This Psalm rehearses the various virtues of the word of God, and the saints’ delight and profit therein. Any believer may generally use it as the breathing of his own soul; but in its full prophetic character, it would seem that it will be the language of the true Israel on their return to God and His long neglected oracles.
When the Lord came, He found the Jews neglectful and ignorant of the Scripture (Matt. 15:6; 22:29; John 5:38,47). But the Remnant are directed to them (Isa. 8:20; Mal. 4:4). And this Psalm shows their obedience to that direction, and the exercise of their heart in the divine writings. They have forsaken their own traditions and are hearing “Moses and the Prophets” (Luke 16:29-31).
Ezra, while captive in Babylon, did, as the Remnant will do, diligently occupy himself in the word of God (Ezra 7:6). The Berean Jews present a sample of them, likewise, in this character (Acts 17:11). And the history of Josiah does the same. He reigned after judgment had been pronounced against Jerusalem. His repentance could not change that. Judgment was still to come; but Josiah shall (like God’s Remnant) be spared. For he had set his heart to serve the Lord when all was hastening to ruin. But we have in the history this further fact—that in the midst of his doings and services, the Book of the Law is found, and that at once operates to give a new tone to all his ways. He begins with himself. He takes the place of a convicted and humbled one. In that spirit he sets himself to work again, and makes the oracles of God the rule of all his service (2 Kings 22:23; 2 Chron. 34; 2 Chron. 35).
Josiah, in this way, with zeal returned to the word of God which had been so entirely lost to the nation through their idol-vanities. And so, in the latter day, the repentant Remnant will turn with listening and obedient hearts to the word of God, and treat it with special honor and regard, conscious as they will be of having so long and grievously neglected it. For such is the fruit which repentance would duly and naturally yield. It will be restitution; restoring, like Zacchaeus, fourfold to that which they had wronged.
But we cannot pass by this valuable and deeply devotional Psalm without a little further pause. From the beginning of His ways, we see God’s value for His written word. He has made a hedge about it, that no rude hand can guiltlessly touch it, either to add thereto, or take therefrom. And He has bound it round the heart, before the eyes, and on the hands of His people. The gates of the field, the doors of the house, the morning and the evening family, the walk abroad and the rest within, all was to witness it (Deut. 6; Deut. 11). It was to mingle itself with all the personal and social life of His people, and shed its light on every path, however ordinary, of their daily journey. Is it not blessed to see the Lord thus esteeming His own revelation and thus commending it to our esteem? And is it now to be erased from our gates and doors and from the palms of our hands? “The malice of Satan has raged no less against the Book than the truth contained in it.” The divine life of the saint heeds it, and cannot spare any of it. It is the food of the life of faith and hope. It bears the soul to God, and keeps it near Him and with Him, through the Spirit. The more the virtues and consolations of the new life are prized, so will the word be. And the believer pleads the word or scripture as the answer to that great question, “Where shall wisdom be found, and where is the place of understanding?” (Job 28:12). For He who alone knows the path of wisdom has made scripture its dwelling place. And with Him (Jer. 23:28) the saint says of all in comparison, “What is the chaff to the wheat?”
May we hold it fast, but use it skillfully in the light of the Holy Ghost in us! For if there be the error of taking away this key of knowledge (Luke 11), so is there the error of using it with an untaught, unstable hand (2 Peter 3). Let us use it with the reverent and worshipping mind of the servant of God in this beautiful and most precious Psalm. Let us know something of the burnings of his heart over the holy oracles, saying, “I opened my mouth and panted, for I longed for thy commandments.”
Psalms 120-134 are entitled “Songs of Degrees.” It has been judged that they were put together, and received a common title, because they were used on some occasion, or concerned some action, in different stages of it—such as the return of the captives from Babylon to Jerusalem. And from internal marks, this may well be so. Though indited by the Spirit at different times, they were used, in all probability, in the order in which they here appear, by those returning captives, at different stages of their march homeward—as the various parts of Psalm 68 were sung at different stations of that procession, which was bearing the Ark to the city of David. For in these Psalms we shall find a growing sense of drawing nearer and nearer to home or the place of rest till at last that place is reached with praise.
The coming forth from Babylon is anticipatively celebrated by Prophets, in very lofty language (Isa. 48:20; 52:11-12). But deliverance from Babylon is spoken of, after the captivity had returned from thence in the days of Cyrus (Zech. 2:6-7). So that the return at that time was, as a type, the pledge of Israel’s return from another, that is, their present dispersion; and these Psalms may answer to the utterances of the latter day Remnant, in passing through different stages of their trials, till brought into the rest of the kingdom. And they may suitably, in spirit, under certain conditions and experiences, be the utterance of any saint journeying on through the present world to the glory and presence of the Lord—a wayfaring man with Jesus.
But I might further observe that they were probably sung by the returning captives, for with Zerubbabel 200 singers are mentioned, and others also with Ezra, on their respective exodus from Babylon (See Ezra 2:64-65; 7:7). And after such a happy pattern we, in spirit, should sing, on the journey from Babylon to Jerusalem—from man’s city to God’s city—from this present evil world to the world to come. The one we have in our calling left, the other we are reaching. And the sense of this should put a song in our hearts. But we should still be only “on the way,” unsatisfied with all short of Jerusalem. Wells of water and songs of gladness cannot make the place of our journey our home. Gideon’s chosen 300 express this. Refreshment had no power to stop them on the road. They took it only for the sake of the journey, or as a journeying people ought to take it. They lapped the water as a traveling dog laps it, and did not kneel down to it, as though they were addicting themselves to it.
And this is to be our mind. We are saved in hope; and even the Holy Ghost, the due spring of all consolations by the way, dwells in us to give strength and not check to the hope (Rom. 15:13); for His presence is not our Jerusalem, His refreshings are not the supper of the Lamb.
These Psalms, in the Syriac, are called “Songs of ascent from Babylon.” This is according to the view we have taken of them here. And the same Hebrew word, it has been noticed, is used in reference to the journey or ascent of the captives from Babylon to Jerusalem, as is used to express the title of these Psalms (Ezra 7:9). This is still more confirming.
We would now mark each of them a little more particularly.