Psalm 39:8

EXPOSITION

Verse 8. Deliver me from all my transgressions. How fair a sign it is when the psalmist no longer harps upon his sorrows, but begs freedom from his sins! What is sorrow when compared with sin! Let but the poison of sin be gone from the cup, and we need not fear its gall, for the bitter will act medicinally. None can deliver a man from his transgression but the blessed One who is called Jesus, because he saves his people from their sins; and when he once works this great deliverance for a man from the cause, the consequences are sure to disappear too. The thorough cleansing desired is well worthy of note: to be saved from some transgressions would be of small benefit; total and perfect deliverance is needed. Make me not the reproach of the foolish. The wicked are the foolish here meant: such are always on the watch for the faults of saints, and at once make them the theme of ridicule. It is a wretched thing for a man to be suffered to make himself the butt of unholy scorn by apostasy from the right way. Alas, how many have thus exposed themselves to well deserved reproach! Sin and shame go together, and from both David would fain be preserved.

EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS

Verse 8. Make me not the reproach of the foolish. Let not their prosperity and my misery give them occasion to deride and reproach me for my serving of thee and trusting in thee to so little purpose. Matthew Pool.

Verse 8. Make me not the reproach of the foolish. Doubt not this; that of all the bitter agony which will be the portion of the lost soul at that, "Depart, ye cursed," not the least will be the bitter reproaches and derision of those evil spirits who have seduced him to his ruin. "For this morsel of meat to have sold thy birthright! For the fleshly pleasures of a few days to have bartered thine eternal jewel! For a few grains of yellow earth to have missed the city with streets of gold, and gates of several pearls! O fool, beyond all folly! O madman, beyond all insanity! Truly we have need to pray with all earnestness, Make me not the reproach of the foolish." Origen, quoted by J. M. Neale.

HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS

Verse 8.

1. Prayer should be general: Deliver me from all my transgressions. We often need anew to say, "God be merciful to me a sinner." Afflictions should remind us of our sins. If we pray to be delivered from all transgressions, we are sure to be delivered from the one for which affliction was sent.
2. Prayer should be particular: Make me not the reproach of the foolish. Suffer me not so to speak or show impatience in affliction as to give occasion even to the foolish to blaspheme. The thought that many watch for our halting should be a preservative from sin.

G. Rogers.