Man's hope in prayer lies in what God is.
Righteousness is, from one point of view, that side of Divine justice which is turned towards good men; hence it comes to mean "beneficence." There is some good reason for associating this psalm with the experiences of David in the time of Absalom's rebellion. Delitzsch says, "The psalms of this time of persecution are distinguished from those of the persecution by Saul, by the deep melancholy into which the mourning of the dethroned king was turned by blending with the penitential sorrowfulness of one conscious of his own guilt." "It is to God's own character that the appeal is made. It is there first, and not in his own misery, that the sinner finds the great argument why his prayer should be answered." "Faithful and just to forgive us our sins" (1 John 1:9). The relation between the two terms "faithfulness" and "righteousness" may be thus indicated: Faithfulness is God's strict keeping of all those covenant terms to which he has pledged himself. Righteousness is his vindication of the oppressed, as is witnessed both by history and by experience.
I. MAN'S HOPE BASED ON WHAT GOD HAS DONE CANNOT SUFFICE. Because man must take into account all that God has done, and then he is sure to he bewildered. If a man takes out all the manifestly mighty and apparently kind things that God has done, and attempts to base his hope in prayer on them, he is always in danger of having his foundations destroyed by some one who will remind him of things God has done which seem strange and cannot be explained. It is not that God is ever other than himself. It is that man cannot safely read the meaning of all God does; and some of his doings excite in some men doubt and mistrust rather than confidence.
II. MAN'S HOPE BASED ON WHAT GOD IS WILL ALWAYS SUFFICE. It is true that we can only know what God is by what he says and what he does. But everything depends on our willingness to let these things teach us God himself—teach us what he is. The point may be illustrated by our relations with our fellow-men. In whom is our confidence fully placed? In those of whom we only know what they have done? Nay, it is reserved for those whom we know personally, whose characters have made a profound impression on us. We trust God fully only when we know him worthily.—R.T.