PLACES US IN A VERY EXTENDED REALM. Suppose the case of one puzzled by the mysteries of existence, learning the creed of the Christian Church. Such a man contrasts the narrow material ideas that had become familiar to his thoughts, the insoluble riddle that the great universe presented to his mind as he tried to reduce all its wonder and glory to modifications of blind matter; he contrasts all this with the rest he feels as he repeats to himself the articles of Christian belief. And as he thinks of the old unsatisfying guesses and the present blessed and well-attested creed, tie has to join in the inspired song — "Thou hast set my feet in a large room." II. Contrast the sphere of interest Of one who lives for mere natural objects, with THE WIDENED HORIZON OF ONE WHO HAS RECEIVED "THE SPIRIT OF ADOPTION, WHEREBY WE CRY, ABBA, FATHER!" Gradually or suddenly you are made ashamed of your self-seeking life. The Spirit's holy strivings with your spirit are felt, and prevail; you are drawn as a penitent to the Cross of Christ. The knowledge of His pardon gladdens your heart. Longings for goodness, for purity, for holiness, for usefulness, swell within you. Then what a grand extension takes place in your mental horizon. How dull, petty, and narrow that world-centred life now seems I What a number of new interests, new objects for endeavour, hope and aspiration, rise before you! Little pleasures and innocent amusements and pleasant laughter are still enjoyed — enjoyed with a much fresher kind of enjoyment than before. But they have taken their place now as little things. Life has become to you a much broader, more varied, more intensely interesting drama than it used to be; for you are taken out of self. You are longing to please the Divine Friend. You are a member of a great community, a great company of dear brethren and sisters. Every one with whom you have intercourse is one for whom Christ died, and whom you want to help upwards. III. TAKE ONE MORE MENTAL STEP, AND ANTICIPATE THE TIME WHEN THERE WILL BE A STILL FURTHER ENLARGEMENT. During its larva life the caterpillar seems to have all its powers busied in creeping from leaf to leaf, and gathering in its monotonous nourishment. But there are growing within it all the while organs foreign to its present environment — strange powers, prophecies of an entirely different sphere of existence for which they prepare. In due time the environment changes. The chrysalis shell is broken; the great coloured wings shake themselves free. The "image," the ideal being, rises up into the air, glittering and palpitating, a beautiful butterfly, gleaming in the sunshine, and winging its way from flower to flower. This is an old illustration of a fact ere long to be new in the experience of each of us. Here, as we try to do our duty, to bear our cross, to run our race, "looking unto Jesus," spiritual powers are developing within us; heavenly capacities are gradually growing. In God's good time the bodily organization will be broken up. A new departure in life will be taken. Then, when we come to be with Christ, when we join in the great company whom no man can number, when we serve in the holy temple of which God Himself and the Lamb are the Light, when we follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth, then in the free

31:1-8 Faith and prayer must go together, for the prayer of faith is the prevailing prayer. David gave up his soul in a special manner to God. And with the words, ver. 5, our Lord Jesus yielded up his last breath on the cross, and made his soul a free-will offering for sin, laying down his life as a ransom. But David is here as a man in distress and trouble. And his great care is about his soul, his spirit, his better part. Many think that while perplexed about their worldly affairs, and their cares multiply, they may be excused if they neglect their souls; but we are the more concerned to look to our souls, that, though the outward man perish, the inward man may suffer no damage. The redemption of the soul is so precious, that it must have ceased for ever, if Christ had not undertaken it. Having relied on God's mercy, he will be glad and rejoice in it. God looks upon our souls, when we are in trouble, to see whether they are humbled for sin, and made better by the affliction. Every believer will meet with such dangers and deliverances, until he is delivered from death, his last enemy. 31:9-18 David's troubles made him a man of sorrows. Herein he was a type of Christ, who was acquainted with grief. David acknowledged that his afflictions were merited by his own sins, but Christ suffered for ours. David's friends durst not give him any assistance. Let us not think it strange if thus deserted, but make sure of a Friend in heaven who will not fail. God will be sure to order and dispose all for the best, to all those who commit their spirits also into his hand. The time of life is in God's hands, to lengthen or shorten, make bitter or sweet, according to the counsel of his will. The way of man is not in himself, nor in our friend's hands, nor in our enemies' hands, but in God's. In this faith and confidence he prays that the Lord would save him for his mercies's sake, and not for any merit of his own. He prophesies the silencing of those that reproach and speak evil of the people of God. There is a day coming, when the Lord will execute judgment upon them. In the mean time, we should engage ourselves by well-doing, if possible, to silence the ignorance of foolish men. 31:19-24 Instead of yielding to impatience or despondency under our troubles, we should turn our thoughts to the goodness of the Lord towards those who fear and trust in Him. All comes to sinners through the wondrous gift of the only-begotten Son of God, to be the atonement for their sins. Let not any yield to unbelief, or think, under discouraging circumstances, that they are cut off from before the eyes of the Lord, and left to the pride of men. Lord, pardon our complaints and fears; increase our faith, patience, love, and gratitude; teach us to rejoice in tribulation and in hope. The deliverance of Christ, with the destruction of his enemies, ought to strengthen and comfort the hearts of believers under all their afflictions here below, that having suffered courageously with their Master, they may triumphantly enter into his joy and glory.