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A Commentary on the Psalms from Primitive and Mediæval Writers, A General Epistle to All Suffering Saints, Affliction, Andrew A. Bonar, Chaff, Christ and His Church in the Book of Psalms, Ephesians 4:11–14, George Horne, J. J. Stewart Perowne, J. M. Neale, James 1:4–7, Jeremiah 17, John Calvin, Matthew 7:24–27, Psalm 1, Psalms, Samuel Horsley, T. K. Cheyne, The Book of Psalms: Translated from a Revised Text With Notes and Introduction, Thomas Brooks, tree, Walter Mill
(Rough notes for a future sermon or lesson):
Thomas Brooks in his “General Epistle to All Suffering Saints” noted a promise of God:
Thirdly, Know for your comfort, that you shall have mercy and kindness, and whatever good you need in due season, at that very instant, at that very nick of time wherein you most need mercy.[1]
He then gave the example of the Walter Mill, who would not be blown away:
Another [Walter Mill] who suffered martyrdom in Scotland, being solicited to recant, made this reply: ye shall know that I will not recant the truth, for I am corn, I am no chaff; I will not be blown away with the wind, nor burst with the flail; but I will abide both (440).
How could Mill have such strength to know that he would not be blown away? To see his strength, we need to look back to Psalm 1:
1 Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
4 The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
There are two plants, a tree and one that ends in chaff (vv. 3 “a tree….” And v. 4, “chaff that the wind drives away”)[2]. One stands strong, the other will be blown away:
“like the chaff which the wind driveth away.” This allusion describes the instability of the principles of the ungodly, rather than of their fortunes. Their want of principle is opposed to the good man’s steady meditation of Jehovah’s law, which is the foundation of his prosperity. On the other hand, because the ungodly want this principle, therefore they shall not stand in the judgment.
Samuel Horsley, The Book of Psalms; Translated from the Hebrew: With Notes, Explanatory and Critical, Fourth Edition (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans; F. & J. Rivington, 1845), 191.[3]
The distinguishing mark of the two is the source of strength. The godly has a source of strength outside himself[4]; the ungodly relies upon himself alone[5]:
He who hath once brought himself to “delight” in the Scriptures, will find no temptation to exchange that pleasure for any which the world or the flesh can offer him. Such an one will make the lively oracles of God his companions by day and by night. He will have recourse to them for direction, in the bright and cheerful hours of prosperity; to them he will apply for comfort, in the dark and dreary seasons of adversity. The enemy, when advancing to the assault, will always find him well employed, and will be received with—“Get thee behind me, Satan!” When the law of God is the object of our studies and meditations, we are conformed to the example of our Redeemer himself, who, as a man, while he “increased in stature,” increased likewise “in wisdom,” and grew powerful in the knowledge of the law which he was to fulfil, and of those prophecies which he was to accomplish; so that, at twelve years of age, he appeared to “have more understanding than all his teachers; for the divine testimonies had been his meditation.” Ps. 119:99.
George Horne, A Commentary on the Book of Psalms (New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1856), 37-38. The image of the man blown about is picked up by the Lord’s brother:
4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; James 1:4–7 (ESV)
The unstable man is one who does not rest upon the wisdom of God (which must, at the least, include the “torah” of the Lord). He does not seek the stability of God’s wisdom and thus has no stability in himself:
24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” Matthew 7:24–27 (ESV)
Walter Mill could not be moved because he had rested upon the words of Christ. Thus to stand is not to waver from Christ. And it is for this stability that Christ gives gifts to his church:
11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Ephesians 4:11–14 (ESV)
The gifts given are those who teach the words of Christ, which are received within the heart of the people of Christ. Those words meditated upon, transform and conform the heart of the believer by the power of the Spirit, until that one will not be blown about by other, strange ideas.
[1] Thomas Brooks, The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks, Volume 5, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert, 1867), 589.
A simple but emphatic contrast. The LXX., Vulg., and Syr. have repeated these words: “Not so are the wicked, not so.” The wicked perish even more utterly than the dry and withered tree. They are as “the chaff.” Again, far more striking as an Eastern image than among ourselves. In Is. 17:13, “chaff of the mountains;” because the threshing-floors were usually on high, exposed spots, where the wind would sweep over them the more freely. (See the same figure, Ps. 35:5, Job 21:18, Is. 29:5, 41:2; Hos. 13:3. Cf. Matt. 3:12.)
J. J. Stewart Perowne, The Book of Psalms; A New Translation, With Introductions and Notes, Explanatory and Critical, Vol. I, Fifth Edition, Revised (London; Cambridge: George Bell and Sons; Deighton Bell and Co., 1883), 110-11.
[3] Due to the plain statements to judgment in the succeeding verses, most commentators take the reference to be being driven away by the wind to apply to the final judgment. Horsely notes the reference to judgment in the next verse. However, the image of being blown away is used in other places in the Bible to refer to those who are unstable prior to the judgment (albeit such instability will result in a final loss). Bonar’s comment is representative and draws out the matter well:
The ungodly are not thus prosperous,—they are not as “trees by the river side.” They are as “chaff,” ready to be driven away in the day of wrath, and unable to resist the slightest breath of Jehovah’s displeasure (Dan. 2:35; Matt. 3:12, the “day of decision”). Hence they cannot “stand.” Even as in Rev. 6:17, the cry of the affrighted world—kings, captains, rich men, mighty men, bond, free—is, “The great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?” For the “Lord knoweth the way of the righteous.” Our Lord may have referred to this passage in his memorable expression so often used (Matt. 7:23; Matt. 25:12; Luke 13:27), “I never knew you—I know you not.” O the happiness, then, of the godly! happy now, and still happier in that day which now hastens on, when the Husbandman shall separate “the chaff” from the wheat, and the kingdoms of earth be broken in pieces “like the chaff of the summer threshing-floor,” and “the wind shall carry them away.” O the folly of those who “sit in the seat of the scorners,” and ask in these last days (2 Pet. 3:3), “Where is the promise of his coming?”
Andrew A. Bonar, Christ and His Church in the Book of Psalms (New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1860), 2-3.
And he shall be like a tree planted by the water-side.* And here, leaving for a moment the LORD, David turns to the servant. He, the true follower of CHRIST, shall be like the tree planted by the water-side, which is CHRIST Himself,—the “green tree,” on which His enemies did such things, and which they hewed down, but which now flourishes in the midst of the Paradise of GOD. Thus it is said that the true servant of his LORD shall be transformed into the image of his LORD.* Planted by the water-side. For as rivers flow through valleys and low countries, so the root of all holy actions is nourished by humility. And here also the tears of repentance are set forth to us, that water-side by which the greatest of GOD’s Saints have most loved to be planted.* Planted: and that by the Hand of GOD: as it is written, “Every tree which My heavenly FATHER hath not planted shall be plucked up.”* In due season: for it is not enough that our works be good, unless they be also done at the right time. As one says, “GOD loveth adverbs; it mattereth less to Him that a thing be good, than that it be well.” And this also was fulfilled in the Man of Whom we speak, Who Himself testified, “My time is not yet come, but your time is alway ready.”*
J. M. Neale, A Commentary on the Psalms from Primitive and Mediæval Writers, Volume 1: Psalm 1 to Psalm 38, Second Edition (London; New York: Joseph Masters; Pott and Amery, 1869), 92-93.
[5] Calvin sees Jeremiah’s picture of the withered plant as a parallel image:
The Psalmist might, with propriety, have compared the ungodly to a tree that speedily withers, as Jeremiah likens them to the heath which grows in the wilderness, (Jeremiah 17:6) But not reckoning this figure sufficiently strong, he debases them by employing another, which represents them in a light still more contemptible:and the reason is, that he does not keep his eye on the prosperous condition of which they boast for a short time, but his mind is seriously pondering on the destruction which awaits them, and will at length overtake them. The meaning, therefore, is, although the ungodly now live prosperously, yet by and by they shall be like chaff; for when the Lord has brought them low, he shall drive them hither and thither with the blast of his wrath.
John Calvin, Psalms, electronic ed., Calvin’s Commentaries (Albany, OR: Ages Software, 1998), Ps 1:1. Cheyne actually reverses the chronology and puts Jeremiah as first:
Apparently imitated from Jer. 17:5–8; cp. also Josh. 1:8 (opening words). The phrase ‘muses day and night’ (cp. 119:148) is very characteristic of the Greek period, when the study of the Scriptures was the chief bulwark of the Jews against heathenism. So in the Avesta (Vendidad, xviii. 6) it is the nightly search for ‘the holy Wisdom, which makes man … cheerful at the head of the Kinvat bridge, which makes the true Âthravan.’ The law of Yahwè means all sacred writings.
T. K. Cheyne, The Book of Psalms: Translated from a Revised Text With Notes and Introduction, Vol. I (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1904), 2.