Joy in God's service.
"I was glad," etc. It is well agreed among Bible writers that this cannot be a psalm of David's; it must belong to the time immediately before, or the time subsequent to, the Exile, but very different opinions are entertained concerning its immediate associations. Liddon says, "The pilgrim who composed the psalm would have belonged to one of the ten separated tribes, but he had remained, alter the general defection, true to the divinely ordered worship at Jerusalem, and this psalm may well have been composed on the occasion of his first visit. We observe in it his delight at the mere prospect of the journey; his ecstasy at finding himself, or at the very thought of finding himself, within the sacred gates; his wonder at the aspect of the city lying before him as he stood, probably, on the Mount of Olives; his sense of its past glories and of its present titles to honor—the thrones of David and of Solomon, the sacred temple. But there are presages of coming trouble in the air, and as the psalmist thinks of his brethren in the faith who live within its walls, and of the house of God, which was its prominent and its most precious feature, he offers a prayer for the peace of the holy city which has so large a place in his heart." Perowne says, "The poet is living in the country. As the time of the feast draws near, his friends and neighbors come to him, inviting him to join them in their visit to Jerusalem. It is with this picture that he begins his psalm. He tells us how his heart filled with joy as they bade him come with them to the house of Jehovah." We see the procession starting; we see beaming eyes and happy faces, and hear the music of gladness with which the pilgrims beguile the tediousness of the journey. The next verse transports us at once to the holy city itself. "Our feet have stood within thy gates;" the few words are enough. They have reached their journey's end; they are in the city which they love. Then the poet tells us, first, the impression made upon his mind by her stateliness and her beauty; and next, how there comes crowding upon his memory the scenes of her earlier grandeur, the thought of all she had been as the gathering-place of the tribes of Jehovah, the royal seat of David and of his house. Filled with these thoughts, inspired by these memories, he bursts forth into hearty, fervent prayer—the prayer of one who loved his country as he loved his God, with no common devotion—for the welfare of that city so glorious in her past history, and with which all hopes for the future were so intimately bound up." The "Four Friends" support the suggestion of Ewald, who thinks the psalm may be a blessing on a party of pilgrims, uttered by an old man returned from the Exile, himself unequal to the journey. "The departure of his friends reminds him of the alacrity with which he, too, had once obeyed a similar summons; his spirit is fired by sympathy with their enthusiasm, and he pours forth the praises of that city which from the earliest times had been recognized as the key-stone of the national unity, the civil and religious metropolis of the tribes." We fix attention on the personal pleasure in the public worship of God which the psalmist expresses. For him the sacred duty had come to be a sacred joy. And we never worship with full acceptance until we have entered into a similar experience. The attitudes of worshippers towards worship may be compared and illustrated.
I. THERE IS COMPARATIVE NEGLECT, Presence at Divine service occasionally. Attendance interrupted on the slightest occasions. No evident heart in the service. A duty got through.
II. THERE IS COMPARATIVE INDIFFERENCE. There may be fair regularity of attendance, but the "heart divided." The man there, but the heart elsewhere; so the service but a routine, instinct with no mental attention, and no pious feeling. For such Divine service is as though it had not been.
III. THERE IS COMPARATIVE INTEREST. That of the intellect and that of the aesthetic faculties, not that of the heart. Sermons may be intellectual treats, and services artistic gratifications, they are not what they should be unless the whole man is interested.
IV. THERE IS SPIRITUAL DELIGHT. But this must depend on the man's being spiritually quickened, and on having his spiritual tastes cultured. Then he finds his supreme joy in God, and therefore in acts of worship that bring near the sense of God.—R.T.