Psalm 35:17

EXPOSITION

Verse 17. Lord, how long wilt thou look on? Why be a mere spectator? Why so neglectful of thy servant? Art thou indifferent? Carest thou not that we perish? We may thus reason with the Lord. He permits us this familiarity. There is a time for our salvation, but to our impatience it often seems to be very slow in coming; yet wisdom has ordained the hour, and nothing shall delay it. Rescue my soul from their destructions. From their many devices; their multiplied assaults, be pleased to set me free. My darling, my lovely, only, precious soul, do thou rescue from the lions. His enemies were fierce, cunning, and strong as young lions; God only could deliver him from their jaws, to God he therefore addresses himself.

EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS

Verse 17. Satan no sooner spies our wanderings, but he presently runs with a complaint to God, filing bills against us in the star chamber of heaven, where the matter would go hard with us, but for the Great Lord Chancellor of peace, our Advocate Jesus Christ. As God keeps all our tears in a bottle, and registers the very groans of our holy passion in a book, so Satan keeps a record of our sins, and solicits justice against us. Were God like man, subject to passions, or insensible by the suggestions of the common barrator, woe were us. But he will hear one son of truth before ten thousand fathers of lying. No matter what the plaintiff libels, when the judge acquits. We have forfeited our estates by treason, and the busy devil begs us; but there is one that steps in, and pleads a former grant, and that both by promise and purchase. Lord, rescue my soul from their destructions, my darling from the lions. Lord Jesus, challenge thy own; let not Satan enter upon by force or fraud, what thou hast bought with thine own blood. Thomas Adams.

Verse 17. My darling. In Poole's Synopsis the critics explain this name for the soul, as my only one, my solitary one, desolate, deserted, and destitute of human hope. Such is the soul under sore affliction. See Psalms 22:21 . From the lions. Daniel in the den was literally where David was spiritually. Shut in amongst fierce, cruel, and angry creatures, and himself defenceless, having no weapon but prayer, no helper but the Lord. The people of God may be exposed to the lions of hell, and their roarings may grievously affright them; but the soul which is their "darling" is also God's dear one, and therefore they shall be rescued. C. H. S.

HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS

Verse 17. The limit of divine endurance.