By J.G. Bellet
Psalm 27
Still another utterance of the same suppliant in the same condition. But there is more desire after the house of God, longing for the ark and habitation of the Lord; and thus an advance still in the experience and liberty of the soul may be observed in this Psalm, as in the preceding.
This Psalm may have been the breathing of our blessed Lord while He was standing silent before Caiaphas. (Matt. 26: 63) False witnesses were then rising up against Him; but those who came to eat up His flesh had already fallen. (See Matt. 26: 59; John 18: 6) At that moment also He anticipated His glory. (See v. 6; Matt. 26: 64) And we know that in those trying sufferings He was sustained by hope. (See v. 13; Heb. 12: 2)
The strong and abrupt change in the current of the soul at verse 7 is easily understood by the Lord's history. it is just what might be looked for, as He passed from witnessing the divine favour expressed in the garden, to become the captive of the wicked. (John 18: 6, 12)
But I am quite prepared to refuse the suggestion which has long been made by some who have exercised their thoughts (and that too in a spirit of reverence) over the Psalms, that if the Lord be seen or heard in one verse of a Psalm, the whole of it must be received as belonging to Him. The word of the Lord to David by Nathan in 1 Chr. 17 would be witness against this; for there the words "I will be His Father, and He shall be my Son" are applied to the Lord Jesus (Heb. 1: 5), while at the same time we may most fully assure ourselves that the whole of that divine oracle could not be so applied to Him.
In the last verse Jesus as it were delivers a word of exhortation to His saints, as the fruit of His own experience, as I may say He does at the close of Isaiah 50, and still more surely at the close of Matthew 11; and I may add that we see one of His saints very much with Him in the spirit that animates Him here; for here we find confidence, though in the midst of the din of war and trouble, just because the heart was set upon one thing--desire to dwell in the house of the Lord. And "the same spirit of faith" is found in St. Paul when he says, "Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord . . . . . We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." (2 Cor. 5)
And the apostle himself, under the Holy Ghost, traces another kindred mind between him and his Lord in the chapter that precedes this. (See 2 Cor. 4: 13, and Ps. 116: 10)
Psalm 28
The cry of a soul that was beginning to taste the bitterness of desertion--of God's being "silent" to him. There was something of the touch of the fear of death felt here, and the cry came forth (1-5).
The answer of God to all this is then anticipated with praise, and suited intercession, embracing all God's people, as well as the suppliant himself (6-9).
I observe that the wicked are looked at here very much as the Lord looks at the unbelieving cities, i.e., as not moved by the works of the Lord. (Matt. 11: 20. See v. 5)
It is interesting to notice here that the Remnant, the godly election in Israel, are so differently treated by the Lord from the unbelieving nation. Jesus was "silent" to them. (Mark 14: 60, 61) That was judgment. Here the Lord answers the godly.
Psalm 29
This is a celebration of the power of "the voice of the Lord," who is also "the God of glory." (See v. 3) And the last verses give us to see the repose and to hear the joys of the faithful, while this power is passing by for the destruction of the ungodly. Like Noah in the Ark while the waters were spreading, or Lot in Zoar while the fire was poured down on Sodom, or Israel within their paschal doors, while the angel went through Egypt with the sword, so in their closets by and by the Remnant will rest (Isa. 26: 20), and have a song also, while the decreed vengeance takes its course (Isa. 30: 32), not a hair perishing.
The true Israel appear here, though in the midst of tumult, in all the calmness of a people who have made the Lord their sanctuary, unalarmed by confederated foes, because they can say, "God is with us" (Isa. 8), and strength and peace are promised to them.
At the opening of this glowing Psalm the mighty ones themselves are challenged to acknowledge Jehovah--as the kings of the earth are called to "kiss the Son"--ere it be too late. After this, in Psalm 82, these mighty ones, now convicted in full apostasy, are summoned to hear their doom, and listen to the sentence of righteousness against them.
Psalm 30
This may be read as the praise of the risen Jesus celebrating Him who has now redeemed Him from death. He calls on the saints, as it were, to help Him in this praise, and He rehearses something of His experience, and of His cry, when under the fear of death (Heb. 5: 7), and then resumes His praise, showing that the resurrection had unsealed His lips or awakened His glory. (See also Psalm 116)
But the resurrection of the Lord is in one character of it a pledge of the coming deliverance of His Israel, and thus of the resurrection of the nation. This is to be remembered when reading this Psalm.
NOTE.--Connection may be discovered between Psalms 28, 29, and 30. Psalm 28--The godly cry to be delivered from death, or the power of the pit. Psalm 29--The Lord answers, as with an earthquake, delivering the prisoner. (Matt. 28: 2; Rev. 6, 11, 16; see also Ps. 18: 7) Psalm 30--The delivered one owns this with praise--that as God had now broken His silence with such a voice of power, so would His ransomed break theirs with a voice of praise. (Compare Ps. 28: 1, with Ps. 30: 12)
