Adam Clarke's Bible Commentary Verse 4. Let mine enemy say ] Satan's ordinary method in temptation is to excite strongly to sin, to blind the understanding and inflame the passions; and when he succeeds, he triumphs by insults and reproaches.
None so ready then to tell the poor soul how deeply, disgracefully, and ungratefully it has sinned! Reader, take heed.
When I am moved. ] When moved from my steadfastness and overcome by sin. O what desolation is made by the fall of a righteous soul! Itself covered with darkness and desolation, infidels filled with scoffing, the Church clad in mourning, the Spirit of God grieved, and Jesus crucified afresh, and put to an open shame! O God, save the pious reader from such wreck and ruin!
Matthew Henry Commentary
- The psalmist complains that God had long withdrawn. He earnestly pray for comfort. He assures himself of an answer of peace.
--God sometimes hides his face, and leaves his own children in the dar concerning their interest in him: and this they lay to heart more tha any outward trouble whatever. But anxious cares are heavy burdens with which believers often load themselves more than they need. The bread of sorrows is sometimes the saint's daily bread; our Master himself was man of sorrows. It is a common temptation, when trouble lasts long, to think that it will last always. Those who have long been without joy begin to be without hope. We should never allow ourselves to make an complaints but what drive us to our knees. Nothing is more killing to soul than the want of God's favour; nothing more reviving than the return of it. The sudden, delightful changes in the book of Psalms, ar often very remarkable. We pass from depth of despondency to the heigh of religious confidence and joy. It is thus, ver. 5. All is gloom dejection in ver. 4; but here the mind of the despondent worshippe rises above all its distressing fears, and throws itself, withou reserve, on the mercy and care of its Divine Redeemer. See the power of faith, and how good it is to draw near to God. If we bring our care and griefs to the throne of grace, and leave them there, we may go awa like Hannah, and our countenances will be no more said, 1Sa 1:18. God' mercy is the support of the psalmist's faith. Finding I have that to trust to, I am comforted, though I have no merit of my own. His fait in God's mercy filled his heart with joy in his salvation; for joy an peace come by believing. He has dealt bountifully with me. By faith he was as confident of salvation, as if it had been completed already. I this way believers pour out their prayers, renouncing all hopes but in the mercy of God through the Saviour's blood: and sometimes suddenly at others gradually, they will find their burdens removed, and their comforts restored; they then allow that their fears and complaints wer unnecessary, and acknowledge that the Lord hath dealt bountifully with them _________________________________________________
Original Hebrew פן6435 יאמר559 איבי341 יכלתיו3201 צרי6862 יגילו1523 כי3588 אמוט׃4131
