God has, as it were, put upon our lips, in these Psalms, His own great condemnation of sin, and made us our own judges. We recite, remembering that it is His word, and not our own, the denunciation of the sensual and the covetous, the traitor and the liar, the persecutor, the slanderer, and the hypocrite. From this point of view the recitation of such Psalms as the 69th or the 109th should be an exercise of personal humility, of godly fear for ourselves and others, and might well bring to our mind often that other great challenge of the Spirit:
Why dost thou preach My laws, and takest My covenant in thy mouth?
Whereas thou hatest to be reformed:
And hast cast My words behind thee.
(Ps. l. 16, 17.)
These are considerations which surely ought to be well weighed before we seek to make the Psalter a book of "smooth things" only, or eliminate any part of its witness. There are no short or easy methods applicable to its deeper difficulties. Like all the ultimate problems of faith, they fade away only before the uncreated Light of the Spirit of God, when He visits the heart.
I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear:
But now mine eye seeth Thee.
(Job xlii. 5.)
[[1]] "Inasmuch as I know not man's learning, I will enter into the mighty works of the Lord."