Psalm 118:5, 6 I called on the LORD in distress: the LORD answered me, and set me in a large place.… The figure in ver. 5 is very striking and suggestive. The Hebrew is, "I called upon the Lord from the straitness;" or, "From the narrow gorge I called upon Jab, and Jab answered me in the open plain." It is not necessary to fix any historical associations to the psalm in order to see the point of such a figure. It does but poetically represent a common experience. Continually in human life we come upon times of straitness; our way is hedged up; it is as if we were in a narrow gorge, full of fears lest the overhanging rocks should fall on us, and seeing no way out. Who has not thus felt hemmed in? "All these things are against us." Human wisdom, energy, and persistency alike are baffled and beaten back. "We cannot do the things that we would." Every one and everything seems to be against us. And at such times we easily think hard things of our fellow-men, and think that they are actively against us, when they are only indifferent. What can the psalmist say of such times? I. FROM THE NARROW GORGE HE CALLED UPON GOD. That at least we can always do. No circumstances of human life need ever prevent the soul's uplook, or silence the soul's cry. Bunyan pictures his pilgrim in sore straitness, picking his perilous way through the Valley of the Shadow. Weapons are of no use there. Human care and skill and watching are of small avail there. But there is one thing the pilgrim can do, and that one thing is everything - he can pray; he can "call upon the Lord." It is well to fix that truth of fact, and to illustrate it fully. There is no perplexity, worry, disaster, or depression can ever come to any man, and destroy his power to pray. Oppress and alarm a man how you may, in any narrow gorge of life, he can always pray. Nothing can overwhelm a man while he can call upon God. II. IN THE OPEN PLAIN BE HAD THE RESPONSE OF GOD. The figure is kept up. The pilgrim-soul, with the uplifted eyes, presses forward through the darkness or the mist, which permits him to see but one step at a time; and then suddenly the dawn breaks or the mist lifts, and he is filled with a joyous surprise. He is in the gorge no longer; behold, it is the "open plain;" there is plenty of space all around, and the restful blue sky up above, and a clear way before his feet; God has heard his call; he is on his side. Neither man nor things can hurt him now. And such is the experience of all the saints. - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: I called upon the LORD in distress: the LORD answered me, and set me in a large place.WEB: Out of my distress, I called on Yah. Yah answered me with freedom. |
    |