in number the sixth.*)
O God, do not punish me in your anger and do not chastise me in your wrath.
2 O God, have mercy on me, for I am weak; make me well, for all my bones are dismayed.
3. and my soul is greatly terrified, but, O God, how long?
4 O God, return and redeem my soul, make me blessed for the sake of your mercy.
5 For in death there is no one who remembers you, but in hell who will give you praise and thanks?
I am troubled in my groaning. I will wash my bed every night and water my bed with my tears.
7 My face is all wasted with wrath; I am obsolete among those who are all my enemies.
008 Depart from me, all ye that work that is not right: for God hath heard the cry of my weeping.
9 God has heard my prayer, God has received my supplication.
010 Oh that all mine enemies were ashamed and greatly afraid, that they might return and be put to shame very quickly.
V. 1.1 ) O Lord, do not punish me in your anger.
(1) To explain this psalm, there are a few things to remember. The first: In all suffering and trials, man should first run to God and recognize and accept that everything is sent by God, whether it comes from the devil or from man. This is what the prophet who is mentioned in this psalm does here. a) But first he runs to God, and takes the sufferingb ) from God.
1) The counting here is different from that in the Bible, because the superscription is not counted here.
a) his enemies.
b) does not take the enmity of his enemies from them, but
*) In the notes to the following interpretations, the deviations of the text are marked with letters, other notes with numbers. An addition in the 1517 edition has the sign: †.
for with wisdom comes the patience and fear of God. But he who looks at man, and does not accept of God, becomes impatient and despiser of God 2c.
The other: God punishes in two ways; once in mercy, as a kind father, and temporally; the other time in wrath, as a strict judge, and eternally. Now when God attacks man, nature is so weak and despondent that it does not know whether it is attacking God in anger or in grace; and in the fear of anger it lifts up and cries, "O God! do not punish me in anger, let it be in grace and temporal, be a father and not a judge. When St. Augustine also speaks: Oh God, punish 1) here, strike here, and spare our there. So he asks here, not that he wants to be completely unpunished, because that would not be a good sign, but as a child being punished by the father.
3) But that these words are spoken by a sinner, or in the person of a sinner,c ) follows from the fact that he names the punishment. For God's punishment is not for the sake of righteousness. Therefore, all saints and Christians must recognize themselves as sinners, and fear God's judgment; for this psalm is common to all, and excludes no one. Therefore, woe to all those who are not afraid and do not feel their sin, and walk safely in the face of God's fearful judgment, before which no good work can be sufficient.
V. 2. Lord, have mercy on me.
4 That is, show me mercy, that I may not perish or perish in anxiety and fear.
Heal me, Lord.
5 That is, strengthen me, help me in this misery.
For my bones are terrified.
(6) That is, all my strength and power succumb to the horror of your punishment; therefore, because my strength fails me, give me your strength.
(7) And it is to be noted here that this psalm, and its like, will never again be found-.
1) Jenaer: "Zürne". Wittenberger: "Zorne".
c) through Christ.
2) Wittenberger: terrible.
The people of the world have never understood or prayed that the accident would happen under their eyes, as it does in death and in the final journey. And blessed are those to whom this happens in life, for every man must perish. When man thus perishes and is destroyed in all his powers, works and being, so that there is no longer anything but a wretched, condemned, forsaken sinner, then comes divine help and strength. As Job 11:17: "When thou thinkest thyself swallowed up, only then shalt thou break forth as the morning star."
V. 3. and my soul is terrified.
For God's strength and comfort are not given to anyone unless he asks for them with all his heart. But no one asks thoroughly who is not yet thoroughly frightened and forsaken; for he does not know what he lacks, and in the meantime stands secure in other strength and comfort of himself or of the creatures. Therefore, so that God may give out His strength and comfort and communicate it to us, He will remove all other comfort and make the soul heartily sorrowful, crying and longing for His comfort. And so all God's punishments are kindly arranged for blessed comfort, although the unwise prevent the order in themselves and pervert it through their soft and despairing hearts toward God, because they do not know that God has hidden and gives His goodness and friendship under wrath and punishment.
Oh, Lord, how long?
(9) The time is long for all suffering people, and again short for the happy, but especially and immeasurably long for those who have this inner pain of the soul, which is felt by God's abandonment and renunciation, (3) as it is well said that one hour of purgatory is more bitter than a thousand years of temporal bodily pain. Thus, there is no greater suffering than 4) sensitive suffering of the conscience that occurs when God renounces, that is, the truth, justice,
3) Thus the Jena (1) and the Weimar. In the other editions: "da von GOtt verlassen und entsagen gefühlt wird".
4) Thus the Jenaer in both redactions and the Wittenberger. Weimarsche: "wan"; Erlanger: "wenn".
Wisdom 2c. [1) and nothing remains there but sin, darkness, misery and woe. And this is a drop or foretaste of the infernal chastisement and eternal damnation, therefore it seeks all bones, strength, sap, marrow, and what is in man.
V. 4. Turn, O Lord, and save my soul.
(10) "To turn away from God" is to renounce inwardly, to forsake, from which the terrible fright is felt, and immediately a lifting condemnation; as in the 30th Psalm, v. 8: "When thou didst hide thy face, I was afraid. d) "To return," however, is inward consolation and abstention in joyful hope. Therefore he says, "Save my soul," as if he were saying, "It is sunk and condemned; show or snatch it out again.
Help me.
(11) For this is the deepest and greatest sickness of the soul, wherein it must perish eternally, if it should remain thus.
For the sake of your goodness.
12. not for the sake of my merits, but for the sake of your goodness,e , so that it may be praised, loved and commended, that you may also help the unworthy. For whom God helps according to his merit, he is honored and praised more cheaply than God's goodness. e) That would be a great dishonor; therefore, if God's goodnesse is to be praised, all merits and dignities must be nullified; and that is what this temptation does.
V. 5: For in death you are not remembered.
13 That is, the dead do not praise you, nor do they praise your goodnesse , but only the living. As in the 115th Psalm, v. 17, 18: "The dead shall not praise thee, O Lord, nor they that go down to hell: but we praise the Lord from henceforth even for ever." f) Therefore he does not only speak of bodily death, but alsog ) of spiritual death.
1) "entzeucht" is found only in the first Jena Redaction as a conjecture in the margin.
d) You have turned your face away from me, and I am terrified.
e) Mercy.
f) Not the dead will praise you, nor all who are going to hell, but we who are alive give glory to God now and forever.
g) more.
death, ash ) the soul is dead. For sin is the death of the soul, but torment is its hell; both are felt by the one who lies in this misery, sin and punishment of sins. Therefore he says: "Do not leave me in death and hell, but according to your goodnessi ) make me alive with grace, and deliver me from hell with comfort.
Therefore, this verse indicates that this suffering is a gate and entrance into eternal sin and punishment, that is, into death and hell. When the king Ezechias said [Is. 38, 10.]: "I have said (with great terror): I must go into the gates of hell in the midst of my life", that is, when I meant to live in the best of all ways.
Who will thank you in hell?
15 Therefore I have said, for thy goodness' sakei . For hell, where thy mercy is not, doth not praise thee, but rather reviles and blasphemes thy righteousness and truth. This is the noblest thought that the saints have in their suffering, that they also may be preserved, otherwise they are in all ways like the damned. As it is written in the last (penitential) psalm [Ps. 143, 7.]: "Hidek ) not thy face from me, lest I become like them that go into the pitl )."
16. But the difference is that the saints keep a favor against God, and that they care more that God's favor, praise and honor fall from them, than that they be condemned. For he does not say, "In hell there is no joy and pleasure," but "no praise or glory. Therefore he introduces here that no one in hell is favorable to God, and if he should go into it, he would also be like the damned 3) in God's disfavor; that would be repugnant and woeful to him above all torment. Therefore it is written in the Song of Songs [Cap. 8, 6], "that the love of God is strong as death and firm as hell", therefore that it also remains in mortal and hellish punishment. Thus God also speaks through Isaiah [Cap. 48, 9.]: "I will bridle you.
h) as.
i) Mercy.
2) "to" is missing in the Weimar.
k) Turnaround.
1) Hell.
3) Thus the Wittenberg. In the other editions: "would also the same".
with my praise, that thou perish not," that is, a hearty favor to me I will give thee in the midst of thy suffering, and the same shall bridle thee and keep thee, without which all others perish in suffering. Also Ps. 18:4: "I will call upon the Lord with praise, and I will be delivered from mine enemies."m ) For suffering, death, even hell must be overcome by us. But it will not be overcome with flight and impatience, but with favor, will, and love, keeping it against God. These are sharp speeches to the old Adam, especially the one who is still green and fresh; but it does not help.
V. 6. I labor with my groaning.
That is, I sigh a lot and very,n ) that also sighing my work. o) My life becomes sour and laborious, for it is no more than sighing. After the manner one also speaks: I have labored or worked with running, with beating 2c. So here also: I labor with sighing, am restlessp ) with sighing. q)
I wash my bed all night long.
18. that is, I weep so much that the tearsr ) swim in my bed; as also follows:
m) "With praise I will call upon GOD, and so I will be redeemed."
n) I have sighed a lot and very much.
o) † have been.
p) "have labored with seiches, have been restless with sighing."
q) † What does this verse want? To notice that he now describes and presents what a right life is. For in this test he has learned that a righteous life does not consist in many works, as the Jews thought, against whom he now begins to speak to the end of the Psalm; but it only consists in crucifying and killing the old man, so that the outer man's way of life, whether according to the world or according to apparent holiness, should be destroyed, and only that should exist which Christ says Matt. 5:4, 6: "Blessed are they that weep and hunger and thirst after righteousness." For this life is to be nothing else but a hatred of the old man, and a seeking and desiring of life in the new man. Is now the mind: Now I see that the world and all flesh and blood is a harmful vain thing in its laughing, being happy, rich, powerful and exalted and the like. For she does not feel what I have felt, therefore she thinks life is good, but does not know what follows. Therefore it is better to weep, to lament, to sigh, than to laugh and be merry, to sing, to have rest, peace, and comfort.
r) In Hebrew thus: I will make my bed to float all night, that is, I will weep so much that the tears shall be
And soak (net) my camp with my tears.
But this is not possible, nor has it ever been heard or read by a saint, according to the words. Therefore, the words are spoken in the spirit, also to be understood in the spirit, so that his soul is so heavily loaded with sufferings ) that if it were possible for the body,t ) he would cry so much. Therefore, as much as is in him,u ) it is the same as happening) And should the corpse follow a soul that thoroughly feels God's punishment, W) he would have to melt closer than in an hour like the snow, and pass away)
V. 7. My form is decayed before the wrath.
20) That is, my form and all the outward change of the body has been changed and disfigured,y ) and all this from wrath,z ) 1) which I have felt from God. But the world cultivates its form in silk, gold and shining food, like the rich man in the Gospel [Luc. 16, 19. 20.]. But I became the poor and shapeless Lazarus througha ) God's wrath.
s) fiercely inflamed against the old man.
t) wanted.
u) † in the will.
v) † For the will within is the weight of all outward works and life.
w) has thoroughly repented and is inflamed in the truth, x) † And all this is now said to the foolish world; as if he should say: O you blind, miserable children, you lie with good rest and chamber on soft bed, and do your pleasure on it, completely in pleasure you live, well bedded and clothed. Truly, if you knew otherwise, you would wash the beds and merry lairs with tears in your eyes, since you are now lounged on and have pleasure. Oh God, these are not the beds of bliss that serve the lusts of the flesh; they would be so weeping (who could do it) that they would swim in tears.
y) † before the world. For I care and do not wait for his, yes I pursue him with embarrassed and complaining life,
z) † which I received against the vain flesh, out of wrath,
1) This addition is missing in Walch and in the Erlanger.
a) Instead of what now follows in the text, the edition of 1517 up to v. 8. has the following: never willing wrath, so that I may escape God's wrath, which no one may escape, except he who crucifies, devastates and destroys his Adam.
I am obsolete among those who find all my enemies.
That is, I am unfit and useless before the world, like an old man, therefore it despises me in my life, even persecutes me. Because it is repugnant to it and does not want to suffer it. So this life in the cross does nothing for me
And has grown old, for I am troubled everywhere.
That is, I am unfit, like an old man. For such a feeling of God's punishment makes all his strength be consumed, and makes him think that heaven and earth are upon him, and that all men are 1) his enemies. For he finds no comfort anywhere, but only terror and the wrath of God.
V. 8. Depart from me, all evildoers.
22. that this does not mean all unrighteous people, but those who have great holinessb ) and wisdom is proven by Matth. 7, 22. where the Lord Christ introduces this half verse against those who will say at the last day: O Lord, have we not preached in thy name, and done many miracles? 2c. These wise men and saints are here given by Christ to be called operarii iniquitatis,c ) evildoers, because they do not do what is right.
(23) So now here he goes with the hopeful saints, so never before has God's wrath been visited upon them.
other than enemies, for they are all my enemies. Whoever does not know this, or does not believe it, only looks at a right life according to the cross of Christ, soon he will find that the whole world is against him, and mocks and persecutes him as a foolish, erring, evil man. Then his form and conduct must become obsolete and nullified, especially in the sight of the high-minded and the great clergy, who always presume to master these same justifiers, and not to hear or suffer anything from them against their arrogance and conceit. These are they who have all wisdom and righteousness, without which lies in thy cross, and there is not a people in all the world that look more against the cross than they. No one, even less, kills or rejects his own mind, his own way, his own conceit, than they; yea, the same evil infirmities they adorn and fortify with logs of good works, opinion, and word, drawn also from the Scriptures, and so fearlessly, surely, and boldly pursuing or seeking to master the truly righteous. He now speaks of them: v. 8, "Depart from me" 2c.
1) "People" only in the Wittenberg.
b) great spirit and holiness.
c) † perpetrator of the wrong or
d) Instead of §23 and the first words of §24, the first edition says: "These are the real enemies of Christianity. For it has never had, nor has, nor will have any other enemies than those who want to be right, and for the sake of unrighteousness think they are destroying the righteous, when they live so with all diligence that they may live only in peace, quiet, honor, comfort, and not in the cross or trouble; and bear no other distinction from the other gross sinners than that the latter seek pleasure in carnal things, and the latter in their spiritual things.
nor have they come to the knowledge of their sins. Therefore, they neither believe, trust, call upon, know, nor teach God's goodness, but deceive themselves and others with them by works and certain presumption of merit before God. To these he wishes that they also have to experience God's wrath, so that they may one day come to themselves from their presumption.
For the Lord has heard the voice of my crying.
(24) That is, God is so minded that He loves to hear the crying and complaining, and not the secure and free. Therefore, a good life does not stand in outward works and appearances, but in a groaning and sorrowful spirit, as it is written in the 4th [Penitential] Psalm, Ps. 51:19: "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and bruised heart you, God, will not despise." And, "The LORD is near to them that are of a broken heart" [Ps. 34, 19.] e) Therefore, weeping precedes action, and suffering overrides all action.
V. 9 The Lord has heard my supplication; the Lord has accepted my prayer.
(25) These words express nothing else than a spiritless soul, which has nothing more than the crying, pleading and asking in firm faith, strong hope and constant love. And so shall be the condition 2) of every Christian's life and being, that he neither know nor have anything apart from God, nor have him otherwise than in faith. Therefore, those who have the good things, wisdom and reason and piety, will be more hopeful and more deeply in love with them than the gross sinners in the flesh.
For God has heard the cry of my weeping.
Because they lie on high and think they are right, they do not believe that those who are defeated are anything before God, but they think they are doing God a service by doing so and supporting the truth. And this fearlessness and certainty condemns and corrupts all their doings: for without fear and humility no one pleases God. Therefore he says: God is so advised that he will not let those who cry out and 2c.
e) "The sacrifice that pleases God is an afflicted spirit, and a humble broken heart you do not spurn"; and in the 34th Psalm, v. 19: "Close is God to all those who are of a suffering or afflicted heart."
2) In the old editions: "created". The Wittenberg one has here the addition: und gestaltet.
1668 Erl. 37, 35ö f. Au[1. of the 7 penitential psalms. 1517 u. 1535. Ps. 6. 32. W. IV, 2274-2277. 1669
so different, not heard of God; for neither do they call with the heart, they are not poor, nor scanty to call or ask, full and full they are. f)
V. 10. All my enemies must be ashamed and terrified.
(26) That is, they stand in their own good pleasure so wickedly and dangerously, and boast of themselves as if they were well off. But they do not know how wicked they are. Therefore it would be good for them to come to themselves and to realize how shameful 1) and wretched they are in the sight of God. For the great spiritual and wise cannot do otherwise than to please themselves, to be sure, to thinkg great of themselves, to feel no foolishness, to speak all things well, to do right, to mean holy, to be special toward others, to know not much of [their] equal. This is the
f) f And "to ask" means the prayer to put away the evil, but "to ask" means to obtain the good.
1) Jenaer (1) and Walch: schmelich,
g) f glorify in themselves,
greatest blindness on earth. For as much as they think and respect themselves in these, so much are they despised and ashamed before God. And this he wanted them to recognize;h ) because they would probably be different,i ) if they came into themselves and were ashamed of themselves. k)
Turn around.
27. for they have turned away and gone too far from God into their own.
And feel ashamed suddenly.
28) Inwardly before their eyes, since they hold themselves in all honor; also outwardly before the people, if it is necessary for the inward [shame and disgrace]; 2) otherwise the outward is alone, and without the inward unfruitful, also harmful.
h) s whether they are probably his enemies;
i) Friend.
k) f Exaltation makes them enemies and persecutors; but humility, that is, shame, shame and terror makes them friends.
2) Added by us.