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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Calvin Complete Commentary - Psalms 130:1 - 130:1
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1.Out of the deep places have I cried to thee, O Jehovah! It is to be noticed that the Prophet speaks of himself as sending forth his voice, as it were from out of a deep gulf, (118) feeling himself overwhelmed with calamities. As the miseries to which there is no prospect of a termination commonly bring despair in their train, nothing is more difficult than for persons, when involved in grievous and deep sorrow, to stir up their minds to the exercise of prayer. And it is wonderful, considering that whilst we enjoy peace and prosperity we are cold in prayer, because then our hearts are in a state of infatuated security, how in adversities, which ought to quicken us, we are still more stupefied. But the Prophet derives confidence in coming to the throne of grace from the very troubles, cares, dangers and sorrow into which he was plunged. He expresses his perplexity and the earnestness of his desire both by the word cry, and by the repetition continued in the second verse. So much the more detestable then is the barbarous ignorance of the Papist’ in shamefully profaning this Psalm by wresting it to a purpose wholly foreign to its genuine application. To what intent do they mumble it over for the dead, if it is not that, in consequence of Satan having bewitched them, they may by their profanity extinguish a doctrine of singular utility? From the time that this Psalm was, by a forced interpretation, applied to the souls of the dead, it is very generally believed to be of no use whatever to the living, and thus the world has lost an inestimable treasure.
(118) The depths or deep gulfs are used in Scripture as an emblem of extreme danger or calamity, whether of body or of mind. See Psa_69:2. “ Papists, taking the deep as a type of purgatory, recite this Psalm in the persons of those who have died in their communion.” —Cresswell. To this Calvin afterwards adverts.