The storm-struggle in the soul of the Psalmist is now at its height. In the previous verse, he had penetrated through the mists of unbelief that were surrounding him, and rested his eye on the Mizar hills of the Divine faithfulness in a brighter past. But the sunshine-glimpse was momentary. It has again passed away. His sky is anew darkened—rain-clouds sweep the horizon—"Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy water-spouts." Amid the environing floods he exclaims, "All thy waves and thy billows have gone over me!"

The figure is a bold and striking one. Some have thought it has reference to the sudden rush of water-torrents from the heights of Lebanon and Hermon;—that it was suggested by the roaring cataracts at his feet—Jordan with its swollen and winding rapids—the faithful picture of the deep-worn channels in his own spirit—fretted and furrowed with the rush of overwhelming sorrow.

But the word rendered "deep," is, in the original Hebrew, more applicable to the floods of the ocean than to the rapids of a river; and the image, in this sense, is bolder and more expressive still.[70] Billow calls on billow to sweep over the soul of the sufferer. They lift their crested heads, and with hoarse voice summon one another to the assault. "Let us be confederate!" say they. "Let us rouse the spirit of the storm! Let the windows of heaven be opened! Let the fountains of the great deep be broken up, that we may shake this man's confidence in his God, and plunder faith of her expected triumph! Ye angry tempests, driving sleet and battering hail! come and aid us. Ye forked lightnings, gleaming swords of the sky! leap from your cloudy scabbards. Old ocean! be stirred from your lowest depths. Let every wave be fretted to madness, that with one united effort we may effect his discomfiture and leave him a wreck on the waters!"

They obey the summons. Already chafed and buffeted, they return with fresh violence to the shock. Affliction on affliction, temptation on temptation, roll on this lonely, surf-beaten cliff. Outward calamities—inward troubles; his subjects in revolt—his friends treacherous; his own son and favourite child heading the insurrection; he himself an exile, haunted with the thought of past sins that were now exacting terrible retribution;—and worse than all temporal calamities, the countenance of his God averted. Affliction seemed as if it could go no further—"All thy waves and thy billows have gone over me!"

We believe there are periods in the history of most of God's people corresponding to the awful experience recorded in this verse. Few there are who cannot point to some sad and memorable epochs alike in their natural and spiritual being,—some solemn and critical crisis-hours, in which they have been subjected to special and peculiar trials;—encompassed with the thunders and lightnings of Sinai—the trumpet sounding long and loud:—or, to revert to the simile of the Psalm, when the moorings of life have been torn away, and they have been left to drift, on a starless, tempestuous ocean. Often, as with David, there may at such times be a combination of trials,—sickness—bereavement—loss of worldly substance—estrangement of friends—blighting of fair hopes. Then, following on these, and worse than all, hard thoughts of God. We see the wicked around prospering,—vice apparently pampered,—virtue apparently trodden under foot,—many passing through life without an ache or trial—their homes unrifled—their hearts unwounded—their every plan prospering—fortune smiling benignantly at every turn; while we seem to have been a target for the arrows of misfortune,—tempted with Jeremiah to say, "I am THE man who have seen affliction by the rod of His wrath."[71] And doubting a God of providence, the next step is to doubt a God of grace. We begin to question our interest in the covenant,—to wonder whether, after all, our hopes of heaven have been a delusion and a lie. God's mercy we imagine to be "gone for ever." He seems as if He would be "favourable no more." There is no comfort in prayer—no brightness in the promises; the Bible is a sealed book;—the heavens have become as brass and the earth as iron! Oh, so long as we had merely external trials, we could brave and buffet the surrounding floods. So long as we had the Divine smile, like the bow in the cloud, resting upon us, we could gaze in calmness on the blackest sky;—yea, rejoice in trial, as only unfolding to us more of the preciousness of the Saviour. But when we have the cloud without the bow,—when outer trials come to a soul in spiritual unrest and trouble,—when we harbour the suspicion that the only Being who could befriend in such an hour has Himself hidden His face,—when we have neither this world nor the next to comfort us—smitten hopes for time and despairing hopes for eternity!—this is the woe of woes—the "horror of great darkness,"—"deep calleth unto deep." We can say, with a more terrible emphasis far than the smitten patriarch, "I AM bereaved!"

The Psalmist had now reached this extremity. It is the turning point of his present experience. He has two alternatives before him:—either to suffer unbelief to triumph, to distrust God, abandon the conflict, and sink as lead in the surging waters; or to gather up once more his spiritual resources, breast the waves, and manfully buffet the storm.

It is with him now, as with a sinking disciple in a future age:—when the storm is loudest and the midnight is darkest, the voice and footsteps of his God are heard on the waves: "And about the fourth watch of the night, Jesus came to the disciples, walking on the sea." "This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles!"[72]

And what is the first gleam of comfort which crests these topmost waves? It is discerning the hand and appointment of God in all his afflictions! He speaks of "Thy waves and Thy billows." These floods do not riot and revel at the bidding of chance. "The Lord sitteth upon the water-floods."[73] While, in one sense, it aggravated his trials to think of them as Divine chastisements—the expressions of the Divine displeasure at sin—yet how unspeakable the consolation that every billow rolled at the summons of Omnipotence. "The floods," he can say, "have lifted up, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their waves. The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea."[74] "O Lord our God, who is a strong Lord like unto thee? Thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them."[75]

But he could go further than this. He could triumph in the assurance of God's returning favour;—that behind these troubled elements there was seated a Being of unchanging faithfulness and love. Already the lowering mist was beginning to clear off the mountains, and the eye of faith to descry sunny patches of golden light gleaming in the hollows. Soon he knew the whole landscape would be flooded with glory. The sailor does not discredit the existence of the beacon or lighthouse, or alter the direction of his vessel, because the fog prevents these being seen. Nay rather, he strains his eyes more keenly through the murky curtain, in hopes of hailing their guidance. When a cloud or clouds are passing over the sun's disc, and hiding it from view, the sunflower does not, on account of the momentary intervention, hang its head, or cease to turn in the direction of the great luminary. It keeps still gazing upwards with wistful eye, as if knowing that the clouds will soon roll past, and that it will ere long again be bathed in the grateful beams! So it was with David. He felt that the countenance of his God, though hidden, was not eclipsed. This pining flower on the mountains of Gilead does not droop in the anguish of unbelief, when "the Sun of his soul" is for the moment obscured. He knew that there would yet arise "light in the darkness." Amid the roll of the billows—the moaning of the blast—he listens to celestial music. Its key-note is "the loving-kindness" of his God. While the heavens are still black, and the tempest raging, he lifts the voice of faith above the war of the storm, and thus sings:—"Yet the Lord will command his loving-kindness in the day-time, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life!"

"Yet the Lord!" The believer, even in his deepest and darkest season of trouble, has always this alternative word—"Yet the Lord will!" I am sunk in sore trial—"Yet the Lord" will be faithful to His promises! I have been bereaved of those near and dear to me—"Yet the Lord" will be to me a name better than that of son or daughter! I have been laid for long years on this couch of suffering—"Yet the Lord" has converted this lonely sick-chamber into the vestibule of heaven. I have been tossed and harassed with countless spiritual temptations—"Yet the Lord" will not suffer these temptations to go further than I am able to bear. I am soon to walk through the dark valley—"Yet" will "I fear no evil, for Thou art with me!"

The Psalmist's assurance of deliverance was indeed the test of no meagre faith. We know well, how apt we are to be influenced and affected by present circumstances. When all is bright, and genial, and prosperous,—amid a happy home and kind friends,—in the midst of robust health and flourishing worldly schemes, the buoyant heart is full of elasticity. The joy without, imparts an inner sunshine. A man is happy and hopeful in spite of himself. But if all at once he is plunged into a vortex of trouble,—if clouds gather and thicken around,—the mind not only becomes the prey of its own trials, but it peoples the future with numberless imaginary evils, and its very remaining joys and blessings become tinged and sicklied over with the predominating sadness! It could as little be expected, on natural principles, that the heart could in such circumstances be hopeful and rejoicing, as to expect that the outer landscape of nature would glow and sparkle with beauty, if the clouds of heaven obscured the great fountain of light.

But faith, strong in God's word, can triumph over natural obstacles. It did so in the case of this afflicted exile. He remembered how his God had vouchsafed past deliverances, even when he least expected them;—"They looked unto Him and were lightened"[76] [literally, "their countenances were made bright."] He feels assured that the same loving-kindness will be "commanded" still. He sees God's covenant faithfulness resting calmly and beautifully, like the rainbow-tints in the spray of the cataract! "Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God."[77]

This experience we have been considering is that of Christ's people only. But there is an experience sadder still: that of those who are living "without God," and therefore "without hope;"—the billows heaving, and yet they knowing not of them;—"deep calling to deep," yet they ignorant alike of their guilt and danger! There is nothing more sad or touching in the midst of a storm,—when the vessel is reeling on the waves, and little expectation of safety is left,—than to see, amidst the settled gloom of despair, the little child playing on the deck, all unaware of what is impending;—or, at a time of heart-rending bereavement, when every face of the household is muffled in sadness and suffused with tears, to hear the joyous laugh and playful prattle of unconscious infancy. Ah! of how many is this the position with regard to eternity;—living heedless of their danger—the waves of destruction ready to close over them! Sadder far, surely, is their case, than all the troubles and trials of God's most afflicted people. Their waves and billows are crested with hope—"songs in the night" come floating along the darkened surges; but the future to the others has no ray of hope, no midnight star, no divine song! There is a time coming when, in a more awful sense, the cry will be heard, "Deep calleth unto deep: all Thy waves and Thy billows have gone over me!" But there will be no after-strain—no joyous anthem of anticipated deliverance—"Yet the Lord will command His loving-kindness!" In vain will the cry ascend, "My heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the Rock that is higher than I."

But, blessed be God, that cry may ascend now—that Rock may be fled to as a shelter now. Sinner! these waves swept over the Rock of Ages, that they might not sweep over you! Sheltered in these crevices, you will be eternally safe. Not one blast of the storm, not one drop of the rain-shower of vengeance, can overtake you. When the billows of wrath—the deluge of fire—shall roll over this earth, safe in these everlasting clefts, you may utter the challenge, "Who shall separate me from the love of Christ?"