51. The proud have had me greatly in derision. The proud never love gracious people, and as long as they fear them they veil their fear under a pretended contempt. In this case their hatred revealed itself in ridicule loud and long. They made sport of David because he was God’s servant. People who are short of wit can generally provoke a broad grin by jesting at a saint. Conceited sinners make footballs of the godly; hatred of sin sets their tongues wagging at long-faced puritanism and strait-laced hypocrisy. If David was greatly derided, we may not expect to escape the scorn of the ungodly. It is the nature of the son of the bondwoman to mock the child of the promise.
Yet have I not declined from thy law. The deriders laughed, but they did not win. The godly man, so far from turning aside from the right way, did not even slacken his pace, or in any sense fall off from his holy habits. Many would have declined, many have declined, but David did not do so. It is paying too much honor to fools to yield half a point to them. Their unhallowed mirth will not harm us if we pay no attention to it.
From verse 61 we note that David was not overcome by the spoiling of his goods any more than by these cruel mockings. See also verse 157, where the multitude of persecutors and enemies were baffled in their attempts to make him decline from God’s ways.
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