It seems clear, from the third Book of the Psalms, or Israelitish chapter of them, that the ten tribes, at least the Remnant of them, are in the land when the last events are occurring. This Ezek. 20:4343And there shall ye remember your ways, and all your doings, wherein ye have been defiled; and ye shall lothe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils that ye have committed. (Ezekiel 20:43) would, as to their repentance, confirm. But I do not see that they have more in the land than the last confederacy and Gog—Psa. 83 depicting it, and its judgment, according to Ezek. 39:2323And the heathen shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity: because they trespassed against me, therefore hid I my face from them, and gave them into the hand of their enemies: so fell they all by the sword. (Ezekiel 39:23) to the end. In Psa. 87 we have Zion owned; they had seen its devastation, Psa. 79 Psa. 88 and 89 are the moral side—law and grace. In Psa. 84 they are going up to Jerusalem again, and in Psa. 85 restoration takes place.
This makes the Book very interesting—all the various exercises of the people are developed in it. They are back, but Gog not destroyed, and Jerusalem yet trodden down. It is with the Assyrian, Israel, the ten tribes had to do. It is “after the glory” (Psa. 73:2424Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. (Psalm 73:24), see Zech. 2:88For thus saith the Lord of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye. (Zechariah 2:8)) they will be received. God's judgment to cut off had dealt with them in the wilderness. But Gog is not destroyed till the glory appears, which destroys the beast and Antichrist; so that the desolation of Jerusalem was still there.
In the fourth Book, the whole nation is taken up (Psa. 90) as of old belonging to God. In Psa. 91 Messiah owns the God of the Jews as “Most High"; Psa. 92 is the judgment of the wicked, and the abiding blessing of the righteous; Psa. 93 is the reign, and coming in of the First-begotten. Psalm 'or, Messiah takes the government; Psa. 102, His rejection, and divine perpetuity; and then the earth, and Israel had mercy and restoration through trial. Psa. 107 begins the last supplementary Book.
In the third Book, it is properly Israel and promises to Israel, Kol Israel (all Israel) shall be saved. Hence the prayers of the son of Jesse were ended, in Psa. 72, in the glory of Solomon, i.e., the millennial Christ. These Psalms, i.e., of Book 3, are, save the three last, not of David, and there is all the difference of One who feels Himself the Center of the people, identifies Himself with them, bears their interests, their sorrows in His own Person. There are, in many respects, the same interests, but viewed as those of the people, not “my sins," "my foolishness" (surely He hath borne "our"). It is the general deliverance of Israel, and sung with holy interest by One interested therein, who is to have the deliverance, but does not take all into His own Person. He rehearses the ways of God, the acts of the enemy, and that with details of history, as Psa. 78 and 79; we have the conduct of Ephraim, and the subsequent election of Judah and Zion and David, and the desire that God would be with them as in the cloud in the wilderness. They go up to Jerusalem, and the captivity of Jacob is brought back. Faithfulness and mercy are the foundations of their hopes, as Psa. 85 and 89, only, as we have said, in Psa. 86-88, in the first we have His own Person as the Center of Israel's hopes presented intercessionally before the Lord—in Psa. 87, Zion is set up, and in recounting the glories of cities and empires, she is celebrated in this, that in writing up the divine register, this Man is counted to be born therein Psa. 88, we have the Lord, I believe, suffering the judgment of Israel as, under the terms of Jehovah, condemned under the guilt of death. The wrath of God was upon Him, and death, as such, upon His soul; see Psa. 86:1313For great is thy mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell. (Psalm 86:13). It is another point of view of the death of the blessed Lord looked at as associated with Israel; hence also it is in the mouth probably of Heman, not of David, as expressive still of the life of faith, whatever His sorrow, though I do not absolutely rest in the titles.
From Psa. 73 to 89 we have Israel viewed as a nation, not the Jews; and, moreover, the circumstances in Zion, not the Remnant driven out. Still Antichrist seems to be in Jerusalem. It is the Spirit of Christ judging and pleading then for all through the history, not as the Remnant fled in the evil day. Psa. 73 explains the whole experience of the Remnant in this respect—"God is good to Israel, but as for me, my feet were almost gone"—but “good to such as are of a clean heart," He is just in His goodness, i.e., consistent with His character.
10. This verse discovers this trying circumstance—that, in consequence of the unhumbled boastings of the enemies of God, the foolish and wicked full of prosperity, as yet untouched, God's people (so Israel is here viewed in mass) join the ungodly, their heart not being for God, saying, “How doth God know? "—comparing the consequence of their being as they supposed, and formally, God's people, to wit, chastisement and the untouched prosperity of those who did not care for God. “They say" reaches, I apprehend, to the end of verse 14; but, where the Spirit of God was, there was that which stopped saying thus. But there was no understanding. It perplexed the spirit. The sanctuary of God alone gave the secret—they are " in slippery places " till Jehovah awakes, then there is an end of them; yet, verses 21-23, though so foolish, this poor Remnant, who in darkness and trial wait for the revelation of the sanctuary, was kept and held up by God—very foolish, but with God in spirit, and preserved.
24. Why this is translated “Afterward receive me to glory," I know not. It is, "During this time of trial and desolation, thou wilt guide me; after glory thou wilt receive me." It is the same as in Zech. 2:88For thus saith the Lord of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye. (Zechariah 2:8). If akhar kavod (after the glory) may mean “according to," that may be, but simply it is, " After the glory of God has been manifested, thou wilt receive me."
25-28. This is the great result of the true people.