Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible · Psalms Chapter 41

Psalms 41:0.

God's care of the poor. David complaineth of his enemies' treachery: he fleeth to God for succour.

To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.

Title. לדוד מזמור למנצח lamnatseach mizmor ledavid.— The ground of this psalm is the same with that of the 38th and 39th. The author labours under some illness. He complains of the insult and treachery of his enemies, and of one in particular: he prays to be relieved, and accordingly is relieved. This mercy of God to him, he seems to attribute in the first three verses to his own compassion for the afflicted. Dr. Delaney is of opinion, that this psalm was written by David after his sickness, when Absalom conspired against him. There is no doubt (says he) but the king, who, as we suppose, discovered the conspiracy in his sickness, took immediate measures to defeat it, as soon as he found himself recovering: Nor is it improbable that he dissembled his recovery as long as he could, to prevent the effects of his son's ambition and impetuosity; who appears sufficiently from this psalm to have been determined upon his father's destruction, and fully resolved to out-do the malignity of his disease, and cut him off, if that should spare him; for those, I am satisfied, are Absalom's own words, recorded by David in the 8th verse, And now that he lieth, he shall rise up no more. It must doubtless have been matter of great surprise, and inexpressible affliction, to David, to find the two men in the world, whom he seems to have loved and most confided in, combining against him, and compassing his death. Absalom and Achitophel, his son and his counsellor: both of these are, as I apprehend, clearly characterised in this psalm: the vanity and lying spirit of Absalom in the 6th verse, and the treachery of Achitophel in the 9th, where we have a complaint, not only of trust betrayed, but of the rights of hospitality violated. The man who did this had eaten of his bread. In this exigency David had recourse, as usual, to the divine mercy and protection, Psa 41:10 and finding their devices so far defeated as not to terminate in his immediate destruction, he gradually gathered hope and confidence from that delay; which he quickly perceived not to have arisen from any abatement of their malignity, but from the interposition of providence in his behalf, Psalms 41:11-12. If it be urged, that all this is only a comment upon a psalm, not grounded upon any historical relation; I answer, that the psalm itself is plainly historical; is confessedly written by David, and personally applied to himself; and consequently must refer to some circumstances of his life: It can refer to no other but this; and when applied to this gives, as I conceive, new light to the sacred historian's account of Absalom's rebellion. See Life of David, b. i. c. 8. I would only observe, that, supposing the truth of this application, David may properly be considered here as the type of Christ, and Achitophel of Judas; in which view the whole may be applied to our Saviour, who has led us to this application, by referring one verse of it to himself. See John 13:18.

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Psalms 41:3. Thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness— Thou turnest all his bed in his sickness. This expresses the ease and refreshment which God had just before given him in his sickness; as great as a person feels from his bed being made up smooth around him. Mudge.

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Psalms 41:4. Heal my soul— As rational conjectures, says Dr. Delaney, are oftentimes useful inlets to knowledge, the candid reader will, I hope, be indulgent to mine, in relation to David's distemper, (see the note on the title of the 38th psalm,) which I am far from obtruding as a truth; for, after all, possibly, all his psalms upon this head may be no more than figurative descriptions of the state of his mind, sick with sin; nor is this supposition ill-grounded upon the present verse: And, agreeably to this way of thinking, we find sin figured out to us, in the prophetic style, under the ideas of bruises, and wounds, and putrifying sores, Isaiah 1:6, See on Psalms 38:7. We cannot any where introduce more properly the following judicious observations from Bishop Lowth's 8th Prelection.

"The Hebrew laws," says he, "are very much occupied in discriminating things clean and unclean, in removing and expiating what is foul, polluted, profane; in which ceremonies, as under a veil, the most holy and weighty meanings are couched, as is evident from the thing itself, as well as from many plain and express declarations. Amongst these, certain diseases and infirmities of the body have place; which, however light they may seem to a cursory, appear of great consequence to an attentive reader. It is on this account not to be wondered, that the sacred poets apply these images in expressing the most important matters, when they either lay open the defilement of the human mind, wholly depraved and contaminated; Isa 44:6 or Eze 36:17 or lament the miserable, abject, and most contemptible lot of the virgin, the daughter of Zion, spoiled and made bare: Lamentations 1:8-9; Lamentations 1:17; Lamentations 2:2. Images which, considered in themselves, are truly deformed and hateful; if referred to their true origin, and to religion, are devoid neither of weight nor majesty. Of this kind, or at least analogous to this kind, are those which the royal poet (who in his divine poems generally sustains a character far more august than his own) pours forth full of sorrow and the most ardent affections; when he complains, as in Psalms 38:0 that he is worn down, and wearied out with punishments and sufferings, and entirely depressed with the most grievous burden of sin, to the support whereof human nature is absolutely unequal: In which passages some have enquired under what disease the writer then laboured; not less absurdly, in my judgment, than if they had sought after the situation and name of the river in which he was plunged, when he says that he was overwhelmed with great floods of waters."

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Psalms 41:8. An evil disease, &c.— Or, A word of Belial cleaveth, &c. Literally, says Houbigant, a thing of Belial is poured out upon him; i.e. his wickedness is brought round upon, or overflows him. Green renders it, Let the base thing he has been guilty of stick close to him.

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Psalms 41:9. Hath lifted up his heel against me— Hath shewn great treachery towards me. Mudge. St. John, who wrote in Greek, quotes the words from the Greek version, as he found them, without altering the translation.

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