Ver. 1. Give ear, O ye heavens,] q.d., Such is this people’s stupidity and obstinacy, that I may as soon gain audience of these inanimate creatures as of them. See Isaiah 1:2 Jos 24:27 Jer 22:29. We may cry till we are hoarse; speak till we spit forth our lungs, and to no more purpose than Bede did, when he preached to a heap of stones. Holy Melancthon, being himself newly converted, thought it impossible for his hearers to withstand the evidence of the gospel. But after he had been a preacher a while, it is said he complained, that “old Adam was too hard for young Melancthon.”
Ver. 2. My doctrine.] Heb., My taking or winning doctrine: according to that in Proverbs 11:30. “He that winneth” (Heb., taketh) “souls”—as fowlers do birds—“is wise.” Shall drop as the rain.] Drop; not dash: and as the rain, not as the storm, or as the spout, as they call it at sea. Evangelizatum, non maledictum missus es, said Oecolampadins to Farellus, an excellent, but a too earnest preacher. And such a one, say some, was Mr Perkins in his younger time, able almost to make his hearers’ hearts fall down, and their hairs to stand upright. The word damn he would pronounce with such an emphasis, as left a doleful echo in his auditors’ ears a good while after. True it is, that preachers should take the same liberty to cry down sins that men take to commit them. Peccata tanta severitate arguebat, saith one of Chrysostom, acsi ipse etiam per iniuriam laesus esset: but yet moderation must be used, and instruction drop meal distilled, that it may soak and sink, and so soften the heart that all grace may abound, &c. Such sweet droppers were Mr Bradford, Mr Dod, Dr Sibbs, Ου και απο γλωττης μελιτος γλυκιων ρεεν αυδη.
Ver. 3. Ascribe ye greatness,] i.e., Tremble at his word, and take it to heart. See 1 Thessalonians 2:13.
Ver. 4. He is the rock.] A firm and everlasting refuge, a “Rock of Ages.” (Isaiah 26:4) One age passeth away, and another, and a third, &c., but the rock remains. “The name of the Lord is a strong tower”; (Proverbs 18:10) “munition of rocks”; (Isaiah 33:16) rocks so deep, no pioneer can undermine them; so thick, no cannon can pierce them; so high, no ladder can scale them.
Ver. 5. Their spot is not the spot.] Saints also have their spots, but not ingrained; not leopards’ spots, that are not in the skin only, but the flesh and bones, in the sinews, and the most inner parts, and so cannot be cured by any art, or washed away with any water. It is of incogitancy that the saints fall; put them in mind, and they mend all: it is of passion, and passions last not long. They are preoccupated, taken at unawares, &c. (Galatians 6:1) They have ever God for their chief end, and will not forego him upon any terms: only they err in the way, as thinking they may fulfil such a lust, and God keep too; but there is no way of wickedness found in them. Though shaken, yet they are rooted as trees, and though they wag up and down, yet they remove not, -as a ship at anchor. Sin stings the wicked, as the fiery serpents did the Israelites: the sins of the saints are but like the viper on Paul’s hand, that hurt him not. Sin makes wicked men the object of God’s hatred, the saints of his pity: as we hate poison in a toad, but we pity it in a man; in the one it is their nature, in the other their disease. Perverse and crooked.] They wriggle and writhe after the manner of wrestlers, that wave up and down, and wind the other way: so the Hebrew word signifieth.
Ver. 6. Do ye thus requite the Lord?] Good turns aggravate unkindnesses, and our guilt is increased by our obligations. Solomon’s idolatry was far worse than that of his wives; he had been better bred, and God had appeared to him twice. It is the ingratitude that makes the godly man’s sin so heinous, which otherwise would be far less than other men’s, since his temptations are stronger, and his resistance greater. Hebricians observe, that in Halaihovah there is in the text one ה greater than ordinary; to show that the wonder was the greater, that they should so evil requite such a Lord, Father, Redeemer, Maker, and Governor, by being so corrupt, perverse, crooked, foolish, and unwise; five opposed to five; ה being used for the number of five. [Hebrew Text Note]
Ver. 7. And they will tell thee.] And so they did. (Judges 6:13 Psalms 44:1,2)
Ver. 8. He set the bounds of the people.] Of the seventy nations reckoned, (Genesis 10) and the seventy souls of Israel. (Genesis 46:27 Deuteronomy 10:22) The Jews have a saying, that those seventy souls were as much as all the seventy nations of the world, as being the Lord’s portion, for whom he espied out the land of Canaan, which is “the glory of all lands.” (Ezekiel 20:6)
Ver. 9. For the Lord’s portion.] Dear to God, though despised of the world. They are the Lord’s “inheritance,” (Isaiah 19:25) “peculiar” ones, (Exodus 19:5) the people of his purchase, that comprehended all his gettings, (1 Peter 2:9) his “glory,” (Isaiah 46:13) his “ornament,” (Ezekiel 7:20) his “throne,” (Jeremiah 4:17) his “diadem,” (Isaiah 62:3) “heirs of the kingdom,” saith St James, (James 2:5) heads destinated to the diadem, saith Tertullian.