By J.G. Bellet
Psalm 31
This Psalm is still the utterance of the Lord in resurrection. He recites His cry in the day when He was appointed for the slaughter, as He stood before Pilate and was borne thence to the accursed tree--when He committed His Spirit to the Father (v. 5; Luke 23: 46). In v. 10, we must read "distress" instead of "iniquity."
He was then deserted by all: slander, fear, and reproach were on every side; His eye, His soul, and His body were consumed, and He was treated as one already dead, cast aside as a broken vessel. As another expresses it, "I doubt whether Christ speaks personally" in v. 17, 18. For He was not dealing with His enemies in judgment, but in grace, when He was here. He did, however, commit Himself to Him who judged righteously. (1 Peter 2: 23)
But in the deadest hour of that horrible night He calls to mind how He had trusted in God and remembered His former mercies. And from v. 19 to the end, it is no longer the recital of His cry in the hours of Pilate and Calvary, but the utterance of joy and praise for present resurrection. He had now exchanged the grave and dust of death for the power of God in resurrection. And now also He remembers the loving-kindness of the Lord shown Him in "the strong city," the place of the confederates, out of which He had been delivered, but into which He will by and by go again, not however as a captive, but as an avenger. (See Ps. 60, Ps. 108)
How suddenly and vigorously does a fresh current of affections set in at v. 19, and continue to the end! Is not this still ofttimes the experience of tried saints?
And on the ground of His resurrection, He calls on all the saints to love the Lord and be of good courage, drawing a word of exhortation for them (as is common with Him) from His own experience. (See Ps. 27, Ps. 34) But I still would speak of the resurrection of the Lord as the pledge of that of Israel, as I have just done in the preceding Psalm, and this is to be remembered here.
Psalm 32
This Psalm is one of great value to the soul. A pardoned sinner rehearses his experience; and in this form the most precious truth is conveyed. It maybe called the utterance of a sinner in present spiritual resurrection, as the preceding had been of Jesus in actual resurrection. The sinner celebrates the blessedness of his deliverance from the pit, from the guilt of sin, and from the power of an unhumbled, guileful heart. Even the temptation to be guileful is gone--the motive of secrecy is removed. "Pride," as one has said, "heretofore the guardian of the evil arcana of the soul, is expelled from his trust, and made to leave all things open to scrutiny. The time is the time of inquiry and judgment; and the result is that peace and confidence, that stillness of the spirit, which is never enjoyed until the heart of man has dealt righteously with itself." This is what we get here--the fruit of the spirit of confession, and the application to the conscience by faith of the value and the blood of Jesus. The joy and confidence of such a risen soul are set forth. The voice of the Lord is then heard for a moment, breaking in with a rich promise; and at the close, this risen sinner addresses words of admonition to others, as in the preceding Psalm the risen Jesus closed by doing the same.
This is the suited experience or utterance of every pardoned soul, and was, no doubt, eminently that of David. Great value is given to it in Romans 4. Every one that is "godly" (v. 6), whose religion is according to God, finds his confidence springing from the truth or doctrine conveyed by this experience of David.
And Nathanael's "guilelessness" was the guilelessness of this Psalm, I believe, and not of mere natural disposition. (John 1: 47) He had been under the fig-tree in the spirit of this Psalm, as a convicted one, pouring out his heart, and that had freed his spirit from guile; for here we learn that a confessing spirit is a guileless spirit. The Lord, on seeing him, owns him in this character, and Nathanael does not refuse the salutation. Jesus had been in the secret of his soul while under the tree (as he was in the secret of Zacchaeus's soul in the sycamore), and they meet together, as the Lord and the suppliant meet in this very blessed Psalm.
He will thus be met still. He knew this guileless Israelite without Philip's introduction; and Jesus still, in spirit, converses with the burdened soul that would pour out its convictions in the solitary place, or under the distant shade (as of yonder fig-tree) to which conscience has separated it.
Psalm 33
The closing words of the previous Psalm are here at the very beginning taken up. This in measure connects them, and invites us to read this in continuation of that.
The righteous being commanded to rejoice in the Lord, the great moral purpose of this Psalm is, to give such views of the Lord as may constrain to rejoice--to show Him as such an One, that it may be said, "Blessed is the nation whose God" He is. For it will not do merely to be commanded to love or rejoice, but the object suited to these affections must be presented--as here. O that our hearts could entertain it willingly!
We may read the free, discursive musings of the soul in this Psalm, as a sweet sample of that moral ability which a consciously accepted sinner has, to range in thought over the words and works and counsels, the grace and glory of God, and all like things.
Prophetically, this seems to be the joy of the Jewish nation having Jehovah for their God again, after they have witnessed the discomfiture of the heathen, and the second settlement of the world. This would, therefore, lead us to see that the Remnant are "the righteous."
But all this joy is only anticipated; for from verse 12 to the end, it appears that the nation was still only hoping for all this, and that the course of the present evil world was still going on. But they close with an expression of great confidence, that this resurrection-state of the nation would indeed be accomplished in God's good time.
Psalm 34
This is another utterance in spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ after His resurrection.
He praises God for this deliverance (1, 2). He calls on His saints to join Him in this (3-7). He exhorts them to trust in God because of this; and to assure themselves, on the ground of His resurrection, that the Lord indeed is gracious. (8- 10; see v. 8; and 1 Peter 3)
We know that verse 20 was fulfilled in the person of the Lord Jesus. (See John 19: 36)
He then gathers the family around Him to read them as it were the lessons which, as in resurrection, He was by experience abundantly competent to teach them. He tells them how to walk through life so as to escape many of its sorrows; but that if troubles do come (as they will) even because of their uprightness, they may, as by His example, being now raised from the dead, assure themselves of final deliverance, and that no real damage will ever be sustained by them; but that rather their redeemer shall be their avenger also, destroying those who hate them.
Thus Jesus by His resurrection comforts and instructs His saints or disciples. He shares with them (as everything else) the profit of His own experience. (See vv. 12-15, and 1 Peter 3)
And this is His mind in Matt. 11: 29, 30--"Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls; for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." By this telling them what He Himself had already proved, that the path of a meek and lowly heart led the soul unto much rest, making the yoke easy and the burden light. And who of us, beloved, do not prove this?
I might add, suggested by verse 6, how eminently was the Lord Jesus, though "rich in glory" (see Phil. 4: 19), "the poor man," as again called in Psalm 35: 10, and Psalm 41: 1. We know Him thus in the Evangelists, blessed be His name!
