Psalms 37:4

Psa 37:4 Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.

Ver. 4. Delight thyself also in the Lord] While others delight in riches and pleasures; as if there were no other happiness but to have and to hold, no sport unless men may have the devil their playfellow. The like counsel hereunto giveth St Paul to his son Timothy, 1Ti 6:12; while others lay hold as with tooth and nail on riches, &c., lay thou hold on eternal life; make God thy portion, and thou art made for ever.

And he shall give thee the desires of thy heart] It shall be unto thee even as thou wilt. It is said of Luther, that he could have what he would of Almighty God. What may not a favourite, who hath the royalty of his prince’s ear, obtain of him? It is said of Sejanus, that in all his designs he found in Tiberius, the emperor, so great facility and affection to his desires, that he needed only to ask and give thanks.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Psa 37:4. Delight thyself also in the Lord — In his favour and service, and in the study of his word and promises; and he shall give thee the desire of thy heart — Thy just desires, or whatsoever is truly desirable and good for thee. This limitation is necessary to be understood, both from divers places of Scripture, and from the nature of the things; for it is unreasonable to imagine that God would engage himself to grant their sinful and inordinate desires, and it would also be a curse to them to have them granted.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

4. (Psa 37:4) And delight thyself in Jehovah, and he will give thee the requests of thy heart. Here too the command implies a promise, which is afterwards expressed. Delight thyself, seek and find thy happiness, in Jehovah, literally upon him, the form of expression suggesting the idea of dependence and reliance, as well as that of union and communion. Requests, not mere desires, but askings, prayers. Compare Psa 20:6 (5), Psa 21:3 (2).

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Psalms Translated and Explained (1850) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Psalms

THE SECRET OF TRANQUILLITY

Psa 37:4 - Psa 37:5, Psa 37:7.

‘I have been young, and now am old,’ says the writer of this psalm. Its whole tone speaks the ripened wisdom and autumnal calm of age. The dim eyes have seen and survived so much, that it seems scarcely worth while to be agitated by what ceases so soon. He has known so many bad men blasted in all their leafy verdure, and so many languishing good men revived, that-

‘Old experience doth attain

To something of prophetic strain’;

and is sure that ‘to trust in the Lord and do good’ ever brings peace and happiness. Life with its changes has not soured but quieted him. It does not seem to him an endless maze, nor has he learned to despise it. He has learned to see God in it all, and that has cleared its confusion, as the movements of the planets, irregular and apparently opposite, when viewed from the earth, are turned into an ordered whole, when the sun is taken for the centre. What a contrast between the bitter cynicism put into the lips of the son, and the calm cheerful godliness taught, according to our psalm, by the father! To Solomon, old age is represented as bringing the melancholy creed, ‘All is vanity’; David believes, ‘Delight thyself in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.’ Which style of old age is the nobler? what kind of life will lead to each?

These clauses, which I have ventured to isolate from their context, contain the elements which secure peace even in storms and troubles. I think that, if we consider them carefully, we shall see that there is a well-marked progress in them. They do not cover the same ground by any means; but each of the later flows from the former. Nobody can ‘commit his way unto the Lord’ who has not begun by ‘delighting in the Lord’; and nobody can ‘rest in the Lord’ who has not ‘committed his way to the Lord.’ These three precepts, then, the condensed result of the old man’s lifelong experience, open up for our consideration the secret of tranquillity. Let us think of them in order.

I. Here is the secret of tranquillity in freedom from eager, earthly desires-’Delight thyself in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.’

The great reason why life is troubled and restless lies not without, but within. It is not our changing circumstances, but our unregulated desires, that rob us of peace. We are feverish, not because of the external temperature, but because of the state of our own blood. The very emotion of desire disturbs us; wishes make us unquiet; and when a whole heart, full of varying, sometimes contradictory longings, is boiling within a man, how can he but tremble and quiver? One desire unfulfilled is enough to banish tranquillity; but how can it survive a dozen dragging different ways? A deep lesson lies in that word distraction, which has come to be so closely attached to desires; the lesson that all eager longing tears the heart asunder. Unbridled and varying wishes, then, are the worst enemies of our repose.

And, still further, they destroy tranquillity by putting us at the mercy of externals. Whatsoever we make necessary for our contentment, we make lord of our happiness. By our eager desires we give perishable things supreme power over us, and so intertwine our being with theirs, that the blow which destroys them lets out our life-blood. And, therefore, we are ever disturbed by apprehensions and shaken by fears. We tie ourselves to these outward possessions, as Alpine travellers to their guides, and so, when they slip on the icy slopes, their fall is our death. If we were not eager to stand on the giddy top of fortune’s rolling wheel, we should not heed its idle whirl; but we let our foolish hearts set our feet there, and thenceforward every lurch of the glittering instability threatens to lame or kill us. He who desires fleeting joys is sure to be restless always, and to be disappointed at the last. For, even at the best, the heart which depends for peace on the continuance of things subjected to a thousand accidents, can only know quietness by forcibly closing its eyes against the inevitable; and, even at the best, such a course must end on the whole in failure. Disappointment is the law for all earthly desires; for appetite increases with indulgence, and as it increases, satisfaction decreases. The food remains the same, but its power to appease hunger diminishes. Possession bring indifference. The dose that lulls into delicious dreams to-day must be doubled to-morrow, if it is to do anything; and there is soon an end of that. Each of your earthly joys fills but a part of your being, and all the other ravenous longings either come shrieking at the gate of the soul’s palace, like a mob yelling for bread, or are starved into silence; but either way there is disquiet. And then, if a man has fixed his happiness on anything lower than the stars, less stable than the heavens, less sufficient than God, there does come, sooner or later, a time when it passes from him, or he from it. Do not venture the rich freightage of your happiness in crazy vessels. If you do, be sure that, somewhere or other, before your life is ended, the poor frail craft will strike on some black rock rising sheer from the depths, and will grind itself to chips there. If your life twines round any prop but God your strength, be sure that, some time or other, the stay to which its tendrils cling will be plucked up, and the poor vine will be lacerated, its clusters crushed, and its sap will bleed out of it.

If, then, our desires are, in their very exercise, a disturbance, and in their very fruition prophesy disappointment, and if that certain disappointment is irrevocable and crushing when it comes, what shall we do for rest? Dear brethren! there is but one answer-’Delight thyself in the Lord.’ These eager desires, transfer to Him; on Him let the affections fix and fasten; make Him the end of your longings, the food of your spirits. This is the purest, highest form of religious emotion-when we can say, ‘Whom have I but Thee? possessing Thee I desire none beside.’ And this glad longing for God is the cure for all the feverish unrest of desires unfulfilled, as well as for the ague fear of loss and sorrow. Quietness fills the soul which delights in the Lord, and its hunger is as blessed and as peaceful as its satisfaction.

Think how surely rest comes with delighting in God. For that soul must needs be calm which is freed from the distraction of various desires by the one master-attraction. Such a soul is still as the great river above the falls, when all the side currents and dimpling eddies and backwaters are effaced by the attraction that draws every drop in the one direction; or like the same stream as it nears its end, and, forgetting how it brawled among rocks and flowers in the mountain glens, flows with a calm and equable motion to its rest in the central sea. Let the current of your being set towards God, then your life will be filled and calmed by one master-passion which unites and stills the soul.

And for another reason there will be peace: because in such a case desire and fruition go together. ‘He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.’ Only do not vulgarise that great promise by making it out to mean that, if we will be good, He will give us the earthly blessings which we wish. Sometimes we shall get them, and sometimes not; but our text goes far deeper than that. God Himself is the heart’s desire of those who delight in Him; and the blessedness of longing fixed on Him is that it ever fulfils itself. They who want God have Him. Your truest joy is in His fellowship and His grace. If, set free from creatural delights, our wills reach out towards God, as a plant growing in darkness to the light-then we shall wish for nothing contrary to Him, and the wishes which run parallel to His purposes, and embrace Himself as their only good, cannot be vain. The sunshine flows into the opened eye, the breath of life into the expanding lung-so surely, so immediately the fulness of God fills the waiting, wishing soul. To delight in God is to possess our delight. Heart! lift up thy gates: open and raise the narrow, low portals, and the King of Glory will stoop to enter.

Once more: desire after God will bring peace by putting all other wishes in their right place. The counsel in our text does not enjoin the extinction, but the subordination, of other needs and appetites-’Seek ye first the kingdom of God.’ Let that be the dominant desire which controls and underlies all the rest. Seek for God in everything, and for everything in God. Only thus will you be able to bridle those cravings which else tear the heart. The presence of the king awes the crowd into silence. When the full moon is in the nightly sky, it sweeps the heavens bare of flying cloud-rack, and all the twinkling stars are lost in the peaceful, solitary splendour. So let delight in God rise in our souls, and lesser lights pale before it-do not cease to be, but add their feebleness, unnoticed, to its radiance. The more we have our affections set on God, the more shall we enjoy, because we subordinate, His gifts. The less, too, shall we dread their loss, the less be at the mercy of their fluctuations. The capitalist does not think so much of the year’s gains as does the needy adventurer, to whom they make the difference between bankruptcy and competence. If you have God for your ‘enduring substance,’ you can face all varieties of condition, and be calm, saying-

‘Give what Thou canst, without Thee I am poor,

And with Thee rich, take what Thou wilt away.’

The amulet that charms away disquiet lies here. Still thine eager desires, arm thyself against feverish hopes, and shivering fears, and certain disappointment, and cynical contempt of all things; make sure of fulfilled wishes and abiding joys. ‘Delight thyself in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.’

II. But this is not all. The secret of tranquillity is found, secondly, in freedom from the perplexity of choosing our path.

‘Commit thy way unto the Lord’-or, as the margin says, ‘roll’ it upon God; leave to Him the guidance of thy life, and thou shalt be at peace on the road.

This is a word for all life, not only for its great occasions. Twice, or thrice, perhaps in a lifetime, a man’s road leads him up to a high dividing point, a watershed as it were, whence the rain runs from the one side of the ridge to the Pacific, and from the other to the Atlantic. His whole future may depend on his bearing the least bit to the right hand or to the left, and all the slopes below, on either side, are wreathed in mist. Powerless as he is to see before him, he has yet to choose, and his choice determines the rest of his days. Certainly he needs some guidance then. But he needs it not less in the small decisions of every hour. Our histories are made up of a series of trifles, in each of which a separate act of will and choice is involved. Looking to the way in which character is made, as coral reefs are built up, by a multitude of tiny creatures whose united labours are strong enough to breast the ocean; looking to the mysterious way in which the greatest events in our lives have the knack of growing out of the smallest; looking to the power of habit to make any action of the mind almost instinctive: it is of far more importance that we should become accustomed to apply this precept of seeking guidance from God to the million trifles than to the two or three decisions which, at the time of making them, we know to be weighty. Depend upon it that, if we have not learned the habit of committing the daily-recurring monotonous steps to Him, we shall find it very, very hard to seek His help, when we come to a fork in the road. So this is a command for all life, not only for its turning-points.

What does it prescribe? First, the subordination-not the extinction-of our own inclinations. We must begin by ceasing from self. Not that we are to cast out of consideration our own wishes. These are an element in every decision, and often are our best helps to the knowledge of our powers and of our duties. But we have to take special care that they never in themselves settle the question. They are second, not first. ‘Thus I will, and therefore thus I decide; my wish is enough for a reason,’ is the language of a tyrant over others, but of a slave to himself. Our first question is to be, not ‘What should I like?’ but ‘What does God will, if I can by any means discover it?’ Wishes are to be held in subordination to Him. Our will is to be master of our passions, and desires, and whims, and habits, but to be servant of God. It should silence all their cries, and itself be silent, that God may speak. Like the lawgiver-captain in the wilderness, it should stand still at the head of the ordered rank, ready for the march, but motionless, till the Pillar lifts from above the sanctuary. Yes! ‘Commit thy way’-unto whom? Conscience? No: unto Duty? No: but ‘unto God’-which includes all these lower laws, and a whole universe besides. Hold the will in equilibrium, that His finger may incline the balance.

Then the counsel of our text prescribes the submission of our judgment to God, in the confidence that His wisdom will guide us. Committing our way unto the Lord does not mean shifting the trouble of patient thought about our duty off our own shoulders. It is no cowardly abnegation of the responsibility of choice which is here enjoined; nor is there any sanction of lazily taking the first vagrant impulse, wafted we know not whence, that rises in the mind, for the voice of God. But, just because we are to commit our way to Him, we are bound to the careful exercise of the best power of our own brains, that we may discover what the will of God is. He does not reveal that will to people who do not care to know it. I suppose the precursor of all visions of Him, which have calmed His servants’ souls with the peace of a clearly recognised duty, has been their cry, ‘Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?’ God counsels men who use their own wits to find out His counsel. He speaks to us through our judgments when they take all the ordinary means of ascertaining our course. The law is: Do your best to find out your duty; suppress inclination, and desire to do God’s will, and He will certainly tell you what it is. I, for my part, believe that the Psalmist spoke a truth when he said, ‘In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy steps.’ Only let the eye be fixed on Him, and He will guide us in the way. If we chiefly desire, and with patient impartiality try, to be directed by Him, we shall never want for direction.

But all this is possible only if we ‘delight in the Lord.’ Nothing else will still our desires-the voice within, and the invitations without, which hinder us from hearing the directions of our Guide. Nothing else will so fasten up and muzzle the wild passions and lusts that a little child may lead them. To delight in Him is the condition of all wise judgment. For the most part, it is not hard to discover God’s will concerning us, if we supremely desire to know and do it; and such supreme desire is but the expression of this supreme delight in Him. Such a disposition wonderfully clears away mists and perplexities; and though there will still remain ample scope for the exercise of our best judgment, and for reliance on Him to lead us, yet he whose single object is to walk in the way that God points, will seldom have to stand still in uncertainty as to what that way is. ‘If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.’

Thus, dear brethren! these two keys-joy in God, and trust in His guidance-open for us the double doors of ‘the secret place of the Most High’; where all the roar of the busy world dies upon the ear, and the still small voice of the present God deepens the silence, and hushes the heart. Be quiet, and you will hear Him speak-delight in Him, that you may be quiet. Let the affections feed on Him, the will wait mute before Him, till His command inclines it to decision, and quickens it into action; let the desires fix upon His all-sufficiency; and then the wilderness will be no more trackless, but the ruddy blaze of the guiding pillar will brighten on the sand a path which men’s hands have never made, nor human feet trodden into a road. He will ‘guide us with His eye,’ if our eyes be fixed on Him, and be swift to discern and eager to obey the lightest glance that love can interpret. Shall we be ‘like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding,’ and need to be pulled with bridles and beaten with whips before they know how to go; or shall we be like some trained creature that is guided by the unseen cord of docile submission, and has learned to read the duty, which is its joy, in the glance of its master’s eye, or the wave of his hand? ‘Delight thyself in the Lord: commit thy way unto Him.’

III. Our text takes one more step. The secret of tranquillity is found, thirdly, in freedom from the anxiety of an unknown future. ‘Best in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.’

Such an addition to these previous counsels is needful, if all the sources of our disquiet are to be dealt with. The future is dim, after all our straining to see into its depths. The future is threatening, after all our efforts to prepare for its coming storms. A rolling vapour veils it all; here and there a mountain peak seems to stand out; but in a moment another swirl of the fog hides it from us. We know so little, and what we do know is so sad, that the ignorance of what may be, and the certainty of what must be, equally disturb us with hopes which melt into fears, and forebodings which consolidate into certainties. We are sure that in that future are losses, and sorrows, and death; thank God! we are sure too, that He is in it. That certainty alone, and what comes of it, makes it possible for a thoughtful man to face to-morrow without fear or tumult. The only rest from apprehensions which are but too reasonable is ‘rest in the Lord.’ If we are sure that He will be there, and if we delight in Him, then we can afford to say, ‘As for all the rest, let it be as He wills, it will be well.’ That thought alone, dear friends! will give calmness. What else is there, brethren! for a man fronting that vague future, from whose weltering sea such black, sharp-toothed rocks protrude? Shall we bow before some stern Fate, as its lord, and try to be as stern as It? Shall we think of some frivolous Chance, as tossing its unguided waves, and try to be as frivolous as It? Shall we try to be content with an animal limitation to the present, and heighten the bright colour of the little to-day by the black background that surrounds it, saying, ‘Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die’? Is it not better, happier, nobler, every way truer, to look into that perilous uncertain future, or rather to look past it to the loving Father who is its Lord and ours, and to wait patiently for Him? Confidence that the future will but evolve God’s purposes, and that all these are enlisted on our side, will give peace and power. Without it all is chaos, and we flying atoms in the anarchic mass; or else all is coldblooded impersonal law, and we crushed beneath its chariot-wheels. Here, and here alone, is the secret of tranquillity.

But remember, brethren! that the peaceful confidence of this final counsel is legitimate only when we have obeyed the other two. I have no business, for instance, to expect God to save me from the natural consequences of my own worldliness or folly. If I have taken up a course from eager desires for earthly good, or from obedience to any inclination of my own without due regard to His will, I have no right, when things begin to go awry, to turn round to God and say, ‘Lord! I wait upon Thee to save me.’ And though repentance, and forsaking of our evil ways at any point in a man’s course, do ensure, through Jesus Christ, God’s loving forgiveness, yet the evil consequences of past folly are often mercifully suffered to remain with us all our days. He who has delighted in the Lord, and committed his way unto Him, can venture to front whatever may be coming; and though not without much consciousness of sin and weakness, can yet cast upon God the burden of taking care of him, and claim from his faithful Father the protection and the peace which He has bound Himself to give.

And O dear friends! what a calm will enter our souls then, solid, substantial, ‘the peace of God,’ gift and effluence from the ‘God of peace’! How blessed then to leave all the possible to-morrow with a very quiet heart in His hands! How easy then to bear the ignorance, how possible then to face the certainties, of that solemn future! Change and death can only thin away and finally remove the film that separates us from our delight. Whatever comes here or yonder can but bring us blessing; for we must be glad if we have God, and if our wills are parallel with His, whose Will all things serve. Our way is traced by Him, and runs alongside of His. It leads to Himself. Then rest in the Lord, and ‘judge nothing before the time.’ We cannot criticise the Great Artist when we stand before His unfinished masterpiece, and see dim outlines here, a patch of crude colour there. But wait patiently for Him, and so, in calm expectation of a blessed future and a finished work, which will explain the past, in honest submission of our way to God, in supreme delight in Him who is the gladness of our joy, the secret of tranquillity will be ours.

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

37:4 To take delight in the Lord means aligning with the Lord’s way in order to enjoy him.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

desires-- (Psa 20:5; Psa 21:2), what is lawful and right, really good (Psa 84:11).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 4. Delight thyself also in the Lord] Expect all thy happiness from him, and seek it in him.

The desires of thine heart.] משאלות mishaloth, the petitions. The godly man never indulges a desire which he cannot form into a prayer to God.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

4. And delight thyself in Jehovah This delight is set in opposition to the vain and deceitful allurements of the world, which so intoxicate the ungodly, that despising the blessing of God, they dream of no other happiness than what presents itself for the time before their eyes. This contrast between the vain and fickle joys with which the world is deluded, and the true repose enjoyed by the godly, ought to be carefully observed; for whether all things smile upon us, or whether the Lord exercise us with adversities, we ought always to hold fast this principle, that as the Lord is the portion of our inheritance, our lot has fallen in pleasant places, as we have seen in Psalm 16:5, 6. We must therefore constantly recall to our minds this truth, that it can never be well with us except in so far as God is gracious to us, so that the joy we derive from his paternal favor towards us may surpass all the pleasures of the world. To this injunction a promise is added, that, if we are satisfied in the enjoyment of God alone, he will liberally bestow upon us all that we shall desire: He will give thee the desires of thy heart. This does not imply that the godly immediately obtain whatever their fancy may suggest to them; nor would it be for their profit that God should grant them all their vain desires. The meaning simply is, that if we stay our minds wholly upon God, instead of allowing our imaginations like others to roam after idle and frivolous fancies, all other things will be bestowed upon us in due season.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

Commit thy way unto the Lord,.... Or "thy works", as in Pro 16:3; that is, all the affairs and business of life, which are a man's ways in which he walks; not that men should sit still, be inactive, and do nothing, and leave all to be done by the Lord; but should seek direction of God in everything engaged in, and for strength and assistance to perform it, and go on in it, and depend upon him for success, and give him all the glory, without trusting to any thing done by them: or, as some render the words, "reveal thy way unto the Lord" (n); not that God is ignorant of the ways of men, and of their affairs, and of their wants and necessities, but it is their duty to ask, and it is his delight to hear; they may come and use freedom with him, and tell him their whole case, and leave it with him, believing he will supply all their need: or, as others render it, "roll thy way on the Lord" (o); see Psa 55:22; meaning not the burden of sin, nor the weight of affliction, but any affair of moment and importance that lies heavy upon the mind;

trust also in him; it is an ease to the mind to spread it before the Lord, who sympathizes with his people, supports them under and brings them through their difficulties;

and he shall bring it to pass; as he does whatever he has appointed and determined shall be, and whatever he has promised, and whatever will be for his own glory and his people's good.

(n) Sept. "revela", V. L. Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; so the Targum, Cocceius, Gejerus, Michaelis. (o) "Devolve super Jehovam", Tigurine version.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Delight thyself also in the - Lord. The word rendered “delight” means properly to live delicately and effeminately; then, to be tender or delicate; then, to live a life of ease or pleasure; then, to find delight or pleasure in anything. The meaning here is, that we should seek our happiness in God - in his being, his perfections, his friendship, his love.

And he shall give thee the desires of thine heart - literally, the “askings,” or the “requests” of thy heart. What you really “desire” will be granted to you. That is,

(a) the fact that you seek your happiness in him will regulate your desires, so that you will be “disposed” to ask only those things which it will be proper for him to grant; and

(b) the fact that you do find your happiness in him will be a reason why he will grant your desires.

The fact that a child loves his father, and finds his happiness in doing his will, will do much to regulate his own “wishes” or “desires,” and will at the same thee be a reason why the father will be disposed to comply with his requests.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Delight thyself in the Lord; in his favour and service, and in the study of his word and promises.

The desires of thine heart, i.e. thy just desires, or whatsoever is truly desirable and good for thee; which limitation is necessarily to be understood, both from divers places of Scripture, and from the nature of the things; for it is unreasonable to imagine that God would engage himself to grant their sinful and inordinate desires, and it would also be a curse to them to have them granted.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Ver. 4. There is an ascent in this third precept. He who was first bidden not to fret, was then commanded actively to trust, and now is told with holy desire to delight in God. Delight thyself also in the Lord. Make Jehovah the joy and rejoicing of thy spirit. Bad men delight in carnal objects; do not envy them if they are allowed to take their fill in such vain idols; look thou to thy better delight, and fill thyself to the full with thy more sublime portion. In a certain sense imitate the wicked; they delight in their portiontake care to delight in yours, and so far from envying you will pity them. There is no room for fretting if we remember that God is ours, but there is every incentive to sacred enjoyment of the most elevated and ecstatic kind. Every name, attribute, word, or deed of Jehovah, should be delightful to us, and in meditating thereon our soul should be as glad as is the epicure who feeds delicately with a profound relish for his dainties. And he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. A pleasant duty is here rewarded with another pleasure. Men who delight in God desire or ask for nothing but what will please God; hence it is safe to give them carte blanche. Their will is subdued to God's will, and now they may have what they will. Our innermost desires are here meant, not our casual wishes; there are many things which nature might desire which grace would never permit us to ask for; these deep, prayerful, asking desires are those to which the promise is made.

Ver. 4. Note thy part and God's part. Do thou delight, and he will give. C. H. S.

Ver. 4. How much grace and love breathes in these words, Delight thyself also in the Lord! Trust in him was recommended before, and now, this being added also, how plain is it that your ease and rest is the thing designed! Is it fit to receive so much kindness with neglect? Again, he delights in you; I speak to such of whom this may be supposed. And it is indefinitely said, "His delights were with the sons of men, "Pr 8:31. Think what he is, and what you are; and at once, both wonder and yield. And what else have you to delight in? what thing will you name that shall supply the place of GOD, or be to you in the stead of him? Moreover, who should delight in him but youhis friends, his sons, those of his own house? Think what life and vigour it will infuse into you, and that "the joy of the Lord will be your strength, "Ne 8:10. How pleasantly will you hold on your course, and discharge all the other duties of this your present state? You must serve him. Dare you think of throwing off his yoke? How desirable is it then to take delight in him whom I must serve; which only makes that service acceptable to him, and easy to myself! Further, this is a pleasure none can rob you of; a joy that cannot be taken from you. Other objects of your delight are vanishing daily. Neither men nor devils can ever hinder you delighting in God, if your hearts be so inclined. And were you never brought to take pleasure in any person or thing to which you had a former aversion? One that had wronged you might yet possibly win you by after kindness. Give a reason why you should be more difficult towards the blessed God that never wronged you, and whose way towards you hath constantly imported so much good will! And consider that your condition on earth is such as exposes you to many sufferings and hardships, which, by your not delighting in him, you can never be sure to avoid (for they are things common to men), but which, by your delighting in him, you may be easily able to endure. Besides all this, seriously consider that you must die. You can make no shift to avoid that. How easily tolerable and pleasant will it be to think, then, of going to him with whom you have lived in a delightful communion before! And how dreadful to appear before him to whom your own heart shall accuse you to have been (against all his importunities and allurements) a disaffected stranger! John Howe's "Treatise of Delight in God."

Ver. 4. We have in the former part extended the meaning of the words Delight thyself in the Lord, beyond what they seem at first sight literally to signify; so as not to understand them merely as requiring that very single act of delight to be immediately and directly terminated on God himself; but to take them as comprehending all the sum of all holy and religious converse with God, i.e., as it is delightful, or as it is seasoned (intermingled, and as it were besprinkled) with delight; and upon the same account, of all out other converse, so far as it is influenced by religion. And I doubt not, to such as shall attentively have considered what hath been said, it will be thought very reasonable to take them in that latitude; whereof the very letter of the text (as may be alleged for further justification hereof) is most fitly capable. For the particle which we read in the Lord, hath not that signification alone, but signifies also with, or by, or besides, or before, or in presence of, as if it had been said, "Come and sit down with God, retire thyself to him, and solace thyself in the delights which are to be found in his presence and converse, in walking with him, and transacting thy course as before him, and in his sight." As a man may be said to delight himself with a friend that puts himself under his roof, and, besides personal converse with himself, freely enjoys the pleasure of all the entertainments, accommodations, and provisions which he is freely willing to communicate with him, and hath the satisfaction which a sober person would take in observing the rules and order of a well governed house. John Howe.

Ver. 4. He shall give thee the desires of thine heart. It shall be unto thee even as thou wilt. It is said of Luther that he could have what he would of Almighty God. What may not a favourite, who hath the royalty of his prince's care, obtain of him? John Trapp.

Ver. 4. The desires of thine heart. All the desires of this spiritual seed are of the nature of this seed, namely, substantial, and shall meet with substance. All the desires of natural man, even after God, after Christ, after righteousness, shall burn and perish with him (for they are not the truth, nor do they come from the truth, nor can they reach to the truth;)but all the desires of this spirit shall live with the Spirit of God, in rest and satisfaction for ever. John Pennington, 1656.

Ver. 4. The desires of God, and the desires of the righteous, agree in one; they are of one mind in their desires. John Bunyan.

Ver. 4. Explain the delight and the desire of the believer, and show the connection between them.

Psalms 37:5*

Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Delight thyself also in the Lord. Draw from communion with God all that inward intensity of joy which it is capable of giving. And he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. God will then grant thee all thy desires, and make thee perfectly happy.

Delight in God.

"Delight thyself," etc. The order of these words makes all the difference between a religion of selfishness and a religion of love. Not, "The Lord will give you what your heart is set on; therefore delight in him;" but, "Delight thyself in the Lord; let him be thy Joy Fountain of happiness and Object of desire; then thy most earnest petitions, deepest wants, highest aspirations, shall all be satisfied in him." Delight in God includes satisfaction and joy

I IN GOD HIMSELF. That is, so far as he has made himself known to us who and what he is, in whom we have our being.

1. His glory as the eternal and infinite Creator; his power, wisdom, goodness, perpetual presence and unfailing care of his universe.

2. Yet more in his character his love, righteousness, unchangeable truth. (Joh_1:18 Joh_14:9)

II IN OUR PERSONAL RELATION TO HIM THAT HE IS OUR GOD AND FATHER. (1Jn_3:1 Eph_2:1-10) There is nothing selfish, presumptuous, or exclusive in this joy. The more we have it, the humbler we shall be; more desirous that others should share it; more qualified to influence them to seek and obtain it.

III IN CONVERSE WITH HIM. This is the most marked and glorious characteristic of the psalms generally real, living communion with God. (comp. Php_4:4-7)

IV IN OBEDIENCE TO HIM. "To live in the fear of God is not without its pleasure. It composes the soul, expels the vanity which is not without vexation, represses exorbitant motions, checks unruly passions, keeps all within in a pleasant, peaceful calm" (John Howe).

CONCLUSION. There is a deep secret of a happy life must we not say a sadly neglected secret, even among real Christians? Unselfish delight in God is doubtless a high attainment. But is it out of reach? Surely not, when to the glorious knowledge of all that God is in himself is added the blessed certainty that he is our Father in Christ Jesus. This should be sunshine in darkest days. Yet let no Christian be discouraged because consciously very deficient in this respect. "That some are less sensibly and passionately moved with the great things of God (and even with the discovery of his love) than some others, doth not argue them to have less of the Spirit, but more of that temper which better comports with deeper judgment and a calm consideration of things.... Though flax set on fire will flame more than iron, yet withal it will smoke more, and will not glow so much, nor keep heat so long" (Howe).

Vers. 4-6. Here we have a Sweet picture of a noble life.

I QUIET HEART. The eye, the ear, the imagination, continually bring before us objects that appeal to our desires. We are in danger of being distracted and harassed, and of even yielding to envy and discontent. The cure is from God. When we come to know him as he is, to believe in him as he has revealed himself in Christ Jesus, we are able to rest in him with confidence, leaving everything to his righteous and loving rule.

II RIGHTLY ORDERED LIFE. There may be life without any rule, or there may be life wrongly directed, or there may be life regulated in a right way, in accordance with God"s will and not our own. This last is the true "way." It is when we "commit our way to God "in humble prayer, and holy submission to his will, that light will arise to us, and strength be ministered to us, and real prosperity secured to us. This is not only the best way for ourselves, but also for others. It is in doing God"s will that we reach the highest honour and usefulness, and accomplish our true destiny.

III BLISSFUL FUTURE. There is a screen as of night between us and to-morrow. We know not what a day may bring forth. There may come loss of health, of property, of friends. There may come diverse trials and troubles. Or it may be otherwise. Let us be thankful that God has been pleased to conceal from us what it would have been ill for us to know. But God knows all, and we are as sure, as that God lives, that it shall be well with the righteous. W.F.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

So shall you delight in the Lord Enjoy delights by being supported by the Holy One, blessed be He.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.