There are heights and depths in the Divine life. We may pass quickly from the one to the other. When at the height of triumph we may be brought low. When in the depths of despondency we may be raised up. This psalm speaks of despondency. We see -

I. HOPE RISING IN THE MIDST OF DESPONDENCY. (Vers. 1-4.) We are apt to fix our mind on our trials. They bulk large. They press us sorely. We dwell upon their grievousness. We shrink from their effects, bewildered and dismayed (ver. 3). Besides, we are too ready to think of our trials as judgments. Our sins make us afraid. God seems to be visiting us in wrath, instead of mercy. But this is our infirmity. As we turn to God with humility, hope rises in our hearts. God is not against us, but for us. If he visits us with trials, it is for our good. His banner over us is still the banner of love.

II. FAITH IN GOD'S PROMISES SUSTAINING THE SOUL IN DESPONDENCY. (Vers. 5-8.) The words of Moses, Samuel, and Nathan had sunk deep into the psalmist's heart. He remembered them, and was comforted. How much more reason have we to say, "God hath spoken in his holiness"! We have not only the words, that David had, but many words besides - not only the words of prophets and apostles, but the words of him of whom it was said, "Thou hast the words of eternal life." The Holy Scriptures are rich in promises (2 Peter 1:3, 4; 2 Corinthians 1:20). We may take one and another to the throne of grace, and say, "Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope. This is my comfort in my affliction" (Psalm 119:49, 50). Two rabbis, it is said, approaching Jerusalem, observed a fox running up the hill of Zion. Rabbi Joshua wept, but Rabbi Eliezer laughed. "Wherefore dost thou weep?" asked Eliezer. "I weep because I see what is written in the Lamentations fulfilled: 'Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate, the foxes walk upon it'" (Lamentations 5:18). "And therefore do I laugh," said Eliezer; "for when I see with my own eyes that God has fulfilled his threatenings to the letter, I have thereby a pledge that not one of his promises shall fail, for he is ever more ready to show mercy than judgment."

III. PRAYER TO GOD GAINING THE VICTORY OVER DESPONDENCY. (Vers. 9-12.) There are great things promised, but how are they to be performed? If we had to do with man, we might have doubts and fears. But we have to do with God, and he is both able and willing to fulfil his word. Remembering his character and his works, we rise above all desponding and depressing influences. Committing ourselves to the keeping of the Lord of hosts, we go forth to the fight with brave hearts. "Jehovah-Nissi" is our watchword, and we are able to say, "Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (l Corinthians 15:57). - W.F.

In this war-song we are given the key to the whole story of Jewish development as the interpretation of life — that interpretation which has, through Christ, received its verification as the universal method by which religion becomes a practical force in the world. Leek at it. First, how real, how practical, how concrete it all is. It is not selfish, personal trouble about which he is vehement. He is one with his people, and it is their distress which is his. And then, secondly, these disasters cannot be for him blind accidents. They are not the cruelties of some ruthless fate, or the mere victories of force, accident, fate. God's will is the sole, paramount interpretation of every incident, and there can be no other. "Thou also hast been displeased." That is the only reasonable account of the matter. And then, after that, in that thought lies his hope. If God has done it, and done it for correction, then God can also undo it, and undo it He surely will, He, by His own right hand. Who but He? The people — broken, shattered, bruised, and drunken — they cannot heal themselves. They cannot restore themselves to their old soundness and strength. Their sin has wrecked their power to be as they were. They can but recognize the hand of God that broke and scattered them. God can do the rest. Their renewal, their recovery, must be all His act, and He will be sure to do it, because He has smitten that He may heal. What other motive could He have? And then out of that thought the psalmist passes on to the martial outburst which is so charged with the spirit of Ascensiontide. Israel, if she is to recover, we say, must throw herself altogether on the prevenient help of God, "God has spoken in His holiness." That is what precedes. He and no other has taken the great step on which all depends. God has planned for Himself already an organized kingdom, and each spot, and each district, and each centre is selected and named. And this highland chief, this king, this servant of His, has been shown it all. He has been told exactly what is in God's mind. Now, surely we can feel the very touch of an Ascension flame in the old words. This poise of the soul — this spiritual situation in which the believing soul for ever finds itself wherever it would act in God's name — this mode and method of all religious faith wherever it be found — these have been caught for us here: these have been fixed. They are wholly and utterly the same to-day for us as they were for that border-chief in his warfare with Edom. Just to rehearse the succession of his thoughts and of his prayers with our mind. First, Ascensiontide summons us to look out, as he did, beyond the circuit of our own private affairs, and to take our place amid the rank of the people of God, and to identify ourselves with His historical kingdom. Look at Christ's Church as it fares in the world. That Church is the creation of His royalty. There He has set His name, and with her lies our lot. Her interest, her fortune, her fears, her distress, all are ours. We are committed to her, so that our very faiths are interwoven one with another. If she is in strength we are strong, and if she is burdened we are weak with her weakness. Look out on her. How goes it? Alas, far us as for him, the same spectacle. God has cast us out. God has scattered us abroad. God's hand is in it. And, if God's hand is in it, then God's mind is behind it. God acts for a purpose, and that means for a purpose unrelinquished and invincible, towards which He is ever pressing on; if it cannot be by victory, then by penalty, by discipline. What is that purpose? Ascensiontide is our answer. Then it was that God spoke out in His holiness. He revealed His whole intention. He clothed Himself in His righteousness. What was it to be? Oh, with the psalmist let us exult, for God in His exultation, lifting His Son to His throne on high, pronounced that in Him, the Beloved, He would claim the entire world for Himself. Every nation was to be a province of His kingdom, who was to be King of kings and Lord of lords. "I will rejoice," he cried, as he saw it himself. So our King, aware of all the purposes of God, cried aloud to His great apostle in the vision, saying, "I am He who was alive and was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore. And I hold in My hand the keys of death and hell. I will rejoice, for I will divide Shechem, and mete out the valley of Succoth. Gilead is mine, and Manasseh is mine, and Ephraim is the strength of my head, and Judah is my law-giver." So the cry of the ascended Lord rings out over the whole, asseverating its perpetual claim. "Mine," for instance, "is the intellect in its exquisite skill, in its courage, in its profundity; mine is science in its patience and its truth; mine is art; mine is the whole world of feeling, emotion, passion; mine is marriage in all its inexhaustible magic; mine is the home in the honour of motherhood, the crown of children; mine is the heart with its sorrows and its joys; mine is the will with the force of its unresting efforts; mine is man. To everything in him I allot function and duty and service and liberty and gladness. Ephraim is the strength of my head, and Judah is my lawgiver." Nor can He, the Victor, stop at the borders of His kingdom of grace. Still that kingdom must grow, must expel wrong, injustice, lust, misery, cruelty. These yet hold their own in the high rocks and fastnesses of the hills of Edom — in their castles and cities in the rich coasts of the Philistines. And these must yield; these must break. God has promised it. He has set the name of Jesus over everything that is named, and He must reign until He subdue all things unto Himself.

(Canon Scott Holland.)