Spurgeon PS0610

EXPOSITION.

“_Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed_.” This is rather a prophecy than an imprecation, it may be read in the future. “All my enemies shall be ashamed and sore vexed.” _They shall return and be ashamed instantaneously_,–in a moment;–their doom shall come upon them suddenly. Death’s day is doom’s day, and both are sure and may be sudden. The Romans were wont to say, “The feet of the avenging Deity are shod with wool.” With noiseless footsteps vengeance nears its victim, and sudden and overwhelming shall be its destroying stroke. If this were an imprecation, we must remember that the language of the old dispensation is not that of the new. We pray _for_ our enemies, not _against_ them. God have mercy on them, and bring them into the right way.

Thus the Psalm, like those which precede it, shows the different estates of the godly and the wicked. O Lord, let us be numbered with thy people, both now and for ever!

EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS.

Verse 10.–“_Let all mine enemies be ashamed_,” etc. If this were an imprecation, a malediction, yet it was medicinal, and had _rationem boni_, a charitable tincture and nature in it; he wished the men no harm as men. But it is rather _praedictorium_, a prophetical vehemence, that if they will take no knowledge of God’s declaring himself in the protection of his servants, if they would not consider that God had heard, and would hear, had rescued, and would rescue his children, but would continue their opposition against him, heavy judgments would certainly fall upon them; their punishment should be certain, but the effect should be uncertain; for God only knows whether his correction shall work upon his enemies to their mollifying, or to their obduration. … In the second word, “_Let them be sore vexed_,” he wishes his enemies no worse than himself had been, for he had used the same word of himself before, _Ossa turbata_, _My bones are vexed_; and, _Anima turbata_, _My soul is vexed_; and considering that David had found this vexation to be his way to God, it was no malicious imprecation to wish that enemy the same physic that he had taken, who was more sick of the same disease than he was. For this is like a troubled sea after a tempest; the danger is past, but yet the billow is great still; the danger was in the calm, in the security, or in the tempest, by misinterpreting God’s corrections to our obduration, and to a remorseless stupefaction; but when a man is come to his holy vexation, to be troubled, to be shaken with the sense of the indignation of God, the storm is past, and the indignation of God is blown over. The soul is in a fair and near way of being restored to a calmness, and to reposed security of conscience that is come to this holy vexation.–^John Donne.

Verse 10.–“_Let all mine enemies [or all mine enemies shall] be ashamed, and sore vexed_,” etc. Many of the mournful Psalms end in this manner, to instruct the believer that he is continually to look forward, and solace himself with beholding that day, when his warfare shall be accomplished; when sin and sorrow shall be no more; when sudden and everlasting confusion shall cover the enemies of righteousness; when the sackcloth of the penitent shall be exchanged for a robe of glory, and every tear become a sparkling gem in his crown; when to sighs and groans shall succeed the songs of heaven, set to angelic harps, and faith shall be resolved into the vision of the Almighty.–^George Horne.

HINTS TO PREACHERS.

Verse 10.–The shame reserved for the wicked.