1. It will be well to remember that this psalm was sung at the Passover,
and therefore it bears relationship to the deliverance from Egypt. The burden
of it seems to be a prayer that the living God, who had been so glorious at the
Red Sea and at the Jordan, should again for his own name’s sake display the
wonders of his power. Not unto us, O Lord,but unto thy name give the glory. The people undoubtedly wished for relief
from the contemptuous insults of idolaters, but their main desire was that
Jehovah himself should no longer be the object of heathen insults. The saddest
part of all their trouble was that their God was no longer feared and dreaded
by their adversaries. When Israel marched into Canaan, a terror was upon all
the people round about, because of Jehovah, the mighty God; but this dread the
nations had shaken off since there had been of late no remarkable display of
miraculous power. Therefore Israel cried unto her God that he would again make
bare his arm as in the day when he cut Rahab and wounded the dragon. The prayer
is evidently tinctured with a consciousness of unworthiness; because of their
past unfaithfulness they hardly dared to appeal to the covenant, and to ask
blessings for themselves, but they fell back upon the honor of the Lord their God—an
old style of argument which their great lawgiver, Moses, had used with such
effect when he pleaded, “Wherefore
should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to
slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth?
Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people.” Joshua also used the like argument when he said, “What wilt thou do unto thy great name?” In such manner also let us pray when no other plea is available
because of our sense of sin; for the Lord is always jealous of his honor, and
will work for his name’s sake when no other motive will move him.
The
repetition of the words Not unto us would seem to indicate a very
serious desire to renounce any glory which they might at any time have proudly
appropriated to themselves, and it also sets forth the vehemence of their wish
that God would at any cost to them magnify his own name. They loathed the idea
of seeking their own glory, and rejected the thought with the utmost detestation,
again and again disclaiming any self-glorifying motive in their supplications. For thy mercy, and for thy truth’s sake. These attributes seemed most in
jeopardy. How could the heathen think Jehovah to be a merciful God if he gave
his people over to the hands of their enemies? How could they believe him to be
faithful and true if, after all his solemn covenant engagements, he utterly
rejected his chosen nation? God is very jealous of the two glorious attributes
of grace and truth, and the plea that these may not be dishonored has great
weight with him. In these times, when the first victories of the Gospel are
only remembered as histories of a dim and distant past, skeptics are apt to
boast that the Gospel has lost its youthful strength, and they even presume to
cast a slur upon the name of God himself. We may therefore rightly entreat the
divine interposition that the apparent blot may be removed from his escutcheon,
and that his own word may shine forth gloriously as in the days of old. We may
not desire the triumph of our opinions, for our own sakes, or for the honor of
a sect, but we may confidently pray for the triumph of truth, that God himself
may be honored.
PREVIOUS
NEXT
No comments:
Post a Comment