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ps10.8
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1993-03-21
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EXPOSITION.
Despite the bragging of this base wretch, it seems that
he is as cowardly as he is cruel. "_He sitteth in the lurking
places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the
innocent: his eyes are privily set against the poor_." He acts
the part of the highwayman, who springs upon the unsuspecting
traveller in some desolate part of the road. There are always bad
men lying in wait for the saints. This is a land of robbers and
thieves; let us travel well armed, for every bush conceals an
enemy. Everywhere there are traps laid for us, and foes thirsting
for our blood. There are enemies at our table as well as across
the sea. We are never safe, save when the Lord is with us.
EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS.
Verse 8.--"_He sitteth in the lurking places of the
villages_," etc. The Arab robber lurks like a wolf among these
sand-heaps, and often springs out suddenly upon the solitary
traveller, robs him in a trice, and then plunges again into the
wilderness of sand-hills and reedy downs, where pursuit is
fruitless. Our friends are careful not to allow us to straggle
about, or lag behind, and yet it seems absurd to fear a surprise
here--Kaifa before, Acre in the rear, and travellers in sight on
both sides. Robberies, however, do often occur, just where we now
are. Strange country! and it has always been so. There are a
hundred allusions to just such things in the history, the Psalms,
and the prophets of Israel. A whole class of imagery is based
upon them. Thus, in #Ps 10:8-10|, "He sits in the lurking places
of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the
innocent: he lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den: he
lieth in wait to catch the poor: he doth catch the poor, when he
draweth him into his net; he croucheth and humbleth himself, that
the poor may fall by his strong ones." And a thousand rascals,
the living originals of this picture, are this day crouching and
lying in wait all over the country to catch poor helpless
travellers. You observe that all these people we meet or pass are
armed; nor would they venture to go from Acre to Kaifa without
their musket, although the cannon of the castles seem to command
every foot of the way. Strange, most strange land! but it tallies
wonderfully with its ancient story.--^W. M. Thomson, D.D., in
"The Land and the Book," 1859.
Verse 8.--My companions asked me if I knew the danger I
had escaped. "No," I replied; "What danger?" They then told me
that, just after they started, they saw a wild Arab skulking
after me, crouching to the ground, with a musket in his hand; and
that, as soon as he had reached within what appeared to them
musket-shot of me, he raised his gun; but, looking wildly around
him, as a man will do who is about to perpetrate some desperate
act, he caught sight of them and disappeared. Jeremiah knew
something of the ways of these Arabs when he wrote, (#Jer 3:2|)
"In the ways hast thou sat for them, as the Arabian in the
wilderness;" and the simile is used in #Ps 10:9,10|, for the
Arabs wait and watch for their prey with the greatest eagerness
and perseverance.--^John Gadsby, in "My Wanderings," 1860.
Verse 8.--"_He sitteth in the lurking places of the
villages: in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: his
eyes are privily set against the poor." All this strength of
metaphor and imagery is intended to mark the assiduity, the
cunning, the low artifice, to which the enemies of truth and
righteousness will often resort in order to accomplish their
corrupt and vicious designs. The extirpation of true religion is
their great object; and there is nothing to which they will not
stoop in order to effect that object. The great powers which have
oppressed the church of Christ, in different ages, have answered
to this description. Both heathen and papistical authorities have
thus condescended to infamy. They have sat, as it were, in ambush
for the poor of Christ's flock; they have adopted every stratagem
that infernal skill could invent; they have associated themselves
with princes in their palaces, and with beggars on their
dunghill; they have resorted to the villages, and they have
mingled in the gay and populous city; and all for the vain
purpose of attempting to blot out a "name which shall endure for
ever, and which shall be continued as long as the sun."--^John
Morison.
HINTS TO PREACHERS.
Verse 8.--Dangers of godly men, or the snares in the way
of believers.