As for me - In strong contrast with the aims, the desires, and the condition of worldly individuals. "They" seek their portion in this life, and are satisfied; "I" cherish no such desires, and have no such prosperity. I look to another world as my home, and shall be satisfied only in the everlasting favor and friendship of God.

I will behold thy face - I shall see thee. Compare Matthew 5:8; 1 Corinthians 13:12; 1 John 3:2. This refers naturally, as the closing part of the verse more fully shows, to the future world, and is such language as would be employed by those who believe in a future state, and by no others. This is the highest object before the mind of a truly religious man. The bliss of heaven consists mainly, in his apprehension, in the privilege of seeing God his Saviour; and the hope of being permitted to do this is of infinitely more value to him than would be all the wealth of this world.

In righteousness - Being myself righteous; being delivered from the power, the pollution, the dominion of sin. It is this which makes heavyen so desirable; without this, in the apprehension of a truly good man, no place would be heaven.

I shall be satisfied - While they are satisfied with this world, I shall be satisfied only when I awake in the likeness of my God. Nothing can meet the wants of my nature; nothing can satisfy the aspirings of my soul, until that occurs.

When I awake - This is language which would be employed only by one who believed in the resurrection of the dead, and who was accustomed to speak of death as a "sleep" - a calm repose in the hope of awaking to a new life. Compare the notes at Psalm 16:9-11. Some have understood this as meaning "when I awake tomorrow;" and they thence infer that this was an evening song (compare Psalm 4:8); others have supposed that it had a more general sense - meaning "whenever I awake;" that is, while men of the world rejoice in their worldly possessions, and while this is the first thought which they have on awaking in the morning, my joy when I awake is in God; in the evidence of his favor and friendship; in the consciousness that I resemble him. I am surprised to find that Prof. Alexander favors this view. Even DeWette admits that it refers to the resurrection of the dead, and that the psalm can be interpreted only on the supposition that it has this reference, and hence, he argues that it could not have been composed by David, but that it must have been written in the time of the exile, when that doctrine had obtained currency among the Hebrews. The interpretation above suggested seems to me to be altogether too low a view to be taken of the sense of the passage.

It does not meet the state of mind described in the psalm. It does not correspond with the deep anxieties which the psalmist expressed as springing from the troubles which surrounded him. He sought repose from those troubles; he looked for consolation when surrounded by bitter and unrelenting enemies. He was oppressed and crushed with these many sorrows. Now it would do little to meet that state of mind, and to impart to him the consolation which he needed, to reflect that he could lie down in the night and awake in the morning with the consciousness that he enjoyed the friendship of God, for he had that already; and besides this, so far as this source of consolation was concerned, he would awake to a renewal of the same troubles tomorrow which he had met on the previous day. He needed some higher, some more enduring and efficient consolation; something which would meet "all" the circumstances of the case; some source of peace, composure, and rest, which was beyond all this; something which would have an existence where there was no trouble or anxiety; and this could be found only in a future world. The obvious interpretation of the passage, therefore, so far as its sense can be determined from the connection, is to refer it to the awaking in the morning of the resurrection; and there is nothing in the language itself, or in the known sentiments of the psalmist, to forbid this interpretation. The word rendered "awake" - קוץ qûts - used only in Hiphil, "means to awake;" to awake from sleep, Psalm 3:5; Psalm 139:18; or from death, 2 Kings 4:31; Jeremiah 51:39; Isaiah 26:19; Job 14:12; Daniel 12:2.

With thy likeness - Or, in thy likeness; that is, resembling thee. The resemblance doubtless is in the moral character, for the highest hope of a good man is that he may be, and will be, like God. Compare the notes at 1 John 3:2. I regard this passage, therefore, as one of the incidental proofs scattered through the Old Testament which show that the sacred writers under that dispensation believed in the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead; that their language was often based on the knowledge and the belief of that doctrine, even when they did not expressly affirm it; and that in times of trouble, and under the consciousness of sin, they sought their highest consolation, as the people of God do now, from the hope and the expectation that the righteous dead will rise again, and that in a world free from trouble, from sin, and from death, they would live forever in the presence of God, and find their supreme happiness in being made wholly like him.

As for me - I cannot be satisfied with such a portion.

I will behold thy face - Nothing but an evidence of thy approbation can content my soul.

In righteousness - I cannot have thy approbation unless I am conformed to thy will. I must be righteous in order that my heart and life may please thee.

I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness - Nothing but God can satisfy the wishes of an immortal spirit. He made it with infinite capacities and desires; and he alone, the infinite Good, can meet and gratify these desires, and fill this all-capacious mind. No soul was ever satisfied but by God; and he satisfies the soul only by restoring it to his image, which, by the fall, it has lost.

I think there is an allusion here to the creation of Adam. When God breathed into him the breath of lives, and he became a living soul, he would appear as one suddenly awaked from sleep. The first object that met his eyes was his glorious Creator, and being made in his image and in his likeness, he could converse with him face to face - was capable of the most intimate union with him, because he was filled with holiness and moral perfection. Thus was he satisfied, the God of infinite perfection and purity filling all the powers and faculties of his soul. David sees this in the light of the Divine Spirit, and knows that his happiness depends on being restored to this image and likeness; and he longs for the time when he shall completely arise out of the sleep and death of sin, and be created anew after the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness. I do not think that he refers to the resurrection of the body, but to the resurrection of the soul in this life; to the regaining the image which Adam lost.

The paraphrase in my old Psalter understands the whole of this Psalm as referring to the persecution, passion, death, and resurrection of Christ; and so did several of the primitive fathers, particularly St. Jerome and St. Augustine. I shall give a specimen from Psalm 17:11 : -

Projicientes me, nunc circumdederunt me: oculos suos statuerunt declinare in terram.

Trans. Forth castand me now, thai haf umgyfen me: thair egheu thai sette to heelde in the erde.

Par - Forth kasten me out of the cite, als the stede had bene fyled of me: now thai haf umgyfen me in the cros hyngand, als folk that gedyrs til a somer gamen: for thai sett thair eghen, that es the entent of thaire hert to heeld in the erde; that es, in erdly thynges to covayte tham, and haf tham. And thai wende qwen thai slew Crist that he had suffird al the ill, and thai nane.

Perhaps some of my readers may think that this needs translating, so far does our present differ fronn our ancient tongue.

Text - They have now cast me forth; they have surrounded me: their eyes they set down to the earth.

Par - They have cast me out of the city, as if the state were to be defiled by me: now they have surrounded me hanging on the cross, as people gathered together at summer games. For they set their eyes, that is, the intent of their heart, down to the earth; that is, earthly things, to covet them and to have them: and they thought, when they slew Christ, that he had suffered all the ill, and they none.

By the slot or track of the hart on the ground, referred to in Psalm 17:11, experienced huntsmen can discern whether there have been a hart there, whether he has been there lately, whether the slot they see be the track of a hart or a hind, and whether the animal be young or old. All these can be discerned by the slot. And if the reader have that scarce book at hand, Tuberville on Hunting, 4th, 1575 or 1611, he mill find all this information in chapter 22, p. 63, entitled, The Judgment and Knowledge by the Slot of a Hart; and on the same page; a wood-cut, representing a huntsman with his eyes set, bowing down to the earth, examining three slots which he had just found. The cut is a fine illustration of this clause. Saul and his men were hunting David, and curiously searching every place to find out any track, mark, or footstep, by which they might learn whether he had been in such a place, and whether he had been there lately. Nothing can more fully display the accuracy and intensity of this search than the metaphor contained in the above clause. He who has been his late Majesty's huntsmen looking for the slot in Windsor Forest will see the strength and propriety of the figure used by the psalmist.

As for me,.... I do not desire to be in their place and stead, with all their plenty and prosperity; I am content with my present condition and situation: for

I will, or "shall"

behold thy face in righteousness; that is, appear before God in public worship, where was the ark, the symbol of the face of God; enjoy his gracious presence, have the discoveries of his love, and see his face and favour; than which nothing was more desirable by him and delightful to him. Or God himself may be meant by "his face"; and especially God as he is to be beheld in the face of Christ, the Angel of his presence; and who is to be beheld by faith in the present state of things, though as through a glass, darkly; and in the future state perfectly, and as he is, both with the eyes of the understanding, and, after the resurrection, with the eyes of the body; see Job 19:26; and to this state the psalmist seems more especially to have respect, as Jarchi interprets it: and the beatific vision of God in Christ will be very glorious and exceeding delightful; it will be assimilating and appropriating; it will be free from all darkness and interruption, and will continue for ever. And this shall be seen "in righteousness"; the psalmist believing that he should then appear as an innocent person clear of all the false charges brought against him; and so this may be understood of the righteousness of his cause, in which he should stand before God, and enjoy communion with him:, or this may design that perfect holiness and purity of heart, without which no man shall see the Lord; and which, though now imperfect, shall in the other state be without spot or blemish: or rather, the righteousness of Christ, which fits believers for, and in which they are brought into and stand in, the King's presence;

I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness; which will be in the resurrection morn: or, as Jarchi expresses it, when the dead shall awake from their sleep; for this is not to be understood of awaking from natural sleep in the morning; when it is a satisfaction to a believer to be with God, and to have God with him, Psalm 139:18; nor of awaking from a sleepy drowsy frame of spirit, which sometimes attends the saints; but of rising from the dead: for as death is oftentimes expressed by sleep in Scripture, so the resurrection by an awaking out of it, Isaiah 26:19; at which time the saints will arise with the image of the heavenly One upon them: they will be like to Christ both in soul and body; in soul, in perfect knowledge and complete holiness: in body, in incorruption and immortality, in power, glory, and spirituality; in this will lie their happiness and satisfaction. Or the meaning is, that he should be satisfied with the likeness of God, with Christ the image of God, when he should arise from the dead; seeing he should then appear with him in glory, see him as he is, and be like him, and be for ever in his presence; which will yield endless pleasure and unspeakable satisfaction. For the words may be interpreted, not of David's awaking, but of the glory of God awaking or appearing; which would afford an infinitely greater satisfaction than worldly men have in worldly things (p), to which this is opposed, Psalm 17:10; so the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions read, I shall be satisfied when thy glory appears, or is seen; and so the Ethiopic and Arabic versions.

(p) Vid. Castel. Lexic. Heptaglott. col. 2014.

15 As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.

"As for me." "I neither envy nor covet these men's happiness, but partly have and partly hope for a far better." To behold God's face and to be changed by that vision into his image, so as to partake in his righteousness, this is my noble ambition; and in the prospect of this I cheerfully waive all my present enjoyments. My satisfaction is to come; I do not look for it as yet. I shall sleep awhile, but I shall wake at the sound of the trumpet; wake to everlasting joy, because I arise in thy likeness, O my God and King! Glimpses of glory good men have here below to stay their sacred hunger, but the full feast awaits them in the upper skies. Compared with this deep, ineffable, eternal fulness of delight, the joys of the worldling are as a glowworm to the sun, or the drop of a bucket to the ocean.

With אני he contrasts his incomparably greater prosperity with that of his enemies. He, the despised and persecuted of men, will behold God's face בּצדק, in righteousness, which will then find its reward (Matthew 5:8, Hebrews 12:14), and will, when this hope is realised by him, thoroughly refresh himself with the form of God. It is not sufficient to explain the vision of the divine countenance here as meaning the experience of the gracious influences which proceed from the divine countenance again unveiled and turned towards him. The parallel of the next clause requires an actual vision, as in Numbers 12:8, according to which Jahve appeared to Moses in the true form of His being, without the intervention of any self-manifestation of an accommodative and visionary kind; but at the same time, as in Exodus 33:20, where the vision of the divine countenance is denied to Moses, according to which, consequently, the self-manifestation of Jahve in His intercourse with Moses is not to be thought of without some veiling of Himself which might render the vision tolerable to him. Here, however, where David gives expression to a hope which is the final goal and the very climax of all his hopes, one has no right in any way to limit the vision of God, who in love permits him to behold Him (vid., on Psalm 11:7), and to limit the being satisfied with His תּמוּנה (lxx τὴν δόξαν σου, vid., Psychol. S. 49; transl. p. 61). If this is correct, then בּהקיץ cannot mean "when I wake up from this night's sleep" as Ewald, Hupfeld and others explain it; for supposing the Psalm were composed just before falling asleep what would be the meaning of the postponement of so transcendent a hope to the end of his natural sleep? Nor can the meaning be to "awake to a new life of blessedness and peace through the sunlight of divine favour which again arises after the night of darkness and distress in which the poet is now to be found" (Kurtz); for to awake from a night of affliction is an unsuitable idea and for this very reason cannot be supported. The only remaining explanation, therefore, is the waking up from the sleep of death (cf. Bttcher, De inferis 365-367). The fact that all who are now in their graves shall one day hear the voice of Him that wakes the dead, as it is taught in the age after the Exile (Daniel 12:2), was surely not known to David, for it was not yet revealed to him. But why may not this truth of revelation, towards which prophecy advances with such giant strides (Isaiah 26:19. Ezekiel 37:1-14), be already heard even in the Psalms of David as a bold demand of faith and as a hope that has struggled forth to freedom out of the comfortless conception of Shel possessed in that age, just as it is heard a few decades later in the master-work of a contemporary of Solomon, the Book of Job? The morning in Psalm 49:15 is also not any morning whatever following upon the night, but that final morning which brings deliverance to the upright and inaugurates their dominion. A sure knowledge of the fact of the resurrection such as, according to Hofmann (Schriftbeweis ii. 2, 490), has existed in the Old Testament from the beginning, is not expressed in such passages. For laments like Psalm 6:6; Psalm 30:10; Psalm 88:11-13, show that no such certain knowledge as then in existence; and when the Old Testament literature which we now possess allows us elsewhere an insight into the history of the perception of redemption, it does not warrant us in concluding anything more than that the perception of the future resurrection of the dead did not pass from the prophetic word into the believing mind of Israel until about the time of the Exile, and that up to that period faith made bold to hope for a redemption from death, but only by means of an inference drawn from that which was conceived and existed within itself, without having an express word of promise in its favour.

(Note: To this Hofmann, loc. cit. S. 496, replies as follows: "We do not find that faith indulges in such boldness elsewhere, or that the believing ones cherish hopes which are based on such insecure grounds." But the word of God is surely no insecure ground, and to draw bold conclusions from that which is intimated only from afar, was indeed, even in many other respects (for instance, respecting the incarnation, and respecting the abrogation of the ceremonial law), the province of the Old Testament faith.)

Thus it is here also. David certainly gives full expression to the hope of a vision of God, which, as righteous before God, will be vouchsafed to him; and vouchsafed to him, even though he should fall asleep in death in the present extremity (Psalm 13:4), as one again awakened from the sleep of death, and, therefore (although this idea does not directly coincide with the former), as one raised from the dead. But this hope is not a believing appropriation of a "certain knowledge," but a view that, by reason of the already existing revelation of God, lights up out of his consciousness of fellowship with Him.

As for me, I will behold thy face {n} in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I {o} awake, with thy likeness.

(n) This is the full happiness, comforting against all assaults to have the face of God and favourable countenance opened to us.

(o) And am delivered out of my great troubles.

17:15 I will - I do not place my portion in earthly treasures, but in beholding God's face, in the enjoyment of God's presence and favour; which is enjoyed in part in this life, but not fully. Satisfied - The time is coming, wherein I shall be abundantly satisfied with beholding thy face. Awake - When I arise from he dead. Likeness - With the image of God stamped upon my glorified soul.

17:8-15 Being compassed with enemies, David prays to God to keep him in safety. This prayer is a prediction that Christ would be preserved, through all the hardships and difficulties of his humiliation, to the glories and joys of his exalted state, and is a pattern to Christians to commit the keeping of their souls to God, trusting him to preserve them to his heavenly kingdom. Those are our worst enemies, that are enemies to our souls. They are God's sword, which cannot move without him, and which he will sheathe when he has done his work with it. They are his hand, by which he chastises his people. There is no fleeing from God's hand, but by fleeing to it. It is very comfortable, when we are in fear of the power of man, to see it dependent upon, and in subjection to the power of God. Most men look on the things of this world as the best things; and they look no further, nor show any care to provide for another life. The things of this world are called treasures, they are so accounted; but to the soul, and when compared with eternal blessings, they are trash. The most afflicted Christian need not envy the most prosperous men of the world, who have their portion in this life. Clothed with Christ's righteousness, having through his grace a good heart and a good life, may we by faith behold God's face, and set him always before us. When we awake every morning, may we be satisfied with his likeness set before us in his word, and with his likeness stamped upon us by his renewing grace. Happiness in the other world is prepared only for those that are justified and sanctified: they shall be put in possession of it when the soul awakes, at death, out of its slumber in the body, and when the body awakes, at the resurrection, out of its slumber in the grave. There is no satisfaction for a soul but in God, and in his good will towards us, and his good work in us; yet that satisfaction will not be perfect till we come to heaven.