Honor in honoring God.
This psalm evidently belongs to the time when the restoration from Babylon was only partially accomplished. The little colony settled in Jerusalem and the district immediately round the city, were the scorn of the neighboring petty nations, which were all heathen, and of the Samaritans, whose assistance in building Jehovah's temple they, perhaps unwisely, had refused. This psalm in a way meets scorn with scorn. Jehovah's people scorn the idol-worship of the nations, and the idol-nations scorn the insignificance of the company that talked so grandly about restoring the kingdom of David. But that is the darker side of the psalm. It is better to see that the scorn was but an unworthy expression of a state of mind and feeling that was good and right. Among the restored exiles there was great zeal for God, great jealousy for the honor of Jehovah; and it was this that made them refuse association with the semi-heathen Samaritans, and think so scornfully of the idol-worshippers. Not limiting ourselves to the state of mind of him who wrote, and those who sang, this psalm, let us regard the psalm as expressing generally the humble, loyal, zealous feeling of all true Jehovah-worshippers, and then three things are suggested.
I. PUTTING OUR HONOR ASIDE. "Not unto us … give glory." It is a universal experience that when God is really apprehended, self goes into the second place. It must be so. God can be in no place but the first. In the sphere of morals it is true that the most miserable of men is he who is anxious about his own dignity. He will turn everything into offence. In the sphere of religion it is true that the first sign of regeneration is the humility that claims nothing for self. "Not by works of righteousness which we had done;" "Not of works, lest any man should boast."
II. SEEKING GOD'S HONOR. "Unto thy Name give the praise." Dr. Chalmers spoke of "the expulsive power of a new affection." It is fully true of the soul's affection for God. It expels self and everything else, and compels a man to set God's honor first, to live for God (compare St. Paul's exclamation, "To me to live is Christ"). God's honor is sought by being good and by doing good; in relations, worship, and work. This aim glorifies all forms of life.
III. FINDING THAT WE GAIN OUR HONOR IN SEEKING GOD'S. In two ways.
1. The very effort to seek God's honor cultures us in the character that wins for us honor.
2. And God makes the honor of men come to us as his benediction. on our loyalty.—R.T.