Psalms 41

Blessed is he who considers the poor. The LORD will deliver him in the day of evil. The LORD delivers him; Mercy toward the weak and afflicted is marked for blessing, and deliverance in trouble answers that considering care.

Consider the poor with help, not cold glance. Trust the LORD who delivers in the day of evil; refuse a pity that never acts.

Calvin: Blessed is he that judgeth wisely of the poor—maskil means wise and charitable judgment of men in adversity, not rash condemnation of the afflicted as reprobate. God tries the faithful by adversities for patience, cleansing, humility, and example; hope deliverance even in the day of evil.

Judge the afflicted with the Spirit's candour. Refuse the error that equates heavy sorrow with God's hatred; hope well of their salvation before the time.

“The LORD will preserve him, and keep him alive. He shall be blessed on the earth, and he will not surrender him to the will of his enemies.” Protection, life, earthly blessing, and refusal to hand him to enemies' will stack as the LORD's care.

Ask protection and life from the LORD alone. Do not read enemies' will as final; seek the blessing named in the land under his keeping.

Calvin: Jehovah will keep him and preserve him in life; he shall be blessed upon the earth; thou wilt not abandon him to enemies' will. Though he seemed a dead man, hope of life for himself and the faithful was not extinguished; tokens of favor will yet be seen without excluding hope of a better life after death.

Hold protection against the verdict of cruel observers. Trace life and blessing to Jehovah's keeping, not to fortune's smile.

The LORD will sustain him on his sickbed, and restore him from his bed of illness. Wesley: Make his bed—Give him ease and comfort, which sick men receive by the help of those who turn and stir up their bed, to make it soft and easy for them.

Ask the LORD to sustain and restore on the sickbed. Receive ease as his nurse-care; refuse despair that illness has no turn toward comfort.

Calvin: Jehovah will support him upon the bed of sorrow; thou hast turned all his bed in his sickness. Not mere arranging of cushions alone—more correctly, when restored to health, the bed that served as a sick couch is changed; present languishing under chastening yields to relief by the same God's hand.

Endure the sickbed as training, then look for the turned couch of restoration. Trace both sorrow and recovery to him.

As for me, I said, “LORD, have mercy on me! Heal me, for I have sinned against you!” Wesley: Heal—The soul is said to be healed, when it is pardoned and purged. For—For I acknowledge that I have sinned.

Ask grace and healing with open confession. Own the sin that needs pardon and purge; refuse a plea for comfort that will not name the wound.

Calvin: Have mercy upon me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against thee—frank acknowledgment, not flattery that soothes without confession. Seek forgiveness and reconciliation first; outward relief without blotting out sin inverts the order, as a sick man who quenches thirst and ignores the fever.

Confess just displeasure before asking only for eased circumstances. Link healing of the soul to mercy that pardons.

My enemies speak evil against me: “When will he die, and his name perish?” Malice waits not only for death but for the blotting of the name.

Bring cruel imprecation to God. Do not answer malice with matching wish; ask that he hear what they say of your life and name.

Calvin: enemies imprecate in terms that show cruel hatred—appeased only by destruction accompanied with shame and ignominy, wishing even the remembrance of the name blotted out. The more God's people are cruelly treated, the more he is disposed mercifully to succor them.

Let their cruelty move you to confidence in God, not to despair. Commend life and name to him when malice wants both gone.

If he comes to see me, he speaks falsehood. His heart gathers iniquity to itself. When he goes abroad, he tells it abroad. Wesley: His heart—Even when he is with me, and pretends hearty affection, his heart is devising mischief against me.

Discern empty words that mask devising hearts. Guard what you show false visitors; refuse the flattery that gathers iniquity for later gossip.

Calvin: pretended friends come to see with no design but to speak lies, meanwhile devising deceit, heaping iniquity in store in the heart; gone forth, they manifest hypocrisy. Such masked malice is more to be feared than open enmity.

Beware the visit that stores gossip. Prefer open foes to secret heapers of iniquity; ask God to expose the empty word.

All who hate me whisper together against me. They imagine the worst for me. Whispered counsel and imagined worst gather the haters as one plot.

Name the whisper before God. Do not chase every rumor; ask him to judge imagined evil that never needed proof.

Calvin: both open enemies and deceitful friends take counsel together about destruction; wicked men whisper secret treachery and plot base conspiracies. Hatred here is collective meditation of hurt.

Expect whispered plots as part of the trial. Fix the mind on God when Satan distracts by secret consultation against you.

They say an evil disease has taken hold of him; now that he lies down, he will rise up no more. Enemies read the affliction as final: poured-out doom, no rising from the place of lying.

Refuse their verdict that you will never rise. Bring the deadly word they speak to the God who raises; do not adopt their hopeless reading of your bed.

Calvin: an evil deed of Belial cleaves fast—they regard him as shut up under an extraordinary, unexpiable crime, or an incurable malady; he shall never be able to rise. They cut off hope, counting God altogether hostile; yet the servant with a good conscience must not be overthrown by that false judgment.

Do not let the world's unequal balances define you as God-forsaken. Hold the testimony of conscience when they say you will never rise.

Even my own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, who ate bread with me, has lifted up his heel against me. Wesley: Yea—These words were literally fulfilled in David, and yet the Holy Ghost looked farther in them, even to Christ and Judas, in whom they received a fuller accomplishment. Lift up—injury joined with insolency and contempt; like an unruly horse that kicks at him who owns and feeds him.

Shared messianic reading with John 13—both camps hear David and, beyond him, Christ betrayed by the familiar friend. Grieve the lifted heel without inventing a camp quarrel where Wesley and Calvin agree; trust the Lord when bread-companions turn.

Calvin: even the man of my peace, who eats of my bread, has lifted up the heel—treachery of intimates as the height of misery; lifting the heel is disdainful rising against one afflicted and cast down. Christ quotes this of Judas (John 13:18); David speaks not as a private person only but as representing Christ, so the church must expect not only fightings without but fears within.

Shared messianic reading with John 13—prepare for betrayal from those at the table, after the pattern begun in David and fulfilled in Christ. Refuse despair when intimates kick; belong to the body that shares his trial.

But you, LORD, have mercy on me, and raise me up, that I may repay them! Wesley: Requite—Punish them for their wicked practices; which being now a magistrate, he was obliged to do. Grace and raising come first; repayment is magisterial duty, not private spite.

Ask grace and raising from the LORD. Leave repayment to lawful charge under God; refuse a revenge that skips mercy and usurps the bench.

Calvin: Have mercy; raise me up, and I will recompense—aid sought from God when the world offers only cruelty or secret malice. The seeming harshness of vengeance is checked: David is king appointed by God, representing Christ; not fleshly impulse but the office and the Spirit govern the plea; private hands are tied, and we may ask the heavenly Judge to avenge in calm desire.

Commend the cause to God when no earthly help remains. Do not cast off the Spirit's rule in desires for justice; seek raising by mercy, not by matching wickedness.

By this I know that you delight in me, because my enemy doesn’t triumph over me. Wesley: By this—Because hitherto thou hast supported me, and prolonged my days to the disappointment of their hopes. Deliverance that silences the enemy's shout becomes a mark of the LORD's delight.

Read prolonged days against their hopes as favor, not chance. Ask that the enemy not triumph; let supported life confirm that he delights in you.

Calvin: By this I know I have been acceptable—thanksgiving after deliverance; the enemy does not triumph. Not the sole or bare proof of God's love apart from the Word, but a help added to confirm faith; special favor also in David's calling as king among the first-born of earthly kings.

Let rescue from triumphing foes confirm the Word's promise of favor. Refuse both despair when enemies shout and a faith that trusts experience alone without Scripture.

But you uphold me in my integrity, and set me in your presence forever. Wesley: Settest—Or, hast confirmed me in thy presence, under thine eye and special care: to minister unto thee, as a king over thy people. And in regard of his posterity, the kingdom was established for ever.

Ask to be upheld in integrity under his eye. Seek presence that confirms vocation; refuse a private uprightness that never serves his people.

Calvin: thou wilt uphold me in my integrity and establish me before thy face forever. Not a boast that denies earlier confession of sin, but either soundness preserved by God, or piety that did not turn aside when Satan and wicked men shook faith—patience in the conflict ascribed at once to God's sustaining power, with favor until his servants are kept safe to the end.

Trace integrity's holding to his uphold, not self. Seek to be set before his face; refuse both despair under insult and pride that forgets who keeps you invincible.

Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting and to everlasting! Amen and amen. Wesley: Amen—hearty assent and approbation, and earnest desire of the thing annexed. The psalms are divided into five books, each closed with this word; the first here; the doubling shews the fervency of his spirit in praising God.

Shared doxology closing Book I—both camps bless the God of Israel, from everlasting and to everlasting. Answer Amen and Amen with fervent assent; refuse a praise that ends the book in silence.

Calvin: Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Israel, forever and ever—thanksgiving confirmed; he is called God of Israel to impress the covenant with the Fathers as the source of deliverance. Amen repeated twice for greater vehemence, that all the godly may be stirred to praise; this ascription closes the first book of the Psalter.

Shared doxology closing Book I—bless the covenant God of Israel without reserve. Double the Amen; let deliverance issue in praise that belongs to the whole church's book.