CHAPTER 15 . . . 
        
NOTES ON PSALM 15
The title, mizmor ledavid, a Psalm of David,
has nothing in it particularly worthy of notice. If it were a
Psalm composed during the captivity, relating to their return
and settlement in their own land, with the restoration of
their temple service and all the ordinances of God, and a
description of the persons who should then be considered
Israelites indeed, the name of David is improperly
prefixed. But the subject is of the most general utility, and
demands the most solemn and serious attention of all men who
profess to believe in the immortality of the soul.
Verse 1. Lord, who shall abide in
thy tabernacle?
The literal translation of
this verse is, "Lord, who shall sojourn in thy tabernacle? who
shall dwell in the mountain of thy holiness?" For the proper
understanding of this question we must note the following
particulars:-
- 1. The tabernacle, which was a kind of moveable
temple, was a type of the Church militant, or the
state of the people of God in this world.
- 2. Mount Zion, the holy mount, where the
temple was built, was the type of the kingdom of
heaven. There the ark became stationary, and was no
longer carried about from place to place; and the whole was
typical of the rest that remains for the people of God.
- 3. The TABERNACLE was a temporary and frequently-removed
building, carried about from place to place, and not long in
any one place. Concerning this it is said: mi yagur,
"Who shall lodge, or sojourn," there? It is not
a residence, or dwelling-place, but a place to
lodge in for a time.
- 4. The TEMPLE was a fixed and permanent
building; and here it is inquired, mi yiscon, "Who
shall dwell, abide," or have his permanent
residence, there?
- 5. The tabernacle being a migratory temple, carried
about on the shoulders of the priests and Levites, there was
no dwelling there for any; they could but lodge
or sojourn.
- 6. The temple being fixed, the priests,
Levites, permanent occupiers. There was no
lodging or sojourning, but permanent
residence for all connected with it.
- 7. The tabernacle is, therefore, a proper type of
the Church militant, wandering up and down,
tossed by various storms and tempests; the followers of God,
having here no continuing city; sojourning only
on earth to get a preparation for eternal glory.
- 8. The temple is also a proper type or emblem of the
Church triumphant in heaven. "Here the wicked
cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." It is the
dwelling-place, the eternal residence, of
all who are faithful unto death, who are made pillars in
that temple of God, to go no more out for ever.
The questions therefore are,
- 1. Who can be considered a fit member of the Church of
Christ here below? and,
- 2. Who shall be made partakers of an endless glory? In
answer to these questions, the character of what we may term a
true Israelite, or a good Christian, is
given in the following particulars:-
Verse 2. He that walketh
uprightly
holech tamim,
- 1. He
walks perfectly. Who sets God before his eyes, takes his
word for the rule of his conduct, considers himself a
sojourner on earth, and is continually walking
to the kingdom of God. He acts according to the
perfections of God's law; he has respect to all its
parts, and feels the weight and importance of all its
injunctions.
And worketh
righteousness
2. He is not satisfied with a
contemplative life; he has duties to perform.
The law of righteousness has placed him in certain
relations, and each of these relations has its peculiar
duties. poel tsedek, the words here used, signify to
give just weight, to render to all their
dues.
- 1. As he is the creature of GOD, he has
duties to perform to him. He owes God his heart: May
son, give me thy heart; and should love him with all his
heart, soul, mind, and strength. This is giving GOD his
due.
- 2. As a member of civil society, he has
various duties to perform to his fellows, as they have to him.
He is to love them as himself, and do unto all men as he would
they should do unto him.
- 3. There are duties which he owes to
himself. That his body may be in health, vigour,
and activity, he should avoid every thing by which it might be
injured, particularly all excesses in eating, drinking,
sleeping, his soul may be saved, he should avoid all
sin; all irregular and disorderly passions. He owes it to his
soul to apply to God for that grace which produces repentance,
faith, and holiness; and in order to get all these blessings,
he should read, watch, pray, hear the word
preached, and diligently use all the ordinances of
God. He who acts not thus, defrauds both his body
and soul: but the person in the text works
righteousness-gives to all their due; and thus keeps a
conscience void of offence, both towards God and man.
And speaketh the truth in his
heart.
- 3. He is a true man; in him
there is no false way. He is no man of pretenses;
speaking one thing, and meaning another. He
professes nothing but what he feels and
intends; with him there are no hollow friendships,
vain compliments, nor empty professions of
esteem, love, regard, or friendship. His
mouth speaks nothing but what his heart
dictates. His heart, his tongue, and his
hand, are all in unison. Hypocrisy, guile, and
deceit, have no place in his soul.
Verse 3. He that backbiteth not with
his tongue
lo ragal al leshono, "he
foots not upon his tongue."
- 4. He is one who treats his
neighbour with respect. He says nothing that might injure him
in his character, person, or property; he
forgets no calumny, he is author of no slander,
he insinuates nothing by which his neighbour may be
injured. The tongue, because of its slanderous
conversation, is represented in the nervous original as
kicking about the character of an absent person; a very
common vice, and as destructive as it is common: but the man
who expects to see God abhors it, and backbites not with
his tongue. The words backbite and backbiter
come from the Anglo-Saxon bac, the back, and {A.S.},
to bite. How it came to be used in the sense it has in
our language, seems at first view unaccountable; but it was
intended to convey the treble sense of knavishness,
cowardice, and brutality. He is a knave, who
would rob you of your good name; he is a coward,
that would speak of you in your absence what he dared
not to do in your presence; and only an ill-conditioned
dog would fly at and bite your back when
your face was turned. All these three
ideas are included in the term; and they all meet in the
detractor and calumniator. His tongue is the
tongue of a knave, a coward, and a dog.
Such a person, of course, has no right to the privileges of
the Church militant, and none of his disposition can
ever see God.
Nor doeth evil to his
neighbour
- 5. He not only avoids evil
speaking, but he avoids also evil acting towards
his neighbour. He speaks no evil of him; he
does no evil to him; he does him no harm;
he occasions him no wrong. On the contrary, he gives
him his due. See under the second particular. See
Clarke on Psalms
15:2.
Nor taketh up a reproach against
his neighbour.
- 6. The word cherpah,
which we here translate a reproach, comes from
charaph, to strip, or make bare, to deprive
one of his garments; hence choreph, the
winter, because it strips the fields of
their clothing, and the trees of their
foliage. By this, nature appears to be
dishonoured and disgraced. The application is
easy: a man, for instance, of a good character is reported to
have done something wrong: the tale is spread, and the
slanderers and backbiters carry it about; and thus the
man is stripped of his fair character, of his
clothing of righteousness, truth, and
honesty. All may be false; or the man, in an
hour of the power of darkness, may have been tempted and
overcome; may have been wounded in the cloudy and dark
day, and deeply mourns his fall before God. Who that has not
the heart of a devil would not strive rather to cover
than make bare the fault? Those who feed, as the
proverb says, like the flies, passing over all a man's
whole parts to light upon his wounds, will take up
the tale, and carry it about. Such, in the
course of their diabolic work, carry the story of scandal to
the righteous man; to him who loves his God and his neighbour.
But what reception has the tale-bearer? The good man taketh
it not up; lo nasa, he will not bear it; it
shall not be propagated from him. He cannot prevent the
detractor from laying it down; but it is in his power
not to take it up: and thus the progress of the
slander may be arrested. He taketh not up a reproach
against his neighbour; and the tale-bearer is probably
discouraged from carrying it to another door. Reader, drive
the slanderer of your neighbour far away from you: ever
remembering that in the law of God, as well as in the law of
the land, "the receiver is as bad as the thief."
Verse 4. In whose eves a vile person
is contemned
- 7. This man judges of others
by their conduct; he tries no man's heart. He knows men only
by the fruits they bear; and thus he gains knowledge of
the principle from which they proceed. A vile
person, nimas, the reprobate, one abandoned
to sin; is despised, nibzeh, is
loathsome, as if he were covered with the
elephantiasis or leprosy, for so the word
implies. He may be rich, he may be learned, he
may be a great man and honourable with his
master, in high offices in the state; but if he be a spiritual
leper, an infidel, a profligate, the
righteous man must despise him, and hold him, because he is an
enemy to God and to man, in sovereign contempt. If he be in
power, he will not treat him as if worthy of his
dignity; while he respects the office he will
detest the man. And this is quite right; for the
popular odium should ever be pointed against vice.
Aben Ezra gives a curious turn to this clause, which
he translates thus: "He is mean and contemptible in his own
eyes;" and it is certain that the original, nibzeh
beeynaiv nimas, will bear this translation. His
paraphrase on it is beautiful: "A pious man, whatever
good he may have done, and however concordant to the Divine
law he may have walked, considers all this of no worth,
compared with what it was his duty to do for the glory of his
Creator." A sentiment very like that of our Lord, Luke
17:10: "So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those
things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable
servants; we have done that which was our duty to do."
Taken in this sense, the words intimate, that the man who
is truly pious, who is a proper member of the Church
militant, and is going straight to the Church
triumphant, is truly humble; he knows he has
nothing but what he has received, he has no merit,
he trusts not in himself, but in the living God. He renounces
his own righteousness, and trusts in the
eternal mercy of God through the infinitely
meritorious atonement made by Jesus Christ. The language
of his heart is,-
"I loathe myself when God I see, And into nothing fall;
Content that thou exalted be, And Christ be all in all."
He honoureth them that fear the
Lord
- 8. This cause is a proof, however just
the sentiment, that Aben Ezra has mistaken the meaning
of the preceding clause. The truly pious man, while he has in
contempt the honourable and right honourable
profligate, yet honours them that fear the Lord, though
found in the most abject poverty; though, with Job, on
the dunghill, or, with Lazarus, covered with
sores at the rich man's gate. Character is the object
of his attention; persons and circumstances are of minor
importance.
The fear of the Lord is often taken for the whole
of religion; and sometimes for that reverence which
a man feels for the majesty and holiness of God,
that induces him to hate and depart from evil. Here it may
signify the lowest degree of religion, repentance whereby
we forsake sin.
Sweareth to his own hurt,
and changeth not.
- 9. If at any time he have
bound himself by a solemn engagement to do so and so, and he
finds afterwards that to keep his oath will be greatly
to his damage; yet such reverence has he for God
and for truth, that he will not change, be the
consequences what they may. He is faithful also to his
promises; his bare word will bind him equally with an
oath. He that will not be honest without an oath
will not be honest with one.
The Hebrew might be thus translated: "He sweareth to
afflict himself, and does not change;" and thus the
Chaldee has rendered this clause. He has promised to
the Lord to keep his body under, and bring it into subjection;
to deny himself that he may not pamper the flesh, and have the
more to give to the poor.
Verse 5. Putteth not out his money
to usury
- 10. As usury signifies
unlawful interest, or that which is got by
taking advantage of the necessity of a distressed
neighbour, no man that fears God can be guilty of it. The
word neshech, which we translate usury, comes
from nashach, to bite as a serpent; and here
must signify that biting or devouring usury,
which ruins the man who has it to pay. "The increase of
usury is called neshech, because it resembles the
biting of a serpent. For as this is so small at first,
as scarcely to be perceptible, but the venom soon
spreads and diffuses itself till it reaches the vitals; so the
increase of usury, which at first is not perceived nor
felt, at length grows so much as by degrees to devour
another's substance." Middoch's edition of
Leigh's Critica Sacra, sub voce.
The Jews ever were, and are still, remarkable for
usury and usurious contracts; and a Jew that is
saved from it is in the fair way, charity would suppose, to
the kingdom of heaven. The Roman laws condemned the
usurer to the forfeiture of four times the
sum. Cato de Rust., lib. i.
Nor taketh reward against the
innocent.
- 11. He neither gives nor receives
a bribe in order to pervert justice or injure an
innocent man in his cause. The lawyer, who sees a poor man
opposed by a rich man, who, though he is convinced in his
conscience that the poor man has justice and right on his
side, yet takes the larger fee from the rich man
to plead against the poor man, has in fact taken a bribe
against the innocent, and without the most signal
interposition of the mercy of God, is as sure of hell as if he
were already there.
He that doeth these
things
He in whose character all these
excellences meet, though still much more is necessary under
the Christian dispensation, shall never be moved-he
shall stand fast for ever. He is an upright, honest man, and
God will ever be his support.
Now we have the important question answered, Who shall go
to heaven? The man who to faith in Christ Jesus adds
those eleven moral excellences which have been already
enumerated. And only such a character is fit for a place in
the Church of Christ.
On this verse there is a singular reading in my old MS.
Psalter, which I must notice. The clause, Qui
pecuniam suam non dedit ad usuram, "who putteth not
out his money to usury," is thus translated: He that gat
nout his catel til oker. Now this intimates that the
author had either read pecudem, CATTLE, for
pecuniam, MONEY; or that catel was the only
money current in his time and country. And indeed it
has long been the case, that the Scottish peasantry
paid their rents in kind; so many cows or
sheep given to the laird for the usufruct of the
ground. That this is no mistake in the translation is
evident enough from the paraphrase, where he repeats
the words, with his gloss upon them: He that gaf nout his
Catel till oker bodyly als covaytus men dos gastly: that
he seke naght for his gude dede, na mede of this werld, bot
anely of heven.
The very unusual word oker signifies produce
of any kind, whether of cattle, land, money, or even
the human offspring. It is found in the
Anglo-Saxon, the Gothic, the German, and
the Danish; in all which languages it signifies
produce, fruit, offspring, usury, and the like.
Dr. Jameson does not show the word in any of its forms,
though it is evident that it existed in the ancient
Scottish language.
The word catel may be used here for chattels,
substance of any kind, moveable or immoveable; but this
word itself was originally derived from cattle, which
were from the beginning the principal substance
or riches of the inhabitants of the country. Indeed the
word pecunia, money, was derived from pecus,
cattle, which were no longer used as a medium of commerce
when silver and gold came into use. There is a passage in
Chaucer where cattel catching seems to be used
for getting money. Speaking of the wicked priests of
his time, he says:-
Some on her churches dwell Apparailled poorely
proud of porte; The seven Sacramentes thei doen
sell, In Cattel catching is her comfort.
Of each matter thei wollen mell; And doen hem wrong
is her disport. To affraie the people thei been
fell And hold hem lower than doeth the Lorde.
Plowmanne's Tale, 3d part.
ANALYSIS OF THE FIFTEENTH PSALM
A Psalm of doctrine, consisting of two parts, in
which we have the character of a sound Christian, (rather, an
upright Jew.)
- I. The first part is delivered in the form of a
dialogue between God and the prophet, from Psalms
15:1-5.
- II. The second is the epiphonema, or moral
reflection, in the close of the last verse.
I. 1. The question proposed by the psalmist to God,
- 1. "Lord, who shall sojourn in thy holy tabernacle?"
- 2. "Who shall rest upon thy holy hill?" That is, because
all are not Israel which are of Israel,
therefore the psalmist asks of God, Who shall sojourn as a
true member in the Church militant? And who shall
rest in the Church triumphant?
- 2. To which God returns the following answer, containing
very remarkable notes of the true character of a member of the
Church:-
1. In general, he is a man, who is,
- 1.
Upright in thought; he is an honest man: "He
that walketh uprightly."
- 2. Just in his deed:
"He works righteousness."
- 3. True in his word:
"He speaks the truth in his heart."
2. In particular, he is a man who avoids evil.
- 1. In himself he is no slanderer: "He backbites not with
his tongue."
- 2. He is no wrong-doer: "Nor doeth evil to his neighbour."
- 3. He is no reviler, tale-bearer, nor tale-hearer: "He
takes not up a reproach against his neighbour."
- 4. He is no favourer of sin: "In whose eyes an evil person
is contemned."
- 5. He is no oppressor nor extortioner: He puts not his
money to his poor brother to usury.
- 6. No briber: "He takes no reward against the innocent."
- 3. Such a man is he who honours them that fear the
Lord.
- 4. "He sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not." He will
surely keep his word; his character is composed of piety and
charity.
II. The epiphonema, or moral reflection has these
two parts:-
- 1. The party to whom this privilege belongs: "He
that doeth these things;" for the doers, not the
hearers, of the law shall be justified.
- 2. The promise made to him: "He shall never be
moved." The life of grace is the way to the life of glory. See
the preceding notes.
Additional Resources
TopCom ^
Bibliography Information
Clarke, Adam. "Commentary on
Psalm 15". "The Adam Clarke Commentary". 1832.
|
