A Commentary on the Book of Psalms: Psalm 37 — A Prayer of a Penitent for the Remission of His Sins. the Third Penitential Psalm
18 He assigns a reason for being prepared for the scourge, because I acknowledge and confess that I sinned, and thereby deserved it; “and I will think for my sin,” how I may make sufficient atonement for it. A salutary lesson to the sinner to use all efforts to make satisfaction, and gladly to seize on every opportunity of exercising their patience, when God is good enough to give them the opportunity.
19 Having explained the reasons why he thought proper to remain silent and deaf before his enemies, that by his patience he may propitiate the Almighty, he contrasts that patience with the malice of his enemies. He did not return evil for evil; they, on the contrary, returned evil for good; and yet they enjoyed life, they exulted and were strengthened, which are noted here by David, with a view of moving God to deal more mercifully with himself. “My enemies live, and are stronger than me;” I am humbled and afflicted, and yet bear everything as patiently as if I were deaf and dumb; in the meantime, “my enemies live;” are quite alive, and active, and exulting, “and are stronger than me;” have grown stronger and braver, and “are multiplied;” have increased in number “who hate me wrongfully,” without any just cause or provocation. He, probably, refers to Absalom’s conspiracy, who falsely persuaded the people that the king would appoint no judges but unjust ones, which he would remedy were he appointed king. Hence the people rebelled, and “with their whole heart followed Absalom.”
20 He proves his assertion as to his enemies hating him without any just cause, “They that render evil for good have detracted me without cause, because I followed goodness.” Most truly have my enemies hated me without cause, for the very people that most detracted me were those that “returned evil for good;” for instance, his son Absalom, and his minister Achitophel. Absalom had received many favors from his father. A short time before, his life, which he had forfeited by the murder of his brother, had been spared; and still he denounced his father as unjust and careless, telling those who came to the king for justice, “Your case seems to be fair and just, but the king will appoint no one to hear you.” 2 Kings 15. Achitophel, also, who was raised to the greatest honors by David, to be even his prime minister, forgot all and revolted to Absalom, and gave him most pernicious advice against his father. “And they that render evil for good have detracted me;” but they did so, “because I followed goodness;” because I acted sincerely and honestly in everything, in striking contrast to their unjust and impious thoughts and desires.
21–22 From what he said he infers that God will protect him, and prays he may, and nearly repeats the first verses of the Psalm. God punishes, in his indignation and in his wrath, when he deprives man of his grace, departs from him as from an enemy, and leaves him among his enemies, without giving him the slightest assistance. Having said in the beginning of the Psalm, “Rebuke me not, O Lord, in thy indignation,” so he now says again in the end, “forsake me not, O Lord my God.” Let not your grace desert me, for you are the Lord that made me, and the God that created me for yourself, the supreme happiness. “Do not depart from me,” as from an enemy; but rather, as a father, “attend unto my help;” look with care to my assistance; you, “O Lord, the God of my salvation,” you who are the source of my salvation, from whom alone I expect it, and in whom alone I trust. Such seems to be the literal meaning of this Psalm. However, as many of the holy fathers apply the Psalm to Christ, and it is possible that the whole Psalm was intended for Christ, we now give an explanation of it in that sense.
1 Christ speaks for his body, the Church, and prays it may be freed.
2 He says, he asks in justice for it, because he had taken upon himself the arrows of God’s anger that were upon it.
3 He describes his passion generally, by reason of which, “from the sole of his foot to the top of his head there was no health in him;” and when he says, “Because of my sins,” we are not to understand his own sins, but those he made his own, that he might atone for them.
4 He says, the reason there was no health in him, from the sole of his foot to the top of his head, was, that the sins he undertook to atone for were so numerous and so grievous, that they rose over his head, and weighed him down.
5–7 He says those things for his body, deploring the corruption of the human race, as if one would say: I am sick in my feet, my hands, and my stomach; the heart is speaking meanwhile, but does not speak of the pain itself suffers, but of what the members suffer.
8 He now begins to enter into the details of his passion, alluding here to the prayer in the garden.
9–10 The prayer in the garden, still alluded to, in which he asked “to have the chalice pass from him;” and he began to “be confused, to fear, to despond, and to be sad,” and to feel the full force of his approaching passion; he would not have the strength and light of the divine consolation, so that an Angel from heaven had to come and strengthen him.
11 Fulfilled to the letter in Judas his friend, and the Jews his neighbors, when they laid hands on him. The latter was fulfilled in Peter, who followed him at a distance, and the Apostles who fled altogether.
12 Alluding to the council of the chief priests, anxiously seeking false witnesses to destroy him.
13–14 Literally applying to Christ, who first before Caiphas, then before Pilate and Herod, set up no defense, but “like a lamb in the hands of the shearer, was silent,” Isaias 53.
15 An allusion to the same silence. He was silent before man, because he would not be silent before God, from whom he expected his reward, the salvation of his people.
16 Christ displayed the most unconquerable patience, for fear his enemies should rejoice at his want of it. “While his feet were moved;” while he appeared for a while to be weak and infirm, “they spoke great things against him, saying, “If he were not an evil doer, we would not have delivered him up to you.” “We found this man perverting our nation.”
17 And so he was scourged, slapped on the face, and crowned with thorns.
18 He will declare a sin he did not commit, but which he assumed to atone for; and “he will think,” yes, and anxiously, how to destroy it thoroughly, which he did, “when he bore our sins in his body upon the tree.” 1 Peter 2.
19 Accomplished when the chief priests, thinking they had succeeded, exulted, and insulted him as he hung upon the cross.
20 Namely, when they said to him on the cross, “Vah, thou that destroyest the temple of God;” and also, “let him now come down from the cross.”
21 The very words our Savior made use of when he said, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
22 “Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, nor wilt thou give thy Holy One to see corruption; but help me, show me the ways of life, and fill me with joy with thy countenance,” Psalm 15.