21. Thou hast rebuked the proud that are cursed. This is one of God’s judgments: he is sure to deal out a terrible portion to people of lofty looks. Nobody blesses the proud, and they soon become a burden to themselves. In itself, pride is a plague and torment. Even if no curse came from the law of God, there seems to be a law of nature that the proud should be unhappy. This led David to abhor pride; he dreaded the rebuke of God and the curse of the law. The proud sinners of his day were his enemies, and he felt happy that God was in the quarrel as well as he.
Which do err from thy commandments. Only humble hearts are obedient, for they alone will yield to rule and government.The looks of the proud are too high to mark their own feet and keep the Lord’s way. Pride lies at the root of all sin. God rebukes pride even when the multitudes pay homage to it, for he sees in it rebellion against his own majesty, and the seeds of yet further rebellions. People talk of an honest pride; but if they were candid they would see that it is of all sins the least honest, and the least becoming in a creature, and especially in a fallen creature: yet so little of the proud know their own true condition that they censure the godly, and express contempt for them, as may be seen in the next verse. We may well be of good comfort under the rebukes of the ungodly since their power to hurt us is destroyed by the Lord himself.
In the fifth of the former octave the psalmist wrote, “I have desired all the judgments of thy mouth,” and here he continues in the same strain, giving a particular instance of the Lord’s judgments against haughty rebels. In the next two portions the fifth verses deal with lying and vanity, and pride is one of the most common forms of those evils.
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