II Chronicles 7.14 says, ' If My people who are called by My name will HUMBLE THEMSELVES and PRAY and SEEK MY FACE and TURN FROM THEIR WICKED WAYS, then will I HEAR FROM HEAVEN and will FORGIVE THEIR SIN and will HEAL THEIR LAND.'
It appears that at this time we, as a nation are about to experience or have already begun to experience the Word in Psalm 9.17 - The wicked shall be cast headlong into hell and every nation that forgets God'.
*145 Psalm 11 - Subject - Charles Simeon gives an excellent summary of this psalm in the following sentences: -'The Psalms are a rich repository of experimental knowledge. David, at the different periods of his life, was placed in almost every situation in which a believer, whether rich or poor, can be placed; in these heavenly compositions he delineates all the workings of the heart. he introduces, too, the sentiments and conduct of the various persons who were accessory either to his troubles or his joys; and thus sets before us a compendium of all that is passing in the hearts of men throughout the world. when he penned this Psalm he was under persecution from Saul, who sought his life, and hunted him 'as a partridge upon the mountains'. his timid friends were alarmed for his safety and recommended him to flee to some mountain where he had a hiding-place and thus to conceal himself from the rage of Saul. but David, being strong in faith, spurned the idea of resorting to any such pusillanimous (def -lacking courage or resolution; cowardly) expedients, and determined confidently to repose his trust in God'.
To assist us to remember this short, but sweet psalm, we will give it the name of 'The Song Of The Stedfast'.
Division - From 1 to 3, David describes the temptation with which he was assailed and from 4 to 7, the arguments by which his courage was sustained.
In the Lord put I my trust:
v1 - how say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain?
v2 - for, lo, the wicked bend Their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart.
v3 - IF THE FOUNDATIONS BE DESTROYED, WHAT CAN THE RIGHTEOUS DO?
These verses contain an account of a temptation to distrust God, with which David was, upon some unmentioned occasion, greatly exercised. It may be, that in the days when he was in Saul's court, he was advised to flee at a time when this flight would have been charged against him as a breach of duty to the king, or a proof of personal cowardice. his case was like that of Nehemiah, when his enemies, under the garb of friendship. hoped to entrap him by advising him to escape for his life. had he done so, they could then have found a ground of accusation. Nehemiah bravely replied, 'Shall such a man as I flee?;; and David, in a like spirit, refuses to retreat, exclaiming, 'In the Lord put I my trust: how say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain?' When Satan cannot overthrow us by presumption, how craftily will he seek to ruin us by distrust! He will employ our dearest friends to argue us out of our confidence and he will use such plausible logic, that unless we once for all assert our immovable trust in Jehovah, He will make us like the timid bird with flies to the mountain whenever danger presents itself. how forcibly the case is put! the bow is bent, the arrow is fitted to the string: 'Flee, flee, thou defenceless bird, they safety lies in flight; begone, for thine enemies will send their shafts into thy heart; haste, haste, for soon wilt thou be destroyed!' David seems to have felt the force of the advice, for it came home to His Soul' but yet he would not yield, but would rather dare the danger than exhibit a distrust in the Lord his God. doubtless, the perils which encompassed David were great and imminent; it was quite true that his enemies were Ready to Shoot Privily at him; it was equally correct that the very Foundations of law and justice were Destroyed under Saul's unrighteous government: but what were all these things to the man whose trust was in God alone? He could brave the dangers, could escape the enemies and defy the injustice which surrounded him. his answer to the question, 'what can the righteous do? would be
*146 the counter-question, 'What cannot they do?' when prayer engages God on our side and when faith secures the fulfillment of the promise, what cause can there be for flight, however cruel and mighty our enemies? with a sling and a stone, David had smitten a giant before whom the whole hosts of Israel were trembling and the Lord, who delivered him from the uncircumcised Philistine, could surely deliver him from King Saul and his myrmidons. (def - one of the warlike people form ancient Thessaly who accompanied Achillies to the Trojan War.) there is no such word as 'impossibility' in the language of faith; that martial grace knows how to fight and conquer, but she knows not how to flee.
*148 Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings...
*152 vs 3 'If.' it is the only word of comfort in the text, that what is said is not positive, but suppositive; not thetical, but hypothetical. and yet this is quickly sadded with a double consideration. first, impossible suppositions produce impossible consequences, 'As is the mother, so is the daughter'. therefore, surely God's holy Spirit would not suppose such a thing but what was feasible and possible, but what either had, did, or might come to pass. Secondly, the Hebrew word is not the conditional im, si, si forte, but chi, quia, quoniam, because , and (although here it be favourably rendered if), seemeth to import, more therein, that the sad case had already happened in David's days. I see, therefore, that this if, our only hope in the text, is likely to prove with Job's friends, but a miserable comforter. well, it is good to know the worst of things, that we may provide ourselves accordingly; and therefore let us behold this doleful case, not as doubtful, but as done; not as feared, but felt; not as suspected, but at this time really come to pass. Thomas Fuller.
vs 3 -'If the foundations,' etc. the civil foundation of a nation or people, is their laws and constitutions. the order and power that's among them. that's the foundation of a people, and when once this foundation is destroyed, 'What can the righteous do? what can the best, the wisest in the world, do in such a case? what can any man do, if there be not a foundation of government left among men? there is no help nor answer in such a case but that which follows in the fourth verse of the psalm, 'The Lord is in His holy temple, the Lord's throne is in heaven: His eyes behold, His eyelids try the children of men' as if he had said, in the midst of these confusions, when as it is said (Psalm 82.5), 'All the foundations of the earth are out of course', yet God keeps His course still, He is where He was and as He was, without variableness or shadow of turning. Joseph Caryl
vs 3 - 'The righteous'. the righteous indefinitely, equivalent to the righteous universally; not only the righteous as a single arrow, but in the whole sheaf; not only the righteous as a single arrow, but in the whole sheaf; not only the righteous in their personal, but in their diffusive (def - diffuse - tending to widely, loosely spread) capacity. were they all collected into one body, were all the righteous living in the same age wherein the Foundations Are Destroyed, summoned up and modeled into one corporation, all their joint endeavours would prove ineffectual to the re-establishing of the fallen Foundations, as not being man's work, but only god's work to perform - Thomas Fuller
vs 3 'the foundations'. Positions the things formerly fixed, placed and settled. it is not said, if the roof be ruinous, or if the side walls be shattered, but if the Foundations.
vs 3 'Foundations be destroyed'. in the plural. here I will not warrant my skill in architecture, but conceiver this may pass for an undoubted truth: it is possible that a building settled on several entire Foundations suppose them Pillars) close one to another, if one of them fall, yet the structure may still stand or rather hand (at the least for a short time) by virtue of the Complicative, which it receiveth from such foundations which still stand secure . but in case there be a total rout and an utter ruin of all the Foundations, none can fancy themselves a possibility of that building's subsistence. -Thomas Fuller
vs 3 'What CAN The Righteous?' the Can of the righteous is a limited Can, confined to the rule of God's word; they can do nothing, but what they Can lawfully do. II Cor. 13.8 'For we Dan do nothing against the truth, but for the truth' Wicked men can do anything; their conscience, which is so wide that it is none at all, will bear them out to act anything how unlawful soever, to stab, poison, massacre, by any
*154 means, at any time, in any place, whosoever standeth betwixt them and thee effecting their desires. not so the righteous; they have a rule whereby to walk which they will not, they must not, they dare not, cross. if therefore a righteous man were assured, that by the breach of one of god's commandments he might restore decayed religion and re-settle it ...his hands, head, and heart are tied up, he Can do nothing, because Their Damnation Is Just Who Say (Rom. 3.8), 'Let us do evil that good may come thereof'.
vs 3 'Do' it is not said, What can they think? it is a great blessing which God hath allowed injured people, that though otherwise oppressed and straitened, they may freely enlarge themselves in their thoughts. Thomas Fuller.
v3 sinning times have ever been the saints' praying times: this sent Ezra with a heavy heart to confess the sin of His people and to bewail their abominations before the Lord. Ezra 9. and Jeremiah tells the wicked of his degenerate age, that 'his soul should weep in secret places for their pride'. Jer 13.17. Indeed, sometimes sin comes to such a height, that this is almost all the godly can do, to get into a corner and bewail the general pollutions of the age. 'If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?' such dismal days of national confusion our eyes have seen, when foundations of government were destroyed and all hurled into military confusion. when it is thus with a people, What can the righteous do? Wes, this they may and should do, 'fast and pray'. there is yet a God, in heaven to be sought to, when a people's deliverance is thrown beyond the help of human policy or power. now is the fit time to make their appeal to God, as the words following hint: 'The Lord is in His holy temple, the Lord's throne is in heaven'; in which words god is presented sitting in heaven as a temple, for their encouragement, I conceive, in such a desperate state of affairs, to direct their prayers thither for deliverance. and certainly this hath been the engine that hath been instrumental, above any, to restore this poor nation again and set it upon the foundation of that lawful government from which it had so dangerously departed - William Gurnall.
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