By J.G. Bellet
Psalm 6
This is another meditation by night. (See v. 6) But it is of deeper sorrow than the fifth. It was mystically midnight, and in it the same one pleads to be delivered from the grave. And He pleads against the power of death on the ground that, if death close the scene, God will be forgotten; for He is not the God of the dead. (See Isa. 38)
But there is an anticipation of the same deliverance and victory as in the fifth. All these Psalms strongly intimate that the godly man who is heard in them is living in the last days of Israel's sorrow, and on the eve of deliverance and the kingdom. And in spirit Jesus was in those days.
Psalm 7
In the progress of this mystic season, we now in this Psalm reach the dawn. Accordingly Jehovah is called to arise and awake (v. 6), as though it were time for Him to set to His hand for the deliverance of His righteous persecuted ones. It is still the breathing of the Spirit of Jesus, but (as in each of these) in company with His remnant in the latter day.
But here, as the day approaches, He still more largely and more gloriously anticipates the destruction of the great enemy--his falling into the ditch that he made for others; which event, like the dawn, is the harbinger of the day, for it shall be followed by the gathering of the congregation around the Lord, as is here looked for.
Psalm 8
This Psalm closes this mystic season; for now we reach the second morning--the eighth or resurrection day--the opening of the kingdom or "the day of the Lord." It needs no commentary to show or prove this. (See Heb. 2) This is the morning anticipated by Jesus or by the godly one at His rising up from sleep in Ps. 3. It is the praise which had been just previously vowed (see Ps. 7: 17); the wicked having now come to an end, and the congregation having been gathered.
The Lord quotes it in reference to the hosannas* which welcomed Him on His royal visitation to Jerusalem. (Matt. 21: 16) For those hosannas were, in spirit or in principle, the praises of the kingdom, as this Psalm is. And creation joins the chorus.
In Ps. 2 we saw the royalty of Messiah, Son of David, Son of God; here we see the lordship of the Son of man, His dominion over the works of God. All these His glories will be realized and displayed in millennial days.
NOTE.--According to this we might pause here, and read Psalms 3-8 in connection, leading the worshipper, in spirit, into the kingdom. And others have observed that our history every twenty-four hours (the period passed thus in these Psalms) is in like manner a kind of mystery. For after spending the day, at night we lay aside our clothes and enter into sleep, the emblem of death, and there abide (with visions in the spirit) till the morning wakes us, and then we are clothed again, as we shall be in the second morning, or the morning of the resurrection and glory.
NOTE.--I must add another short notice. 1 Cor. 15: 27, 28, illustrates the way in which ulterior scriptures enlarge upon, without disturbing, preceding scriptures. The Apostle establishes every syllable of the Psalmist, giving Christ dominion according to Psalm 8. But Lit then he goes onward. For the Psalmist had left, as well as put, the universal lordship or kingdom in Christ's hand; but the Apostle, reasoning upon the force of the Psalmist's words, is instructed by the same Spirit to reveal a scene of glory which lay beyond the kingdom thus left by the Psalmist in the hand of Christ.
Psalm 9
This Psalm manifests itself very clearly. It is Messiah leading the praise of His righteous people in the latter day for the Lord's destruction of their great enemy, and the consequent anticipated enthronement of Messiah in Zion. There is also a fine insultation over the enemy now thus fallen, kindred with that which the Spirit of Christ breathes in the prophet Isaiah over the king of Babylon (Isa. 14), and a recital of the cry of the afflicted ones in the day of their calamity.
The world is also declared as learning righteousness from God's judgments in the latter day (verse 16), as in Isa. 26: 9. And the nature of those judgments also--the taking of the wicked in their own snare, as in Ps. 7: 10, Ps. 35, Ps. 57, Ps. 94, Ps. 109, Ps. 112. Haman's destruction is the type of this (Esther 7, 10); and the cross is gloriously the illustration of the same, for there by death he that had the power of death was destroyed.
The falling and perishing of the enemy at the presence of God (v. 5) is strikingly illustrated in scripture, in days of divine visitation or judgment. (See Psalm 94; Ex. 14: 24, 25; John 18: 6) Here it is anticipated in the doom and downfall of the great infidel or antichristian enemy of the last day. (See Rev. 19) How awfully will the nations then learn themselves to be "but men" (ver. 20), though they had been drinking in and practising the old lie of the serpent, "ye shall be as gods."
Psalm 10
This Psalm must be read in connection with the ninth. The cry of the Remnant is given more largely, and the iniquity of the enemy more fully detailed.
The answer to the cry, and then the establishment of the kingdom, is beautifully anticipated at the close.
Atheistic pride--man becoming his own god--man learning no lessons of God, either in grace or judgment, and the persecution of the righteous, strongly give character to this last form of evil. And then some marks are set upon the great enemy of the last days, in all parts of scripture, wherever he is glanced at or anticipated, prophetically or typically.
NOTE.--In the Septuagint Psalms 9, 10 are but one. Consequently from Psalm 10 to Psalm 147 the number of the Psalm in the Septuagint is one less than in the authorized English version. In Psalm 147 the number became the same again, because that Psalm becomes two in the Septuagint.
