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Psalm 28Prayer for Help and Thanksgiving for ItOf David. 1 To you, O L ord, I call; my rock, do not refuse to hear me, for if you are silent to me, I shall be like those who go down to the Pit. 2 Hear the voice of my supplication, as I cry to you for help, as I lift up my hands toward your most holy sanctuary.
3 Do not drag me away with the wicked, with those who are workers of evil, who speak peace with their neighbors, while mischief is in their hearts. 4 Repay them according to their work, and according to the evil of their deeds; repay them according to the work of their hands; render them their due reward. 5 Because they do not regard the works of the L ord, or the work of his hands, he will break them down and build them up no more.
6 Blessed be the L ord, for he has heard the sound of my pleadings. 7 The L ord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts; so I am helped, and my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him.
8 The L ord is the strength of his people; he is the saving refuge of his anointed. 9 O save your people, and bless your heritage; be their shepherd, and carry them forever. New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
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3. Draw me not away with wicked men. The meaning is, that in circumstances so dissimilar, God should not mingle the righteous with the wicked in the same indiscriminate destruction. 595595 The verb משך, mashak, here rendered draw, “signifies,” as Hammond observes, “both to draw and apprehend,” and may “be best rendered here, Seize not on me, as he that seizeth on any to carry or drag him to execution. The Septuagint, after having literally rendered the Hebrew by Μὴ συνελκύσὟς την ψυχήν μου, draw not my soul together with, etc., adds Κίαν μὴ συναπολέσὟς με etc., and destroy me not together with, etc. Calvin here evidently takes the same view; though he does not express it in the form of criticism. Undoubtedly, too, in speaking of his enemies, he indirectly asserts his own integrity. But he did not pray in this manner, because he thought that God was indiscriminately and unreasonably angry with men; he reasons rather from the nature of God, that he ought to cherish good hope, because it was God’s prerogative to distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, and to give every one his due reward. By the workers of iniquity, he means man wholly addicted to wickedness. The children of God sometimes fall, commit errors, and act amiss in one way or other, but they take no pleasure in their evil doings; the fear of God, on the contrary, stirs them up to repentance. David afterwards defines and enlarges upon the wickedness of those whom he describes; for, under pretense of friendship they perfidiously deceived good men, professing one thing with their tongue, while they entertained a very different thing in their hearts. Open depravity is easier to be borne with than this craftiness of the fox, when persons put on fair appearances in order to find opportunity of doing mischief. 596596 “Que ceste finesse de renard, quand on use de beaux semblans pour avoir occasion de nuire.” — Fr. This truth, accordingly, admonishes us that those are most detestable in God’s sight, who attack the simple and unwary with fair speeches as with poison. |