Psalms 73:24

24. Thou shall guide me This is at once the language of restored confidence and consecration. Henceforth the wisdom of God, not his own sinister reasonings, should be the governing and directing power of his life.

And afterward receive me to glory “Glory,” here, must be understood in its spiritual and eschatological sense as the blessedness which the godly shall receive after death, and is the opposite of the pleasures and rewards of wicked men. The whole context requires this, and it is implied in the verb “receive,” the same word as is used of Enoch, (Genesis 5:24,) “For God took him,” and Psalms 49:15, “God shall redeem my soul from the power of the grave, for he shall receive me;” instances in which no other sense can be given than that of final blessedness with God. אחר , ( ahhar,) translated after, (which is sometimes used adverbially, as Judges 19:5, and sometimes as a preposition, as Zechariah 2:8,) must here be taken as an adverb. This accords with commentators generally, and with the authorized English Version. All attempts to translate the word prepositionally are obscure and unsatisfactory, as in the following examples: “ After honour (glory) thou takest me,” that is, after it as an aim, and so “Thou takest me and bringest me in its train,” (Hengstenberg,) or, “Thou leadest me after glory,” (Hitzig, Ewald.) Such renderings give no appreciable sense, and are as opposed to the scope of the author as to the analogy of revelation and the facts of history. It is not to any state or result in this life that God has ever yet led his suffering, spiritual Church, as the ultimate goal of spiritual aim and desire, or as an antidote to temptation such as had well nigh stumbled the psalmist. Besides, as translations, the quotations just given cannot be accepted. The first, (“after honour [as an aim] thou takest me,”) is unintelligible; and the second, (“Thou leadest me after glory,”) uses לקח , ( lakahh,) in an unauthorized sense. The word occurs about nine hundred and fifty times in the Old Testament, and never means lead, but always to take, take away, receive, bring, etc. The proper word for lead, נחה , ( nahhah,) had already been used in the previous member of the verse. “Thou shall guide [ lead ] me with thy counsel.” The life to come alone can explain the words of the psalmist. The counsel of God, which was to “guide” him henceforth, still involved that mysterious purpose of providence which allowed the wicked to prosper in contempt of God, while the righteous should often remain in affliction and oppression. But the discovery of the “end” of the wicked (see on Psalms 73:17) had corrected his error and restored his staggering faith. In this faith he now submissively walks on, led by “the counsel of God,” still unexplained, till the rewards of a future life should unfold all and compensate all. See notes on Psalms 37:0. With this view the closing verses coincide.