Psalm 71

Narrator: Chris Genthree
Duration: 4min
Psalm 71  •  3 min. read  •  grade level: 14
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This Psalm, though I believe the literal David to be the subject of it, applies, it appears to me, to the anomalous position (wherein they see Him separated from His own proper position) of the Jews on the setting up of Antichrist, but Christ as David driven out by Absalom. This type will fully explain the Psalm, looking to the Jews, as similarly placed, in the latter day, but finding a new place in resurrection, as in Dan. 12:22And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. (Daniel 12:2); though that rather applies to another portion of the Remnant, yet scattered, and this to a body of them in, but now driven out of, the land, though not permanently—the last time of Jacob's trouble, closing the typical David's life, for then He takes the Solomon power or estate. Verse 7 was personal feeling, therefore of David properly—verse 8 is prayer, result of exercise, therefore not as of Him, though in spirit identified with them—verse 9, is also association with the same circumstances, though, being the personal sufferings, we have the whole cry from the beginning of the reconciliation to the end—verse 10 was when He was separated from His people, they acted in the same spirit at the close—verse 12, is the position and feeling of faith of the Remnant, as far as they are in the position, in which David was on the setting up of Absalom, on the setting up of Antichrist in Jerusalem.
This Psalm is the positive application of what we find in Psa. 70, to the state of the Jews, as apparently utterly cast off again in the close (compare Isa. 46:3, 43Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, which are borne by me from the belly, which are carried from the womb: 4And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you. (Isaiah 46:3‑4)) the very close of their eventful history—verse 20 is the confidence. But there is the faith, of God's elect, in the Lord now after the sufferings of Christ explained, clearly recognized in the outset. It was a Jewish faith of old. It was however to be as in a resurrection, not in what was old—Solomon, not David, was to build the house—still not forsaken till God's strength and salvation was shown in them to that generation and those that should come. They should not bear fruit so, i.e., according to that generation, but they should introduce a better hope as a risen people. It is as Absalom and Adonijah, these Psalms.
Note, the Jewish people shall be dealt with, in the close, upon their old principles, but they shall bear fruit upon new, under a new alliance. Therefore we have “old age” as in the trial, “bringing up again from the depths of the earth" as in the confidence. Psa. 42 and 43 probably are when, through Absalom, driven across Jordan—so Christ with the sufferers driven out. But His connection in Spirit with the Remnant while in trouble, and connected with or oppressed by, under the sufferings of and estrangement from and by, because they were in power, from Zion, and the temple and worship itself, is very different from His appearance in Person, to deliver and give joy to the separated Remnant whom sorrow and evil around them have separated and driven out. So even compare Isa. 65, and so the words of Christ to His disciples even as to the world. For, as we have seen here, they were the world. Aye! if called "gods" even, they would die like men—their princes were the princes of this world. This, John's Gospel clearly shows—“Ye are of this world, I am not of this world"—“Ye are from beneath, I am from above," and, at length, "Ye are of your father the Devil, and the works of your father ye will do." He was of God—of the Father.