I. These two figures express, in different ways, the notions of fixity and substance. Both plant and column are fixed and steady. The plant is fixed by its roots into the earth, the column fixed into the building. Life must be rooted in fixed belief in God and the way of reconciliation and fellowship with Him. This belief alone gives meaning, and purpose, and substance to life. It is great truths believed that nourish the soul.
II. Growth and permanence are both set forth in the text. Growth belongs just as necessarily to the conception of a plant as permanence does to that of a column. Growth of soul and spirit is the result of holding firmly to great central truths and drawing the very pith of them into the being. While man represents progress and woman permanence, the true ideal life includes both equally.
III. In the plant and the column we have represented individualism, separateness, independence, and, on the other hand, combination, unity, and mutual help and support.
IV. The text speaks of two different kinds of beauty: that of the plant, the beauty of nature; that of the sculptured column, the beauty of culture. We are reminded that all beauty of soul must be the result both of nature and cultivation. (1) That the soul may be beautiful, it must be a living soul, living by contact with the infinite, in fellowship with God. This is truly the beauty of nature, the deepest nature. (2) Think of the sculpturing of that stone. If the substance had had feeling, at what cost that beautiful form would have been obtained! Human souls are shaped into beauty often through great suffering and trial. Let us not forget that. But let us specially consider that we must wield the chisel and mallet on ourselves, strike off the evil, and seek that the ideal of our nature should come out.
J. Leckie, Sermons Preached at Ibrox,p. 178.
David is not praying that the youth of the land should have any abnormal precociousness, or should be in any way ahead of their years; but the picture before his mind is that of vigorous, healthful, upright, manly, and ingenuous youth: and he feels that this, if realised, would be the highest glory of the land. For the young men of his country he desired:
I. A healthful frame; a strong, robust, vigorous physique. It has been said that as righteousness is the health of the soul, so health is the righteousness of the body.
II. A solid character. A quaint writer says, "If a man is to grow, he must grow like a tree; there must be nothing between him and heaven." It is an old adage that knowledge is power, but it is still more true to say that character is power.
III. A hidden life. Each of you needs that which no human power can communicate, and without which the fairest religious profession is only a painted corpse. Personal and saving religion is no development from within, no product of moral evolution; it is something whose germ must be imparted to you by the Holy Spirit, and without which germ you are in the sight of God absolutely dead.
J. Thain Davidson, The City Youth,p. 239.
References: Psalms 144:12. W. Walters, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxi., p. 338. Psalms 144:15. F. W. Farrar, Ibid.,vol. xix., p. 33; W. M. Arthur, Ibid.,vol. xxvii., p. 200. Psalms 145:1. Preacher's Monthly,vol. ii., p. 295.Psalms 145:1; Psalms 145:2. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxxii., No. 1902.