Psalm 61:2 From the end of the earth will I cry to you, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I. Palestine was not only a land that flowed with milk and honey, but a land of rock and river, and of towering mountains, presenting to his eye a diversified scenery of valley and height, of hill and dale. To apply the term Rock to God, as the refuge and defence of His people in times of difficulty and danger, as the natural rocks were to the distressed Israelites, became as it were a proverbial form of speech, which almost ceased to partake of the nature of metaphor. The Lord is my rock and my fortress. Who is a rock, save our God? Then he forsook the God that made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation. So in the New Testament Christ is called the Rock that supplied the Israelites with means to quench their spiritual, as the rock of Horeb quenched their natural thirst. He was the Rock that followed them. The prayer, then, of David in the text, "Lead me to the Rock that is higher than I," is a prayer for all people and in all times. Adversity is a painful school, but it seems to be the order of God's providence that the majority of men, if saved at all, should be saved so as by fire. The weakness of humanity requires to be demonstrated, not only in the truth of Scripture, but in their own persons, in order to bring conviction to their minds and to impress their hearts. When merry, we find it easy to sing psalms; it is only when afflicted that we heed the injunction to seek relief in prayer. It is only when sick that we apply to the Great Physician, when lost that we seek to be saved. Not the mighty, the noble, the wise, but sinners are called to repentance; it is only in weakness that we are made strong. When we are victorious upon the plain we turn our backs to the fortress and the rock; it is the routed army that flees to it for shelter and support. But God is no less the needed Rock that is higher than we in prosperity; indeed, if possible, the more needed than in adversity. Of the two we think the history of the human heart will show that the former is the more dangerous and the more fraught with perils to the souls of men. There is no one of us but at some time has felt the need of the Rock that is higher than I. If we have had full garners, we have feared lest in gaining the world we might perchance lose our own souls; if we have been called to suffer and endure, we have wanted beneath us the everlasting arms to be our comfort and support. It is a necessity of our natures, it grows out of our relations to God. We are His creatures; He is the source of our spiritual and natural life, and it is only His sustaining power that can preserve that life in being. If left to ourselves, Scripture, reason, experience, all teach us that we grope as the blind, we totter and fall, and are made painfully conscious of our own weakness and infirmities. To give us confidence, to enable us to to forward without faltering or fear, we must have some other reliance than our own strength and efforts, some other trust than our own unaided resources in the fierce warfare with the world, the flesh, and the devil. Are we weak? there is the source of strength. Are we sorrowing? there is comfort. Are we penitent? there is pardon. Were it merely a Rock, the symbol of strength alone, of that power which can destroy as well as save, our faith might falter and our hopes might fail; but it is the Rock of Love as well, Jesus is a High Priest who can be touched with a feeling for man's infirmities, for He was tempted and tried in all points as are we, only without sin. (G. F. Cushman, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I. |
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