A pathetic prayer.
"Oh that I had wings," etc.! A very natural wish, pathetically and beautifully expressed. The Prophet Jeremiah gave utterance to the same wish, and for similar reasons (Jeremiah 9:2). Hence some have conjectured he was the author of this psalm. The title, ascribing it to David, represents ancient Jewish tradition, which there is no adequate ground for rejecting. But the psalm contains nothing certainly to indicate at what time in David's history it was composed, or who was the treacherous friend referred to. The fact is, the Book of Psalms is a treasury, not of history, but of spiritual experience; a manual of prayer, praise, meditation, faith, for the Church in all ages. Its perennial meaning and value are rather raised than lowered by the uncertainty besetting special occasions and dates which keen critics labour to drag to light.
I. THESE WORDS PICTURE FOR US A HEART WEARY OF THE WORLD. The writer longs passionately to be quit of it, out of sight and hearing, in restful solitude. He feels as our English poet, when taking up Jeremiah's thought he wrote—
"Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more!"
This world-weariness may be of different kinds—from widely opposite causes. There is the case of the man who has loved the world with all his heart, and is sick and sated, and still hungry and unsatisfied. He has loved pleasure, laid the reins on the neck of his lusts; and his reward is a diseased body, a worn-out heart, a blighted character, a guilty conscience. Or money; and while he has been piling up what men call a fortune, his heart has dried up, friends have grown estranged, the power of enjoyment has dwindled as the material means of buying it grew. Or political power; and has learned how thankless a task it is to serve people against their prejudices, how futile is popularity, party allegiance, how unstable earthly greatness. Like many a monarch and statesman, he is longing for freedom and rest. It is not these kinds of world-weariness the Holy Spirit depicts here. Those tired-out worldlings do not write psalms. They have sown to the flesh, and reaped corruption. What David and Jeremiah were so weary of was the wickedness of the world (verses 3, 9, 11, 19). This is the key to the tremendous denunciations of the guilt and fate of sinners, in other psalms as well as here. Intense personal feeling is no doubt implied; but it is as rebels against God, not as private foes, they are described. The king—the Lord's anointed—ought to have punished them if he could; feeling his inability, he appeals to God. And be it borne in mind, God did punish them; as (e.g.) Ahithophel and Absalom. It is often asked—How can we reconcile these denunciations with our Lord's prayer, "Father, forgive them"? Answer: Remember the ground on which this forgiveness was possible: "They know not what they do." They were to have room for repentance. Remember, that only two or three days before, Jesus had uttered, in the temple, denunciations more severe than any in the Psalms; and, lastly, that these woes were fulfilled to the letter, after forty years, in the destruction of Jerusalem.
II. EVERY REAL CHRISTIAN MUST KNOW SOMETHING OF THIS HEART-SICKNESS, SOUL-WEARINESS, ON ACCOUNT OF THE PREVALENCE OF SIN IN THE WORLD. The better he knows the world, the more he feels this. Once our Saviour gave a momentary glimpse of the daily burden this was to him (Matthew 17:17). If so very imperfect a saint as Lot "vexed his righteous soul from day to day" (2 Peter 2:7, 2 Peter 2:8), what must the Holy One of God have endured in the hourly contact with sin! He was the "Friend of sinners." The Christian Church of the present day—and society outside the Church—shows more than in any former age of the likeness of his compassion for sinners. But are we not sorely lacking in that righteous indignation against wrong, and deep grief at the dishonour offered to God's Name, which are no less part of "the mind that was in Christ Jesus"?
III. WE MUST NOT ALLOW THIS HEART-WEARINESS TO SLIDE INTO DESPAIR. It must not abate hope, slacken effort, hinder prayer. The temptation may be strong—partly from forgetfulness or ignorance of the past. When a great poet allows himself to exclaim, "When was age so crammed with meanness, madness, written, spoken lies?" the reply is—What former age was less so? Not the age of Isaiah, or of Jeremiah, or of Malachi. Not the age which cried, "Not this Man, but Barabbas!" Nor the ages of the decline and fall of Rome. Nor what some call "the age of faith;" others, more justly, "the dark ages." Nor of the Tudors and Stuarts. Nor the coldhearted, cruel eighteenth century. No! It is an old story, "The whole world lieth in wickedness." It is an ancient cry, "How long, O Lord, how long?" We are "as they that watch for the morning." But courage! "The night is far spent" (Romans 13:12). Armour is not for flight, but fight. "Like a dove!" Yes, David; if thou wert a dove! But thou art a king—God's servant, Israel's champion and prophet (Ephesians 6:13).
If this prayer is David's, it is pathetic and instructive to remember that it was granted, though not as he desired (2 Samuel 17:23). God can show us the unwisdom of our prayers by granting as well as denying. For the present, our Saviour's prayer for his own is not that they be taken out of the world (John 17:15). But whatever is right and true in this prayer shall in due time be answered (Revelation 21:3, Revelation 21:4, Revelation 21:27).