This Psalm is the estimation of Christ, in His humiliation, as showing the real spirit a man is of, but as holding a certain character and therefore not exclusively applicable to Him. So the Lord, " Blessed are ye poor for " etc., and so Matthew " Blessed are the poor in spirit." It also describes the mind of the poor man under this humiliation, connected with the despite of the world—the proved under it.
I think it may be very distinctly remarked that, though oppression may incidentally accompany it, the distress in the first Book arises from the wickedness of the wicked within, deceit, guile, absence of all conscience, hatred of the good carried recklessly out. The second Book is different.
This Psalm is the consequence of the recognition of Christ in His depression. This consequence being that, in the day of evil, that time of trouble which shall come, the Lord will deliver such an one—" keep him alive," so that " he shall be blessed upon the earth "; compare here the remarks on the Lord's prayer as to " Deliver us from evil " in Matthew; not in Luke in most MSS. The Jewish character of the Psalm is here very plain also. This closes, i.e., the account of the recognition of Christ, thus utterly depressed—the beatitudes, so to speak, and in Jehovah's estimation of Christ thus depressed (v. 12), "The Lord God of Israel is blessed forever." "Blessed is the man that walketh," etc.—" Blessed is the man whose sin is forgiven, is covered"—"Blessed is the man who recognizeth," or "owneth," "considereth," "pays attention to," Christ, that poor Man, in His utter, utter, humiliation!
4. We have again this specification of Christ and His mind, as in Psa. 31; and note, I observe, the same in Christ in the Gospel, " And I say unto you " as in the parable of the unjust steward, the Sermon on the Mount, and the like. The full sense of humiliation will be recognized in verse 9.
9. This is another example of the way in which a general expression is applied to the Lord Himself, without being a proper prophecy of Him. These moral prophecies, so to speak, have as much to be fulfilled as the circumstantial ones—so in the Epistles to the Churches.
Nothing can be more affecting than this Psalm, and the thought that it is Jesus, the Lord, that is there. How true of the wickedness! And He to be in it! Alas! we have not fathomed the depth of this unwearied, this infinite, all-suited love, suiting itself to all our need in it, searching it out in suffering, "learning obedience by the things which he suffered"—His enemies and His friends almost alike, but He perfect, and therefore the rather shown so in His trust in One, v'ani amar'ri (and I said).
It is distinguished as a blessed thing, to understand this poor Man. " Enemy " is o-yev. I have the same remark here as Psa. 35:1919Let not them that are mine enemies wrongfully rejoice over me: neither let them wink with the eye that hate me without a cause. (Psalm 35:19), the exhibition of Christ, or the Remnant united with Him in His affliction, puts the people, within now, into the character of enemies (oy 'vim). Here, as we have said, this Book, containing these things, closes.