Psalm 62

Here are my public notes on Psalm 62: I get to preach this remarkable Psalm in a series my church is doing, and I have the luxury of 12 weeks to prepare! So I get to dig into it more than usual, doing deeper devotional sermon prep from before the dawn of deadlines. [I expect to be adding notes to this page from about Aug 15 to Nov 2.]

I’m going to be preaching this as a Sola psalm: ONLY in God, in God ALONE. There’s some fancy footwork there on the translation “Alone” (LXX & Vulg didn’t catch it well; KJV is too subtle about it), but I’m not actually hanging my interpretation on a key word. Rather, the Psalm strongly contrasts God with the world, and urges total devotion to God. I’ll be presenting it in Reformation idiom, as the great, shared, theocentric “sola” that underlies all the familiar Reformation solas. (in solo Deo, soli Deo, or Solus Deus?)

Nonne deo subjecta = ps 61 for mss

Augustine sermon

JM Neale’s catena., including liturgical usages.

Spurgeon’s Treasury of David. Very good! See also Spurgeon’s own sermon.

Nice Metrical version here.

But thou, my soul, on God rely ; On him alone thy trust repose ;
My rock and health will strength supply To bear the shock of all my foes.

God does his saving health dispense, And flowing blessings daily send:
He is my fortress and defence, On him my soul shall still depend.

In him, ye people, always trust, Before his throne pour out your hearts ;
For God, the merciful and just, His timely aid to us imparts.

Standout Commentator: John Hooper (1495-1555)

“Certeine Comfortable Expositions of the Constant Martyr of Christ, M. Iohn Hooper, Bishop of Glocester and Worcester written in the time of his tribulation and imprisonment, vpon the XXIII. LXII. LXXIII. and LXXVII. Psalmes of the prophet Dauid.” How to read it? Here is the 1580 version, with archaic spellings, in html (EEBO/TCP); I can’t find the pdf of that printing, but here is a later printing, 1830, with good printing and normalized spelling scanned at Internet Archive. Footnote form for that is Writings of Dr. John Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester and Worcester (London: Religious Tract Society, 1830).

These “comfortable” (that is, comforting) expositions mean business. Hooper wrote these “in the time of his tribulation and imprisonment” leading up to his gruesome execution under Queen Mary. So Hooper has a keen ear for what Psalm 62 says to someone in affliction: He summarizes its argument by saying “the prophet…declares, by his own experience, how the truth of God’s word” gets treated in the world: It is “rejected, and the lovers thereof slandered and persecuted.” (290) Hooper says that David “in this psalm…writes his own condition and miseries, with certain and most comfortable remedies, by which ways the afflicted person may best comfort himself, and pass over the bitterness and dangers of his troubles.” If you notice that only four of the Psalm’s 12 verses are about afflictions, you might find this summary a bit slanted. But Hooper was under terrible affliction, and soon to die. You might say he was tuned in to this Psalm from a privileged position, with sharpened alertness, and that his experience gave him a key that fit the lock especially well. If we approach the Psalm from a less desperate situation, we owe Hooper the benefit of the doubt as a commentator. He may be hearing things that are really there but that we cannot hear so well.

Standout Commentator: Robert Rollock (1555-1599)

Robert Rollock, An Exposition Upon Some Select Psalms of David. Translated by Charles Lumisden. Edinburgh: Printed by Robert Waldegrave, 1600.

How to read it? Here it is in html (EEBO/TCP; here is the scanned book at Internet Archive (the pdf is from microfilm and is a whopping 220megs; the page may load slowly and you may not want to download the file); here it is in the original Latin (T.F. Torrance’s copy! The Geneva printer notes in the pious intro that Rollock wrote no intro, so the printer has added a patristic florilegium in praise of the Psalms –it’s a good one, too).

Rollock leads with a helpful structural note about David’s speech: “First he gloryeth of his assurance in God: Then he gloryeth against his enemies: Thirdly, hee returneth to that former glorying.” (352) ABA, such that A predominates; so the Psalm begins and ends in God, with a little sally out to apply the theocentric lesson to the pressing question of the enemies.

“My soule onely is at rest in God.” Rollock wrote in Latin; not usually the Vulgate (see preface to Select Works), but rather Tremellius-Junius. So he is looking at “Tantummodo in Deo conquiescit anima mea” and goes on to remark “Verbum ipsum Hebraeum significat silere, quod noster interpres vertit, acquiescere,” that is, “The Hebrew worde it selfe signifieth to bee silent, which our interpreter turneth to be at rest.” Because he attends to this link between rest and silence, Rollock explains that David can speak aloud about his silence: “Doth now his soule keepe silence; when notwithstanding wee see, that hee vttereth out these speeches?” Yes, because “silence” doesn’t mean soundlessness, but is rightly interpreted as being at rest before God. (Contrast “My soul makes noise within me;” Rollock quotes this without citing it as Ps 42:5.)

Rollock offers an outline of the Psalm’s arguments, and this outline also beautifully centers on God:

“Then there are three arguments, wherfore his soule taketh rest in God. The first is, because God is the author of his salvation: Then drawing neere to God himselfe, and not content with this his benefite alone, except hee possesse God him self, and sit vpon him as it were a rocke or mountaine: He is / only my rocke, (sayth he) &c. The third argument, is the effect of the second. I shall not be mooued…” (353/4)

There is a personalist impulse here at the heart of the psalm: “God himselfe,” and not just the benefit of salvation. Rollock insists on this: the benefit of salvation is a good reason to rest in God, but the soul must press on from gift to giver, “drawing neere to God himself.” The image of sitting on a rock is arresting: The LXX & Vulgate had a tendency to work around “rock” language, rendering it as “God” (here in 62:2) or as something more abstract (help, defense, etc.). But sticking with the literal “rock” (rupes mea) lets Rollock use the image: “Sit upon him as it were a rocke or mountaine.” Reality.

“I will speake this once, there is no solide quietnesse indeede to our soule, except to GOD alone.” (354)

“Nothing therefore which is in our selues, can properly be the cause of the tranquillity of our mind; no, albeit thou shouldest speake indeede of faith it selfe, or of hope; if by the name of faith thou vnderstand onely the instrumēt of the apprehending of christ. For whatsoever thinges in vs, yea, even the regenerate, they are imperfite, all faith, hope, loue, and workes flowing from these, as from their beginning.” (356)

“He denyeth not altogether a commoving, but hee denieth that it shall not bee any great or notable commoving.” (357)

Now he tur∣neth himselfe to the enemies, and be∣ing set as it were in a castell, hee glory∣eth against them all. 358

For that ioy which ariseth in the mean time that any resteth himselfe in God, it deuoured vp all feare and sorrowe altogether, yea, it maketh confidence to arise, whereby wee glory against all contrarie afflictions. But contrariwise, when the soule quieteth not the selfe in God, it is moved, yea with the most trifling thinges, 360

Paul repeats himself in verse 8 about how great God is because he must amplify, say more, “that fee∣ling of rest in God, cannot bee suffici∣entlie expressed by wordes 363

second part https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A11005.0001.001/1:4.10.2.2?rgn=div4;view=fulltext

good point: he warneth them that they shoulde not put their confidence in men, for although this be not expresly set downe, notwithstanding it is to bee vnderstood. 366

hee admonisheth vs to put our trust in God, and that wee powre out our mindes before him. These two are so coupled among themselues, that he who trusteth in God, of necessitie hee powreth out into his bosome as it wer all the secretes of his minde. But con∣••ariwise he who trusteth not, this man albeit hee seeme at some time to praye / and to open vp his minde vnto GOD, notwithstanding he never dealeth ear∣nestlie and freely with GOD, but the thing that he doeth, he doeth it coldly and for the fashion onelie. 368/9

Honorable Mention: Andrew Murray (Waiting on God),

Bonhoeffer sermon 1925, “The Soul’s Silence before God.” About ten pages on verse 1. “We live in perpetual fear of suddenly being seized and called to task by the infinite and would rather socialize or go to the movies or theater until we are finally carried to our grave, anything rather than having to bear a single minute before God.” (37)