I will deliver him'; I will set him on high.' These two clauses are substantially parallel, and yet there is a difference between them, as is the nature of the parallelism of Hebrew poetry, where the same ideas are repeated with a shade of modification, and the second of them somewhat surpassing the first. I will deliver him,' says the promise. That confirms the view that the promise in the previous verse, There shall no plague come nigh thy dwelling,' does not mean exemption from sorrow and trial because, if so, there would be no relevancy or blessedness in the promise of deliverance. He who needs deliverance' is the man who is surrounded by evils, and God's promise is not that no evil shall come to the man who trusts Him, hut that he shall be delivered out of the evil that does come, and that it will not be truly evil.
And why is he to be delivered? Because he has bound himself to Me,' says God, therefore will I deliver him.' Of course, if I am fastened to God, nothing that does not hurt Him can hurt me. If I am knit to Him as closely as this psalm contemplates, it is impossible but that out of His fulness my emptiness shall he filled, and with His rejoicing strength my weakness will be made strong. It is just the same idea as is given to us in the picture of Peter upon the water, when the cold waves are up to his knees, and the coward heart says, I am ready to sink,' but yet, with the faith that comes with the fear, he puts out his hand and grasps Christ's hand, and as soon as he does, and the two are united, he is buoyant, and rises again, and the water is beneath the soles of his feet. He sent from above, He took me; He drew me out of many waters.' Whoever is joined to God is lifted above all evil, and the evil that continues to eddy about him will change its character, and bear him onwards to his haven. For he who is thus knit to God in the living, pulsating bond of thought and affection and submission, will be delivered from sin.
When a boy first learns to skate, he needs some one to go behind him and hold him up whilst he uses his unaccustomed limbs; and so, when we are upon the smooth, treacherous ice of this wicked world, it is by leaning on God that we are kept upright. He hath set himself close to Me, I will deliver him,' says God. Yea! he shall not fall, for the Lord is able to make him stand.'
Still further, we have another great promise, which is the explanation and extension of the former, I will set him on high, because he hath known My name.' That is more than lifting a man up above the reach of the storms of life by means of any external deliverance. There is a better thing than that--namely, that our whole inward life be lived loftily. If it is true of us that we know His name, then our lives are hid with Christ in God,' and far below our feet will be all the riot of earth and its noise and tumult and change. We shall live serene and uplifted lives on the mount, if we know His name and have bound ourselves to Him, and the troubles and cares and changes and duties and joys of this present will be away down below us, like the lowly cottages in some poor village, seen from the mountain top, the squalor out of sight, the magnitude diminished, the noise and tumult dimmed to a mere murmur that interrupts not the sacred silence of the lofty peak where we dwell with God. I will set him on high because he knows My name.'
Then, perhaps, there is a hint in the words, as there is in subsequent words of the verse, of an elevation even higher than that, when, life ended and earth done, He shall receive into His glory those whom He hath guided by His counsel. I will set him on high, because he hath known My name, says the Jehovah of the Old Covenant. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me on My throne,' says the Jesus of the New, who is the Jehovah of the Old.
