The sure keeping of God.
It has been remarked by a learned Bible scholar that part of the common complaints which are often brought against our English Bible is really owing to the likes and dislikes as to the usage of words in which we English people allow ourselves. It is constantly complained of that where, in the original Scriptures, the sacred writers employ only one word, our translators have put for that one word, two, three, four, five, or even several more different English words, thus conveying to our minds several ideas, where it was the intention of the Scriptures to convey only one. No doubt our translators did their best to find synonyms—words, that is, which though, different in sound, have the same sense—still the senses so given are only similar, and may not be seen by ordinary readers to be so similar as it was thought they were. Hence such difference of rendering is often misleading, and rather a hiding than a setting forth of the Scripture's true meaning. Now, in this beautiful psalm we have a notable instance of such different rendering. We do not see that the sense is obscured in this instance, but we think the emphasis and force are lessened. The one prominent word in the psalm is "keep:" the whole psalm is about the Lord God's sure keeping of his people, and that this might be impressed on the mind, the writer six times over in the last five verses of the psalm repeats this word "keep." Now in the three former verses out of these five our version adheres to the word "keep," but in the last two it changes over to the less forcible word "preserve." Our English dislike of using the same word repeatedly accounts for this change, and causes the loss of impressiveness which the repeated reverberations of the one emphatic word "keep" were intended to produce. But to pass on to what is of more importance, the truth itself of God's sure keeping, let us—
I. TAKE THE PROMISE LITERALLY.
1. It referred to Israel's journeyings from Babylon to Judah, or from wherever their abode might be, up to the great festivals. Now, even in this literal sense, the promise was no mean one. For those olden days were not days of settled law and order, in which life and property were secure, and evil-doers could scarce hope to escape punishment. But the very reverse was the truth. Might stood for right, and hence the "going out and coming in" of Israel in those days was ever attended with much peril.
2. And for ourselves the promise holds good. God has made our journeyings safe by means of what we call the inventions of science and the resources of civilization. They are but God's instruments for our good. And when some terrible catastrophe occurs, as from time to time is the case, still, if we be of God's Israel, we are kept: "He shall preserve thy soul." Our real self is not harmed, the Lord is our Keeper, as he said.
II. AS APPLYING TO THE WHOLE OF OUR ACTIVE LIFE. Such is a frequent meaning of the expression, "going out and coming in" (see Deuteronomy 28:6, Deuteronomy 28:19; Deuteronomy 23:20; Joshua 1:7; 1 Samuel 29:6). The general conduct and occupation of a man in his varied affairs are what is meant in all these passages. And how we need to be kept amid our daily work and business! How "the cares of this world" need to be guarded against, and "the deceitfulness of riches" also! How business life tends to absorb all time, all thought, all energy, so that scarce any are left for God! Hence blessed are they who are in God's holy keeping in all the goings out and comings in of daily life!
III. TO OUR EXPERIENCES OF SORROW AND OF GLADNESS. "Going out" was a synonym for sorrow; "coming in," for gladness and joy. For Israel was a people that had known what it was to go out to drear and dreadful exile, and that more than once. Hence whilst the idea of "going out" suggested only what was sad, that of "coming in," the return from exile, was full of joy. "The redeemed of the Lord shall come with joy and singing," etc. And in the New Jerusalem, one of its sweetest promises was that its people should "go no more out forever." Sorrow has its snares, and so has joy. We need to be kept of God.
IV. TO THE MORNING AND EVENING OF LIFE. "Man goeth forth to his work and to his labor until the evening;" then he cometh in for rest. And if we truly desire it, the Lord will keep our going out and our coming in, in this sense also. "Our help cometh from the Lord."—S.C.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK
Looking up.
"Shall I lift up mine eyes unto the hills? Whence should my help come?" The precise associations of the psalm cannot be fixed with any certainty. Perhaps it is best regarded as a psalm of the Exile. It might have been written by a Daniel, as he sat at his open window, and looked away over the broad, fiat plains of Babylon toward the distant mountain-land of Israel. The writer is oppressed with the burdens and sorrows of exile; he remembers Zion, and he sings his soul to quietness and peace by looking away from present cares to the high hills of God, and cheers his drooping spirit by remembering how, amid all the earth-changes, the everlasting hills abide. What a holy power upon us the mountains have! The grand, calm, strong, high things—they seem to be so near God; they seem to be so full of God; they bring us so near him, and fill us so full of him. One thing about them is suggested by our text—they make us look up. And is not that just what we need? Oh, to lose the downward look which has so grown upon us by the pressure of life-cares! The voice calls continually, "Lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh!"
I. WORLD-DRAWN, WE LOOK DOWN, AND SO ARE WEAK. We are in the world—in a thousand subtle ways we are kin with the world, subject to its influences, caught by its whirl of excitement, absorbed by its pressing claims, and easily we become of the world as well as in it. But everything the world presents to us is below us, beneath us; and it so keeps us looking down that the habit of down-looking grows upon us, and we are almost unable to look up. How powerfully we are all drawn by world-interests! Business man is world-absorbed. Domestic woman is world-absorbed. The influence of the world begets a downward look, a sort of set of the eyes and heart downwards. The world-thoughts abide with us, and even when the sabbath day brings God and heaven near, we find it very hard to get our eyes lifted up. Even in the sanctuary they drop on bills and stock and trade. To succeed in earthly things we must engage the whole heart and powers in them. It seems to be the one universal power that this sin-smitten world possesses over its creatures—it bends their shoulders, it bows their heads, it gives, it keeps, the downward look. And what do we see when we look down? Much of self, of man, and of things. The hurry and bustle of thousands who are hasting to be rich. And the shadow of God's curse on sin resting everywhere. It is this down-looking that makes us so weak.
II. GOD-DRAWN, WE LOOK UP, AND SO GROW STRONG. For to men in this world God's voice is ever calling. It sounds from the bright bands of the morning, from the high silver-tinted clouds of noonday, from the splendor and glory of the far-off sunset, from the lofty trees and the hill-tops, and the soaring birds of song, and the winds that roam free, and the "jewel-powdered skies" of night. Would we but stop and hush awhile, we might hear it always near us, saying, "Look up! Look up!" God has often refreshed his fainting servants with the sight of his everlasting hills. Moses was sent to feel the inspirations of Sinai. Elijah was calmed, and made himself again, by the soothing influences of Horeb, the mount of God. Our Lord sought seclusion among the hills of Eastern Galilee, and entered into the Divine glory on a spur of Hermon. And the mountains still soothe and calm God's people. They teach us to look up.
1. Looking up, you find nothing of man's—it is all of God up above.
2. Looking up, you feel how pure God's snow is, and think how much is in the promise, "They shall walk with me in white."
3. Looking up, you see how earth-clouds are glorified.
4. Looking up, listen; you may hear the voices of the hills saying, "Be still! Hush the life-fever! Wait! In silence God doth speak."
5. Look up and listen, and again the voices of the hills will say, "The mists and the storms are all outside us; they are not us." Look up, and grow strong. Look up; you will feel the heaven-breath upon your face. Look up; your brow will soon lose those wreathings of anxiety and care. Look up, and you shall prove how God "wipes away all tears from our eyes."—R.T.
Not mountains, but God.
"From whence shall my help come?" This psalm is best taken as expressing the pious confidence of an individual believer, who addresses his inner self in words of comfort which are framed as if proceeding from another person. The psalmist is, as it were, holding a colloquy with himself. It is not that he expects help from the mountains—his hope is fixed on him who made the mountains. This comes out plainly in Perowne's rendering, "Whence should my help come? My help (cometh) from Jehovah, the Maker of heaven and earth."
I. THE MOUNTAINS CANNOT GIVE US HELP AND SAFETY. Illustrate from the times of Lot. He fled to the mountains; but God preserved him, not the mountain. From the times of David's persecution, he fled to the mountain country of Judaea and the south; but God preserved him, not the hills. Covenanters and others found safety in the rocks and mountains in days of religious persecution; but their God was their real defense. So let mountains stand for the supreme self-efforts a man may make in his times of distress; he must be brought to the assured conviction that they cannot bring him safety. Beyond them he must look. Only when he looks beyond them do they become his security; for then God makes them such. "Some trust in horses, and some in chariots," and some in mountains; "but we will trust in the Name of the Lord."
II. THE MOUNTAINS CAN DIRECT US WHERE TO FIND HELP AND SAFETY. They appeal to both poetic and religious feeling. Buchanan, writing with the Cuchullin hills all about him, says—
"Lord, art thou here? Far from the busy crowd,
Brooding in melancholy solitude?"
Moses was helped to realize the power of Jehovah by the daily impressions of the huge, craggy, awful mountain forms of Sinai. In quite an instinctive way men in all ages and in every land have inclined to build their altars on high hills, as if thus they did get nearer God. And it is the fact for most thoughtfully disposed persons, that more help is gained for pious meditation from mountain districts than from the changeableness of the sea, or the varying but ever-gentle beauty of the landscapes. Mountains have a peculiar power to solemnize and to impress us all; and precisely what they bring to us is that sense of God which assures of his love, and help, and lead.—R.T.