Online Bible 1995 March/ROM-1025.iso/olb/gill/3_600_e.lzh/3_642.TXT

Text File | 1995-02-01 | 8KB | 145 lines

\*Ver. 4. \\One [thing] have I desired of the Lord\\, &c.]
Not to be returned to Saul's court; nor to his own
house and family; nor to have an affluence of worldly
riches and honours; but to have constant abode it, the
house of the Lord; an opportunity of attending continually
on the public worship of God; which is excused
and neglected by many, and is a weariness to others,
but was by the psalmist preferred to every thing else;
he being now deprived of it, as it seems;
\*\\that will I seek after\\; by incessant prayer, until obtained;
importunity and perseverance in prayer are the way to
succeed, as appears from the parable of the widow and
unjust judge;
\*\\that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life\\:
not in heaven, Christ's
Father's house, where he dwells, and where the saints,
will dwell to all eternity; though to be clothed upon
with the house from heaven is very desirable; rather,
in the church of the living God, which is the house of
God, and pillar of truth, where true believers in Christ
have a place and a name, and are pillars that will never
go out; but here the place of divine worship seems to
be meant, where the Lord granted his presence, and
where to dwell the psalmist counted the greatest happiness
on earth; he envied the very sparrows and swallows,
that built their nests on the altars in it; and
reckoned a day in it better than a thousand elsewhere;
and to have the privilege of attending all opportunities
in it, as long as he lived, is the singular request
he here makes: the ends he had in view follow;
\*\\to behold the beauty of the Lord\\, or %the delight [and]
pleasantness of the Lord% {g}; to see the priests in their robes,
and doing their office, as typical of Christ the great
High Priest; and the Levites and singers performing
their work in melodious strains, prefiguring the
churches in Gospel times, singing to the Lord with
grace in their hearts, and the four-and-twenty elders,
and one hundred and forty-four thousand, with the
Lamb on Mount Zion, singing the song of redeeming
love; and all the tribes and people of Israel, assembled
together to worship God, representing the church of
Christ as a perfection of beauty, having the beauty of
the Lord upon her, and made perfectly comely through
his comeliness; as it is a most delightful sight to see
a company of saints attending Gospel worship, meeting
together to sing, and pray, and hear the word, and
wait upon the Lord in all his appointments; to see
them walking in the faith and fellowship of the Gospel,
and according to the order of it; this is next to the desirable
sight of the bride, the Lamb's wife, in the
New Jerusalem state, having the glory of God upon
her: moreover, it was a pleasant sight to a believer in
those times to behold the sacrifices of slain beasts,
which were figures of the better sacrifice of Christ, the
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world; to which
may be added other things that were to be seen by
priests; as the ark of the Lord, which had the two
tables in it, typical of Christ, the fulfilling end of the
law for righteousness; and the table of showbread,
which pointed out Christ the bread of life, and his perpetual
intercession for his people; and the golden
candlestick, a type of the church, holding forth the
word of life to others; with many other things, which,
with an eye or? faith, the saints of those times could
look upon with delight and pleasure: also the presence
of the Lord may be intended by his beauty, than which
nothing is more desirable to the people of God, even
to behold his smiling countenance, to see his face,
and enjoy his favour, and to have fellowship with him,
and with one another; and particularly the beauty
and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ may be designed,
represented by the Shechinah, or glory, which filled
both the tabernacle and the temple; who being the
brightness of his father's glory, and fairer than the
children of men, and altogether lovely and full of
grace, is a very desirable object to be beheld by faith;
\*\\and to inquire in his temple\\; to seek the face of the
Lord, to consult him in matters of difficulty and moment;
to search after the knowledge of divine things,
and to ask for blessings of grace, for which he will be
inquired of by his people, to bestow them on them.

\*Ver. 5. \\For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion\\,
&c.] This, with what follows, is given
as a reason why the psalmist desired to dwell in the
house of the Lord; because he considered it as a pavilion
or booth, as the word {h} signifies  in which he
should be hid by the Lord, in times of trouble and distress,
either through the heat of persecution, or of inward
anxiety of mind, caused by the working of a
fiery law; the allusion being, as some think, to the
shepherd's tent or booth, into which he sometimes
takes a poor sheep, and protects it from the scorching
heat of the sun at noon: and of such use is the tabernacle
of the Lord; see \\#Isa 4:6\\;
\*\\in the secret of his
tabernacle shall he hide me\\; alluding either to the tents
of generals of armies, who receive into them those
whom they would protect from the insults and injuries
of others; or rather to the most holy place in the tabernacle,
called the secret place, \\#Eze 7:22\\; typical
of Christ, the hiding place of his, people, in whom
their life is hid, and where it is safe and secure;
\*\\he shall set me up upon a rock\\; where he would be
above and out of the reach of his enemies; meaning
Christ, comparable to a rock for its height, he being
higher than the kings of the earth, than the angels
in heaven, than the heavens themselves, and much
more than the sons of men; see \\#Ps 61:2\\; and
for shelter and safety, he being a munition of
rocks, a strong tower, a place of defence, and rock of
refuge; and for firmness, solidity, and strength, he
being able to bear the whole weight of the building
of the church, and every believer laid upon him; and
for duration, he being more immovable than rocks
and mountains; so that such who are set up upon him
are in the most safe and secure state imaginable.

\*Ver. 6. \\And now shall mine head be lifted up\\, &c.]
That is, when brought into the house of the Lord, hid
in the secret of his tabernacle, and set upon the rock
Christ; by this phrase he means, either that he should
be then restored to his former happy and comfortable
condition, as it is used in \\#Ge 40:13\\; or that he should
overcome all his enemies, and triumph over them, being
exalted, as he adds,
\*\\above mine enemies round about
me\\; so that not only they should not be able to come
at him, but should be subdued under him;
\*\\therefore will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy\\:
attended with shouting and sounding of trumpets: in allusion
to the blowing of trumpets at the time of sacrifice,
\\#Nu 10:10\\; Sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving,
with a joyful heart, for mercies received, offered up
publicly in the house of the Lord, are here intended;
\*\\I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord\\; for
whom praise waits in Zion, to whom it is due; he
being the Father of mercies, the God of all comfort,
and the author and giver of all blessings, temporal and
spiritual.

{g} \^hwhy Menb\^ %amaemotate, Jehovae%, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator,
Gejerus; so Ainsworth; %suavitatem Jehovae%, Cocceius, Michaelis.
{h} \^hkob\^ %in tugurio suo%, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius,
Michaelis.