Spurgeon PS0905
EXPOSITION.
God rebukes before he destroys, but when he once comes to blows with the wicked he ceases not until he has dashed them in pieces so small that their very name is forgotten, and like a noisome snuff their remembrance is put out for ever and ever. How often the word “thou” occurs in this and the former verse, to show us that the grateful strain mounts up directly to the Lord as doth the smoke from the altar when the air is still. My soul send up all the music of all thy powers to him who has been and is thy sure deliverance.
EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS.
Verse 5.–“_Thou hast rebuked the heathen_,” etc.–Augustine applieth all this mystically, as is intimated (verse #1|) that it should be applied for, “I will speak,” said he, “of all thy wonderful works;” and what so wonderful as the turning of the spiritual enemy backward, whether the devil, as when he said, “Get thee behind me, Satan;” or the old man, which is turned backward when he is put off, and the new man put on?–^John Mayer.