All they that be fat upon earth, &c.— The fat upon earth, means the rich, the great, and princes themselves. Houbigant renders it, the rich of the earth. They shall eat and worship; devoutly partake of the eucharistical sacrifice of Christ, as the Jews did of the legal sacrifices. See 1 Corinthians 10:17-18. The latter part of the verse is understood differently. All that descend into the dust, some suppose to mean all the poor, who, as well as the rich, shall worship him. For none can keep alive his own soul: i.e. The greatest, as well as the meanest, must acknowledge that their salvation proceeds from him alone. Houbigant renders this and the following verses thus: All the rich of the earth shall come and worship; all those who go down into the dust shall prostrate themselves before him; Psalms 22:30. But my soul shall live to him: my seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation: Psalms 22:31. They shall come and declare his righteousness unto a people who shall be born, when he hath done this: i.e. when he hath fulfilled that which is here predicted.
REFLECTIONS.—1st, We have here,
1. A bitter complaint under a sense of God's absence from his soul. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me, and art so far from helping me, when under the bitterest agonies of soul, as well as tormenting pains in my body, and from the words of my roaring, when with an exceeding loud and bitter cry I bemoan my sufferings? In the day on the cross, and in the night in the garden, incessantly he cried; and yet the bitter cup might not pass from him; and herein God appeared as if he heard him not.
2. He encourages his trust in God, notwithstanding his most painful situation, [1.] From a sense of the holiness of God; Thou art holy, who, in all the sufferings that the Redeemer endured, designed to display his righteousness in the punishment of sin; O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel, art the object of continual praise for the wondrous mercies manifested in redeeming grace. [2.] From the former experience of the saints of God: Our fathers trusted in thee, &c. As God, it may be said, Who is his father? As man he was the seed of Abraham, David, &c. whose troubles were as great as their deliverances were glorious, and who never sought God's face in vain.
3. He laments the contempt and reproach cast upon him: as a worm trodden down by every foot; so despicable, as if he was no man; below the meanest; derided and scorned; treated as an impostor; executed as a villain and murderer; and, even on the accursed tree, mockery added to his shame and torture; while they who went by literally fulfilled his prophecy, wagging the head and saying, He trusted on the Lord, that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.
Note; (1.) The most honourable character in the sight of God is usually that which man despiseth. (2.) They who will be followers of Christ must be content to bear his reproach.
4. Notwithstanding, he trusted in God, whose care from tenderest infancy he had experienced; by wonderous providences, though in a stable born, thou didst make me hope, or keep me in safety; and, by a miraculous vision, secured him, when a babe at the breast in Egypt, from Herod's cruelty. I was cast upon thee from the days of my nativity, and I trust that I shall find the same protection to the end of my life. Note; The mercies of our days of helpless infancy should never be forgotten; and he who brought us safely from the womb, we are bound to trust, will carry us comfortably to our grave.
2nd, Whither shall the afflicted sufferer fly, but unto the God of his help and his salvation? We have now the sufferings of Christ described; and with such precision, that we cannot but be convinced that Jesus is the Christ. Troubles like rolling waves, from perfidious friends and open enemies, approached him; none to help him; forsaken of all, and left alone to grapple with the united force of earth and hell. Fierce and strong as bulls of Bashan, his enemies rushed upon him; eager as the blood-hound on his prey, they seized him; and, cruel as a ravening and roaring lion, sought to terrify his mind, while they broke him in pieces with their savage jaws. He seems as weak as water; his joints as if unloosed; his heart melted as wax, and his strength quite failing him. He is compassed about by the assembly of the wicked, urgent to hasten his miserable end; nailed to the accursed tree, hung up in ignominy and torture; his bones ready to start through his skin; his enemies feasting their eyes with the inhuman spectacle; his tongue dry with thirst, which is insulted with vinegar mingled with gall; his blood gushing out as water upon the earth; his soul melted as wax with a sense of the divine wrath, and death coming to put at last a period to his miseries. Such things he endured for us men, and for our salvation. Had he not borne these torturing pains, we must have been eternally tormented: if his soul had not felt the wrath of God, ours must have been exposed to it: but for his thirst we must have wanted a drop of water to cool a flaming tongue; or at least, if his body had not for a while been laid in the dust, our bodies and souls must have for ever lain in the belly of hell. O, blessed then, for ever blessed, be God for Jesus Christ!
3rdly, When Jesus, by the sufferings of death, for a moment seemed to sink beneath his foes, in silent anguish his people sat disconsolate; but lo! he comes to awaken up their praises, and from the dust to proclaim his great redemption.
1. He opens the triumphant song himself: I will declare thy name, thy glory, grace, and faithfulness, unto my brethren, the church of the faithful redeemed, whom Christ is not ashamed to call brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee; in the hearts of his militant members on earth, or at the head of his glorified saints in heaven.
2. He calls upon his people to join the thanksgiving. The spiritual seed of Jacob, and the true Israel of God, must praise and glorify him for his mercy in the Redeemer, whose afflictions, far from despising or abhorring, he was well-pleased with, and accepted as the full satisfaction for our sins; looked upon him with most delightful complacence, even in his agony, and heard and answered his cry in the salvation vouchsafed to him in the resurrection-day, and to all his faithful people for his sake: and herein the Saviour leads the way, My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation: I will pay my vows of praise to God, or his engagements to his faithful people, whose character is given as those who fear God.
3. In Christ are found rich supplies for the soul's nourishment and comfort. The meek, those who are lowly in their own eyes, and have learned of the meek and humble Jesus, shall eat, feed upon the flesh of Christ, and all the saving benefits thence derived, and be satisfied, in the perfection of his sacrifice and redemption, and the consequent enjoyment of God to all eternity.
4. The extent of Christ's kingdom shall be universal. By the power of Divine grace, the ends of the earth shall be called and converted to him, and come and worship before him. The kingdoms of the world shall become the kingdoms of the Lord, and he shall be the governor, to reign in his people's hearts by love, and over his enemies with a rod of iron.