--- title: "Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 1: Genesis to Jeremiah" author: "Adam Clarke" languages: [en] shelf: "Commentaries" section: 649 of 914 url: https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/649/ cite: "Adam Clarke, Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 1: Genesis to Jeremiah, section 649. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/649/" --- # Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 1: Genesis to Jeremiah *Adam Clarke* Clarke's learned notes on the Hebrew and Greek, verse by verse, from Genesis to Revelation: volume 1 of 2. ## 649. Psalms · 103 of 159 Source: https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/649/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/649/#p-N ### Verse 4 [¶1] They utter and speak - יביאו yabbiu, their hearts get full of pride and insolence; and then, from the abundance of such vile hearts, the mouth speaks; and the speech is of hard things, threatening which they are determined to execute, boastings of their power, authority, etc. ### Verse 5 [¶3] They break in pieces thy people - This was true af the Babylonians. Nehuchadnezzar slew many; carried the rest into captivity; ruined Jerusalem; overturned the temple; sacked, pillaged, and destroyed all the country. ### Verse 6 [¶5] They slay the widow - Nebuchadnezzar carried on his wars with great cruelty. He carried fire and sword every where; spared neither age, sex, nor condition. The widow, the orphan, and the stranger, persons in the most desolate condition of life, were not distinguished from others by his ruthless sword. ### Verse 7 [¶7] The Lord shall not see - This was either the language of infidelity or insult. Indeed, what could the Babylonians know of the true God? They might consider him as the God of a district or province, who knew nothing and did nothing out of his own territories. ### Verse 8 [¶9] Understand, ye brutish - These are the same expressions as in [Psa 92:6] (note), on which see the note. ### Verse 9 [¶11] He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? - This is allowed to be an unanswerable mode of argumentation. Whatever is found of excellence in the creature, must be derived from the Creator, and exist in him in the plenitude of infinite excellence. God, says St. Jerome, is all eye, because he sees all; he is all hand, because he does all things; he is all foot, for he is every where present. The psalmist does not say, He that planted the ear, hath he not an ear? He that formed the eye, hath he not eyes? No; but, Shall he not hear? Shall he not see! And why does he say so? To prevent the error of humanizing God, of attributing members or corporeal parts to the infinite Spirit. See Calmet. ### Verse 10 [¶13] He that chastiseth the heathen, shall not he correct? - You, who are heathens, and heathens of the most abandoned kind. [¶14] He that teacheth man knowledge - We here supply shall not he know? But this is not acknowledged by the original, nor by any of the Versions. [¶15] Indeed it is not necessary; for either the words contain a simple proposition, "It is he who teacheth man knowledge," or this clause should be read in connection with [Psa 94:11] : "Jehovah, who teacheth man knowledge, knoweth the devices of man, that they are vanity." As he teaches knowledge to man, must he not know all the reasonings and devices of the human heart? ### Verse 12 [¶17] Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest - תיסרנו teyasserennu, whom thou instructest; and teachest him out of thy law. Two points here are worthy of our most serious regard: [¶18] 1. God gives knowledge to man: gives him understanding and reason. [¶19] 2. He gives him a revelation of himself; he places before that reason and understanding his Divine law. [¶20] This is God's system of teaching; and the human intellect is his gift, which enables man to understand this teaching. We perhaps may add a third thing here; that as by sin the understanding is darkened, he gives the Holy Spirit to dispel this darkness from the intellect, in order that his word may be properly apprehended and understood. But he gives no new faculty; he removes the impediments from the old, and invigorates it by his Divine energy. ### Verse 13 [¶22] That thou mayest give him rest - He whom God instructs is made wise unto salvation; and he who is thus taught has rest in his soul, and peace and confidence in adversity. ### Verse 14 [¶24] The Lord will not cast off his people - Though they are now suffering under a grievous and oppressive captivity, yet the Lord hath not utterly cast them off. They are his inheritance, and he will again restore them to their own land. ### Verse 15 [¶26] But judgment shall return unto righteousness - If we read יושב yosheb, shalt sit, for ישוב yashub, shall return, which is only placing the ו vau before the ש shin instead of after it, we have the following sense: Until the just one shall sit in judgment, and after him all the upright in heart. Cyrus has the epithet צדק tsedek, the just one, in different places in the Prophet Isaiah. See [Isa 41:2], [Isa 41:10]; [Isa 45:8]; [Isa 51:5]. It was Cyrus who gave liberty to the Jews, who appeared as their deliverer and conductor to their own land, and they are all represented as following in his train. ### Verse 16 [¶28] Who will rise up for me - Who is he that shall be the deliverer of thy people? Who will come to our assistance against these wicked Babylonians? ### Verse 17 [¶30] Unless the Lord had been my help - Had not God in a strange manner supported us while under his chastising hand, we had been utterly cut off. [¶31] My soul had almost dwelt in silence - The Vulgate has in inferno, in hell or the infernal world; the Septuagint, τῳ ᾁδῃ, in the invisible world. ### Verse 18 [¶33] When I said, My foot slippeth - When I found myself so weak and my enemy so strong, that I got first off my guard, and then off my center of gravity, and my fall appeared inevitable: - [¶34] Thy mercy, O Lord, held me up - יסעדני yisadeni, propped me. It is a metaphor taken from any thing falling, that is propped, shored up, or buttressed. How often does the mercy of God thus prevent the ruin of weak believers, and of those who have been unfaithful! ### Verse 19 [¶36] In the multitude of my thoughts - Of my griefs, (dolorum, Vulgate); my sorrows, (οδυνων, Septuagint). According to the multitude of my trials and distresses, have been the consolations which thou hast afforded me. Or, While I have been deeply meditating on thy wondrous grace and mercy, Divine light has broken in upon my soul, and I have been filled with delight. ### Verse 20 [¶38] Shall the throne of iniquity - No wicked king, judge, or magistrate shall ever stand in thy presence. No countenance shall such have from thy grace or providence. [¶39] Which frameth mischief - Devise, plan, and execute, as if they acted by a positive law, and were strictly enjoined to do what they so much delighted in. ### Verse 21 [¶41] They gather themselves together - In every thing that is evil, they are in unity. The devil, his angels, and his children, all join and draw together when they have for their object the destruction of the works of the Lord. But this was particularly the case with respect to the poor Jews among the Babylonians: they were objects of their continual hatred, and they labored for their destruction. [¶42] This and the following verses have been applied to our Lord, and the treatment he met with both from his own countrymen and from the Romans. They pretended to "judge him according to the law, and framed mischief against him;" they "assembled together against the life of the righteous one," and "condemned innocent blood;" but God evidently interposed, and "brought upon them their own iniquity," according to their horrible imprecation: "His blood be upon us and upon our children!" God "cut them off in their own iniquity." All this had, in reference to him, a most literal fulfillment. ### Verse 22 [¶44] The rock of my refuge - Alluding to those natural fortifications among rocks, which are frequent in the land of Judea.