Psalm 71:22

EXPOSITION

Here is the final vow of praise.

Verse 22. I will also praise thee with the psaltery. Love so amazing calls for sweetest praise. David would give his best music, both vocal and instrumental, to the Best of Masters. His harp should not be silent, nor his voice.

Even thy truth, O my God. This is ever a most enchanting attribute -- viz., the truth or faithfulness of our covenant God. On this we rest, and from it we draw streams of richest consolation. His promises are sure, his love unalterable, his veracity indisputable. What saint will not praise him as he remembers this?

Unto thee will I sing with the harp, O thou Holy One of Israel. Here is a new name, and, as it were, a new song. The Holy One of Israel is at once a lofty and an endearing name, full of teaching. Let us resolve, by all means within our power, to honour him.

EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS

Verse 22. With the psaltery... with the harp. There was a typical signification in them; and upon this account they are not only rejected and condemned by the whole army of Protestant divines, as for instance, by Zuinglius, Calvin, Peter Martyr, Zepperus, Paraeus, Willet, Ainsworth, Ames, Calderwood, and Cotton; who do, with one mouth, testify against them, most of them expressly affirming that they are a part of the abrogated legal pedagogy; so that we might as well recall the incense, tapers, sacrifices, new moons, circumcision, and all the other shadows of the law into use again. But Aquinas himself also, though a Popish schoolman, pleads against them upon the same account, quia aliquid figurabant, and saith, the Church in his time did not use them, ne videatur judaizare, lest they should seem to judaize. Samuel Mather, on The Types.

Verse 22. Psaltery... harp. Suppose singing with instruments were not typical, but only an external solemnity of worship, fitted to the solace of the outward senses of children under age, such as the Israelites were in the Old Testament ( Galatians 4:1-3 ); yet now, in the grown age of the heirs of the New Testament, such external pompous solemnities are ceased, and no external worship reserved, but such as holdeth forth simplicity and gravity; nor is any voice now to be heard in the church of Christ, but such as is significant and edifying by signification ( 1 Corinthians 14:10-11 1 Corinthians 14:26 ), which the voice of instruments is not. John Cotton, 1585-1652.

Verse 22. Holy One of Israel. This name of God occurs in the Psalms only in two other places, Psalms 71:78 Psalms 71:41 89:18 these last two being, according to Delitzsch, older Psalms than this. In Isaiah, this name of God occurs thirty times; in Habakkuk once; in Jeremiah (who may have adopted it from Isaiah) twice ( Jeremiah 50:29 51:5). J. J. Stewart Perowne.

HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS

Verse 22. A choice subject for song -- "thy truth," which may mean either doctrinal truth, or the attribute of faithfulness, its manifestation in history, and in our own experience.

Verse 22-23.

1. The soul of music: Not in the instrument or the voice,
   but in the soul. "I will sing with the understanding
   also." "Making melody in the heart," etc.
   
2. The music of the soul. The soul which thou hast
   redeemed. Redemption is the music of souls once lost.
   Their only song in heaven.