Online Bible 1995 March/ROM-1025.iso/olb/gill/4_000_t.lzh/4_095.TXT

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the most High; which latter seems most agreeable;
though Cocceius thinks theyarethe words of God in one
of his Persons, speaking of another divine Person that
should deliver such that trust in him: theTargum makes
them to be the words of David to Solomon his son. By
thefowler and his snare may be meant either Saul, who
laid wait for David, spread snares for him, and hunted
him as a partridge on the mountains, from whom he
was delivered; or rather any tyrannical enemy and
persecutor of the saints, who lay snares for them; and
these are broken by the Lord,' and so they escape, as
a bird out of the hands of the lowlet, Psal. cxxiv.
6, 7. or it may, best of all, be understood of Satan and
his tewrptations, which are as snares that he lays to
catch the people of God in, and from which they are
delivered by the power and grace 6f God; see 1 Tim.
iii. 7. 2 Tim. ii. 9,6. and from the noisome pestilence;
the most pernicious and destructive one; which may
be literally understood of any pestilential distemper;
from which the Lord, by his powerful providence,
sometimes protects his people, when in danger of it:
or, spiritually, of the pestilential disease of sin, that
noisome and deadly one, the plague of the heart,
which is the worst of all plagues; and from the ruin-
ous and destructive effects and consequences of which
the Lord saves his saints.
Ver. 4. He shall cover thee with his feathers, &c.]
As birds do their young, who cannot cover themselves:
this they d9 from a tender regard to them, whereby
they both keep. them warm, and protect them from
those that would hurt them: this represents the help-
less state of the children of God, who are, like to
young birds, weak and unable to defend themselves:
the tender regard of God unto them, as the eagle and
other birds have to their young; see Dent. xxxii. 11.
Isa. xxxi. 5. Matt. xxiii. 37. and the warmth and com-
forts souls have, as well as protection, under his
powerful and gracious presence; he comforts them
under their tribulations, as well as defends them from
their enemies: and under his wings shalt thou trust;
see the note on vet. 1. and the passages there referred
to; the same metaphor is continued: his truth shall be
thy shield and buckler; his faithfulness, which is en-
gaged to keep and preserve his saints safe to his king-
Cot.
dora and glory, 1     i. 8, 9. 1 Thess. v. 23, 24. his
son, who is truth itself, John. xiv. 6. and whose person,
blood, righteousness, and salvation, are as a shield
and buckler all around the saints, to secure them from
ruin and destruction; and are the shield which faith
lays hold on, and makes use of, against the temptation,
of Satan; see Psal. ixxxiv. 11. Ephes. vi. 16. the word
of God also, which is truth, John xvii. 19. every pro-
mise in it, and doctrine of it, is as a shield and buckler
to strengthen, support, and secure the faith of hispeo-
ple, Prov. xxx. 5.
Vet.5. Thou shalt not be afraid for.the terror bynight,
&c.] The terrible things that happen in the night; as
fire, storms and tempests, invasion of enemies, mur-
ders, thefts, and, robberies: a good man, when he has
committed himself and his family to the care and pro-
tection of God by prayer, has no reason to be anxiously
careful of these things, or to indulge a slavish fear
about them; see Psal. iii. 5. and iv. 8. Prov. iii.
the Targum is, "thou shall not be afraid for the fear
"of devils that walk in the night:" so Jarchi inter-
'prets this, and the next verse, of such; as do others of
the Jewish writers: a man that trusts in the 'Lord
need. not be afraid of men or devils: a fear of evil spi-
rits is natural to men, and very early appeared; per-
haps 'it took i.ts rise from the fatal affair of the fall of
our first parents, through an' intercourse with an evil
spirit; and ever since has been imprinted on human
nature an aversion to evil spirits, and a dread of them,
and even of all spirits in general; see Job iv. 13--16.
Matt. xiv. 25, 26. Luke xxiv. 37, 38. 'nor for the arrow
that flieth by day; the judgments of God, such as the
sword, famine, and pestilence; these are called the
arrows of God, Deut. xxxiii. o.3,
because they move swiftly, come suddenly, and strike
surely, and are open and visible; they are sent.by the
Lord, and are ordered and directed by trim, and hit
and hurt whom he pleases, and none else; and there-
fore such who dwell in the secret of the Lord, and
under his shadow, need not be distressed about them:
the Targum interprets it of the arrow of the angel of
death, which he sends out in the day; see Heb. ii. 14.
so Jarchi understands it of a demon that flies like an
arrow.
Ver. 6.- Nor for the pestilence that walketh in dark-
ness, &c.] Some think, and not without cause, that
what is figuratively expressed in the preceding verse is
here explained; and, indeed, the pestilence may well
be called the terror by night: the name of the plague,
at a distance, is terrible; the near approach of it is
more so; when it enters a country, city, or town,
what fleeing is there from it ? and in the night-season
it is more dreadful than in the day; not only to think
of it in the gloomy watches of the night, but to see
the vast numbers carried out to be interred, and to
hear the dismal cry, Bring out your dead: and so it-is
here said to walk in darkness; in the darkness of the
night, or to arise from dark and unknown causes;
when it moves and walks through cities, towns, and
villages, and there's no stopping it: and this also may
be the arrow thatflieth by day; which flies as swift as
an arrow, and that flies as swift as a bird *; this is
taken out of the Lord's qui,er, has its commission and
direction from him, and does execution by night and
by day: the plague that smote the first-born in Egypt
was in the night; and that which was in David's time,
and might be the occasion of penning this psalm, began
in the day, Exod..xii. 29, 30.  2 Sam. xxiv. 15. nor for
the destruction that wasteth at noon-day; as the pesti-
lence, · which may be increased, and rage the more,
through the heat. of the day; and which destroys great
numbers wherever it comes: seventy thousand were
taken off in three days by the plague occasioned by
David's numbering of the people: the Targum is," of
"a company of devils that destroy at noon-day ;" that
is, thou shall not be afraid: some think respect is had
to a pestilential hot wind, common in the eastern
countries, which begins to blow about eight o'clock in


{q} \~ecepeukev belouv\~---\~khla yeoio\~, Homer. Iliad. 1. v. 51, 53.
{r} Voluces sagittae, Virgil. AEneid. 12. volante sagitta, Ovid. Trist.
eleg. 10.