Psalms 56

Fear is the ague of the soul: When adversaries begin to grow high, can we now display the banner of faith? (Psalm 56:3) What time I am afraid I will trust in you. Faith cures the trembling at the heart: Faith gets above fear, as the oil swims above the water.

My groaning is not hid from you. You water the seed of your prayer with tears, God bottles every tear (Psalm 56:8). Put your tears into your bottle.

Since you were precious in my sight: A father prizes his child above his jewels; their names are precious, for they have God's own name written upon them (Revelation 3:12). I will write upon him the name of my God: Their prayers are a precious perfume, their tears God bottles (P…

3. When a man sins after vow. Psalm 56:12: Your vows, O God, are upon me. A vow is a religious promise made to God to dedicate ourselves to him.

God's Providence keeps the very bones of the saints (Psalm 34:10). It bottles their tears (Psalm 56:8). It strengthens the saints in their weaknesses (Hebrews 11:34).

6. If you would obtain the kingdom of heaven, bind your hearts to God by sacred vows. Vow to the Lord that (by his grace) you will be more intent upon heaven than ever (Psalm 56:12). Your vows are upon me, O God.

But as is usual in such cases, when they could not pretend that his own words, as he spoke them, were criminal, they variously wrested them to make an appearance of a crime, though they knew not of what nature. So the Psalmist prophesied that they should do (Psalm 56:5, 6). Some…

Her tears dropped as pearls from her eyes; the tears of the wicked are good for nothing, they are either carnal; they weep for worldly losses; or spurious, they are more troubled for hell than sin; conscience is in an agony, there is water in their eyes, because there is fire in…

Answer: That commandment first binds the Jews to the making of ceremonial vows. Again, David here speaks of the vowing of praise and thanksgiving to God, and so he expounds himself in Psalm 56:12: My vows are upon me, I will offer praises to God. This vow indeed concerns all men…

Make it your business to trust God with your lives and comforts, and then your hearts will be at rest about them. So did David (Psalm 56:3): 'At what time I am afraid I will trust in you' — as if to say, 'Lord, if at any time a storm rises, I will make bold to shelter from it un…

Lastly, before the pouring out of the seven vials, which is thought by many to be the dispensation that these times are under, the saints are brought in praying and praising God (Revelation 15), and the seven angels, the instruments of Christ in the execution of these plagues, a…

Willing: and not pride, nor gain, nor the like. Fourthly, the act [bind themselves] that now they are bound by their own word and promise, that they may say now, as (Psalm 56:12), your vows are upon me, or as (Numbers 30:2), if he bind his soul with a vow. Fifthly, the matter pr…

We are free from fear of death, and hell, and of the world, and we do not fear what flesh can do to us (Psalm 3:5-6). His meaning is, that the fears of men should not break his sleep, but he would walk in a child-like confidence before God and man, and he would lie him down quie…

Others take it simply, to hope: but the word also sometimes signifies, to observe. And in this sense David takes it, in Psalm 56, saying, The wicked waited for my soul: that is to say, they spread snares for my life. And in this signification we may take it here.

Oh the excellency and necessity of faith, courage, and a Christian magnanimity, a believing soul moves in a higher orb than other saints, as one says, and leads up the van of the militia of heaven. Faith sets the soul as an impregnable rock in the midst of the sea, and splits th…

A servant will be more diligent after he is bound to his Master. Vow to the Lord, that by his grace you will act more vigorously in the sphere of religion (Psalm 56:12). Your vows are upon me, O God.

3. We are and may pray at fixed hours. The question is the same of elicite acts, of love, fear, hope, faith, and of imperate acts of praying, hearing, praising; only the difference is, hardly can we set a time to believing; the object sometime wakens us (Psalm 56:3): What time I…

A spiritual man cherishes the spirit in all his operations, he loves and honours his guide and leader. The Scripture notes in four words the wrongs we do to the spirit (Isaiah 63:10): they vexed his spirit of holiness; the word is (Psalm 56:6), they painfully wrested: as they ga…

4. The wiles of Satan, are to enforce and draw us into those corruptions which are incident to the season. Here's the great point of spiritual wisdom, to be seasoned in our mortification, and to withstand the spiritual evil that is apt to grow upon us in the time of our fears; (…

Indeed, and he knows our state and condition. Psalm 56:8: "You tell my wanderings; put your tears into your bottle; are they not in your book?" All our wanderings, he tells them; all our tears, he has a bottle for them: to show God's particular notice, they are metaphorical expr…

3. The Lord writes down the Tears of his People. Tears drop down to the Earth, but they reach Heaven : God has his Bottle and his Book, Psalm 56:8. Put you my Tears into your bottle, are they not in your Book?

It is the word that must guide us, and keep us from fainting; quicken us and keep us from dying. This is a full remedy in conjunction with the power of God, and makes the [reconstructed: soul] joyful in the midst of outward troubles (Psalm 56:10). I will rejoice in God because o…

This is that which will quicken you to rejoice in God, and to a holy thankfulness, when you compare his Word with the effects of it, when you see how it is made good. (Psalm 56:10) In God will I praise his word: in the Lord will I praise his word. A single mercy is not so much,…

[We depend upon him for all that we stand in need of] — herein is the nature of trust seen in dependence and reliance upon God, that he will supply our wants in a way most conducive to his glory and our good. Now this depending on God must be done at all times, especially in a t…

God will try our faith, whether we can stay on his word, and hug it, and embrace it, till the blessing come: As it is said of the patriarchs, [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] (Hebrews 11:13), They embraced the promises. Psalm 56:4. In God I will praise his word; I have put my trust i…

Faith and praise live and die together; if there be faith, there will be praise; and if there be praise, there will be faith. [reconstructed: If] faith there will be praise, for faith is a bird that can sing in winter (Psalm 56:4). In God will I praise his word, in God have I pu…

God shows what he will be to his servants, and after a little waiting they find it to be so. Wait but a little while, and you shall find the effect of the promises, (Psalm 56:8) In God I will praise his word, in the Lord I will praise his word. That is, I have great cause to tak…

Ainsworth reads, With falsehood they have depraved me. It implies two things: first, that they pretended a cause; but secondly, David avouches his innocency to God; and so without any guilt of his, they accused, defamed, condemned his actions, as is usual in like cases: elsewher…

So when apt to faint, seek out arguments of encouragement and hope that God will be good to us. Psalm 56:3: At what time I am afraid, I will trust in you. That is our business at such a time to strengthen our dependence, for still we must oppose the prevailing corruption.

Such as we would account to be least of all thought of; God eyes them: the poor and despised in the world, whom men regard not, yet God observes them, and takes notice how they carry it, and he accounts it his great glory so to do (Psalm 102:17). Such actions also as we might th…

The tears of God's children drop as precious wine into God's bottle. Psalm 56:8: Put my tears into your bottle. A tear from a broken heart is a present for the King of heaven.

After the greatest rain, faith must appear as the rainbow in the cloud. The tears of faith are bottled as precious wine (Psalm 56:8). Sixth, gospel-mourning is joined with self-loathing; the sinner admires himself, the penitent loathes himself.

Bernard calls tears the wine of angels. God delights much in tears, else he would not keep a bottle for them (Psalm 56:8). One calls tears a fat sacrifice, which under the law was most acceptable (Leviticus 3:3).

Use 3 Thirdly, feare not man, he is but flesh. This was Davids resolv, Psalms 56:4. I will not fear what flesh can do unto me; you need'st not you ought'st not to fear.

And for weanedness from the world, the example of Moses is notable, who by his faith refused all the pleasures, profits, and preferments of Pharaoh's Court: preferring the society of the saints, and the very rebuke of Christ before them all (Hebrews 11:25, 26). And therefore it…

Indeed, it is noted that God has a bottle wherein he puts the tears of his Saints: and with great emphasis says David, Are they not in your book? There recorded to be remembered? (Psalm 56:8). Objection.