This Psalm is a Thanksgiving to God for his great mercy in preserving his People, placed (as the stories do show) in the midst of the Gentiles and Heathen People,1 as a flock of Sheep in a wild Forrest, or in respect of the multitude, as a City compared to a mighty Kingdom,2 being compassed on every side with the Kings of the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Ammonites, the Ishmaelites, the Moabites; whom Satan had stirred up with deadly hatred, to vex and persecute them, seeking by all means to root them out from the Earth, that thereby he might utterly deface and abolish the Word and Worship of the Lord. This danger David saw, and thanked God which had preserved his People from the rage of so many Lyons and Dragons, which notwithstanding that they never ceased to seek their Destruction, yet all that they went about was in vain. And what a miracle was this, that this People could so long continue, notwithstanding the malice and rage of so many Devils? David therefore in this Psalm exhorteth his People to be ⟨p. 2⟩thankful to the Lord their God so mightily preserving, defending and delivering them from the violence of so many Nations and Kingdoms, hating and persecuting them on every side.
THis Psalm is a Thanksgiving to God for his great mercy in preserving his People, placed (as the stories do shew) in the midst of the Gentiles and Heathen People,1 as a flock of Sheep in a wild Forrest, or in respect of the multitude, as a City compared to a mighty Kingdom,2 being compassed on every side with the Kings of the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Ammonites, the Ismaelites, the Moabites; whom Satan had stirred up with deadly hatred, to vex and persecute them, seeking by all means to root them out from the Earth, that thereby he might utterly deface and abolish the Word and Worship of the Lord. This danger David saw, and thanked God which had preserved his People from the rage of so many Lyons and Dragons, which notwithstanding that they never ceased to seek their Destruction, yet all that they went about was in vain. And what a miracle was this, that this People could so long continue, notwithstanding the malice and rage of so many Devils? David therefore in this Psalm exhorteth his People to be ⟨p. 2⟩thankful to the Lord their God so mightily preserving, defending and delivering them from the violence of so many Nations and Kingdoms, hating and persecuting them on every side.
- 1The Argument of the Psalm.
- 2The People of Israel as a flock of Sheep among many Wolves.
