Spurgeon PS0602
EXPOSITION.
“_Have mercy upon me, O Lord; for I am weak_.” Though I deserve destruction, yet let thy mercy pity my frailty. This is the right way to plead with God if we would prevail. Urge not your goodness or your greatness, but plead your sin and your littleness. Cry, “_I am weak_,” therefore O Lord, give me strength and crush me not. Send not forth the fury of thy tempest against so weak a vessel. Temper the wind to the shorn lamb. Be tender and pitiful to a poor withering flower, and break it not from its stem. Surely this is the plea that a sick man would urge to move the pity of his fellow if he were striving with him, “Deal gently with me, ‘for I am weak.'” A sense of sin had so spoiled the Psalmist’s pride, so taken away his vaunted strength, that he found himself weak to obey the law, weak through the sorrow that was in him, too weak, perhaps, to lay hold on the promise. “I am weak_.” The original may be read, “I am one who droops,” or withered like a blighted plant. Ah! beloved, we know what this means, for we, too, have seen our glory stained, and our beauty like a faded flower.
“_O Lord heal me; for my bones are vexed_.” Here he prays for _healing_, not merely the mitigation of the ills he endured, but their entire removal, and the curing of the wounds which had arisen therefrom. His bones were “_shaken_,’ as the Hebrew has it. His terror had become so great that his very bones shook; not only did his flesh quiver, but the bones, the solid pillars of the house of manhood, were made to tremble. “My bones are shaken.” Ah, when the soul has a sense of sin, it is enough to make the bones shake; it is enough to make a man’s hair stand up on end to see the flames of hell beneath him, an angry God above him, and danger and doubt surrounding him. Well might he say, “My bones are shaken.” Lest, however, we should imagine that it was merely bodily sickness–although bodily sickness might be the outward sign–the Psalmist goes on to say, “_My soul is also sore vexed_.” Soul-trouble is the very soul of trouble. It matters not that the bones shake if the soul be firm, but when the soul itself is also sore vexed this is agony indeed. “_But thou, O Lord, how long?_” This sentence ends abruptly, for words failed, and grief drowned the little comfort which dawn upon him. The Psalmist had still, however, some hope; but that hope was only in his God. He therefore cries, “O Lord, how long?” The coming of Christ into the soul in his priestly robes of grace is the grand hope of the penitent soul; and, indeed, in some form or other, Christ’s appearance is, and ever has been, the hope of the saints.
Calvin’s favourite exclamation was “Domine usque quo”–“_O Lord, how long_?” Nor could his sharpest pains, during a life of anguish, force from him any other word. Surely this is the cry of the saints under the altar, “O Lord, how long?” And this should be the cry of the saints waiting for the millennial glories, “Why are his chariots so long in coming; Lord, how long?” Those of us who have passed through conviction of sin knew what it was to count our minutes hours, and our hours years, while mercy delayed its coming. We watched for the dawn of grace, as they that watch for the morning. Earnestly did our anxious spirits ask, “O Lord, how long?”
EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS.
Verse 2.–“_Have mercy upon me, O Lord_.” To fly and escape the anger of God, David sees no means in heaven or in earth, and therefore retires himself to God, even to him who wounded him that he might heal him. He flies not with Adam to the bush, nor with Saul to the witch, nor with Jonah to Tarshish; but he appeals from an angry and just God to a merciful God, and from himself to himself. The woman who was condemned by King Philip, appealed from Philip being drunken to Philip being sober. But David appeals from one virtue, justice, to another, mercy. There may be appellation from the tribunal of man to the justice-seat of God; but when thou art indicted before God’s justice-seat, whither or to whom wilt thou go but to himself and his mercy-seat, which is the highest and last place of appellation? “I have none in heaven but thee, nor in earth besides thee.” … David, under the name of _mercy_, includeth all things, according to that of Jacob to his brother Esau, “I have gotten mercy, and therefore I have gotten all things.” Desirest thou any thing at God’s hands? Cry for _mercy_, out of which fountain all good things will spring to thee.–^Archibald Symson.
Verse 2.–“_For I am weak_.” Behold, what rhetoric he useth to move God to cure him, “_I am weak_,” an argument taken from his weakness, which indeed were a weak argument to move any man to show his favour, but is a strong argument to prevail with God. If a diseased person would come to a physician, and only lament the heaviness of his sickness, he would say, God help thee; or an oppressed person come to a lawyer, and show him the estate of his action and ask his advice, that is a golden question; or to a merchant to crave raiment, he will either have present money or a surety; or a courtier favour, you must have your reward ready in your hand. But coming before God the most forcible argument that ye can use is your necessity, poverty, tears, misery, unworthiness, and confessing them to him, it shall be an open door to furnish you with all things that he hath. … The tears of our misery are forcible arrows to pierce the heart of our heavenly Father, to deliver us and pity our hard case. The beggars lay open their sores to the view of the world, that the more they may move men to pity them. So let us deplore our miseries to God, that he, with the pitiful Samaritan, at the sight of our wounds, may help us in due time.–^Archibald Samson.
Verse 2.–“_Heal me_,” etc. David comes not to take physic upon wantonness, but because the disease is violent, because the accidents are vehement; so vehement, so violent, as that it hath pierced _ad ossa_, and _ad animam_, “_My bones are vexed, and my soul is sore troubled_,” therefore “_heal me_;” which is the reason upon which he grounds this second petition, “_Heal me, because my bones are vexed_,” etc.–^John Donne.
Verse 2.–“_My bones are vexed_.” The Lord can make the strongest and most insensible part of man’s body sensible of his wrath when he pleaseth to touch him, for here David’s bones are vexed.–^David Dickson.
Verse 2.–The term “_bones_” frequently occurs in the psalms, and if we examine we shall find it used in three different senses. (1.) It is sometimes applied literally to our blessed Lord’s human body, to the body which hung upon the cross, as, “They pierced my hands and my feet; I may tell all my bones.” (2.) It has sometimes also a further reference to his mystical body the church. And then it denotes all the members of Christ’s body that stand firm in the faith, that cannot be moved by persecutions, or temptations, however severe, as, “All my bones shall say, Lord, who is like unto thee?” (3.) In some passages the term bones is applied to the soul, and not to the body, to the inner man of the individual Christian. Then it implies the strength and fortitude of the soul, the determined courage which faith in God gives to the righteous. This is the sense in which it is used in the second verse of Psalm 6, “_O Lord, heal me; for my bones are vexed_.”–^Augustine, Ambrose, and Chrysostom; quoted by F. H. Dunwell, B.A., in “Parochial Lectures on the Psalms,” 1855.
Verse 3.–“_My soul_.” Yokefellows in sin are yokefellows in pain; the soul is punished for informing, the body for performing, and as both the informer and performer, the cause and the instrument, so shall the stirrer up of sin and the executer of it be punished.–^John Donne.
Verse 3.–“_O Lord, how long_?” Out of this we have three things to observe; first, that there is an appointed time which God hath measured for the crosses of all his children, before which time they shall not be delivered, and for which they must patiently attend, not thinking to prescribe time to God for their delivery, or limit the Holy One of Israel. The Israelites remained in Egypt till the complete number of four hundred and thirty years were accomplished. Joseph was three years and more in the prison till the appointed time of his delivery came. The Jews remained seventy years in Babylon. So that as the physician appointeth certain times to the patient, both wherein he must fast, and be dieted, and wherein he must take recreation, so God knoweth the convenient times both of our humiliation and exaltation. Next, see the impatiency of our nature in our miseries, our flesh still rebelling against the Spirit, which oftentimes forgetteth itself so far, that it will enter into reasoning with God, and quarrelling with him as we may read of Job, Jonas, etc., and here also of David. Thirdly, albeit the Lord delay his coming to relieve his saints, yet hath he great cause if we could ponder it; for when we were in the heat of our sins, many times he cried by the mouth of his prophets and servants, “O fools, how long will you continue in your folly?” And we would not hear; and therefore when we are in the heat of our pains, thinking long, yea, every day a year till we be delivered, no wonder it is if God will not hear; let us consider with ourselves the just dealing of God with us; that as he cried and we would not hear, so now we cry, and he will not hear.–^A. Symson.
Verse 3.–“_O Lord, how long_?” As the saints in heaven have their _usque quo_, how long, Lord, holy, and true, before thou begin to execute judgment? So, the saints on earth have their _usque quo_. How long, Lord, before thou take off the execution of this judgment upon us? For, our deprecatory prayers are not mandatory, they are not directory, they appoint not God his ways, or his times; but as our postulatory prayers are, they also are submitted to the will of God, and have all in them that ingredient, that herb of grace, which Christ put into his own prayer, that _veruntamen, yet not my will, but thy will be fulfilled_; and they have that ingredient which Christ put into our prayer, _fiat voluntas, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven_; in heaven there is no resisting of his will; yet in heaven there is a soliciting, a hastening, an accelerating of the judgment, and the glory of the resurrection; so though we resist not his corrections here upon earth, we may humbly present to God the sense which we have of his displeasure, for this sense and apprehension of his corrections is one of the principal reasons why he sends them; he corrects us therefore that we might be sensible of his corrections; that when we, being humbled under his hand, have said with his prophet, “_I will bear the wrath of the Lord because I have sinned against him_” (#Mic 7:9|), he may be pleased to say to his correcting angel, as he did to his destroying angel, _This is enough_, and so burn his rod now, as he put up his sword then.–^John Donne.
HINTS TO PREACHERS.
Verse 2.–The _argumentum ad misericordiam_.
Verse 2.–_First sentence–Divine healing_. 1. What precedes it, _my bones are vexed_. 2. How it is wrought. 3. What succeeds it.
Verse 3.–The impatience of sorrow; its sins, mischief, and cure.
Verse 3.–A fruitful topic may be found in considering the question, How long will God continue afflictions to the righteous?