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PSALM 28

A Psalm of David.

1. Unto you, O jehovah will I cry; O my rock, turn not away in silence from me, lest, if you be silent I become like them that go down into the pit.
2. Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry to you; when I lift up my hands towards the oracle of your holiness.
3. Draw me not away with the wicked, and with the workers of iniquity, who speak peace with their fellows, but evil is in their hearts.
4. Give them according to their deeds, and according to the wickedness of their doings; give them according to the work of their hands; render to them their reward.
5. Because they consider not the works of jehovah, nor the operation of his hands, he will destroy them, and not build them up.
6. Blessed be jehovah, because he has heard the voice of my supplications.
7. jehovah is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped; therefore my heart greatly rejoices, and with my song will I praise him.
8. jehovah is their strength, and he is the saving strength of his anointed.
9. Save your people, and bless your inheritance; feed them, and uphold them for ever.

Verse 1. Unto you, O jehovah do I cry, O my rock, turn not away in silence from me, lest, if you be silent to me, etc. Mention is here made of jehovah and a rock, because by jehovah is meant the lord as to the divine Good, and by rock, the Lord as to divine truth, and since both the latter and the former are meant, therefore also it is here said, turn not away in silence from me, lest if you be silent to me, for one has relation to the divine good, and the other to the divine truth, since in every part of the Word there is a Heavenly Marriage, which is the marriage of good and truth. AE 411.

Verse 7. Therefore my heart greatly rejoices, and with my song will I praise him. The reason why singing a song signifies confession from joy of heart is because joy of heart expresses itself by singing, when it is in its fullness, for when the heart is full of joy, and thence also the thought, it then pours itself forth by a song, the joy of heart itself by the sound of the song, and the consequent joy of the thought by singing; the quality of the joy of the thought by the words of the song conformable and agreeable to the subject which is in the thought from the heart, and the quality of the joy of the heart by the harmony, and the quantity of its joy by the elevation of the sound and in it of the words, all those things flow as it were spontaneously from the joy itself, and this by reason that all heaven is formed according to the affections of good and truth; the highest heaven according to the affections of good, and the middle heaven according to the affections of truth; thus also it is formed to joys, for every joy is from affection or from love: hence it is evident that the harmony of singing, and likewise that the are of music, can express various kinds of affections. From this cause it is that several kinds of musical instruments were applied in holy worship by the Jewish and Israelitish nation, each of which was expressive of the affections of celestial good, and of the affections of spiritual good, and thence of the joys, which were the subjects of their discourses; the stringed instruments were applied to the affections of spiritual good, and the wind-instruments to the affections of celestial good. AE 326.

Verse 1. Unto you, O jehovah, do I cry, O my rock. These words not only teach the interesting lesson, above referred to in the Exposition, respecting the Divine and Heavenly Marriage of the good and the true, which forms a distinguishing characteristic of the Divine Authority of the sacred writings, but they inculcate also a doctrine which ought never to be forgotten by every sincere worshipper of the great almighty. The doctrine is, that good derives all its power and strength from truth, and that consequently the cultivation of truth in the understanding ought never to be neglected as a thing of indifference, since the quality of good in the will will ever depend on the quantity and quality of the knowledge of truth from good, which has been received in the understanding. This doctrine demands the particular attention of those well-disposed persons, who are apt to rest their acceptance with god on the sincerity of their purposes, without any regard to their opinions, urging in their excuse, that if the life be right, of what consequence is their belief? But the question is, can the life be right, if the belief be wrong, in other words, can the good of love and charity in the will be equally pure and equally operative in the case of its receiving no aid from an enlightened understanding, as it might have been if jehovah and the rock had been united, and thus a well-disposed mind has the advantage of the strength of the latter and of the goodness of the former?