The Treasury of David is Spurgeon’s magnum opus comprising seven large volumes. Covering all of the Psalms, it is a product of twenty years of work and is probably the most comprehensive work on the Psalms ever produced. Spurgeon’s approach was to take the best commentary he could find from 16-18th century writers like Cowper, Newton, Henry, and countless others, and intersperse it with his own. Essentially, it encapsulated the very best of English scholarship on the Psalms up to that day.
The thing that particularly commends Spurgeon’s commentary on those psalms which are messianic is that Spurgeon (unlike many modern writers) is not afraid to draw out the pictures of Christ wherever they may be found. Thus, his treatment of those particular psalms are especially rich.
In commenting on the first and second psalm, he writes: “The two psalms are…the preface to the entire Book of Psalms…The first shows the character and inheritance of the righteous. The second teaches that the Psalms are Messianic. They speak of Christ the Messiah—the Prince who will reign from the river to the ends of the earth.”
The Treasury of David is still in print in its original form and is also available online at www.spurgeon.org Over the years, there have been various abridged versions published as different authors attempted to edit this great work down to a more manageable size. My favourite of these is the Thomas Nelson edition edited by Roy Clarke. Clarke has left Spurgeon’s own commentary intact and relegated the best of the other authors’ material to footnotes. The result is a much more readable commentary because it is entirely that of Spurgeon. Clarke also modernized the Victorian language and style of the original and edited and abridged the “Notes and Hints to Preachers.” Some might consider those changes to be sacrilege, but I suspect Spurgeon, the great communicator, would be in favour of any change that helped to better transmit the truth of the Word of God. This edition includes the NKJV imbedded in the text of the commentary and a comprehensive scripture index. The excellent layout and clear typesetting makes this book a joy to read.