PSALM XV.
David describeth a citizen of Zion.
A Psalm of David.
LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?
He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart.
He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour.
In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the LORD. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.
He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved.
This Psalm strikes at the hypocrites who say that holiness stands in the pretended works of the law of God, or in the vain and foolish works of human invention and tradition; and it teaches us how to understand the law of God rightly, and to live godly and righteously. It shows us that we are to walk in the spirit and to mortify the desires of the flesh. For the sum of all godliness is this;—to love and worship God with a pure heart by faith, and then, to direct our lives for the good of our neighbour; and to avoid all those things which militate against these two; that is, to shun all hypocrisy and pretended holiness, which militates against both faith and love: for such an one is ignorant of the true worship of God, and neglects all truly good works, which should be done for the benefit of his neighbour.
It has reference to the Third Commandment of the Decalogue, concerning keeping holy the sabbath day, which is done when we hear and learn the word. And it refers also to the third petition of the Lord’s Prayer.
PSALM XVI.
David, in distrust of merits, and hatred of idolatry, fleeth to God for preservation.—He sheweth the hope of his calling, of the resurrection, and life everlasting.
Michtam of David.
Preserve me, O God: for in thee do I put my trust.
O my soul, thou hast said unto the LORD, Thou art my Lord: my goodness extendeth not to thee;
But to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my delight.
Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god; their drink-offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips.
The LORD is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: thou maintainest my lot.
The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.
I will bless the LORD, who hath given me counsel: my reins also instruct me in the night-seasons.
I have set the LORD always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope.
For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.
Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.
This is a prophecy concerning the passion and resurrection of Christ; and the apostles quote it, Acts ii. and xiii. as having a striking reference to Christ.
This is a glorious Psalm and a precious jewel among all the Psalms on this account,—because it shows forth in clear words that all that splendid and magnificent worship of the law of Moses, its sacrifices, its sabbath worship, its circumcision, in all which the Jews so unceasingly boasted, is done away with by the gospel; for in the fourth verse, David plainly says, that those who follow works and the righteousness of the law, follow strange gods and idols: and he shows that the Jews, although a sacred people, should be rejected, and another people chosen, even a people who should believe in Christ, who were the true elect, inheritance, and peculiar people of God.
This Psalm also has reference to the First, Second, and Third Commandments; for it foretels a new glory of God, a new work and word, and that new kind of worship which was to be revealed to the world: and it refers also to the first and second petitions of the Lord’s Prayer.
PSALM XVII.
David, in confidence of his integrity, craveth defence of God against his enemies.—He sheweth their pride, craft, and eagerness.—He prayeth against them in confidence of his hope.
A Prayer of David.
Hear the right, O LORD, attend unto my cry, give ear unto my prayer, that goeth not out of feigned lips.
Let my sentence come forth from thy presence; let thine eyes behold the things that are equal.
Thou hast proved mine heart; thou hast visited me in the night; thou hast tried me, and shalt find nothing; I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress.
Concerning the works of men, by the word of thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer.
Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not.
I have called upon thee, for thou wilt hear me, O God: incline thine ear unto me, and hear my speech.
Shew thy marvellous loving-kindness, O thou that savest by thy right hand them which put their trust in thee, from those that rise up against them.
Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings.
From the wicked that oppress me, from my deadly enemies, who compass me about.
They are inclosed in their own fat: with their mouth they speak proudly.
They have now compassed us in our steps: they have set their eyes bowing down to the earth;
Like as a lion that is greedy of his prey, and as it were a young lion lurking in secret places.
Arise, O LORD, disappoint him, cast him down; deliver my soul from the wicked, which is thy sword:
From men which are thy hand, O LORD, from men of the world, which have their portion in this life, and whose belly thou fillest with thy hid treasure they are full of children, and leave the rest of their substance to their babes.
As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied when I awake, with thy likeness.
This Psalm is a prayer against false teachers, and those very delicate saints, that is, hypocrites, who by their human doctrines, call men off from the word of God, and hate and persecute the truly godly teachers. These are the characters whom Paul also calls “enemies of the cross of Christ:” for they are not willing to suffer anything for God’s sake, but shun the cross; but make a pretext of the name and worship of God, and under all the artifices of their hypocrisy, seek nothing else than earthly advantages, honors, wealth, the favour of men, and the pleasures and gratifications of the world. Hence David calls them, in the last verse but one, ‘men of this world,’ and ‘men of this life.’ Of this kind also are all those animals of the belly in monasteries, those cumberers of the earth, the monks, and lazy priests.
This Psalm also has reference to the Second and Third Commandments, and to the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer, where we pray “Hallowed be thy name.”
PSALM XVIII.
David praiseth God for his manifold and marvellous blessings.
To the chief Musician. A Psalm of David, the servant of the LORD, who spake unto the LORD the words of this song in the day that the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul: And he said,
I will love thee, O LORD, my strength.
The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.
I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies.
The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.
The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me.
In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears.
Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth.
There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it.
He bowed the heavens also, and came down: and darkness was under his feet.
And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind.
He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.
At the brightness that was before him his thick clouds passed, hail stones and coals of fire.
The LORD also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his voice; hail stones and coals of fire.
Yea, he sent out his arrows, and scattered them; and he shot out lightnings and discomfited them.
Then the channels of waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered at thy rebuke, O LORD, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.
He sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters.
He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them which hated me: for they were too strong for me.
They prevented me in the day of my calamity: but the LORD was my stay.
He brought me forth also into a large place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me.
The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me.
For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God.
For all his judgments were before me, and I did not put away his statutes from me.
I was also upright before him, and I kept myself from mine iniquity.
Therefore hath the LORD recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his eyesight.
With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful; with an upright man thou wilt shew thyself upright.
With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure; and with the froward thou wilt shew thyself froward.
For thou wilt save the afflicted people; but wilt bring down high looks.
For thou wilt light my candle: the LORD my God will enlighten my darkness.
For by thee I have run through a troop; and by my God have I leaped over a wall.
As for God, his way is perfect: the word of the LORD is tried: he is a buckler to all those that trust in him.
For who is God save the LORD? or who is a rock save our God?
It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect.
He maketh my feet like hinds’ feet and setteth me upon my high places.
He teacheth my hands to war, so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms.
Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation: and thy right hand hath holden me up, and thy gentleness hath made me great.
Thou hast enlarged my steps under me, that my feet did not slip.
I have pursued mine enemies, and overtaken them; neither did I turn again till they were consumed.
I have wounded them that they were not able to rise: they are fallen under my feet.
For thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle: thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me.
Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies; that I might destroy them that hate me.
They cried, but there was none to save them: even unto the LORD, but he answered them not.
Then did I beat them small as the dust before the wind: I did cast them out as the dirt in the streets.
Thou hast delivered me from the strivings of the people; and thou hast made me the head of the heathen: a people whom I have not known shall serve me.
As soon as they hear of me, they shall obey me: the strangers shall submit themselves unto me.
The strangers shall fade away, and be afraid out of their close places.
The LORD liveth; and blessed be my rock; and let the God of my salvation be exalted.
It is God that avengeth me, and subdueth the people unto me.
He delivereth me from mine enemies: yea, thou liftest me up above those that rise up against me: thou hast delivered me from the violent man.
Therefore will I give thanks unto thee, O LORD, among the heathen, and sing praises unto thy name.
Great deliverance giveth he to his king; and sheweth mercy to his anointed, to David, and to his seed for evermore.
This is a Psalm of thanksgiving, in which David gives thanks to God (as the title of the Psalm shows) because of his deliverance from all his enemies. And this Psalm I should divide into four parts, for David had combatted with four kinds of enemies—King Saul, the neighbouring nations, his son Absalom, and his seditious subjects.
At the beginning of the Psalm, in the first six verses, David describes the greatness of his perils, his distresses and his straits in the midst of so many and great afflictions, out of which the Lord delivered him, “The sorrows of hell (saith he) compassed me about, &c.”
Then in the seventh verse, after the manner of the prophets, he alludes in his song of praise to the deliverance out of Egypt, and to those mighty works at Mount Sinai and in the Red Sea; intimating, that as God then powerfully delivered his people from the midst of death, so, he also more than once had been delivered by the powerful arm and the high hand of God, again, as it were from the hand of Pharaoh, and from the midst of surrounding death.
And then again, when he says verses 16, and 17, “He delivered me from my strong enemies and from them that were mightier than I,” he alludes to King Saul, who had persecuted him with hostile hatred and bitterness for the word of God’s sake, because he was chosen from on high to be King and to be his successor.
At verse 28, he celebrates the goodness of God who stands by the humble and those who are despised by the world and defends them against the proud and the mighty: as he did in giving David the victory over Goliah, the Philistines, the Amalekites, and other nations.
At verse 34, he intimates something respecting his third and domestic adversary his son Absalom, who, on that account, was by far the more dreadful and atrocious enemy.
Then at verse 42, he gives thanks to God who so wonderfully stood by him against the crafty counsels and snares of the seditious, of which kind was Siba and, in the time of Absalom almost the whole of Israel. For this most excellent and most godly king had many national and domestic enemies, and seditious citizens; so much so, that, as he himself here says, many gentile nations were far more kind and obedient to him than his own people.
Therefore any afflicted one, especially if in magisterial office, may use this Psalm in giving thanks to God for his deliverance out of various perils and distresses which fall upon those who govern the state, or who are set over the Church.
And if any one wishes to understand the Psalm allegorically, David signifies here Christ; Saul signifies the Jews; the nations that persecuted David, the tyrants of the world who set themselves against the Gospel; Absalom, heretics who proceed out from us but are not of us; the seditious subjects, outside-show-Christians who sound forth Christ with their mouth, but in their heart are far from him: from all which this afflicted David, that is, Christ and those who are Christians, are at length delivered.
This Psalm belongs to the second precept of the Decalogue, and to the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer.
PSALM XIX.
The creatures show God’s glory.—The word his grace.—David prayeth for grace.
To the chief Musician, a Psalm of David.
The heavens declare the glory of God: and the firmament sheweth his handy-work.
Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.
There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.
Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun;
Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.
His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.
The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple:
The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes:
The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold; yea, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the honey-comb.
Moreover, by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward.
Who can understand his errors! cleanse thou me from secret faults.
Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins: let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength and my redeemer.
This is a prophecy concerning the preaching of the Gospel to every creature under the whole heaven wherever the wide earth extends. “Day unto day, (saith David) uttereth the word;” that is, ‘from day to day;’ or, day and night shall the Gospel be propagated by the voice of the apostles and the ministers of the word, farther and farther; and that, not only in Judea but every where in all the earth, and in all languages throughout the world.—And says David, as by the life-giving light of the Sun, all things in nature are illuminated, recreated, and cherished: so this new light, this voice of the Gospel shall illumine the world, and, by communicating the Spirit, shall revive and purify the hearts of men, and shall lift up and comfort distressed consciences.
Here also David intimates, that the old law which was the ministration of death was to be done away with; and that the Gospel was to succeed, which should be the ministration of life and of the Spirit; and which should be a word sweet and lovely, illumining the eyes and purifying the heart.
This Psalm belongs to the Third Commandment; for it shews us what is the true Sabbath, namely, the day or time, in which the Gospel should be preached throughout the whole world and received by those who should believe it.
PSALM XX.
The Church blesseth the King in his exploits.—Her confidence in God’s succour.
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.
The LORD hear thee in the day of trouble; the name of the God of Jacob defend thee.
Send thee help from the sanctuary, and strengthen thee out of Zion.
Remember all thy offerings, and accept thy burnt sacrifice. Selah.
Grant thee according to thine own heart, and fulfil all thy counsel.
We will rejoice in thy salvation, and in the name of our God we will set up our banners: the LORD fulfil all thy petitions.
Now know I that the LORD saveth his anointed: he will hear him from his holy heaven with the saving strength of his right hand.
Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God.
They are brought down and fallen; but we are risen and stand upright.
Save, LORD: let the king hear us when we call.
This is a prayer for kings, rulers, magistrates, and all who sustain that most heavy burthen of governing the state:—that God, in such momentous concerns, to which all human diligence and wisdom are unequal (as even heathen rulers have confessed from their own experience), would stand by magistrates when exposed to the hatred of all, to their secret councils and plans of deceit; and would keep all subjects in their duty, and give his blessing in the preservation of a good and happy constitution, and public peace; especially when Satan with horrible hatred against God and the works of God, is endeavouring to destroy the constitutions of kingdoms, and to confound all things with slaughter and blood-shed.
Those great and eminently spiritual men who produced this and the like Psalms, plainly saw that such great and important matters could not be managed and governed by any human wisdom or human counsels; and therefore they wished to pen forms of prayer of this kind for the safety of magistrates and transmit them to posterity. For such prayers as these were especially necessary for the people of God at that time, when David and other godly rulers after him, were continually exercised with new enemies and new afflictions, and those the most severely distressing.—Therefore all Kings and Rulers are fools who do not seek for, and expect, the happy government and the success of their affairs from heaven.
This Psalm belongs to the second commandment, as do all the other supplicatory Psalms; for it contains a calling upon the name of the Lord. And it belongs also to the third petition of the Lord’s Prayer, where we pray that the will of God, not of the devil, may be done.
PSALM XXI.
A thanksgiving for victory.—Confidence of further success.
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.
The king shall joy in thy strength, O Lord: and in thy salvation how greatly shall he rejoice!
Thou hast given him his heart’s desire, and hast not withholden the request of his lips. Selah.
For thou preventest him with the blessings of goodness: thou settest a crown of pure gold on his head.
He asked life of thee, and thou gavest it him, even length of days for ever and ever.
His glory is great in thy salvation: honour and majesty hast thou laid upon him.
For thou hast made him most blessed for ever: thou hast made him exceeding glad with thy countenance.
For the king trusteth in the LORD; and, through the mercy of the Most High, he shall not be moved.
Thine hand shall find out all thine enemies; thy right hand shall find out those that hate thee.
Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time of thine anger: the LORD shall swallow them up in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them.
Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth, and their seed from among the children of men.
For they intended evil against thee; they imagined a mischievous device, which they are not able to perform:
Therefore shalt thou make them turn their back, when thou shalt make ready thine arrows upon thy strings against the face of them.
Be thou exalted, LORD, in thine own strength: so will we sing and praise thy power.
This is a prophecy concerning the kingdom of Christ;—that his kingdom shall be temporal and eternal. The beginning of the Psalm gloriously predicts that it shall come to pass that this king and this people shall rejoice in this kingdom, and that the glory of it shall be great. But you must understand that all this will be, not before the world or according to the flesh, but in God. For Christ entered into glory through the flesh and by the cross.
This Psalm foretels also that this kingdom, that is, the Church of Christ, although afflicted before the world, shall be enriched with spiritual blessings and glorified; and that this word of grace and the remission of sins, this joyful and all-sweet Gospel shall be diffused abroad among all nations, and that the godly and those that believe, shall rejoice and be glad, and exult in it with a full and perfect joy, which no creature shall be able to destroy or to take away.
On the other hand, David shews that the Jews who opposed this counsel of God, and the whole of their kingdom should be destroyed by the awful judgment of God, “Thou shalt make them (says he) to turn their back;” that is, because that people opposed themselves to the Gospel, and crucified Christ, thou shalt afflict them with heavy calamities; and, having rejected the people destroyed their kingdom, and having done away with, and abrogated the whole of their law and worship for which they so furiously fight, thou shalt reduce them to a miserable slavery, so that they shall be oppressed under a foreign yoke and laws, and shall thus suffer the punishment due to their sins.
This Psalm belongs to the first commandment, and to the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer: for it foretells of a people that should not be under the law of Moses, but in a kingdom of rejoicing and thanksgiving, and it speaks of a new manner of worship.
PSALM XXII.
David complaineth in great discouragement.—He prayeth in great distress.—He praiseth God.
To the chief Musician upon Aijeleth Shahar, A Psalm of David.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?
O my God, I cry in the day-time, but thou hearest not; and in the night-season, and am not silent.
But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.
Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.
They cried unto thee, and were delivered; they trusted in thee, and were not confounded.
But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.
All they that see me laugh me to scorn; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,
He trusted on the LORD that he would deliver him; let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.
But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother’s breasts.
I was cast upon thee from the womb; thou art my God from my mother’s belly.
Be not far from me, for trouble is near; for there is none to help.
Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.
They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.
I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.
My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.
For dogs have compassed me; the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.
I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me.
They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.
But be not thou far from me, O LORD; O my strength, haste thee to help me.
Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog.
Save me from the lion’s mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.
I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.
Ye that fear the LORD, praise him: all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him; and fear him, all ye the seed of Israel.
For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard.
My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation: I will pay my vows before them that fear him.
The meek shall eat and be satisfied; they shall praise the LORD that seek him: your heart shall live for ever.
All the ends of the world shall remember, and turn unto the LORD; and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.
For the kingdom is the LORD’S; and he is the governor among the nations.
All they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship: all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him and none can keep alive his own soul.
A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the LORD for a generation.
They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this.
This Psalm is a kind of gem among the Psalms that contain prophecies concerning Christ and his kingdom, and it is peculiarly excellent and remarkable. For here, if anywhere, it may be said that David does not seem to be delivering a prophecy of the future, but a history of the past; a history of circumstances that took place within his own sight and knowledge; for his expressions concerning Christ are not at all more obscure than those of Peter or Paul, or any other of the Apostles: and he speaks of Christ being nailed to the tree, and of the piercing of his hands and his feet, as if the whole had taken place before his own natural sight.
This Psalm contains those deep, sublime, and heavy sufferings of Christ, when agonizing in the midst of the terrors and pangs of divine wrath and death, which surpass all human thought and comprehension. And I know not whether any Psalm throughout the whole Book contains matter more weighty, or from which the hearts of the godly can so truly perceive those sighs and groans, inexpressible by man, which their Lord and head Jesus Christ uttered when conflicting for us in the midst of death, and in the midst of the pains and terrors of hell. Wherefore this Psalm ought to be most highly prized by all who have any acquaintance with these temptations of faith, and these spiritual conflicts.
Let Epicureans despise these things: examples of this kind will be more precious to the truly godly and spiritual, whether they be found in Christ himself, or (as St. Peter saith,) in our brethren that are in the world, than all the treasures and riches of which the world can boast.
David as I said, describes most clearly and expressively the sufferings of Christ, so much so, that you seem to see the circumstances to take place before your eyes. And as he so clearly pourtrays the forerunning sufferings of Christ, so does he with equal plainness set forth the glories which followed them; for in the end of the Psalm he shows that Christ should be delivered from the mouth of the lion and of the dog, and from the midst of death and sufferings, and should, through his resurrection wrought by divine power, be glorified; that his Gospel should be preached, not only among that people and in that kingdom, such narrow limits, but throughout all the nations and kingdoms of the world; that the fat ones of the earth, that is the rich and powerful of this world, and the poor also, should be converted unto Christ; that his Church should be eternal, and his posterity infinite; and that as King he should be adored throughout the whole world, that his name should be praised and celebrated throughout all ages, and his kingdom endure for ever, and remain invincible against all the kingdoms of the world, and against all creatures.
The Psalm belongs to the first commandment of the Decalogue, for it foretels a new worship of God; and it has reference to the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer.
PSALM XXIII.
David’s confidence in God’s grace.
A Psalm of David.
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.