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Note three truths: First, Elohim hath already given the very greatest thing to set before salvation: what every parent who had but one beloved son would surely feel as the greatest of his treasures.
If we would pray well, we must pray early.
The fool observes David's circumstances and draws a devastating conclusion: if serving Yahweh and trusting in His promises yields such poverty and pain, why should anyone follow Him at all?
Some have even become atheists in practice, though they claimed faith in theory.
Yet Exell's Victorian commentary redirects this judgment toward the Church's calling, extracting three marks of the Christian standard-bearer.
It is a leading feature of this age to reduce the gospel to phrases.
The Preacher warns against an obsession with others' opinions that fragments the soul.
But Spurgeon discerned a deeper truth: the psalmist refers not merely to natural scarcity of bread, but to spiritual famine—that terrible dearth of inward hope and legal satisfaction that afflicts the soul separated from Elohim.
Exell, the Victorian biblical expositor, unpacks with precision: the greatest gifts carry corresponding sorrows.
Righteousness means God cannot deviate from what is right and just—He is the eternal standard of moral perfection.
Their repentance was fundamentally defective—a *nostos* (return) of behavior without a *epistrophe* (turning toward) Adonai.
The Church exists for the world's sake more than for its own comfort.
Yet beneath such plausible disguises lie spiritual impostures that demand our careful discernment.
Some approached without special interest, moved merely by custom.
First, they robbed widows materially—devouring their houses under the facade of lengthy prayers, enriching themselves through religious pretense.
When you sit before your meal, you behold a creature that once swam freely in waters or soared through heavens—now placed there by your authority.
Their judgment surpasses that of Sodom, for they rejected not ignorance but revealed truth.
The prophet identifies a moral catastrophe: men and women who possess eyes yet refuse to see Yahweh's *providentia* (providence) ordering all things in heaven and earth.
First, the natural seed of Israel—*sperma* (offspring)—recalls the nation called out of Egypt under Moses.
First, consider your *private* ways—those moments in solitude when no eye observes but Yahweh's.
This is not peculiar to Christianity—the ancient Greeks inscribed "Know thyself" on their noblest public buildings.
First, it demands a *specific pursuit* (*zēteō* – to seek diligently).
This text diagnoses humanity's universal condition: all are liable to sin and under its dominion.
This original uprightness required five distinct faculties working in harmony: an understanding perfectly acquainted with God's law; a memory retaining all its precepts faithfully; a conscience applying it without compromise; a heart loving that law completely; and a will obedient...