PSALM 51. The occasion of the confession in this psalm was when Nathan the prophet brought home with power to David his great sin, and from the manner in which it is introduced here it is used as a figure of the nation’s sin in the rejection of the Messiah. The desire to be delivered from blood guiltiness is the realization of the nation’s guilt in the crucifying of the Messiah. The sacrifice which would be pleasing to God is that of a broken spit and a broken and a contrite heart, which He would not despise. This is acceptable to the Lord in all ages, and without it there can be no real or true service acceptable to Him.
Psalm 52. The occasion of this psalm was when Doeg the Edomite betrayed king David to king Saul, and which resulted in Doeg’s slaying all the priests at Saul’s bidding. It is a figure of the betrayal that will take place during the great tribulation in the time to come. Those who do so are in heart in the same place as the enemies of Israel, and king Saul is a type of the Antichrist who will be in power at that time. His great effort will be to stamp out faith.
Psalm 53. This psalm is quite similar to Psalm 14 only here the covenant name Jehovah is not used. Faith looks upon the ungodly nation as fools, and this also applies now to all who take the place of denying the knowledge of God. However brilliant men may be in natural things, they are in God’s sight but fools and have become filthy. This class is ready to eat up His people as bread. Faith longs for the time when salvation will come out of Zion, when all the enmity of man shall be judged and put down.
Psalm 54. We are told that the occasion of this psalm was when David and his men were hiding from Saul in the wilderness of Ziph, when the Ziphites went to Saul and told him of David’s hiding place. Saul pursued David but was put to shame when David spared his life. David calls his betrayers strangers; they were as the Gentiles, not having set God before them. So it will be in the time to come; those who should have been friends in the Lord will have become aliens and strangers to those who seek to follow Him as the rejected One. Nevertheless David has his confidence in the deliverance of the Lord.
Psalm 55. The faithful here are feeling the oppression of the wicked; the terrors of death are before them. We have the betrayal of one who had been a counselor and guide, one with whom the psalmist says he had taken sweet counsel together and in whose company he had walked into the house of God. It shows how David felt when Ahithophel his friend turned to Absalom, and it also gives us something of the feelings of the Lord when betrayed by one of His own who had walked in company with Him. It also shows how the faithful remnant in that coming day will pass through the similar experience of being betrayed by those whom they thought were friends.
Psalm 56. This psalm was written when David, fearing the great danger he was in because of Saul and losing for the moment his confidence in God, flees to the Philistines. But he found they were suspicious of him and were constantly watching him, seeking to wrest his words, marking his steps and waiting for his soul. So he found no haven amid the enemies of God’s people and could not remain there. These circumstances are brought in here to show in type the dire straits of those who are faithful in the great tribulation to come.
ML-12/18/1960