Broken. Tyndale renders it a troubled heart; but I think that there is more in it. I take it therefore, to be a heart disabled, as to former actions even as a man whose bones are broken is disabled as to his ways of running, leaping, wrestling, or ought else, which vainly he was wont to do; wherefore that which was called a broken heart in the text, he calls his broken bones in verse the eighth: "Cause me," saith he, "to hear joy and gladness that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice." (Ps. 51:8) And why is the breaking of the heart compared to the breaking of the bones, but because,, as when the bones are broken the outward man is disabled as to what it was wont to do, so when the spirit is broken, the inward man is disabled as to what vanity and folly it before delighted in? Hence feebleness is joined with this brokenness of heart. "I am feeble" saith he, "and sore broken" (Psa 38:8). I have lost my strength and my former vigour as to vain and sinful courses.
This, then it is to have the heart broken; namely to have it lamed, disabled, and taken off by a sense of God's wrath due to sin from that course of life it formerly was conversant in; and to show this work is no fancy, nor done but with great trouble to the soul, it is compared to putting the bones out of joint, the breaking of the bones, the burning of the bones with fire, or as the taking of the natural moisture from the bones, the vexing of the bones etc. (Psa 22:14; Jer 20:9; Lam 1:13; Psa 6:2; Prov 17:22). All which are expressions adorned with such similitudes as do undeniably declare that to sense and feeling a broken heart is a grievous thing.
[John Bunyan]
<< Home