Psa. 142—This has a special character. “I cried unto God with my voice;” not merely with the heart, but an expression of it with his voice. He cries openly to God, and makes confession of Jehovah in his supplications, as his refuge and his portion in the land of the living.
Psa. 143—Here we are fully in the distress, but still crying and praying for deliverance.
It is one of the striking things in the Psalms, that all through them the power of evil is rampant. Even when God is praised, and He gives songs of “hallelujahs” to His people, evil is there. It supposes all the evil to be in power unto the end. It is the power of good in the midst of evil, and not the reign of good, and is analogous to our own position. It is the same with us. “I have overcome the world,” yet still the world goes on, and we have the power of Christ in the midst of it. The Assyrian is destroyed after the man of sin. Western Europe is the territory of the Beast, and Russia of Gog or Assyria.
The Lord has come in these Psalms and destroyed the Beast and the false Prophet (the Man of Sin), and then the Assyrian comes up again and finds the Lord there, and is destroyed by the Lord Himself in Idumea.
Q. Who is the King of the North in Dan. 11?
A. He is the Assyrian. There we find that he shall “plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas and (it should be, not “in”) the glorious holy mountain”—i.e., between the Mediterranean and Jerusalem. Gog and Magog in Revelation refer to all the nations; they come up on the breadth of the whole earth.
Psa. 144—We have three times the question, “What is man?” raised in Scripture. Job asks it in a complaining, haughty spirit. (Job 7:1717What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him? (Job 7:17)) “How long wilt Thou not depart from me, nor let me alone till I swallow down my spittle?” It is why should He make so much of him, following him up in every detail of his life to persecute him? Here, on the contrary, the Psalmist says, what is man, so wicked as he is, that the Lord should think so much of him and not cut him off directly? —why should he be spared, and the Lord be so patient with these wicked people? In Psa. 7 the question is raised, why is he so exalted? —and answered by His making His own Son a man, and setting Him in glory as man, over all the works of His hands.
Psa. 145—We have here the intercourse between Christ and His people, during the millennium, celebrating Jehovah’s praise. It is “I” and “they.” “And men shall speak of the might of thy terrible acts, and I will declare Thy greatness. They shall abundantly utter the memory of Thy great goodness, and shall sing of Thy righteousness.”
Psa. 146—The concluding psalms form what is called the “great Hanel.”
Psa. 146—Here we have God, the Creator, who has executed judgment, and delivered His people.
Psa. 147—His mercy and goodness are celebrated in building up Jerusalem.
Psa. 148—The angels are called upon to join the praises of Jehovah, until praise goes out to all creation.
Psa. 149—Here the call is to Israel to praise.
Q. Are we in the millennium in these psalms?
A. No; it is still the spirit of prophecy— see v. 6. The praises of God are in, their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hands. The psalms only take you up to the time of blessing. Prophecy will not be needed when that time is arrived. The psalms never go on into the millennium, but only up to it.
Psa. 150 is the general closing summons to praise Jehovah.
Q. Did not the disciples sing one of the psalms of the hallel at the Passover?
A. A Jewish tradition is the ground for believing they, did.
Q. Do we have the righteousness of God in the psalms, as in Romans?
Q. Which psalms give us the sufferings of Christ?
Psalms 22; the Cross; 49., Gethsemane; 102 in a certain sense, Only the strain there is more poetical; 40, partly, only there He is more undertaking to do it.
Q. Do we not have them in the 88.
A. Only in sympathy. It is the Remnant there, under the anguish of a broken law.
Christians are expected to be their own psalmists. Therefore hymn books are right, and Presbyterians are wrong in keeping to the book of Psalms. “Speaking to yourselves in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs.”
Q. What is the distinction between them?
A. “Hymns” are more ascriptions of praise; “Psalms” celebrations of God’s praise. “Spiritual songs” are more speaking to one another about Him. “O Lord I how blest our journey,” is a spiritual song. We are thinking of the journey, but we say, “Oh Lord!” ascribing praise to Him for it; but when we sing, “Lord Jesus; when I think of Thee,” it is higher. It is better to be thinking of Christ than of the journey; but both are right, and they are wrong who would only have direct addresses in the Hymn-book.