Psalms 19

Wesley: The heavens—they are as a legible book, wherein he that runs may read it. The glory—his eternal power and Godhead, his infinite wisdom and goodness. Firmament—or the expansion, all the vast space from earth to the highest heavens, with all its goodly furniture.

Creation is a witness anyone can read. The sky does not whisper obscurely; it proclaims handiwork so that wonder at the Maker is the fitting first response before the Word is heard.

Calvin: the psalm’s first part celebrates glory in the works; under the heavens as noblest part he includes the whole fabric. He introduces the heavens as witnesses and preachers, attributing speech to the dumb creature to upbraid ingratitude if so clear a testimony is passed over with unheeding ears. The heavens proclaim they were not put together by chance but wonderfully created by the supreme Architect.

Creational preaching that leaves no honest atheism. Splendor is meant to ravish the mind with the Creator’s goodness, wisdom, and power.

Wesley: Day—every day and night repeats these demonstrations of God’s glory. Uttereth—or poureth forth, constantly and abundantly, as a fountain doth water. Knowledge—gives us a clear knowledge or discovery of God their author.

Revelation that keeps coming. The cadence of days is not bare clockwork; it pours speech so the hearer may know the Author and answer with praise.

Calvin: from the established alternation of days and nights, the course of sun, moon, and stars is regulated by marvellous wisdom. Although God should speak no single word, the orderly succession of days and nights eloquently proclaims his glory; there is now left to men no pretext for ignorance.

Providence teaches without pause. One attentive day or night would suffice; the recurring tuition removes every excuse for dullness.

Wesley: Heard—or understood; divers nations have several languages so that one cannot be understood by another, but the heavens are such an universal teacher that they can speak to all people and be clearly understood by all.

Where they meet: Universal address. Language barriers stop human discourse; they do not stop the sky’s lesson. Every people stands under the same creational sermon.

Calvin: the variety of languages does not prevent the preaching of the heavens from being heard in every quarter. Nations differ as to speech; the heavens have a common language to teach all without distinction—nothing but carelessness hinders even strangers at the ends of the world from profiting at the mouth of the same teacher.

One Teacher for all lands. Ingratitude, not obscurity, explains why the voice goes unheard.

Wesley: Line—their lines; the heavens teach not audibly to the ears but visibly to the eyes, as in lines or writings. Gone—spread abroad so as to be seen and read by all inhabitants of the earth. Words—magnificent structure, exquisite order, and regular course declaring their author. Sun—most illustrious and useful of the heavenly bodies, particularly mentioned.

Shared with Romans 10’s use of the verse—creation’s school open worldwide. The tent for the sun focuses the sermon on the brightest creature without replacing the coming Word.

Calvin: the glory of God is written in the heavens as in an open volume; their words reach the ends of the world. Paul in Romans 10 cites this as a school open to the Gentiles—a prelude to ampler gospel instruction—not as an allegory making the heavens the apostles and the sun Christ. A tabernacle is set for the sun because in its brightness God’s majesty displays itself more magnificently than in the rest.

Worldwide creational witness, rightly heard with Paul without allegory that upends law-after-creation order. The sun’s pavilion is the highest rank in the visible sermon.

Wesley: Bridegroom—gloriously adorned with light as with a beautiful garment, smiling upon the world with a pleasant countenance. Chamber—poetically supposed to have rested all night, thence to break forth as it were on a sudden. Strong man—conscious and confident of his own strength.

Shared wonder—joy in the course, not grim machinery. The image invites glad acknowledgment of the Maker who dressed the day with such gladness.

Calvin: three things in the sun—splendor and excellency of form, swiftness of course, and astonishing heat. The bridegroom similitude magnifies surpassing beauty; the strong man entering the lists as a racer suits velocity beyond ordinary notice, yet near enough for the rudest to grasp.

Homely figures that leave the dull without excuse. Joyful strength in the sun is meant to teach fear and knowledge of God, not to feed idle astronomy.

Wesley: The ends—his course constant from east to west and thence east again, so that no part of the earth fails at some time to feel the benefit of his light and heat.

Universal reach of creational mercy. Heat that nothing hides prepares the conscience for the Word that searches deeper still; benefit received should become gratitude offered.

Calvin: accommodating the rude, he speaks of the ordinary appearances of rising and circuit. The heat from which nothing is hidden is the violent heat that scorches as well as the influence that serves life—signal evidence that none can claim to stand outside the sun’s reach, and so outside the Creator’s claim.

No corner of the earth is hidden from the sun’s heat. The circuit closes the first half: creation has preached everywhere; the law will now speak more clearly still.

Wesley: The law—the doctrine delivered to his church, whether by Moses or other prophets; another demonstration of God’s glory compared with and preferred before the former. Perfect—completely discovering nature and will of God and the whole duty of man, whatsoever is necessary to present and eternal happiness; creation left men without excuse yet did not fully manifest the will of God nor bring men to eternal salvation. Converting—from sin to God, from whom all are naturally revolted. Testimony—a witness between God and man of what God requires and what, upon the performance of that condition, he will do for man. Sure—faithful or true; it will not mislead but will infallibly bring him to happiness. Simple—even persons of the lowest capacities.

Shared preference of Word over bare creation for saving knowledge. The law truly converts and makes wise; the simple who receive it are not left without a sure path into happiness.

Calvin: creation’s witness renders men inexcusable but does not of itself teach true fear and well-grounded knowledge; God vouchsafes special grace to those he determines to call, as he gave Israel the Law. Under law is comprehended the covenant, free promises, and Christ—not the Ten Commandments alone. Perfect—absolute wisdom. Restoring the soul: God employs his word as an instrument for restoring us; the letter cannot do this of itself. The testimony is faithful: those guided by the word are securely led to salvation. Babes—none are rightly wise until they progress in the law; God requires scholars who become fools in their own estimation.

Word preferred to sky for full knowledge of God. Restoration is God’s work through the Word that includes gospel promise, not the bare letter operating by human sufficiency.

Wesley: Right—both in themselves and in their effect, guiding men in the ready way to eternal happiness. Rejoicing—by the discoveries of God’s love to sinful men, in offers and promises of mercy. Commandment—all his commands. Pure—without the least mixture of error. The eyes—of the mind, with a complete manifestation of God’s will and man’s duty, which nature and human writings discover only darkly and imperfectly.

Right precepts that gladden by mercy’s offers. The commandment enlightens so the hearer may see duty and love clearly enough to walk; joy is not frivolity but the fruit of discovering divine love.

Calvin: right—set over against the crooked ways men invent when they follow their own understandings. Rejoicing the heart—true solid joy from a good conscience persuaded that life is pleasing to God; this joy is put against the world’s deadly baits. Pure, enlightening the eyes—only in God’s commandments is the difference of good and evil laid down; men are blind until they turn to heavenly doctrine. David praises the whole doctrine of the law including the gospel; Paul, dealing with those who sever the law from Christ’s Spirit, shows what the letter alone can do.

Precepts that rejoice and enlighten. Joy and light belong to the Word held with promise and Spirit, not to self-invented religion or a Christless letter.

Wesley: The fear—the law and word of God, because it is object, rule, and cause of holy fear. Clean—sincere, not adulterated; constant and unchangeable, the same for substance in all ages. Judgments—declarations of his righteous will and judicial sentence by which men should govern themselves and by which he will judge them at the last day.

Holiness of the Word matches the holiness of the Judge; what endures forever is fit to rule the heart now and to judge it then.

Calvin: fear of Jehovah—the doctrine prescribing how God is to be served; opposed to false religions that invent impure worship. Clean and enduring forever—treasure of everlasting happiness against the world’s empty shadow. Judgments are truth, justified together—all righteous without exception; this distinguishes God’s law from all doctrines of men.

Unmixed, lasting, altogether righteous Word. False worship torments in vain; the true fear is clean because the rules are true.

The excellencies just named make the Word surpass treasure and taste. Desire and sweetness answer the law’s perfection, surety, rightness, purity, cleanness, and truth—affections the hearer is called to take up toward what God has spoken.

Prize the Word above gold and prefer its sweetness to honey. Love of Scripture is not optional garnish; it is how the revived soul answers the better book after the book of the creatures.

Calvin: the law is exalted for price and sweetness—heavenly truth the highest treasure. There must be love and delight so that the law not only constrains but allures; and this requires mortifying carnal pleasures. If the law is separated from hope of pardon and the Spirit of Christ, it will taste bitter and kill rather than sweet as honey.

Word above gold, sweeter than honey. Desire and sweetness belong to the law held with gospel promise and Spirit, not to a bare commanding letter.

Wesley’s frame from the excellencies continues: the servant is warned by the Word and finds great reward in actually keeping it. Warning and reward are pastoral motives—flee sin, keep the statutes, expect the LORD’s recompense.

Serious warning and reward tied to keeping. The servant who heeds is not trifling with advice; obedience walks under promised good.

Calvin: from his own experience David knows that prudence for framing life aright is owed to the law; whoever yields to God to observe righteousness does not lose labor—God has reserved great reward. Yet God, requiring what is his right, promises by free undeserved liberality what in strict justice he does not owe. The law’s promises of life to perfect obedience stand; yet the law also curses all who lack the righteousness of works. Believers obtain the recompense by gracious liberality under the covenant of adoption, which includes free pardon—God accepting holy desires and earnest endeavors.

The reward is fatherly liberality under adoption and pardon, not wages earned by perfect works none perform.

Wesley: Who—thy law is holy and just and good, but I fall infinitely short of it. Cleanse—both by justification through the blood of thy Son, and by sanctification through thy Holy Spirit; the first may seem principally intended as he speaks of past sins. Secret—guilt of sins secret from others, or even from myself, never observed or not discerned as evil; pardon unknown sins of which I never particularly repented as I should.

Honest inability to map every fault. Cleansing asked is gospel mercy for hidden guilt, not a shrug that secrecy cancels sin.

Calvin: the cry Who can understand his errors? overthrows confidence in the merit of works after the law’s offer of reward. Satan so deludes that none knows the hundredth part of his sins; God sees far more than conscience. Cleanse from secret sins is a prayer for free forgiveness and absolution—not regeneration in this clause—because even unrecognized faults entail condemnation unless God blots them out. None is pure until God pronounces him so.

Hidden faults need mercy. The verse drives every servant from law-reward boasting to the Judge’s free pardon.

Wesley: Presumptuous—known and evident sins committed against knowledge, against checks of conscience, and against the motions of God’s Spirit. Dominion—if at any time tempted to such sins, Lord let them not prevail; and if I do fall into them, let me speedily rise again.

Shared dread of willful sin’s rule. The servant prays to be kept, and when tripped, to rise quickly—blamelessness is sought as mercy’s path, not claimed as native strength.

Calvin: presumptuous sins—known transgressions with proud contempt. Keep back intimates that the flesh’s propensity is such that even saints would rush into sin unless God by his guardianship restrains them. Calling himself servant, David still needs the bridle. Unless God assist, he will not only fail to resist but be wholly brought under the worst vices—teaching that the faithful themselves would become bond-slaves of sin if God did not unceasingly watch. Pardon should be asked together with strength for the time to come. Then upright and clean—innocence attributed to God’s spiritual assistance, and confession that without it an immense load of wickedness overwhelms.

Prayer against dominion of high-handed sin. Persevering blamelessness hangs on God’s continuous keeping, not on unaided resolve.

Wesley: Having prayed to be kept from sinful actions, he now prays that God would govern and sanctify his words and thoughts—necessary to preserve from presumptuous sins, which have their first rise in the thoughts. Redeemer—added emphatically, with special respect to Christ, to whom alone this word Goel can properly belong.

Shared closing gospel—mouth and heart under the LORD’s acceptance. Rock and Redeemer name the One who can make meditation acceptable; the prayer ends where mercy begins, in Christ the Goel.

Calvin: David asks still more expressly to be fortified by grace and enabled to live uprightly—bridle on tongue and heart, which the law chiefly requires and which is rare even among the most perfect. Acceptable shows that the only rule of living well is to endeavor to please God. My strength and my redeemer—employed to confirm assured confidence of obtaining these requests.

Words and heart-meditation offered for acceptance to the LORD who is rock and redeemer. Grace must govern the inner life; confidence rests in the Redeemer who answers prayer, not in unaided purity of speech.