O LORD, I have heard thy speech, [and] was afraid: O LORD, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy.
Ver. 2. O Lord, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid] Audivi auditionem tuam. I have heard (not thy fume or thy report, as some render it, unless it be in the prophet Isaiah's sense, Isaiah 53:1, but) thy preceding discourse, in answer to my disceptation. I have heard that the Babylonians will come, and that my people must go into captivity. This was no pleasant hearing; for we all naturally shrink in the shoulder when called to carry the cross; but those that do what they should not must look to hear and feel too what they would not.
And was afraid] Fear is constrictio cordis ex sensu mali instantis, a passion of the soul shrinking in itself from some imminent evil. The wicked hear and jeer: or their fear driveth them from God, as it did guilty Adam. Contrarily, the godly tremble at God's judgments while they hang in the threatenings; and draw nigh to him with entreaties of peace. In this fear of the Lord is strong confidence, "and his children have a place of refuge," Proverbs 14:26 .
O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years] i.e. Preserve alive thy Israel, that work of thine hands, Isaiah 45:11, together with thy work of grace in their hearts; keep that spark alive upon the sea of tribulations and temptations. The angels (saith a reverend man) are kept with much less care, charge, and power, than we; because they have no bias, no weights of sin hung upon them, &c. There is not so much of the glory of God (saith another) in all his works of creation and providence as in one gracious action that a Christian performeth.
in the midst of the years make known] sc. Thy power in perfecting thy glory, and not forsaking the work of thine own hands, Psalms 138:8. It was Luther's usual prayer, Confirm, O God, in us that thou hast wrought; and perfect the work that thou hast begun in us, to thy glory. So be it. So Queen Elizabeth, when prisoner at Woodstock, prayed thus: Look, Lord, upon the wounds of thine hands; and despise not the work of thine hands. Thou hast written me down in thy book of preservation with thine own hand: O read thine own handwriting, and save me, &c. But what meant the Seventy here to translate, In the midst of two beasts: which while Ribera striveth to defend, he tells us a tale of the babe of Bethlehem, born in a stable, and laid in a manger between two beasts, an ox and an ass (εν μεσω δυο ζωων). It may very well be that the Church here prayeth for God's grace and favour during the time of her captivity.
In wrath remember mercy] In commotione irae: when thou art most moved against us, and hast as much ado to forbear killing of us as thou hadst to forbear Moses when thou mettest him in the inn, then remember to show mercy, call to mind thy compassions which fail not. "Look then upon us, and be merciful unto us, as thou usest to do unto those that love thy name," Psalms 119:132. The wicked are threatened with an evil, an only evil, without any mixture of mercy; this the prophet here deprecateth, and beggeth mercy, Ezekiel 7:5. Per miserere mei, tollitur ira Dei. through mercy to me, the wrath of God is born away.