The Burden-Bearing God
A. Maclaren, D. D. Psalm 68:19-28 Blessed be the Lord, who daily loads us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah.… The great objection to the rendering which has become familiar to us all, "Who daily loadeth us with benefits," is that these essential words are not in the original, and need to be supplied in order to make out the sense. Whereas, on the other hand, if we adopt the suggested emendation, "Who daily beareth our burdens," we get a still more beautiful meaning, which requires no force or addition in order to bring it out. I. THE REMARKABLE AND ELOQUENT BLENDING OF MAJESTY AND CONDESCENSION. What a thought that is — a God that carries men's loads! People talk much rubbish about the "stern Old Testament Deity": is there anything sweeter, greater, more heart-compelling and heart-softening, than such a thought as this? How all the majesty bows itself and declares itself to be enlisted on our side when we think that "He that sitteth on the circle of the heavens, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers," is the God that "daily beareth our burdens"! II. THE DEEP INSIGHT INTO THE HEART AND WAYS OF GOD HERE. "He daily beareth our burdens." If there is any meaning in this word at all, it means that He so knits Himself with us as that all which touches us touches Him, that He takes a share in all our pressing duties, and feels the reflection from all our sorrows and pains. We have no impassive God in the heavens, careless of mankind, nor is His settled and changeless and unshaded blessedness of such a sort as that there cannot pass across it — if I may not say a shadow, I may at least say — a ripple from men's pangs and troubles and cares. God, in all our afflictions, is afflicted; and, in simple though profound verity, has that which is most truly represented to men, by calling it a fellow feeling with our infirmities and our sorrows. III. THE REMARKABLE ANTICIPATION OF THE VERY HEART OF THE GOSPEL. Ah! it were of small avail to know a God that bore the burden of our sorrows and the load of our duties, if we did not know a God who bore the weight of our sins. For that is the real crushing weight that breaks men's hearts and bows them to the earth. So the New Testament, with its message of a Christ on whom is laid the whole pressure of the world's sin, is the deepest fulfilment of the great words of my text. IV. WHAT WE SHOULD THEREFORE DO WITH OUR BURDENS. First, we should cast them on God, and let Him carry them. He cannot unless we do. One sometimes sees a petulant and self-confident little child staggering along with some heavy burden by the parent's side, but pushing away the hand that is put out to help it to carry its load. And that is what too many of us do when God says to us, "Here, My child, let Me help you, I will take the heavy end of it, and do you take the light one." And, last of all, let us see to it that we render Him praise. (A. Maclaren, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah. WEB: Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears our burdens, even the God who is our salvation. Selah.