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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
DAVID’S DESIRE AFTER GOD’S WORD
IN general, there is no other connexion between the different verses of this psalm, than the accidental one of their beginning with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet: yet possibly the collocation of them may occasionally have been determined by their bearing upon some particular point. The whole psalm is an eulogy upon the word of God, and a declaration of the love which David bare towards it. And, whilst we apprehend that every distinct sentence was put down as it occurred to the Psalmist’s mind, without any particular dependence on its context, we suppose that, in the arrangement of some parts, there may have been a design in placing some observations so as to confirm or enforce others which had preceded them. In the 18th verse, David had said, “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy Law:” and in the two following verses, as they stand, he may be considered as enforcing that petition; first, by the consideration of the shortness of his continuance here; and, then, by the exceeding greatness of his wish to obtain the desired blessing: “I am a stranger in the earth: hide not thy commandments from me. My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto thy judgments at all times.” Now, this expression being so exceeding strong, I will take occasion from it to point out,
I. The intensity of his desire after the word of God—
Often does he say that he has “longed” for God’s word [Note: ver. 40, 131, 174.]; but here he says, “My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath.” To enter into the force of this expression, let us compare his desire after God’s word with the desire felt by others in cases of extreme emergency.
Let us compare it with the desire of,
1. A hunted deer—
[Let us conceive of a deer that has for many hours been fleeing from its pursuers, till its strength is altogether exhausted, and it is ready to faint with fatigue. Let us suppose that its fears are raised to the uttermost, by the rapid advance of its enemies, ready to seize and tear it in pieces. How intense must be its thirst! How gladly would it pause a few moments at a water-brook, to revive its parched frame, and to renovate its strength for further flight! Of this we may form some conception: and it may serve in a measure to convey to us an idea of David’s thirst after the judgments of his God. “O God,” says he, “thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee; my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is [Note: Psa_63:1.].” “My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth, for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God [Note: Psa_84:2.].” “As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my meat day and night; while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God [Note: Psa_42:1-3.]”?]
2. An endangered mariner—
[Mariners for the most part are men of great intrepidity: but when ready to be overwhelmed in the tempestuous ocean, they sink like other men. “When God commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves of the sea, the mariners mount up to the heaven; they go down again to the depths; their soul is melted because of the trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit’s end [Note: Psa_107:25-27.].” Such is the description given of them by God himself. But let us take an instance upon record. When Paul was “sailing by Crete, there arose a tempestuous wind, called Euroclydon;” and the ship becoming unmanageable, “they let her drive;” and “fearing they should fall into the quicksands, they strake sail, and so were driven.” “Being exceedingly tossed with the tempest, they lightened the ship, casting out with their own hands the very tackling” which they had stowed up for the management of the ship. In this perilous condition they continued a whole fortnight, not having taken during all that time so much as one regular meal. St. Paul, in the immediate prospect of having the ship dashed to pieces, and no hope remaining to any of them of safety unless on broken pieces of the ship, said to them, “This is the fourteenth day that ye have tarried and continued fasting, having taken nothing: wherefore I pray you to take some meat; for this is for your health;” he administered to them some bread, and then “cast into the sea the very wheat” with which the ship was provisioned; and soon “the ship ran aground, and was broken in pieces by the violence of the waves [Note: Act_27:14-41.].” How must all this crew have longed for safety! How must their “soul have broken for the longing which they had” to escape from their peril! Yet not even this exceeded the desire which David had for the word of God.]
3. A deserted soul—
[This will come nearer to the point. The feelings of a hunted deer or an endangered mariner are merely natural: but those of a deserted soul are spiritual, and therefore more suited to illustrate those which David speaks of in our text. See the state of a deserted soul in Job: “O that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together! for now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea; therefore my words are swallowed up. For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me [Note: Job_6:2-4.].” Or take the case recorded in the 88th Psalm: “Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Mine eye mourneth by reason of affliction. Lord, I have called daily upon thee; I have stretched out my hands unto thee. Lord, why casteth thou off my soul? Why hidest thou thy face from me? I am afflicted, and ready to die from my youth up: while I suffer thy terrors, I am distracted. Thy fierce wrath goeth over me; thy terrors have cut me off [Note: Psa_88:6-7; Psa_88:9; Psa_88:14-16.].” Here we see what is meant by the soul breaking for the longing that it hath after God. And there is in this psalm another verse, which, to one who has ever felt what it is to have an overwhelming desire after God, will convey the true import of my text: “I opened my mouth and panted: for I longed for thy commandments [Note: ver. 131. This is sadly weakened by Commentators, who interpret it as referring to a person running or oppressed with heat. The sigh of one overwhelmed with a desire after God, expresses the very thing.].”
Nor was this a sudden emotion on some extraordinary occasion: no; it was the constant habit of David’s mind: it was what he felt “at all times:” “My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto thy judgments at all times.”]
I am aware that this may appear extravagant. But we must remember that this expression was not a poetic fiction, but an argument solemnly addressed to the heart-searching God. And that it was not stronger than the occasion called for, will appear whilst I shew you,
II. The reason of his so longing for God’s blessed word—
The reasons that might be assigned are numberless. But I will confine myself to three. He so longed for God’s word, because,
1. In it he found God himself—
[In the works of creation somewhat of God may be discerned; but it is in his word alone that all his perfections are displayed, and all his eternal counsels are made known. In this respect, “God has magnified his word above all his name,” and all the means whereby he has made himself known to men [Note: Psa_138:2.]. There he met Jehovah, as Adam met him, amidst the trees of the garden in Paradise. There “he walked with God, and conversed with him as a friend.” There he had such “fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ,” and such “communion with the Holy Ghost,” as he could never find in any other field, nor ever attain but by meditation on the word of God. Can we, then, wonder that he so longed for that word, and that his very soul brake for the longing that he had for it? The wonder rather is, that there should be a person upon earth who could have access to that sacred volume, and not so value it — — —]
2. From it he obtained all that his necessities required—
[Did he desire the forgiveness of all his sins? There he found “a fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness,” a fountain capable of washing him from all the guilt he had contracted in the matter of Bathsheba and Uriah. In reference to those very transactions, and to the efficacy of the atoning blood of Christ, he cries, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow [Note: Psa_51:7.].” Did he need direction in difficulty, support in trouble, and strength for an unreserved obedience? There he found it all, and from thence derived it in the very hour of need, to the full extent of his necessities. Such were the refreshments which he found there, that corn and wine and oil, and all the delicacies of the universe, could but faintly shadow forth: and thence he derived such treasures as were absolutely unsearchable. Can we wonder, then, that the word of God was, in his estimation, sweeter than honey and the honey-comb, and infinitely more precious than the finest gold [Note: Psa_19:10.]?]
3. By it he gained a foretaste of heaven itself—
[The word was to him as Jacob’s ladder, by which he held intercourse with heaven itself. By it he ascended to Mount Pisgah, and surveyed the Promised Land in all its length and breadth. In it he beheld his Saviour, as it were, transfigured before his eyes, yea, and seated on his throne of glory, surrounded by myriads of saints and angels; yea, and beheld the very throne reserved for himself, and the crown of glory prepared for him, and the golden harp already tuned for him to bear his part amongst the heavenly choir.
I forbear to speak more on this subject; because, if what I have already spoken do not justify the language of my text, nothing that I can add can be of any weight. Only let any person read this psalm, in which no less than one hundred and seventy-six times the excellency of the sacred volume is set forth in every variety of expression that David could invent; and he will see, that the language of my text was no other than what every child of man should both feel and utter.]
But from all this, who does not see—
1. That religion is not a mere form, but a reality?
[Religion, if it be genuine, occupies, not the head, but the heart and soul, every faculty of which it controls and regulates. Religion is in the soul, what the soul is in the body — — — O that we all felt it so! But indeed, Brethren, so it is; and so it must be, if ever we would enjoy the benefits it is intended to convey — — —]
2. That we all have very abundant occasion for shame in a review both of our past and present state?
[We are not, like the unhappy papists, debarred from God’s blessed word. The very least and meanest amongst us has free access to it, and may read it for himself; yea, and derive still greater advantage from it than ever David himself reaped; by reason of the rich additions which have been made to it since his day, and the fuller discovery it gives us of God’s mind and will. Yet how many of us read it not at all, or only in a formal cursory manner, without any such feeling as that which is expressed in my text! My dear Brethren, we suffer loss, exceeding great loss, by our negligence in this respect. Did we but read the word, and meditate on it day and night, and pray over it, and converse with God by it, what might we not obtain, and what might we not enjoy? Well—I leave it, with “commending you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified [Note: Act_20:32.].” Certain I am that “it is profitable for all that your souls can desire;” and that if you improve it aright, it shall render you perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works [Note: 2Ti_3:17.],” and shall “make you wise unto salvation through faith that is in Christ Jesus [Note: 2Ti_3:15.].”]