Psalm 25:19

EXPOSITION

Verse 19. Consider mine enemies. Watch them, weigh them, check them, defeat them. For they are many. They need the eyes of Argus to watch them, and the arms of Hercules to match them, but the Lord is more than sufficient to defeat them. The devils of hell and the evils of earth are all vanquished when the Lord makes bare his arm. They hate me with cruel hatred. It is the breath of the serpent's seed to hate; their progenitor was a hater, and they themselves must needs imitate him. No hate so cruel as that which is unreasonable and unjust. A man can forgive one who had injured him, but one whom he has injured he hates implacably. "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves," is still our Master's word to us.

EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS

Verse 19. Consider mine enemies, etc. Or look upon them; but with another kind of look; so as he looked through the pillar of fire upon the Egyptians, and troubled them Ex 14:24, with a look of wrath and vengeance. The arguments he uses are taken both from the quantity and quality of his enemies, their number and their nature, For they are many; the hearts of the people of Israel, in general, being after Absalom 2 Samuel 15:12-13 ; and so the spiritual enemies of the Lord's people are many; their sins and corruptions, Satan, and his principalities and powers, and the men of this world. And they hate me with cruel hatred; like that of Simeon and Levi Genesis 44:7 ; their hatred broke out in a cruel manner, in acts of force and cruelty; and it was the more cruel, inasmuch as it was without cause; and such is the hatred of Satan and his emissaries against the followers of Christ; who breathe out cruelty, thirst after their blood, and make themselves drunk with it; even their tender mercies are cruel, and much more their hatred. John Gill.

Verse 19. Consider mine enemies. God needeth not hound out many creatures to punish man, he doeth that on himself. There is no kind of creature so hurtful to itself as he. Some hurt other kinds and spare their own, but mankind in all sorts of injuries destroyeth itself. Man to man is more crafty than a fox, more cruel than the tiger, and more fierce than a lion, and in a word, if he be left to himself man unto man is a devil. William Struther's "Christian Observations," 1629.

Verse 19-20. -- Consider mine enemies ... O keep my soul and deliver me. We may say of original concupiscence, strengthened and heightened by customary transgressions, its name is legion, for it is many. Hydra like, it is a body with many heads; and when we cut off one head, one enormous impiety, there presently sprouts up another of like monstrous nature, like venomous guilt. From the womb then it is of original sin and sinful custom, as from the belly of the Trojan horse, there does issue forth a whole army of unclean lusts, to surround the soul in all its faculties, and the body too in all its members. Robert Mossom.

HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS

Verse 19. The spiritual enemies of the saint. Their number, malice, craft, power, etc.