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9. I will say to God my rock If we read the preceding verse in the past tense, the meaning of this verse will be, Since God has, in this way, heretofore shown himself so kind towards me, I will pray to him now with so much the greater confidence: for the experience which I have had of his goodness will inspire me with courage. But if the preceding verse is rendered in the future tense, David, in this verse, combines the prayer which it contains with the reflections which faith led him to make. And, surely, whoever, from a persuasion of the paternal love of God, anticipates for himself the same favor which David has just described, will also be induced from his example to pray for it with greater confidence. The meaning, then, will be this: Since I expect that God will be favorable to me, inasmuch as by day he manifests his favor towards me, and continues to do this, so that even by night I have occasion to praise him, I will bewail the more frankly my miseries before him, saying, O Lord! my rock, why hast thou forgotten me? In making such a complaint, the faithful are not to be understood as meaning that God has utterly rejected them: for if they did not believe that they were under his care and protection, it were in vain for them to call upon him. But they speak in this manner according to the sense of the flesh. This forgetfulness, then, relates both to outward appearance, and to the disquietude by which the faithful are troubled according to the flesh, although, in the meantime, they rest assured by faith that God regards them, and will not be deaf to their request.

10 It is as a slaughter in my bones. This verse is somewhat involved in point of expression; but as to the meaning of it there is no obscurity. David here affirms that the grief which he experienced from the reproaches of his enemies, wounded him in no degree less than if they had pierced through his bones. The word ברצה, beretsach, signifies killing; and, therefore, I have retained this idea in the translation of it. And yet I do not condemn the opinion of those who render it a slaughtering sword. ¹²⁴¹²⁴     The original word רצח retsach, is constantly used in prose for a homicide, or murderer, being derived from the verb רצח ratsach, which signifies to slay, to murder; and although it is not used in any other passage for a sword, “it may,” as Horsley observes, “very naturally, in poetry, be applied to the instrument of slaughter, the sword.” In support of this view, he refers to a passage in one of the tragedies of Sophocles, in which Ajax calls his sword, upon which he is about to fall, Ο σφαγεὺς which gives the literal rendering of the Hebrew רצח, retsach, murderer Horsley’s rendering is, “While the sword is in my bones.” There is here a difference as to the reading, arising from the great similarity which there is between the two letters ב, beth, and כ, caph, the mark of similitude. As the letter ב beth, is often superfluous, I would rather be disposed, in a doubtful matter like this, to omit it altogether. But as I have said, the sense is perfectly plain, except that interpreters do not seem to take this sufficiently into their consideration, that by the terms my bones, the bitterness of grief is referred to; for we feel much more acutely any injury which is done to the bones, than if a sword should pierce the bowels, or the other parts of the body which are soft and yielding. Nor should the children of God regard this similitude as hyperbolical; and if one should wonder why David took so sorely to heart the derision of his enemies, he only manifests in this his own insensibility. For of all the bitter evils which befall us, there is nothing which can inflict upon us a severer wound than to see the wicked tear in pieces the majesty of God, and endeavor to destroy and overturn our faith. The doctrine taught by Paul, (Galatians 4:24,) concerning the persecution of Ishmael, is well known. Many consider his childish jesting as of little moment, but as it tended to this effect, that the covenant of God should be esteemed as a thing of no value, it is on that account, according to the judgment of the Holy Spirit, to be accounted a most cruel persecution. David, therefore, with much propriety, compares to a slaughtering sword, which penetrates even within the bones and marrow, the derision of his enemies, by which he saw his own faith and the word of God trampled under foot. And would to God that all who boast themselves of being his children would learn to bear their private wrongs more patiently, and to manifest the same vehement zeal for which David is here distinguished, when their faith is assailed to the dishonor of God, and when the word also which gives them life is included in the same reproach!