(28) Book of the living--or life.--This image, which plays so great a part in Christian poetry (Revelation 3:5; Revelation 13:8; Revelation 21:27. Comp. Philippians 4:3; Luke 10:20), is derived from the civil lists or registers of the Jews. (Exodus 32:32; Jeremiah 22:30; Ezekiel 13:9.) At first erasure from this list only implied that a man was dead, or that a family was extinct (see references above); but as death was thought to deprive of all benefit of the covenant (see Note, Psalm 6:5), such erasure came to imply exclusion from all the rights and privileges of the Theocracy, and therefore from the glory of participating in the promised deliverance and restoration of the race, and so gradually, as eschatological ideas developed, from the resurrection to eternal life. Daniel 12:1 marks a stage in this development. In the psalmist's mouth the words would correspond to the ideas current when he wrote. From the next clause, Let them not be written with the righteous, it might be argued that the idea had already appeared which limited the resurrection to the righteous--an idea current at the date of 2 Maccabees 7:14, but probably familiar to some minds much sooner.

Verse 28. - Let them be blotted out of the Book of the living. God is supposed to have a "book of the living" in his possession, which contains the names of all those on whom he looks with favour, and whom he will bless both in this world and beyond the grave (comp. Exodus 32:32; Psalm 86:6; Ezekiel 13:9; Daniel 12:1). From this list, as from any register of earthly citizenship, the names of the unworthy may be erased. David prays for the erasure of the names of those unworthy ones against whom his imprecations are uttered. And not be written with the righteous; i.e. not remain written in the book side by side with the names of the righteous. The New Testament, no less than the Old, tells of this book (see Luke 10:20; Philippians 4:3; Revelation 3:5; Revelation 13:8; Revelation 20:12; Revelation 21:27).

69:22-29 These are prophecies of the destruction of Christ's persecutors. Verses 22,23, are applied to the judgments of God upon the unbelieving Jews, in Ro 11:9,10. When the supports of life and delights of sense, through the corruption of our nature, are made the food and fuel of sin, then our table is a snare. Their sin was, that they would not see, but shut their eyes against the light, loving darkness rather; their punishment was, that they should not see, but should be given up to their own hearts' lusts which hardened them. Those who reject God's great salvation proffered to them, may justly fear that his indignation will be poured out upon them. If men will sin, the Lord will reckon for it. But those that have multiplied to sin, may yet find mercy, through the righteousness of the Mediator. God shuts not out any from that righteousness; the gospel excludes none who do not, by unbelief, shut themselves out. But those who are proud and self-willed, so that they will not come in to God's righteousness, shall have their doom accordingly; they themselves decide it. Let those not expect any benefit thereby, who are not glad to be beholden to it. It is better to be poor and sorrowful, with the blessing of the Lord, than rich and jovial, and under his curse. This may be applied to Christ. He was, when on earth, a man of sorrows that had not where to lay his head; but God exalted him. Let us call upon the Lord, and though poor and sorrowful, guilty and defiled, his salvation will set us up on high.Let them be blotted out of the book of life,.... Which some understand of this animal life, or of the catalogue of living saints; of their being not written among the living in Jerusalem, or in the writing of the house of Israel, Isaiah 4:3. The Targum is,

"let them he blotted out of the book of the memory of the living.''

Let their names rot and perish, being buried in everlasting oblivion. Aben Ezra interprets this book of the heavens; where, he says, all things that should come to pass were written, at the time they were created; see Luke 10:20. But this is the book of divine predestination or election, often in the New Testament called the book of life; in which the names of some persons are written, and others not, Philippians 4:3; so called, not with respect to the present life, and the affairs of it, which belong to the book of Providence; but with respect to the life of the world to come, or eternal life, as Kimchi explains it. It is no other than God's ordination or foreappointment of men to eternal life; which being called a book, and names written in it, show that election is personal or particular; the exact knowledge God has of his chosen ones; his great care of them, and value for them; his constant remembrance of them, and the certainty of their salvation; for such whose names are written here in reality can never be blotted out: this would be contrary to the unchangeableness of God, the firmness of his purposes, and the safety of his people. Wherefore the design of this imprecation is, that those persons who had, in their own conceits, and in the apprehensions of others, a name in this book; that it might appear, both to themselves and others, they had none, by the awful ruin and destruction that should be brought upon them;

and not be written with the righteous; neither in the book of life with them; by which it appears, that to be blotted out, and not be written, are the same: nor in a Gospel church state; so they were the branches broken off: nor be among them at the resurrection of the just, and in the judgment day. Kimchi observes, that it is the same thing in different words; to be blotted out is the same as not to be written.