Spurgeon PS1008
EXPOSITION.
Despite the bragging of this base wretch, it seems that he is as cowardly as he is cruel. “_He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are privily set against the poor_.” He acts the part of the highwayman, who springs upon the unsuspecting traveller in some desolate part of the road. There are always bad men lying in wait for the saints. This is a land of robbers and thieves; let us travel well armed, for every bush conceals an enemy. Everywhere there are traps laid for us, and foes thirsting for our blood. There are enemies at our table as well as across the sea. We are never safe, save when the Lord is with us.
EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS.
Verse 8.–“_He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages_,” etc. The Arab robber lurks like a wolf among these sand-heaps, and often springs out suddenly upon the solitary traveller, robs him in a trice, and then plunges again into the wilderness of sand-hills and reedy downs, where pursuit is fruitless. Our friends are careful not to allow us to straggle about, or lag behind, and yet it seems absurd to fear a surprise here–Kaifa before, Acre in the rear, and travellers in sight on both sides. Robberies, however, do often occur, just where we now are. Strange country! and it has always been so. There are a hundred allusions to just such things in the history, the Psalms, and the prophets of Israel. A whole class of imagery is based upon them. Thus, in #Ps 10:8-10|, “He sits in the lurking places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: he lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den: he lieth in wait to catch the poor: he doth catch the poor, when he draweth him into his net; he croucheth and humbleth himself, that the poor may fall by his strong ones.” And a thousand rascals, the living originals of this picture, are this day crouching and lying in wait all over the country to catch poor helpless travellers. You observe that all these people we meet or pass are armed; nor would they venture to go from Acre to Kaifa without their musket, although the cannon of the castles seem to command every foot of the way. Strange, most strange land! but it tallies wonderfully with its ancient story.–^W. M. Thomson, D.D., in “The Land and the Book,” 1859.
Verse 8.–My companions asked me if I knew the danger I had escaped. “No,” I replied; “What danger?” They then told me that, just after they started, they saw a wild Arab skulking after me, crouching to the ground, with a musket in his hand; and that, as soon as he had reached within what appeared to them musket-shot of me, he raised his gun; but, looking wildly around him, as a man will do who is about to perpetrate some desperate act, he caught sight of them and disappeared. Jeremiah knew something of the ways of these Arabs when he wrote, (#Jer 3:2|) “In the ways hast thou sat for them, as the Arabian in the wilderness;” and the simile is used in #Ps 10:9,10|, for the Arabs wait and watch for their prey with the greatest eagerness and perseverance.–^John Gadsby, in “My Wanderings,” 1860.
Verse 8.–“_He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are privily set against the poor.” All this strength of metaphor and imagery is intended to mark the assiduity, the cunning, the low artifice, to which the enemies of truth and righteousness will often resort in order to accomplish their corrupt and vicious designs. The extirpation of true religion is their great object; and there is nothing to which they will not stoop in order to effect that object. The great powers which have oppressed the church of Christ, in different ages, have answered to this description. Both heathen and papistical authorities have thus condescended to infamy. They have sat, as it were, in ambush for the poor of Christ’s flock; they have adopted every stratagem that infernal skill could invent; they have associated themselves with princes in their palaces, and with beggars on their dunghill; they have resorted to the villages, and they have mingled in the gay and populous city; and all for the vain purpose of attempting to blot out a “name which shall endure for ever, and which shall be continued as long as the sun.”–^John Morison.
HINTS TO PREACHERS.
Verse 8.–Dangers of godly men, or the snares in the way of believers.