PSALM 6
To the Chief Musician, for eight-stringed instruments. A Psalm of David.
O Jehovah, rebuke me not in Your anger, nor chasten me in the heat of Your fury.
Have mercy on me, O Jehovah, for I am weak; O Jehovah, heal me, for my bones are troubled.
My soul also is exceedingly troubled; but You, O Jehovah, how long?
Return, O Jehovah, return; deliver my soul; save me for Your mercy's sake.
For in death there is no memory of You; in the grave who shall give You thanks?
I am weary in my groaning; all the night I make my bed swim; I melt my couch with my tears.
My eye is dim because of grief; it wastes away because of all my enemies.
Depart from me, all workers of iniquity; for Jehovah has heard the voice of my weeping.
Jehovah has heard my cry; Jehovah will receive my prayer.
Let all my enemies be ashamed and exceedingly troubled; let them turn back and be ashamed in a moment. Psa 6:1-10
There are two knowledges of God; the one is the absolute, the other is the relative. The former comprehends God as He is, embraces the Infinite; the other comprehends only glances of Him, as He appears to the mind of the observer. There is but one being in the universe who has the former knowledge, and that is Christ. "No man hath seen God at any time; the Only Begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father, hath declared Him." David's idea of God here was relative. He represents the Eternal as He appeared to him in the particular state of mind which he experienced. We make two remarks on his idea of God's "hot displeasure."
I. It was generated in a guilty conscience by great suffering. The writer of this Psalm was involved in the greatest distress both in body and in mind.
1. That he was conscious of having wronged his Maker. His conscience robes infinite love with vengeance.
2. He was conscious of having deserved God's displeasure. He felt that the sufferings he was enduring were penal inflictions, and he justly deserved them. Had his conscience been appeased by atoning love, the very sufferings he was enduring would have led him to regard the great God as a loving Father disciplining him for a higher life, and not as a wrathful God visiting him in His hot displeasure. God is to you according to your moral state.
II. It was removed from his guilty conscience by earnest prayer. His prayer for mercy is intensely importunate. "O Lord, rebuke me not in Thine anger," etc. "Have mercy upon me, O Lord." "O Lord, heal me." "O Lord, deliver soul," etc. What is the result of his prayer? "Depart from me all ye workers of iniquity, for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping," etc. True prayer does two things.
1. Modifies for the better the mind of the suppliant. It tends to quicken, to calm, to elevate the soul.
2. Secures the necessary assistance of the God of love. One great truth that comes up from the whole of these remarks is that man's destiny depends upon his moral state, and that no system can effectually help him, that does not bring his heart into a right relation with God. So long as God appears to him burning with hot displeasure he must be in an agony like that which the Psalmist here describes. The mission of Christianity is to bring men into this happy relation. (Homilist.)
The difference between a cross and a curse
David deprecates not God's rebukes or corrections, but that He would not rebuke him in His anger. It is true there is a great similitude between a curse and a cross, and oftentimes God's children have been deceived thereby, and through His hard handling of them have judged Him to have become their enemy; but indeed there is a great difference. And to the end ye may know whether they come from the hands of a loving God or no, consider these marks and tokens.
1. If they lead thee to a consideration of thy sin, which is the ground and cause of them, so that thou lookest not to the instrumental or second cause, but to thyself, the cause of all, they come from the hand of a loving God.
2. If they make thee leave off to sin and reject it, they come from a loving God.
3. If under thy cross thou run unto God, whom thou hast pierced, that He may deliver thee, and not say with that godless King Jehoram, Why should I attend any more upon the Lord? they come from a loving God.
4. The Cross worketh in the godly a wonderful humility and patience, so that they submit themselves under the hand of the living God, that they under it may be tamed, and from lions be made lambs. The wicked either howl (as do dogs that are beaten) through sense of their present stroke, or if they be humbled and seem patient, it is perforce as a lion which is caged and cannot stir. (A. Symson.)
The anger of God as pure as His mercy
But alas, those persons did not consider the difference betwixt the qualities that are in our sinful nature, and the essential properties which are in God; for He is angry and sins not. His anger is as pure as His mercy, for His justice is His anger, but our anger is mixed with sin, and therefore evil. (A. Symson.)
God's anger against sin
God will be angry at nothing in His creatures, but only sin, which bringeth man to destruction; for as if a father saw a serpent in his child's bosom, he would hate the serpent notwithstanding his love to the boy: so we are God's children, He loves that which He made of us, our body and soul, and hates that which the devil hath put in us, our sin. (A. Symson.)
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