PSALM 103 COMME TARYEDITED BY GLE PEASE

Of David.

I TRODUCTIO

SPURGEO , "TITLE. A Psalm of David. —Doubtless by David; it is in his own

style when at its best, and we should attribute it to his later years when he had a

higher sense of the preciousness of pardon, because a keener sense of sin, than in his

younger days. His clear sense of the frailty of life indicates his weaker years, as also

does the very fainess of his praiseful gratitude. As in the lofty Alps some peaks rise

above all others so among even the inspired Psalms there are heights of song which

overtop the rest. This one hundred and third Psalm has ever seemed to us to be the

Monte Rosa of the divine chain of mountains of praise, glowing with a ruddier light

than any of the rest. It is as the apple tree among the trees of the wood, and its

golden fruit has a flavour such as no fruit ever bears unless it has been ripened in

the full suushine of mercy. It is man's reply to the benedictions of his God, his Song

on the Mount answering to his Redeemer's Sermon on the Mount. ebuchadnezzar

adored his idol with flute, harp, sacbut, psaltery, dulcimer and all kinds of music;

and David, in far nobler style awakens all the melodies of heaven and earth in

honour of the one only living and true God. Our attempt at exposition is commenced

under an impressive sense of the utter impossibility of doing justice to so sublime a

composition; we call upon our soul and all that is within us to aid in the pleasurable

task; but, alas, our soul is finite, and our all of mental faculty far too little for the

enterprize. There is too much in the Psalm, for a thousand pens to write, it is one of

those all-comprehending Scriptures which is a Bible in itself, and it might alone

almost suffice for the hymn-book of the church.

DIVISIO . First the Psalmist sings of personal mercies which he had himself

received Psalms 103:1-5; then he magnifies the attributes of Jehovah as displayed in

his dealings with his people, Psalms 103:6-19; and he closes by calling upon all the

creatures in the universe to adore the Lord and join with himself in blessing

Jehovah, the ever gracious.

ELLICOTT, "This psalm has been compared to a stream which, as it flows,

gradually acquires strength and volume till its waves of praise swell like those of the

sea. The poet begins by invoking his own soul to show its gratitude for the Divine

favour, and, by a highly artistic touch, makes the psalm, after rising to sublime

heights, end with the same appeal to personal experience. But national mercies till

much the larger space in his thought, and he speaks throughout as much in the

person of the community as his own. Beyond one probable Aramaism in Psalms

103:3, and a possible dependence in one passage on the Book of Job (comp. Psalms

103:16 with Job 17:10), there is nothing to indicate the time of the psalm’s

composition. The rhythm is varied, and the form irregular.

1 Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.

BAR ES, "Bless the Lord, O my soul - The word “bless,” as applied to God, means to praise, implying always a strong affection for him as well as a sense of gratitude. As used with reference to people, the word implies a “wish” that they may be blessed or happy, accompanied often with a prayer that they may be so. Such is the purport of the “blessing” addressed to a congregation of worshippers. Compare Num_6:23-27. The word “soul” here is equivalent to mind or heart: my mental and moral powers, as capable of understanding and appreciating his favors. The soul of man was “made” to praise and bless God; to enjoy his friendship; to delight in his favor; to contemplate his perfections. It can never be employed in a more appropriate or a more elevated act than when engaged in his praise.

And all that is within me ... - All my powers and faculties; all that can be employed in his praise: the heart, the will, the affections, the emotions. The idea is, that God is worthy of all the praise and adoration which the entire man can render. No one of his faculties or powers should be exempt from the duty and the privilege of praise.

CLARKE, "Bless the Lord - He calls on his soul, and all its faculties and powers, to magnify God for his mercies. Under such a weight of obligation the lips can do little; the soul and all its powers must be engaged.

GILL, "Bless the Lord, O my soul,.... His better part, his soul, which comes immediately from God, and returns to him, which is immaterial and immortal, and of more worth than the world: God is to be served with the best we have; as with the best of our substance, so with the best of our persons; and it is the heart, or soul, which he requires to be given him; and such service as is performed with the soul or spirit is most

agreeable to him; he being a Spirit, and therefore must be worshipped in spirit and in truth: unless the spirit or soul of a man, is engaged in the service of God, it is of little avail; for bodily exercise profiteth not; preaching, hearing, praying, and praising, should be both with the spirit, and with the understanding: here the psalmist calls upon his soul to "bless" the Lord; not by invoking or conferring a blessing on him, which as it is impossible to be done, so he stands in no need of it, being God, all sufficient, and blessed for evermore; but by proclaiming and congratulating his blessedness, and by giving him thanks for all mercies, spiritual and temporal:

and all that is within me, bless his holy name; meaning not only all within his body, his heart, reins, lungs, &c. but all within his soul, all the powers and faculties of it; his understanding, will, affections, and judgment; and all the grace that was wrought in him, faith, hope, love, joy, and the like; these he would have all concerned and employed in praising the name of the Lord; which is exalted above all blessing and praise; is great and glorious in all the earth, by reason of his works wrought, and blessings of goodness bestowed; and which appears to be holy in them all, as it does in the works of creation, providence, and redemption; at the remembrance of which holiness thanks should be given; for he that is glorious in holiness is fearful in praises, Psa_97:12.

HE RY, "David is here communing with his own heart, and he is no fool that thus talks to himself and excites his own soul to that which is good. Observe,

I. How he stirs up himself to the duty of praise, Psa_103:1, Psa_103:2. 1. It is the Lord that is to be blessed and spoken well of; for he is the fountain of all good, whatever are the channels or cisterns; it is to his name, his holy name, that we are to consecrate our praise, giving thanks at the remembrance of his holiness. 2. It is the soul that is to be employed in blessing God, and all that is within us. We make nothing of our religious performances if we do not make heart-work of them, if that which is within us, nay, if all that is within us, be not engaged in them. The work requires the inward man, the whole man, and all little enough. 3. In order to our return of praises to God, there must be a grateful remembrance of the mercies we have received from him: Forget not all his benefits. If we do not give thanks for them, we do forget them; and that is unjust as well as unkind, since in all God's favours there is so much that is memorable. “O my soul! to thy shame be it spoken, thou hast forgotten many of his benefits; but surely thou wilt not forget them all, for thou shouldst not have forgotten any.”

JAMISO , "Psa_103:1-22. A Psalm of joyous praise, in which the writer rises from a thankful acknowledgment of personal blessings to a lively celebration of God’s gracious attributes, as not only intrinsically worthy of praise, but as specially suited to man’s frailty. He concludes by invoking all creatures to unite in his song.

Bless, etc.— when God is the object, praise.

my soul— myself (Psa_3:3; Psa_25:1), with allusion to the act, as one of intelligence.

all ... within me— (Deu_6:5).

his holy name— (Psa_5:11), His complete moral perfections.

CALVI , "1.Bless Jehovah, O my soul! The prophet, by stirring up himself to

gratitude, gives by his own example a lesson to every man of the duty incumbent

upon him. And doubtless our slothfulness in this matter has need of continual

incitement. If even the prophet, who was inflamed with a more intense and fervent

zeal than other men, was not free from this malady, of which his earnestness in

stimulating himself is a plain confession, how much more necessary is it for us, who

have abundant experience of our own torpor, to apply the same means for our

quickening? The Holy Spirit, by his mouth, indirectly upbraids us on account of our

not being more diligent in praising God, and at the same time points out the remedy,

that every man may descend into himself and correct his own sluggishness. ot

content with calling upon his soul (by which he unquestionably means the seat of the

understanding and affections) to bless God, the prophet expressly adds his inward

parts, addressing as it were his own mind and heart, and all the faculties of both.

When he thus speaks to himself, it is as if, removed from the presence of men, he

examined himself before God. The repetition renders his language still more

emphatic, as if he thereby intended to reprove his own slothfulness.

SPURGEO , "Ver. 1. Bless the Lord O my soul. Soul music is the very soul of

music. The Psalmist strikes the best keymote when he begins with stirring up his

inmost self to magnify the Lord. He soliloquizes, holds self-communion and exhorts

himself, as though he felt that dulness would all too soon steal over his faculties, as,

indeed, it will over us all, unless we are diligently on the watch. Jehovah is worthy to

be praised by us in that highest style of adoration which is intended by the term

bless —"All thy works praise thee, O God, but thy saints shall bless thee." Our

very life and essential self should be engrossed with this delightful service, and each

one of us should arouse his own heart to the engagement. Let others forbear if they

can: "Bless the Lord, O MY soul." Let others murmur, but do thou bless. Let others

bless themselves and their idols, but do thou bless the LORD. Let others use only

their tongues, but as for me I will cry, "Bless the Lord, O my soul."

And all that is within me, bless his holy name. Many are our faculties, emotions, and

capacities, but God has given them all to us, and they ought all to join in chorus to

his praise. Half-hearted, ill-conceived, unintelligent praises are not such as we

should render to our loving Lord. If the law of justice demanded all our heart and

soul and mind for the Creator, much more may the law of gratitude put in a

comprehensive claim for the homage of our whole being to the God of grace. It is

instructive to note how the Psalmist dwells upon the holy name of God, as if his

holiness were dearest to him; or, perhaps, because the holiness or wholeness of God

was to his mind the grandest motive for rendering to him the homage of his nature

in its wholeness. Babes may praise the divine goodness, but fathers in grace magnify

his holiness. By the name we understand the revealed character of God, and

assuredly those songs which are suggested, not by our fallible reasoning and

imperfect observation, but by unerring inspiration, should more than any others

arouse all our consecrated powers.

EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.

Title. A Psalm of David, which he wrote when carried out of himself as far as

heaven, saith Beza. John Trapp.

Whole Psalm. How often have saints in Scotland sung this Psalm in days when they

celebrated the Lord's Supper! It is thereby specially known in our land. It is

connected also with a remarkable case in the days of John Knox. Elizabeth

Adamson, a woman who attended on his preaching, "because he more fully opened

the fountain of God's mercies than others did, "was led to Christ and to rest, on

hearing this Psalm, after enduring such agony of soul that she said, concerning

racking pains of body, "A thousand years of this torment, and ten times more

joined", are not to be compared to a quarter of an hour of my soul's trouble. She

asked for this Psalm again before departing: "It was in receiving it that my troubled

soul first tasted God's mercy, which is now sweeter to me than if all the kingdoms of

the earth were given me to possess." Andrew A. Bonar.

Whole Psalm. The number of verses in this Psalm is that of the letters of the Hebrew

alphabet; and the completeness of the whole is further testified by its return at the

close to the words with which it started, "Bless the Lord, O my soul." J. F. Thrupp.

Whole Psalm. The Psalm, in regard to number, is an alphabetical one, harmonized

in such a way as that the concluding turns back into the introductory verse, the

whole being in this manner finished and rounded off. In like manner, the name

Jehovah occurs eleven times. The Psalm is divided into two strophes, the first of ten

and the second of twelve verses. The ten is divided by the five, and the twelve falls

into three divisions, each of four verses. Jehovah occurs in the first strophe four,

and in the second seven times.

The Psalm bears the character of quiet tenderness. It is a still clear brook of the

praise of God. In accordance with this, we find that the verses are of equal length as

to structure, and consist regularly of two members. It is only at the conclusion,

where the tone rises, that the verses become longer: the vessel is too small for the

feeling.

The testimony which the title bears on behalf of the composition of the Psalm by

David, is confirmed by the fact that the Psalm in passages, the independence of

which cannot be mistaken, bears a striking resemblance to the other Psalms of

David, and by the connection with Psalms 102:1-28 David here teaches his posterity

to render thanks, as in the previous Psalm he had taught them to pray: the

deliverance from deep distress which formed there the subject of prayer, forms here

the subject of thanks. E. W. Hengstenberg.

Whole Psalm. It is observable that no petition occurs throughout the entire compass

of these twenty-two verses. ot a single word of supplication is in the whole Psalm

addressed to the Most High. Prayer, fervent, heartfelt prayer, had doubtless been

previously offered on the part of the Psalmist, and answered by his God.

Innumerable blessings had been showered down from above in acknowledgment of

David's supplications; and, therefore, an overflowing gratitude now bursts forth

from their joyful recipient. He touches every chord of his harp and of his heart

together, and pours forth a spontaneous melody of sweetest sound and purest

praise. John Stevenson, in "Gratitude: an Exposition of the Hundred and Third

Psalm, "1856.

Ver. 1. Bless the LORD, O my soul. O how well they are fitted! for what work so fit

for my soul as this? Who so fit for this work as my soul? My body, God knows, is

gross and heavy, and very unfit for so sublime a work. o, my soul, it is thou must

do it; and indeed what hast thou else to do? it is the very work for which thou were

made, and O that thou wert as fit to do the work as the work is fit for thee to do!

But, alas, thou art become in a manner earthy, at least hast lost a great part of thy

abilities, and will never be able to go through with this great work thyself alone. If

to bless the Lord were no more but to say, Lord, Lord, like to them that cried, "The

temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord; "then my tongue alone would be

sufficient for it, and I should not need to trouble any other about it; but to bless the

Lord is an eminent work, and requires not only many but very able agents to

perform it; and therefore, my soul, when thou goest about it, go not alone; but, take

with thee "all that is within thee; "all the forces in my whole magazine, whether it

be my heart, or my spirits; whether my will, or my affections; whether my

understanding, or my memory; take them all with thee, and bless the Lord. Sir R.

Baker.

Ver. 1. All that is within me. The literal translation of the form here used is my

insides or inner parts, the strong and comprehensive meaning of the plural being

further enhanced by the addition of all, as if to preclude exception and reserve, and

comprehend within the scope of the address all the powers and affections. J. A.

Alexander.

Ver. 1. All that is within me, etc. Let your conscience "bless the Lord, "by

unvarying fidelity. Let your judgment bless Him, by decisions in accordance with

his word. Let your imagination bless him, by pure and holy musings. Let your

affections praise him, by loving whatsoever he loves. Let your desires bless him, by

seeking only his glory. Let your memory bless him, by not forgetting any of his

benefits. Let your thoughts bless him, by meditating on his excellencies. Let your

hope praise him, by longing and looking for the glory that is to be revealed. Let your

every sense bless him by its fealty, your every word by its truth, and your every act

by its integrity. John Stevenson.

Ver. 1. Bless the LORD, O my soul. You have often heard, that when God is said to

bless men, and they on the other hand are excited to bless him, the word is taken in

two very different senses. God is the only fountain of being and happiness, from

which all good ever flows; and hence he is said to bless his creatures when he

bestows mercies and favours upon them, gives them any endowments of body and

mind, delivers them from evils, and is the source of their present comforts and

future hopes. But in this sense, you will see there is no possibility of any creature's

blessing God; for as his infinite and unblemished perfection renders him incapable

of receiving any higher excellency, or improvement in happiness; so, could we put

the supposition that this immense ocean of good might be increased, it is plain that

we, who receive our very being and everything that we have or are from him, could

in no case contribute thereto. To bless God, then, is, with an ardent affection

humbly to acknowledge those divine excellencies, which render him the best and

greatest of beings, the only object worthy of the highest adoration: it is to give him

the praise of all those glorious attributes which adorn his nature, and are so

conspicuously manifested in his works and ways. To bless God, is to embrace every

proper opportunity of owning our veneration and esteem of his excellent greatness,

and to declare to all about us, as loudly as we can, the goodness and grace of his

conduct towards men, and our infinite obligations for all our enjoyments to him, in

whom we live, move, and have our being. And a right blessing of God must take its

rise from a heart that is full of esteem and gratitude, which puts life into the songs of

praise.

And then, of all others, the most lively and acceptable method of blessing God, is a

holy conversation and earnest endeavor to be purified from all iniquity; for blessing

of God consists, as I told you, in adoring his excellencies, and expressing our esteem

and veneration of them: but what can be so effectual a way of doing this, as the

influence that the views of them have upon our lives? That person best exalts the

glory of the divine power, who fears God above all, and trembles at the

apprehensions of his wrath; and of his justice, who flees from sin, which exposes

him to the inexorable severity thereof; and of his love, who is softened thereby into

grateful returns of obedience; and then we celebrate his holiness, when we

endcavour to imitate it in our lives, and abandon everything that is an abomination

to the eyes of his purity. William Dunlop, 1692-1720.

Ver. 1. O my soul. God's eye is chiefly upon the soul: bring a hundred dishes to

table, he will carve of none but this; this is the savoury meat he loves. He who is

best, will be served with the best; when we give him the soul in a duty, then we give

him the flower and the cream; by a holy chemistry we still out the spirits. A soul

inflamed in service is the cup of "spiced wine of the juice of the pomegranate" (Song

of Solomon 8:2) which the spouse makes Christ to drink of. Thomas Watson.

Ver. 1. Bless his holy name. The name of God frequently signifies his nature and

attributes, in Scripture. ow, holiness is the glory of this name; the purity of God is

that which beautifies all his perfections, and renders them worthy to be praised. His

eternity, and knowledge, and power, without justice, and goodness, and truth, might

indeed frighten and confound us; but could not inflame our love, or engage us to

hearty blessing. But when infinite mightiness, and unerring wisdom, and eternal

dominion, are mixed with unchangeable love, and inviolable veracity and goodness,

which exalts itself above all his works; when thus it becomes a holy name, then the

divine perfections are rendered truly amiable, and suitable objects of our hope and

confidence and loudest songs; so that you see how elegantly the Psalmist upon this

occasion mentions the purity of God: "Bless his holy name."

And besides this, there is indeed nothing that more exalts the glory of divine grace

and of redeeming love towards a soul, than the consideration of God's holiness;for if

your Maker were not of purer eyes than man is, yea, if his hatred to sin, and love to

righteousness, were not greater than that of the noblest angel, his pardoning of sin,

and patience towards transgressors would not be such a wonderful condescension;

but is his name infinitely holy so that "the heavens are not clean in his sight?" Is the

smallest iniquity the abhorrence of his soul, and what he hates with a perfect

hatred? Surely, then, his grace and love must be incomparably greater than our

thoughts. William Dunlop.

Ver. 1-2. The well is seldom so full that water will at first pumping flow forth;

neither is the heart commonly so spiritual, after our best care in our worldly

converse (much less when we somewhat overdo therein) as to pour itself into God's

bosom freely, without something to raise and elevate it; yea, often, the springs of

grace lie so low, that pumping only will not fetch the heart up to a praying frame,

but arguments must be poured into the soul before the affections rise. Hence are

those soliloquies and discourses which we find holy men use with their own hearts to

bring them into a gracious temper, suitable for communion with God in ordinances.

It seems by these verses] David either found or feared his heart would not be in so

good a frame as he desired; consequently he redoubles his charge: he found his

heart somewhat drowsy, which made him thus rouse himself. William Guruall.

Ver. 1-3. The Psalmist's gratitude here has four attributes. The first is personal.

Bless the Lord, my soul. He has the self-same application in the close of the Psalm,

after he has called on others to do this work. Our religion must be social as well as

personal: but while it must not end at home, it must begin at home; and relative

religion, without personal, will always be found wanting in excitement, in energy, in

extent, in continuance, and very commonly in success.

Secondly, It is fervent. And all that is within me, bless his holy name —all my

thoughts, my feelings, my understanding, my will, my memory, my conscience, my

affections, my passions.

"If there be passions in my soul,

(And passions, Lord, there be);

Let them be all at thy control,

My gracious Lord, for thee."

Thirdly, it is rational, and demanded by the facts of his past life. Therefore "forget

not all his benefits." othing can properly affect or influence us when it is out of our

recollection. "Out of sight out of mind; "and out of mind, out of motive. Whence

arose the ingratitude of the Jews of old? Bad memories. "Of the rock that begat thee

thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten the God that formed thee." "The ox

knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my

people doth not consider." It should therefore be your concern, not only to recall

your mercies, but to reckon them.

Lastly, it is specific:Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases.

When all the words in a discourse are emphatic, nothing is emphatic, when we dwell

on everything, we dwell on nothing effectively. We are more struck, in a landscape,

with a selected point of vision for inspection, than by the general prospect. David

was a poet, and understood poetry well; and poetry differs from philosophy. The

one seeks to rise from particular facts and instances, to establish general principles

and rules: the other is always for descending from generalization to

particularization; and much of its beauty and force arises from individualities.

William Jay, 1849.

WHEDO , "1. Bless the Lord, O my soul—To “bless the Lord” is to praise him by

declaring his attributes and works, and offering thanksgiving. To “bless” an

individual man is to invoke the favour of God upon him. See umbers 6:22-27.

“Soul,” here, cannot be taken as the intermediate, or psychical nature, between the

mind and body, according to the Greek trichotomy, but the ego, the self, and is

parallel to the all that is within me, or inward parts, in the next line; or, as we would

say, my inmost soul—the depth of my being. It is to be a soul-work, not formal or lip

service. David rouses himself to the sum total of all his higher powers in ascribing

praise to God. The word “bless” occurs six times in the psalm.

BE SO , "Verses 1-3

Psalms 103:1-3. All that is within me, bless his holy name — Let all my thoughts and

affections be engaged, united, and raised to the highest pitch in and for this work.

Forget not all his benefits — In order to our duty, praising God for his mercies, it is

necessary we should have a grateful remembrance of them. And we may be assured

we do forget them, in the sense here meant by the psalmist, if we do not give sincere

and hearty thanks for them. Who forgiveth all thine iniquities — This is mentioned

first, because, by the pardon of sin, that which prevented our receiving good things

is taken away, and we are restored to the favour of God, which ensures good things

to us, and bestows them upon us. Who healeth all thy diseases — Spiritual diseases,

the diseases of the soul. The corruption of nature is the sickness of the soul: it is its

disorder, and threatens its death. This is cured by sanctification. In proportion as

sin is mortified, the disease is healed. These two, pardon and holiness, go together, at

least a degree of the latter always accompanies the former: if God take away the

guilt of sin by pardoning mercy, he also breaks the power of it by renewing grace.

Where Christ is made righteousness to any soul, he is also made sanctification to it

in a great measure; for, if any man be in Christ he is a new creature: old things are

passed away, behold, all things are become new.

COFFMA , "Verse 1

PSALM 103

PRAISI G GOD FOR ALL OF HIS MERCIES

The superscription identifies this as a Psalm of David; and, " othing in it forbids

the supposition that he was the author. However, nothing in the psalm or anywhere

else enables us to determine the precise occasion on which it was written."[1]

This is a perfect psalm, suitable to all times and situations. Christians more

frequently turn to this psalm than to any other. Its terminology has entered into the

speech of all generations. This writer remembers from the prayers of his

grandfather the employment of Psalms 103:10 verbatim as it appears in the King

James Bible, and also an exclamation that, "The time and place that know us now,

shall soon know us no more for ever," founded upon Psalms 103:16.

Some of the critical writers would assign this psalm to the times of the exile, or

afterward, depending upon the occurrence of certain Aramaisms; but as Leupold

observed, "Aramaisms are never a sure index of date."[2] As Paul T. Butler, a

distinguished Christian Church scholar of Joplin, Missouri, wrote in 1968,

"Aramaisms cannot be made a criterion for determining date, because they are

found in both early and late Old Testament books. Also, the recently-discovered Ras

Shamra texts reveal Aramaic elements (Aramaisms) dating back to 1500 to 1400

B.C."[3] This, of course, knocks the keystone out of the arch of critical devices for

late-dating Old Testament writings.

Another unwarranted assumption that labels many psalms "liturgical" is also very

untrustworthy. "Of course, it cannot be denied that liturgical use of many psalms

could have been made, but it is equally correct that they are beautifully adapted to

personal use."[4]

The organization of this psalm appears to be: (1) a self-exhortation to praise God

(Psalms 103:1-5); (2) Israel exhorted to bless God (Psalms 103:6-13); (3) God's

consideration for man's frailty (Psalms 103:14-18); and (4) all in God's kingdom to

bless Him (Psalms 103:19-22).

Psalms 103:1-5

SELF-EXHORTATIO

"Bless Jehovah, O my soul;

And all that is within me, bless his holy name.

Bless Jehovah, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.

Who forgives all thine iniquities;

Who healeth all thy diseases;

Who redeemeth thy life from destruction;

Who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies;

Who satisfieth thy desire with good things,

So that thy youth is renewed like the eagle."

Who is it who cannot make the spirit of this worship his own? Every mortal life has

received countless benefits at the hand of the Lord, has been healed of many

diseases, has received forgiveness of sins, has experienced the redemption of his life

from destruction threatened by many dangers seen and unseen, and has enjoyed

countless satisfactions from the good things which the Lord has provided.

"So that thy youth is renewed like the eagle" (Psalms 103:5). There was an ancient

fable of the eagle renewing its youth in old age, similar to the fable of the Phoenix;

but as Briggs noted, "It is doubtful whether there is any allusion here to the fable;

but at all events it is the fulness of the life and vigor of the eagle that is thought

of."[5]

K&D 1-5, "In the strophe Psa_103:1 the poet calls upon his soul to arise to praiseful gratitude for God's justifying, redeeming, and renewing grace. In such soliloquies it is the Ego that speaks, gathering itself up with the spirit, the stronger, more manly part of man (Psychology, S. 104f.; tr. p. 126), or even, because the soul as the spiritual medium of the spirit and of the body represents the whole person of man (Psychology, S. 203; tr. p. 240), the Ego rendering objective in the soul the whole of its own personality. So here

in Psa_103:3 the soul, which is addressed, represents the whole man. The קובים which

occurs here is a more choice expression for (מעים) מעים: the heart, which is called קרב κατ�

ʆ� �ξοχήν, the reins, the liver, etc.; for according to the scriptural conception (Psychology, S. 266; tr. p. 313) these organs of the cavities of the breast and abdomen serve not

merely for the bodily life, but also the psycho-spiritual life. The summoning רכי� is

repeated per anaphoram. There is nothing the soul of man is so prone to forget as to render thanks that are due, and more especially thanks that are due to God. It therefore needs to be expressly aroused in order that it may not leave the blessing with which God

blesses it unacknowledged, and may not forget all His acts performed on it (�מר = �מל)

,.µα�µέσον, e.g"! ,�מול) in Psa_137:8), which are purely deeds of loving-kindness), which is the primal condition and the foundation of all the others, viz., sin-pardoning mercy.

The verbs סלח and רפא with a dative of the object denote the bestowment of that which is

expressed by the verbal notion. חלואים* (taken from Deu_29:21, cf. 1Ch_21:19, from חלא

solutum, laxum esse) are not merely bodily diseases, but all kinds of ,הל root ,חלה =

inward and outward sufferings. מ-חת the lxx renders �κ�φθορ1ς (from שחת, as in Job_

17:14); but in this antithesis to life it is more natural to render the “pit” (from שוח�) as a name of Hades, as in Psa_16:10. Just as the soul owes its deliverance from guilt and distress and death to God, so also does it owe to God that with which it is endowed out of

the riches of divine love. The verb ע4ר, without any such addition as in Ps 5:13, is “to crown,” cf. Psa_8:6. As is usually the case, it is construed with a double accusative; the

crown is as it were woven out of loving-kindness and compassion. The Beth of 4וב� in Psa_103:5 instead of the accusative (Psa_104:28) denotes the means of satisfaction,

which is at the same time that which satisfies. עדיך� the Targum renders: dies senectutis tuae, whereas in Psa_32:9 it is ornatus ejus; the Peshîto renders: corpus tuum, and in Psa_32:9 inversely, juventus eorum. These significations, “old age” or “youth,” are pure

inventions. And since the words are addressed to the soul, עדי cannot also, like כבוד in other instances, be a name of the soul itself (Aben-Ezra, Mendelssohn, Philippsohn, Hengstenberg, and others). We, therefore, with Hitzig, fall back upon the sense of the

word in Psa_32:9, where the lxx renders τάς�σιαγόνας�α<τ=ν, but here more freely,

apparently starting from the primary notion of עדי = Arabic chadd, the cheek: τBν�

�µπιπλ=ντα��ν�EγαθοFς�τGν��πιθυµίαν�σου (whereas Saadia's victum tuum is based upon a

comparison of the Arabic gdâ, to nourish). The poet tells the soul (i.e., his own person, himself) that God satisfies it with good, so that it as it were gets its cheeks full of it (cf.

Psa_81:11). The comparison שרQR is, as in Mic_1:16 (cf. Isa_40:31), to be referred to the annual moulting of the eagle. Its renewing of its plumage is an emblem of the renovation

of his youth by grace. The predicate to נעוריכי (plural of extension in relation to time) stands first regularly in the sing. fem.

ELLICOTT-GREAT TEXTS, "Verses 1-5

All His Benefits

Bless the Lord, O my soul;

And all that is within me, bless his holy name.

Bless the Lord, O my soul,

And forget not all his benefits:

Who forgiveth all thine iniquities;

Who healeth all thy diseases;

Who redeemeth thy life from destruction;

Who crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies:

Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things;

So that thy youth is renewed like the eagle.—Psalms 103:1-5.

This psalm, with which we are all familiar from our childhood, shines in the

firmament of Scripture as a star of the first magnitude. It is a song of praise, yet not

the praise of an angel, but the praise of one who has been redeemed from sin and

from destruction, and who has experienced that grace which, although sin abounds

unto death, doth much more abound unto eternal life. It is the song of a saint, yet

not of a glorified saint, but of one who is still working in the lowly valley of this our

earthly pilgrimage, and who has to contend with suffering, with sin, and to

experience the chastening hand of his Heavenly Father. And therefore it is that this

psalm, after beginning upon the lofty mountain heights of God’s greatness and

goodness, in which all is bright and strong and eternal, descends into the valley

where the path is always narrow and often full of darkness and danger and sadness.

But as the Psalmist lives by faith, and as he is saved by faith, so he is also saved by

hope; and after having described all the sadness and all the afflictions and conflicts

of this our earthly pilgrimage, he shows that even at this present time he is a

member of that heavenly and everlasting Kingdom of which the throne of God is the

centre, and where the angels, who are bright and strong, are his fellow-worshippers,

and in which all the works which God has made will finally be subservient to His

glory and be irradiated with His beauty. And thus he rises again, praising and

magnifying the Lord and knowing that his own individual soul shall, in that vast

and comprehensive Kingdom, for evermore be conscious of the life and of the glory

of the Most High.

I

Bless the Lord

1. To praise God, to bless God, is only the response to the blessing which God has

given us. God speaks, and the echo is praise. God blesses us and the response is that

we bless God. And those five verses of praise in Psalms 103 are nothing but the

answer of the believing heart to the benediction of Aaron, which God commanded

should be continually laid upon the people. The Lord who is the God of salvation;

the Lord, who has revealed His Holy ame as Redeemer; the Lord who, by His

Spirit, imparts what the Father of love gives, what the filial love reveals—this is the

Lord who is the object of the believer’s praise. For to praise God means nothing else

than to behold God and to delight in Him as the God of our salvation. Singing may

be the expression of praise, may be the helpful accompaniment of praise, but praise

is in the spirit who dwells upon God, who sees the wonderful manifestation of God

in His Son Jesus Christ, and the wonderful salvation and treasures of good things

stored up in His beloved Son.

We commonly begin our prayers with a request that God will bless us; the Psalmist

begins his prayer by calling on his soul to bless God! The eye of the heart is

generally directed first to its own desires; the eye of the Psalmist’s heart is directed

first to the desires of God! It is a startling feature of prayer, a feature seldom looked

at. We think of prayer as a mount where man stands to receive the Divine blessing.

We do not often think of it as also a mount where God stands to receive the human

blessing. Yet this latter is the thought here. ay, is it not the thought of our Lord

Himself? I have often meditated on these words of Jesus, “Seek ye first the kingdom

of God and his righteousness”! I take them to mean: Seek ye first the welfare of

God, the establishment of His Kingdom, the reign of His righteousness! Before you

yield to self-pity, before you count the number of the things you want, consider what

things are still wanting to Him! Consider the spheres of life to which His Kingdom

has not yet spread, consider the human hearts to which His righteousness has not

yet penetrated! Let your spirit say, “Bless the Lord.” Let the blessing upon God be

your morning wish. It is not your power He asks, but your wish. Your benediction

cannot sway the forces of the Universe; your Father can do that without prayer. But

it is the prayer itself that is dear to Him, the desire of your heart for His heart’s joy,

the cry of your spirit for His crowning, the longing of your soul for the triumph of

His love. Evermore give Him this bread!1 [ ote: G. Matheson, Leaves for Quiet

Hours, 213.]

If we want to know what it is to praise God, let us remember such a chapter as the

first chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians, where Paul blesses God who has blessed

him with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, and where he sees

before him the whole counsel and purpose of the Divine election, of the wonderful,

perfect, and complete channel of the purposes of God in the redemption which is in

the blood of Jesus, and the wonderful object and purpose of the Divine grace, that

we, united with Christ, should through all ages show forth the wonderful love of

God. That is to praise God, when we see God and when we appropriate God as He

has manifested Himself to us in Christ Jesus. And it is only by the light which comes

from above, and by the wonderful operation of the Holy Ghost, that it is so wrought

in the heart of the Christian, although it may be in silence, that his soul magnifieth

the Lord and his spirit rejoiceth in God his Saviour.2 [ ote: A. Saphir.]

2. “Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name.” The

Psalmist desires to bless God with all that is within him. He who succeeds in doing

this offers to God an eloquent worship. Eloquence means speaking out, letting the

whole soul find utterance. And the Psalm before us supplies us with a choice sample

of the kind of worship made by David. In this Psalm, mind, heart, conscience,

imagination, all come into play. The whole inner man speaks rightfully,

thoughtfully, devoutly, musically, pathetically; and, as was to be expected, God is

praised to some purpose.

The metrical version of the Psalm puts us in possession of the fuller meaning of this

verse:

O thou my soul, bless God the Lord;

And all that in me is

Be stirred up his holy name

To magnify and bless.

How truly and with what fine knowledge of the soul of every spiritual man has this

rendering caught the real point of that verse! And it is not this once only that the

metrical psalm selects and emphasizes some word which we did not quite realize in

the prose version. Here and there it may be that to our modish and sophisticated

ears the psalms in metre may fail as poetry; but they never fail in spiritual

discernment. They always take hold of the point, of the real business of the prose

text. They always recognize the matters which really concern our souls; so that

again and again the metrical psalm serves as a kind of commentary upon the prose,

developing the finer sentiments, bringing out of the text certain beauties which we

might never have become aware of, though we recognize them at once the moment

they are set out for us. You see what I mean in this particular instance. The prose

reads: “Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name.”

We might read those words again and again, feeling in each case that it is merely a

devout utterance of the soul, having nothing individual or characteristic about it.

But how the metrical version cuts down to the root of the idea! What a distinction,

what a precise meaning, the metrical form gives to the prayer!

O thou my soul, bless God the Lord;

And all that in me is

Be stirred up his holy name

To magnify and bless.

It was pure spiritual genius to bring out that idea of “stirring up” all that is within

our souls.1 [ ote: J. A. Hutton, The Soul’s Triumphant Way, 23.]

II

Forget ot

If we would rightly praise God, we must keep ourselves from forgetfulness. Moses

warns against this vice when he says: “Beware lest thou forget the Lord thy God, in

not keeping his commandments, and his judgments and his statutes, which I

command thee this day, lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly

houses, and dwelt therein; and when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy

silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied; then thine

heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, which brought thee forth out

of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” In the Prophets the sad

complaint re-echoes from the Lord’s mouth: “Ye are they that forget my holy

mountain.”

One of the first stories I recall from my childhood was a story of the evil of

forgetting God. I remember the very spot on which it was told to me. I feel the warm

grasp of the hand which had hold of mine at the time. I see once more the little

seaport town stretching up from the river mouth, with its straggling “fisher town”

at one extremity, and at the other its rows of well-built streets and its town hall and

academy. On this occasion we were standing on a high bank looking down on the

beautiful shore at our feet. Across the tiny harbour, and along the shore on the

other side of the river, is a very different scene. What one sees there is a dreary

waste of sand. o grass grows there, no trees shadow it, no house stands upon it. It

is a place forsaken and desolate. It has been a desolation longer than the oldest

inhabitant can remember. But it was not always desolate. It was once a fair estate,

rich in cornfields and orchards. A stately mansion stood in the midst of it, and

children played in the orchards, and reapers reaped the corn. But the lords of that

fair estate were an evil race. They oppressed the poor, they despised religion, they

did not remember God. They loved pleasure more than God, and the pleasures they

loved were evil. To make an open show of their evil ways they turned the day of the

Lord into a day of rioting and drunkenness. And this evil went on a long while. It

went on till the long-suffering of God came to an end. And then upon a Sunday

evening, and in the harvest-time, when the corn was whitening for the reaper, the

riot and wickedness had come to a height. The evil lord and his evil guests were

feasting in the hall of the splendid house. And on that very evening there came a

sudden darkness and stillness into the heavens, and out of the darkness a wind, and

out of the wind a tempest; and, as if that tempest had been a living creature, it lifted

the sand from the shore in great whirls and clouds and filled the air with it, and

dropped it down in blinding, suffocating showers on all those fields of corn, and on

that mansion, and on the evil-doers within. And the fair estate, with all its beautiful

gardens and fields, became a widespread heap of sand and a desolation, as it is to

this day.1 [ ote: Alexander McLeod.]

III

All His Benefits

Of the benefits that David enumerates the first three are all negative: He forgives

our sin, He heals the consequences of our sin, our diseases, He delivers us from

destruction, the wages of our sin. But in the forgiveness of sin and in the healing of

our diseases, in the deliverance from the devil and from everlasting hell, God gives

Himself, He gives the whole fulness of His love, He elevates the soul into the very

highest spiritual life; and therefore, the Psalmist continues, he who has been thus

delivered out of destruction is a king, he is crowned with lovingkindness and with

tender mercies, he is enriched and satisfied with good things; and not merely

outwardly enriched, but there is a life given him which is unfading, the youth of

which is perennial, continually renewing itself by the very strength of God.

1. The Psalmist sets himself to count up the benefits he has received from God. He

has not proceeded very far when he finds himself to be engaged in an impossible

task. He finds he cannot count the blessings he has received in a single day, how

then can he number the blessings of a week, of a month, of a year, of the years of his

life? He might as well try to count the number of the stars or the grains of sand on

the seashore. It cannot be done.

St. Francis, dining one day on broken bread, with a large stone for table, cried out

to his companion: “O brother Masseo, we are not worthy so great a treasure.”

When he had repeated these words several times, his companion answered: “Father,

how can you talk of treasure where there is so much poverty, and indeed a lack of

all things? For we have neither cloth nor knife, nor dish, nor table, nor house;

neither have we servant nor maid to wait upon us.” Then said St. Francis: “And this

is why I look upon it as a great treasure, because man has no hand in it, but all has

been given us by Divine Providence, as we clearly see in this bread of charity, in this

beautiful table of stone, in this clear fountain.”1 [ ote: E. Meynell, The Life of

Francis Thompson (1913), 283.]

I was walking along one winter’s night, hurrying towards home, with my little

maiden at my side. Said she, “Father, I am going to count the stars.” “Very well,” I

said; “go on.” By and by I heard her counting—“Two hundred and twenty-three,

two hundred and twenty-four, two hundred and twenty-five. Oh! dear,” she said, “I

had no idea there were so many.” Ah! dear friends, I sometimes say in my soul,

“ ow, Master, I am going to count Thy benefits.” I am like the little maiden. Soon

my heart sighs—sighs not with sorrow, but burdened with such goodness, and I say

within myself, “Ah! I had no idea that there were so many.”2 [ ote: M. G. Pearse.]

2. But if he cannot remember them all, he may at least try not to forget them all. He

may try to remember some of them. But this also is a hard task. For memory is

weak, and the blessings are many and manifold. How can he help himself not to

forget? How shall he help himself to remember those benefits which he values most

highly? He sets himself to find helps to memory, helps not to forget. So he falls upon

a plan which he finds to be most helpful, and which others ever since have found to

be so. He takes those benefits which he desires not to forget, and he ties them up in

bundles. And then, to make sure that he will not forget them, the Psalmist shapes

the bundles of God’s benefits into a song. A song is the easiest thing of all to

remember. So he shapes them into a song, which people can sing by the wayside as

they journey, can carry with them to their work, and brood over in their hours of

leisure.

By tying the benefits up in bundles, and by shaping them into a song, the Psalmist

earned for himself the undying gratitude of future generations. Specially has he

earned for himself our gratitude, for he gave us a song which we sing in Scotland to-

day, and have sung for more than three hundred years, when our religious emotions

are at their highest and their best. We sing this song when the feeling of

consecration has been renewed, widened, and deepened by communion with God at

His table. I never was at a communion-time at which this song has not been sung,

and no other song could do justice to the feelings of gratitude of the Lord’s people.

So we sing, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: who

forgiveth, who healeth, who redeemeth, who crowneth, and who satisfieth.”1 [ ote:

James Iverach, The Other Side of Greatness, 121.]

i

Forgiveness

“Who forgiveth all thine iniquities.”

ote how the Psalmist begins. He begins with iniquity. Where else could a sinful

man begin? The most needful of all things for a sinful man is to get rid of his sin. So

the Psalmist begins here. This beginning is not peculiar to him, it is the common

note of the Bible. In fact, we here come across one of the distinctive peculiarities of

the Bible. We may read other literatures and never come across the notion of sin in

them. Crimes, blunders, mistakes, miseries enough one may find, but sin as

estrangement from a holy personal God who loves man and would serve him one

never finds. But in the Bible we are face to face with sin from first to last. One

chapter and a bit of another are given to the story of the making of the world and

the making of man, and then the story of the entrance of sin is told, and the reader is

kept face to face with sin in every part of it. In the gospel story we read at the outset:

“Thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins”; and in

John almost the first word about Him is, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh

away the sin of the world.” It is characteristic of the Bible to keep its reader face to

face with sin and its consequences, till he is stirred up to the effort to get rid of it.

Sometimes in business a man will say: “There is a limit to everything. I have trusted

such an one, and he has deceived me. I have forgiven him much, but now he has

crossed the score, and I will have no more dealings with him.” But it is only when

men, in their own estimation, have got over that score that the heavenly business

begins. Some minister comes from somewhere, to preach some day, and preaches the

forgiveness of sins, and that is the beginning of the business; and at length the man

finds Heaven for himself, and can say: “He forgiveth all mine iniquities.”2 [ ote: A.

Whyte.]

ii

Healing

“Who healeth all thy diseases.”

Once a prophet said, “From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no

soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores.” When we read

these words, we are inclined to say they are Oriental figures of speech, exaggerated

metaphors. If our spiritual vision were as keen as that of the prophet, we should

find that he was speaking what he knew. Sin then makes disease, and God’s relation

to disease is described as that of healing. In the Scriptures this relation is described

so fully that it gives a distinctive name for God—Jehovah the Healer. He not only

forgives sin, He also so deals with the results of sin that He removes every trace of

sin. He heals all our diseases.

The nineteenth century produced three famous persons in this country who

contributed more than any of their contemporaries to the relief of human suffering

in disease: Simpson, the introducer of chloroform; Lister, the inventor of antiseptic

surgery; and Florence ightingale, the founder of modern nursing. The second of

the great discoveries completed the beneficent work of the first. The third

development—the creation of nursing as a trained profession—has co-operated

powerfully with the other two, and would have been beneficent even if the use of

anæsthetics and antiseptics had not been discovered. The contribution of Florence

ightingale to the healing art was less than that of either Simpson or Lister; but

perhaps, from its wider range, it has saved as many lives, and relieved as much, if

not so acute, suffering as either of the other two.1 [ ote: Sir Edward Cook, The Life

of Florence ightingale, i. 439.]

iii

Redemption

“Who redeemeth thy life from destruction.”

That is, God preserves the life that He saves. Here is first a life forfeited. That life is

then saved by forgiveness. Then there is a life imperilled by disease, and saved by

God’s healing. But that life is in a thousand dangers. Many seek after the young

child—the Christ within us—to destroy it. But God “redeemeth thy life from

destruction.” How often God has saved some of us from impending ruin, He alone

knows.

In my native town of Stirling workmen were blasting the castle rock near where it

abuts upon a wall that lies open to the street. The train was laid and lit, and an

explosion was momentarily expected. Suddenly, trotting round the great wall of

cliff, came a little child going straight to where the match burned. The men shouted.

That was mercy. But by their very shouting they alarmed and bewildered the poor

little thing. By this time the mother also had come round. In a moment she saw the

danger, opened wide her arms, and cried from her very heart, “Come to me, my

darling.” That was Render mercy; and instantly, with eager, pattering feet, the little

thing ran back and away, and stopped not until she was clasped in her mother’s

bosom. ot a moment too soon, as the roar of the shattered rock told.1 [ ote: A.

Grosart.]

I remember one who had been for a long time drifting towards an evil act which was

certain to do more harm to others than to himself, but who had not as yet

determined on flinging friends, society, work, good repute, his past and future, and

God Himself, to the winds. The one thing that kept him back was a remnant of

belief in God, in One beyond humanity, beyond the world’s laws of convention and

morality. othing else was left, for he had, in the desire for this wrong thing, passed

beyond caring whether the whole world went against him, whether he injured

others or not. He was as ready to destroy all the use of his own life as he was careless

of the use of the lives of others. But he felt a slow and steady pull against him. He

said to himself, “This is God, though I know Him not.” At last, however, he

determined to have his way. One day the loneliness and longing had been too great

to be borne, and when night came he went down his garden resolved on the evil

thing. “This night,” he said, “I will take the plunge.” But as he went he heard the

distant barking of a dog in the village; the moon rose above a dark yew tree at the

end of the garden, and he was abruptly stopped in the midst of the pathway.

Something seemed to touch him as with a finger, and to push him back. It was not

till afterwards that he analysed the feeling, and knew that the rising of the moon

over the yew tree and the barking of the dog in the distance had brought back to

him an hour in his childhood, when in the dusk he had sat with his mother, after his

father’s death, in the same garden, and had heard her say—“When thou passest

through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not

overflow thee.” It was this slight touch that saved him from wrong which would

have broken more lives than his own. It was God speaking; but it would have been

as nothing to him, had he not kept his little grain of faith in God alive, the dim

consciousness that there was One who cared for him, who had interest that he

should conquer righteousness. ext day, he left his home, travelled and won his

battle; and his action redeemed not only his own but another’s life.1 [ ote: S. A.

Brooke, The Ship of the Soul, 23.]

There is an old poem which bears the curious title of “Strife in Heaven,” the idea of

which is something like this. The poet supposes himself to be walking in the streets

of the ew Jerusalem, when he comes to a crowd of saints engaged in a very earnest

discussion. He draws near and listens. The question they are discussing is which of

them is the greatest monument of God’s saving grace. After a long debate, in which

each states his case separately, and each claims to have been by far the most

wonderful trophy of God’s love in all the multitude of the redeemed, it is finally

agreed to settle the matter by a vote. Vote after vote is taken, and the list of

competition is gradually reduced until only two remain. These are allowed to state

their case again, and the company stand ready to join in the final vote. The first to

speak is a very old man. He begins by saying that it is a mere waste of time to go any

further; it is absolutely impossible that God’s grace could have done more for any

man in heaven than for him. He tells again how he had led a most wicked and

vicious life—a life filled up with every conceivable indulgence, and marred with

every crime. He has been a thief, a liar, a blasphemer, a drunkard, and a murderer.

On his death-bed, at the eleventh hour, Christ came to him and he was forgiven. The

other is also an old man, who says, in a few words, that he was brought to Christ

when he was a boy. He had led a quiet and uneventful life, and had looked forward

to heaven as long as he could remember. The vote is taken; and, of course, you

would say it results in favour of the first. But no, the votes are all given to the last.

We might have thought, perhaps, that the one who led the reckless, godless life—he

who had lied, thieved, blasphemed, murdered; he who was saved by the skin of his

teeth, just a moment before it might have been too late—had the most to thank God

for. But the old poet knew the deeper truth. It required great grace verily to pluck

that withered brand from the burning. It required depths, absolutely fathomless

depths, of mercy to forgive that veteran in sin at the close of all those guilty years.

But it required more grace to keep that other life from guilt through all those

tempted years. It required more grace to save him from the sins of his youth and

keep his Christian boyhood pure, to steer him scathless through the tempted years

of riper manhood, to crown his days with usefulness, and his old age with patience

and hope. Both started in life together; to one grace came at the end, to the other at

the beginning. The first was saved from the guilt of sin, the second from the power

of sin as well. The first was saved from dying in sin. But he who became a Christian

in his boyhood was saved from living in sin. The one required just one great act of

love at the close of life; the other had a life full of love—it was a greater salvation by

far. His soul was forgiven like the other, but his life was redeemed from

destruction.1 [ ote: H. Drummond, The Ideal Life, 149.]

iv

Crowning

“Who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies.”

So far the Psalmist has been thinking of God’s action as it is defined in relation to

sin. ow his thoughts take a grander flight, and he thinks of the Divine action when

sin is taken out of the way, and no longer presents a barrier to the fellowship

between God and His people. His words take on a finer meaning, and mould

themselves into a more musical form. For he tries to represent the intercourse

between God and the children of God, when sin is removed from between them.

“Who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies.” These words are

about the most musical and pathetic in the whole Bible, and they are as fine in

meaning as they are in form.

God puts honour upon the brow of a forgiven man. He does not merely forgive, and

that in a formal way, but, when He forgives, He crowns. He crowns me with the title

of “son,” and He places the coronet of heirship upon my head, for “if children, then

heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ.” Sweet picture this. Observe

that it is not a crown of merit, for “He crowneth thee with lovingkindness and

tender mercies.” This is the only crown that I can consent to wear.2 [ ote: A. G.

Brown.]

1. Lovingkindness.— ote how the translators of the Psalm have been constrained to

tie two English words together in order to set forth the meaning of the original.

These translators of the Bible were poets as well as scholars. They took the two

words “love” and “kindness” and tied them together in order to shut out the weaker

meanings of both, and from the union of them set forth a higher and better meaning

than either alone could express. Love has always been recognized to be the strongest

and best thing in the world of life, and in recent years it has come to even larger

recognition. It really holds society together, is at the basis of family life, is the motive

power of the highest activities of mankind. But while love is so and acts so, it may

partake of the weakness or the selfishness of human nature. It may become fierce,

jealous, regardless of the interest of the person who is its object. It may look at the

person merely as belonging to itself, and fiercely insist on exclusive possession. o

doubt ideal love would labour, toil, and spend itself for the good of the person loved.

But all love is not ideal, and it may have more ferocity than kindness in it. So this

fierce side of love is shut out, and only the ideal side is kept, and kept by uniting it

with kindness. But kindness is apt to be weak, injudicious, and foolish. It is the

kindness, perhaps, of a fond young mother who gives the baby whatever it desires,

cloys it with sweets, or gives it unwholesome food because the child likes it, or, as

George MacDonald suggests, gives the child a lighted candle because it cries for it.

This foolish side of kindness is shut out by tying it to the firmer, wiser fact of love.

So united, kindness becomes lovingkindness, and the two become, in their union,

something higher and better than either of the two elements contained in it, when

these are taken by themselves.

Another young friend writes: “From such an array of beautiful characteristics as is

called up by his name it is hard to choose the greatest, but his ‘loving-kindness’ is

the outstanding trait that not only those who knew him best, but those who came

only casually into contact with him, will remember with tenderness. How he loved

every one, especially ‘those who were of the household of faith’! How eagerly would

he seek out, even when on holiday, the brother-minister, superannuated by affliction

from active work, to encourage and help him by his sympathy, to cheer him with his

humour and his jollity, to stimulate him with his wide and varying interests! And in

what good stead that wonderful fund of quiet humour stood him through the days

of pain and weakness and weariness through which God’s veteran passed, and from

which he is now released! One revered him as a saint, but loved him as a man, a

man who radiated such love as compelled a willing love in return.”1 [ ote: Love

and Life: The Story of J. Denholm Brash (1913), 179.]

It is twenty-five years since I first had my attention drawn to this clause. I went to

college then, and one day a minister gave me a tract, and told me, “Take that and

read it, and when you bring it back, tell me what you think of it.” He said to me—

and he proved a sound prophet—“I may not live to see it, but you will see it. The lad

that spoke these words—his name will be heard wherever the English language is

spoken,”—the name was Charles Spurgeon. It was a discourse on this word—“He

crowneth me with lovingkindness and tender mercies.” He had never been to

college, and had taken none of your envied degrees that seem to stamp a man as a

Master of Divinity. My friend said: “I may not live to see it, but you will.” A young

man in his teens, not far up in the offices yet, Spurgeon was under twenty-one when

he preached a sermon that made my old friend prophetic. “When God takes a man’s

head out of the dust”—said this young fledgling Puritan preacher—“He crowns it

with a crown that is so heavy with His grace and goodness that he could not wear it

were it not lined with the sweet velvet of His loving-kindness.” ot a classic figure

perhaps, but Spurgeon’s figure is graven on my memory while many a classic figure

has faded away. Many a costly gift, given carelessly with lavish abundance, you have

nearly forgotten: but one gift, given many years ago, you remember still. It was only

a cup of cold water, perhaps, but given with a hand and with a look of loving-

kindness. And when God crowns us with such love as this, when He smiles upon us,

no wonder that it gladdens the heart so that a man never forgets it.2 [ ote:

Alexander Whyte.]

2. Tender mercies.—Mercy in itself is one of the grandest things in human nature. It

is not mere feeling, it is feeling in action. It is not mere sympathy or pity, it is

sympathy made alive and active. It is not pity, it is pity going forth into action, to

bind up the broken-hearted, to comfort the sorrowful, to make the widow’s heart to

sing for joy. But tender mercy is even more than mercy, great and good though the

exercise be. It is mercy exercised in the most tender way. For mercy may be

exercised in such a way as to wound the feelings of the person to whom you are

merciful. You may intend to help your friend who has fallen into misfortune. He

may have been blameworthy, his misfortune may have arisen from his want of

thought, from his recklessness, or even from wrong-doing. You intend to help him,

but you are annoyed with his conduct; you insist on showing him how foolish he

was, how reckless was his conduct, how unprincipled was his motive, until he almost

feels that he would be without the help if he could be free from the scolding. Or you

are merciful to the person who asks you for help, but you fling the penny to him

across the street. It is possible in this way to undo all the effects of a merciful action

by the ungracious way in which it is done. Mercy according to our text is exercised

tenderly. You help your friend, or come to the assistance of those who are in poverty

and need, in such a way as to bind up their wounds, to cheer them, and to give them

courage to begin the battle of life anew, though life heretofore has been all a failure.

For the mercy which man shows to man interprets for man the tender mercies of

God. After that interview with you, during which you entered into the sorrow of

your friend sympathetically and tenderly, gave him of your wisdom, of your

experience, of your means, he goes forth to the work of life again with a new

outlook, with a firmer resolution to do well. He says to himself, “It is a good, kind

world after all, and there are good, kind people in it. I must show myself worthy to

live in so good a world, and worthy of the help I have received.” So tender mercies

help, but they help in such a way as to bind up the broken-hearted, and to open a

door of hope for those who have failed, and to give them courage to lift them above

the feeling of despair.

Stern and unflinching in his denunciation of drunkenness, Ernest Wilberforce was

tenderness itself in his dealings with the individual sinner. Few cases are more

distressing or more difficult to deal with than those where a clergyman has fallen

into habits of intemperance. The Bishop’s correspondence in one of them is lying

before me as I write, marked throughout by the strong sense of justness and fairness

which ever characterized him, yet compassionate and considerate, so far as

consideration was possible. The facts were clear, and the unfortunate gentleman was

induced to vacate his office without the scandal of judicial proceedings. But there

were features which induced the Bishop to hope that, under happier auspices, he

might yet do good and useful work in his chosen calling. Without any effort at

minimizing the sad story, he succeeded in inducing an experienced parish priest in

another diocese to give the transgressor a fresh start. The good Samaritan had no

cause to regret his charity, and in writing to the Bishop he congratulated the clergy

of orthumberland in having one set over them to whom they could appeal with

perfect confidence in the hour of need. “If ever,” he wrote, “I should be in a fix, I

shall wish for such a friend as your Lordship.”1 [ ote: J. B. Atlay, Bishop Ernest

Wilberforce, 162.]

v

Satisfaction

“Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the

eagle.”

1. The word “crowneth” suggests something external, something coming to us from

without, and after the crowning there may conceivably be some wants unsupplied,

some needs of man which have not been met. But the note of Christianity is that no

human needs are left unsatisfied. “My God shall supply all your need.” Satisfied

with good, so that every need shall be met—this is the promise.

The thirst of the mind for truth, the thirst of the will and conscience for guidance,

and the thirst of the heart for life are satisfied through Him who is the Way, and the

Truth, and the Life. If there were needs which He could not or would not satisfy, He

would have told us of them.2 [ ote: James Iverach, The Other Side of Greatness,

133.]

2. The Psalmist felt, as we often feel, that he had emerged from the very gulf of

destruction; that he had been, as it were against his will, rescued from moral

suicide; that all his life had been redeemed by God. Therefore he burst out into joy

and thanksgiving! He who had been through grave sorrows; who had known sin,

disease, even destruction; who might have cursed life and shrieked at what men call

Fate; cries out in unfeigned and mistakable rapture—it is a very outburst of song—

“Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the

Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.” And in realizing this joyful victory

of the moral and spiritual powers; in the resurrection of his spiritual being into

strength; in the leaving behind him in its own grave of all that was dead in his past;

in the great cry of his heart as he looked back—“I am not there, I am risen”—his

youth was renewed like the eagle’s! It was a great triumph; for his best life came

back in a higher and a stronger way, with now but little chance of failure. He could

again, like the eagle, look upon the sun, and love the upper ranges of the sky; again

soar, but with steadier beat of wing than in youth; again possess the freedom he

loved before disease and destruction had enslaved his plumes; again breathe the

breath of immortal love; again in conscious union with God hear the great spheres

“in measured motion draw after the heavenly tune.” And certainty was now with

this victory, for he had known and found the Father of his spirit. The waters of his

new life arose out of the fountain Life of God Himself, and he knew whence they

came. There was now a source as well as a goal for his ideals, hopes, efforts, for the

beauty he loved, and for universal joy. It was the Almighty Love and Life of

loveliness Himself who was now in him—a personal friend, redeemer, strengthener,

exalter; who crowned him with lovingkindness and tender mercies. This is the true

resurrection; this is the triumph of life.

The brilliant Princess Anastasia Malsoff (the ancy Malsoff of the Russian Court)

was one of those led to Christ by the Maréchale, with whom she kept up a close

friendship during the rest of her life. One of the Princess’s letters is peculiarly

interesting: “I will see the Emperor in these days,” she writes, “and I will seek

strength to speak to him. You see, my darling, speaking is not enough, one must in

such a case pour out one’s soul and feel that a superior force guides one and speaks

for one.” It turned out as she hoped. One night she was at the Palace in St.

Petersburg. After dinner the Czar came and seated himself beside her. Soon they

were deep in intimate conversation. She began telling him what her new-found

friend in Paris had done for her. She talked wisely as he listened attentively. At

length he said: “But, ancy, you have always been good, always right.” “ o,” she

answered; “till now I have never known the Christ. She has made Him real to me,

brought Him near to me, and He has become what He never was before—my

personal Friend.”1 [ ote: J. Strahan, The Maréchale (1913), 184.]

“I shall be sorry,” says Eckhart, the German mystic, “if I am not younger to-

morrow than I am to-day—that is, a step nearer to the source whence I came.” And

Swedenborg tells us that when heaven was opened to him he found that the oldest

angels seemed to be the youngest.

’Tis said there is a fount in Flower Land,—

De Leon found it,—where Old Age away

Throws weary mind and heart, and fresh as day

Springs from the dark and joins Aurora’s band:

This tale, transformed by some skilled trouvère’s wand

From the old myth in a Greek poet’s lay,

Rests on no truth. Change bodies as Time may,

Souls do not change, though heavy be his hand.

Who of us needs this fount? What soul is old?

Age is a mask,—in heart we grow more young,

For in our winters we talk most of spring;

And as we near, slow-tottering, God’s safe fold,

Youth’s loved ones gather nearer:—though among

The seeming dead, youth’s songs more clear they sing.2 [ ote: Maurice Francis

Egan.]

SIMEO , "DUTY OF PRAISI G GOD FOR HIS MERCIES

Psalms 103:1-5. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy

name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: who forgiveth all

thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases: who redeemeth thy life from

destruction; who crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies: who

satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eayle’s.

IT is a favourite opinion of some divines, that we are bound to love God for his own

perfections, without having any respect to the benefits which we receive from him.

But this appears to us to be an unscriptural refinement. That God deserves all

possible love from his creatures on account of his own perfections, can admit of no

doubt: and we can easily conceive, that persons may be so occupied with an

admiration of his perfections, as not to have in their minds any distinct reference to

the benefits they have received from him: but that any creature can place himself in

the situation of a being who has no obligations to God for past mercies, and no

expectation of future blessings from him, we very much doubt: nor are we aware

that God any where requires us so to divest ourselves of all the feelings of humanity,

for the sake of engaging more entirely in the contemplation of his perfections. or

indeed can we consent to the idea, that gratitude is so low a virtue [ ote:

Deuteronomy 28:47.]. On the contrary, it seems to be the principle that animates all

the hosts of the redeemed in heaven; who are incessantly occupied in singing praises

to Him who loved them, and washed them from their sins in his own blood. By this

also all the most eminent saints on earth have been distinguished. In proof of this,

we need go no further than to the psalm before us, wherein the man after God’s own

heart adores and magnifies his Benefactor, for some particular mercies recently

vouchsafed unto him. To instil this principle into your minds, and to lead you to a

measure of that devotion with which the sweet singer of Israel was inspired, we

shall,

I. State the grounds we have to praise God—

To enumerate all the benefits we have received from God, would be impossible. We

must content ourselves with adverting to them in the peculiar view in which they are

set before us in the text. We would call you then to consider,

1. The freeness and undeservedness of them—

[It is this which gives a zest to every blessing we enjoy: in this view, the very food we

eat, and the air we breathe, demand our most grateful acknowledgments. The

Psalmist begins with speaking himself as a guilty and corrupt creature, who unless

pardoned and renewed by the grace of God, must have been an everlasting

monument of his righteous displeasure. The same thought also should be uppermost

in our minds. We should contrast our state with that of the fallen angels, who never

had a Saviour vouchsafed unto them; and with that of the unbelieving world, who,

in consequence of rejecting the Saviour, have perished in their sins. What claim had

we, any more than the fallen angels? and, if we had been dealt with according to our

deserts, where would have been the difference between us and those who are gone

beyond the reach, of mercy Let us but contemplate this, and the smallest mercy we

enjoy will appear exceeding great; yea, any thing short of hell will be esteemed a

mercy [ ote: See how this consideration enhanced the favours which God

vouchsafed to David, Psalms 8:1 and St. Paul, Ephesians 3:8.].]

2. The richness and variety—

[The psalm primarily relates to David’s recovery from some heavy disorder: and the

terms wherein he expresses his gratitude are precisely such as are used by other

persons on similar occasions [ ote: Isaiah 38:17.]. On this account, in our review of

God’s mercies, it will be proper first to notice the blessings of his providence. How

often have we been visited with some bodily disorder, which, for aught we know, has

been sent as a preventive or punishment of sin! (We certainly have reason to think,

that at this time, as well as in former ages, God punishes the sins of his people in this

world, that they may not be condemned in the world to come [ ote: Compare 1

Corinthians 11:30; 1 Corinthians 11:32. with James 5:15].) And how often have we

been raised from a state of weakness and danger, to renewed life and vigour! At all

events, we have been beset with dangers, and yet not permitted to fall a sacrifice to

them; and been encompassed with wants, which have been liberally supplied. Can

we view all these mercies with indifference? do they not demand from us a tribute of

praise?

But the expressions in the text lead us to contemplate also the blessings of God’s

grace. And can we adopt the words in this view? O how great and wonderful are

they, if we appreciate them aright! To be forgiven one sin is a mercy of

inconceivable magnitude; but to be forgiven all, all that we have ever committed,

this is a mercy which neither the tongues of men nor of angels can ever adequately

declare. Think too of the corruptions which with most inveterate malignity infect

our souls: to have these healed! to have them all healed: We no longer wonder at the

ardour of the Psalmist’s devotion; we wonder only at our own stupidity.

Contemplate moreover the efforts which Satan, that roaring lion, is ever making to

destroy us; consider his wiles, his deceits, his fiery darts: what a stupendous mercy

is it that we have not been given up as a prey unto his teeth!. Look around at the

mercies of all kinds with which we are encircled: and mark the provision of

ordinances, and promises, yea, of the body and blood of God’s only dear Son, with

which our souls are nourished and renewed; so that our drooping spirits, like the

eagle when renewed in its plumage, are enabled to soar to the highest heavens with

confidence and joy. Can we find in these things no grounds of praise? Must not our

hearts be harder than adamant itself, if they do not melt at the contemplation of

such mercies as these?]

3. The constancy and continuance—

[See how triumphantly the Psalmist dwells on this [ ote: Forgiveth, healeth,

redeemeth, crowneth, satisfieth.]; and let us compare our experience with his. Has

not God made us also the objects of his providential care, by day and by night, from

the earliest period of our existence to this present moment? Has he not also renewed

to us every day and hour the blessings of his grace, “watering us as his garden,” and

“encompassing us with his favour as with a shield?” Surely we may say that

“goodness and mercy have followed us all our days;” there has not been one single

moment when our Divine keeper has ever slumbered or slept; he has kept us, “even

as the apple of his eye;” “lest any should hurt us, he has kept us day and night.”

Say now, what are the feelings which such mercies should generate in our souls; and

what are the returns which we ought to make to our heavenly Benefactor?]

ot doubting but that all of you must acknowledge your obligation to praise God,

we will, as God shall enable us,

II. Stir you up to the performance of this duty—

It is the office of your minister to stir up your pure minds “by way of

remembrance,” yea, “to put you in remembrance of these things, though ye know

them, and be established in the present truth.” We therefore call upon you to praise

God,

1. Individually—

[This is not the duty of ministers only, but of all, whatever be their age, situation, or

condition in life: every one is unspeakably indebted to God; and therefore every one

should say for himself, “Bless the Lord, O my soul!”

If any object, that they have never yet been made partakers of the blessings of

Divine grace, we answer, That you have not on this account the less reason to bless

God; for the very “long-suffering of God should be accounted by you as salvation;”

and if you compare your state (as yet on mercy’s ground) with that of those who

have been cut off in their sins, you will see that all the thanks which you can

possibly render unto God, are infinitely less than what he deserves at your hands.

Moreover, if you have received no signal deliverances from sickness or danger, you

have the more reason to adore your God, who has preserved you so long in the

uninterrupted enjoyment of health and peace.]

2. Fervently—

[Praise is not a service of the lip and knee, but of the warmest affections of the soul.

The “soul, and all that is within you,” should be exercised in this blessed work. As

you are to “love God with all your heart, and mind, and soul, and strength,” so also

you are to bless him with all your faculties and powers. You must not however

mistake vociferation, and talkativeness, and bodily fervour, for devotion; your

expressions of gratitude, even when most elevated and joyous, must resemble those

which are used among the heavenly hosts; who “veil their faces and their feet,” or

“cast their crowns at the feet” of their adorable Redeemer. ot to bless him in this

manner, is constructively and really to “forget the benefits” you have received from

him: yea, an utter forgetfulness of them were less criminal than such an ungrateful

remembrance.]

3. Incessantly—

[“Bless, bless, bless the Lord!” says the Psalmist to his soul; shewing thereby that he

would have that to be the continual exercise of his mind. Thus should we also labour

to have our minds in a constant readiness for this glorious work. We need not

indeed be always engaged in the act of praise; for we have many other acts in which

a great part of our time must be occupied; but the frame of our minds should always

be disposed for this duty, so as to be ready for it whensoever occasion may call for

the performance of it. That we shall feel backwardness to it at times, must be

expected: the Psalmist intimates as much, by so repeatedly urging his reluctant soul

to this duty. But let us follow his example, and urge our souls, however reluctant, to

this blessed work. Let us say with him, “Bless the Lord, O my soul; bless him, bless

his holy name!” or like Deborah, “Awake, awake, Deborah; awake, awake; utter a

song!”

Thus to bless God is our privilege on earth: thus to bless him is an antepast of

heaven.]

2 Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits—

BAR ES, "Bless the Lord, O my soul - The repetition here denotes the intensity or earnestness of the wish or desire of the psalmist. It is an emphatic calling upon his soul, that is, himself, never to forget the many favors which God was continually conferring upon him.

And forget not all his benefits - Any of his favors. This refers not to those favors in the aggregate, but it is a call to remember them in particular. The word rendered

“benefits” - gemûl גמול - means properly an act, work, doing, whether good or evil, Psa_137:8; and then, “desert,” or what a man deserves “for” his act; “recompence.” It is rendered “deserving” in Jdg_9:16; benefit, as here, in 2Ch_32:25; “desert,” Psa_28:4; “reward,” Psa_94:2; Isa_3:11; Oba_1:15; “recompence,” Pro_12:14; Isa_35:4; Isa_59:18; Isa_66:6; Jer_51:6; Lam_3:64; Joe_3:4, Joe_3:7. The proper reference here is to the divine “dealings,” - to what God had done - as a reason for blessing his name. His “dealings” with the psalmist had been such as to call for praise and gratitude. What those “dealings” particularly were he specifies in the following verses. The call here on his soul is not to forget these divine dealings, as laying the foundation for praise. We shall find, when we reach the end of life, that all which God has done, however dark and mysterious it may have appeared at the time, was so connected with our good as to make it a proper subject of praise and thanksgiving.

CLARKE, "Forget not all his benefits - Call them into recollection; particularize the chief of them; and here record them for an everlasting memorial.

GILL, "Bless the Lord, O my soul,.... Which is repeated to show the importance of the service, and the vehement desire of the psalmist, that his soul should be engaged in it:

and forget not all his benefits; not any of them; the least of them are not to be forgotten, being such as men are altogether unworthy of; they flow not from the merit of men, but from the mercy of God; and they are many, even innumerable; they are new every morning, and continue all the day; and how great must the sum of them be, and not one should be forgotten; and yet even good men are very apt to forget them; as the Israelites of old, who sung the praises of the Lord, and soon forgot his works: the Lord, knowing the weakness of his people's memories, has not only, under the Gospel dispensation, appointed an ordinance, to be continued to the end of the world, to commemorate a principal blessing and benefit of his, redemption by his Son; but has also promised his Spirit, to bring all things to their remembrance; and this they should be concerned for, that they do remember what God has done for them, in order both to show gratitude and thankfulness to him, and for the encouragement of their faith and hope in him.

JAMISO , "forget not all— not any, none of His benefits.

CALVI , "2.And forget not any of his benefits Here, he instructs us that God is not

deficient on his part in furnishing us with abundant matter for praising him. It is

our own ingratitude which hinders us from engaging in this exercise. In the first

place, he teaches us that the reason why God deals with such liberality towards us is,

that we may be led to celebrate his praise; but at the same time he condemns our

inconstancy, which hurries us away to any other object rather than to God. How is

it that we are so listless and drowsy in the performance of this the chief exercise of

true religion, if it is not because our shameful and wicked forgetfulness buries in our

hearts the innumerable benefits of God, which are openly manifest to heaven and

earth? Did we only retain the remembrance of them, the prophet assures us that we

would be sufficiently inclined to perform our duty, since the sole prohibition which

he lays upon us is, not to forget them.

SPURGEO , "Ver. 2. Bless the LORD, O my soul. He is in real earnest, and again

calls upon himself to arise. Had he been very sleepy before? Or was he now doubly

sensible of the importance, the imperative necessity of adoration? Certainly, he uses

no vain repetitions, for the Holy Spirit guides his pen; and thus he shews us that we

have need, again and again, to bestir ourselves when we are about to worship God,

for it would be shameful to offer him anything less than the utmost our souls can

render. These first verses are a tuning of the harp, a screwing up of the loosened

strings that not a note may fail in the sacred harmony.

And forget not all his benefits. ot so much as one of the divine dealings should be

forgotten, they are all really beneficial to us, all worthy of himself, and all subjects

for praise. Memory is very treacherous about the best things; by a strange

perversity, engendered by the fall, it treasures up the refuse of the past and permits

priceless treasures to lie neglected, it is tenacious of grievances and holds benefits all

too loosely. It needs spurring to its duty, though that duty ought to be its delight.

Observe that he calls all that is within him to remember all the Lord's benefits. For

our task our energies should be suitably called out. God's all cannot be praised with

less than our all.

Reader, have we not cause enough at this time to bless him who blesses us? Come,

let us read our diaries and see if there be not choice favours recorded there for

which we have rendered no grateful return. Remember how the Persian king, when

he conld not sleep, read the chronicles of the empire, and discovered that one who

had saved his life had never been rewarded. How quickly did he do him honour!

The Lord has saved us with a great salvation, shall we render no recompense? The

name of ingrate is one of the most shameful that a man can wear; surely we cannot

be content to run the risk of such a brand. Let us awake then, and with intense

enthusiasm bless Jehovah.

EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.

Ver. 2. Bless the Lord, O my soul. David found some dulness and drowsiness; hence

he so often puts the thorn to his breast; hence he so impetuously instigateth his soul,

as one here phraseth it. John Trapp.

Ver. 2. Forget not. This touches the secret spring of so much ingratitude—

forgetfulness, the want of re-collection, or gathering together again of all the varied

threads of mercy. Compare De 6:12; De 8:11, 14. "Si oblivisceris, tacebis" (If thou

forgettest, thou wilt be silent). J. J. S. Perowne.

Ver. 2. Forget not all his benefits. That is, forget not any of his benefits, as the form

of speech in the original doth import. David Dickson.

Ver. 2. Benefits. The word rendered "benefits" —lwmg gemul, means properly an

act, work, doing, whether good or evil, Psalms 137:8; and then, desert, or what a

man deserves for his act; recompense. It is rendered deserving in Jude 9:16; benefit,

as here, in 2 Chronicles 32:25; desert, Psalms 28:4; reward, Psalms 94:2, Isaiah 3:11,

Obadiah 1:15; recompense, Proverbs 12:14 Isa 35:4 59:18 66:6 Jeremiah 51:6 La

3:64, Joel 3:4; Joel 3:7. The proper reference here is to the Divine dealings, to what

God had done, as a reason for blessing his name. His dealings with the Psalmist had

been such as to call for praise and gratitude. What those dealings particularly were

he specifies in the following verses. Albert Barnes.

WHEDO , "2. Forget not all his benefits—A commandment of the law,

Deuteronomy 6:12; Deuteronomy 8:11-14; (compare, also, Deuteronomy 32:15,) and

a first duty of the creature. “He that has been blessed, and refuses to bless, has sunk

from the state of a man to that of a beast.”— Hengstenberg.

All—That is, any; the same word as in Psalms 147:20

3 who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,

BAR ES, "Who forgiveth all thine iniquities - Pardoning all thy sins. That is, It is a characteristic of God to pardon sin, and I have evidence that he has done it in my own case, and this is a ground for praise. It is observable that this is the first thing in view of the psalmist - the first of the “benefits” which he had received from God, or the first thing in importance among his acts or his dealings, which called for praise. Properly considered, this is the first thing which calls for praise. That God is a merciful God - that he has declared his willingness to pardon sin - that he has devised and revealed a way by which this can be done, and that he has actually done it in our own case, is the most important matter for which we should praise him. When we understand all the things which most affect our welfare, and which enter most deeply into our happiness here and hereafter, we shall find that this is a blessing compared with which all other favors are comparative trifles.

Who healeth all thy diseases - Perhaps, in the case of the psalmist, referring to some particular instance in which he had been recovered from dangerous sickness. The

word rendered “diseases” - tachălû'iym תחלואים - occurs only in the plural form. It is

translated “sicknesses,” in Deu_29:22; “diseases,” as here, in 2Ch_21:19; “them that are sick,” in Jer_14:18; and “grievous (deaths)” in Jer_16:4. It does not elsewhere occur. It is applicable to all forms of sickness; or in this place it may refer to some particular diseases with which David had been afflicted. We have several allusions in the Psalms to times when the authors of the psalms were afflicted with sickness. So in the Psalms of David. Compare Psa_6:2; Psa_38:7; Psa_41:8. The thought here is, that it is a proper ground of praise to God that he has the power of healing disease. All instances of restoration to health are illustrations of this, for whatever may be the skill of physicians, or the wise adaptation of means, healing virtue comes from God alone.

CLARKE, "Who forgiveth - The benefits are the following,

1. Forgiveness of sin.

2. Restoration of health: “Who healeth all thy diseases.”

GILL, "Who forgiveth all thine iniquities,.... The psalmist explains here what he means by benefits, and gives a particular enumeration of them; and begins with the blessing of pardon, which is a special and peculiar benefit; it is according to the riches of divine grace, and the multitude of tender mercies; without which all outward blessings signify nothing; and, without a sense of this, a man is not in a suitable and proper frame to bless the Lord; and this being the first benefit a soul sensible of sin, its guilt and is concerned for, and seeks after; so enjoying it, it is the first he is thankful for: this is rightly ascribed to God; for none can forgive sins but he; and what he forgives are not mere infirmities, peccadillos, the lesser sins of life; but "iniquities", grosser sins, unrighteousnesses, impieties, the most enormous crimes, sins of a crimson and scarlet die; yea, "all" of them, though they are many, more than the hairs of a man's head; he abundantly pardons, multiplies pardons, as sins are multiplied, and leaves none unforgiven; original sin, actual sins, sins of heart, lip, and life, of omission and commission, all are forgiven for Christ's sake: and the special mercy is when a man has an application of this to himself, and can say to his soul, as David to his, God has forgiven "thine" iniquities; for though it may be observed with pleasure, and it is an encouragement to hope in the Lord, that he is a forgiving God, and has forgiven others, yet what would this avail a man, if his sins should not be forgiven? the sweetness of the blessing lies in its being brought home to a man's own soul: and it may be further observed, that this is a continued act; it is not said who has forgiven, and will forgive, though both are true; but "forgiveth", continues to forgive; for as there is a continual virtue in the sacrifice of the Lamb of God to take away the sin of the world, and in his blood to cleanse from all sin, so there is a continual flow of pardoning grace in the heart of God, which is afresh applied to the consciences of his people by his Spirit; and this is a blessing to be thankful for:

who healeth all thy diseases; not bodily ones, though the Lord is the physician of the bodies as well as of the souls of men, and sometimes heals the diseases of soul and body at once, as in the case of the paralytic man in the Gospel; but spiritual diseases, or soul maladies, are here meant; the same with "iniquities" in the preceding clause: sin is a natural, hereditary, epidemical, nauseous, and mortal disease; and there are many of them, a complication of them, in men, which God only can cure; and he heals them by his word, by means of his Gospel, preaching peace, pardon, and righteousness by Christ;

by the blood, wounds, and stripes of his Son; by the application of pardoning grace and mercy; for healing diseases, and forgiving iniquities, are one and the same thing; see Isa_33:24, and this the Lord does freely, fully, and infallibly, and for which thanks are due unto him; and it would be very ungrateful, and justly resented, should they not be

HE RY103-105, " How he furnishes himself with abundant matter for praise, and that which is very affecting: “Come, my soul, consider what God has done for thee.” 1. “He has pardoned thy sins (Psa_103:3); he has forgiven, and does forgive, all thy iniquities.” This is mentioned first because by the pardon of sin that is taken away which kept good things from us, and we are restored to the favour of God, which bestows good things on us. Think what the provocation was; it was iniquity, and yet pardoned; how many the provocations were, and yet all pardoned. He has forgiven all our trespasses. It is a continued act; he is still forgiving, as we are still sinning and repenting. 2. “He has cured thy sickness.” The corruption of nature is the sickness of the soul; it is its disorder, and threatens its death. This is cured in sanctification; when sin is mortified, the disease is healed; though complicated, it is all healed. Our crimes were capital, but God saves our lives by pardoning them; our diseases were mortal, but God saves our lives by healing them. These two go together; for, as for God, his work is perfect and not done by halves; if God take away the guilt of sin by pardoning mercy, he will break the power of it by renewing grace. Where Christ is made righteousness to any soul he is made sanctification, 1Co_1:30. 3. “He has rescued thee from danger.” A man may be in peril of life, not only by his crimes, or his diseases, but by the power of his enemies; and therefore here also we experience the divine goodness: Who redeemed thy life from destruction (Psa_103:4), from the destroyer, from hell (so the Chaldee), from the second death. The redemption of the soul is precious; we cannot compass it, and therefore are the more indebted to divine grace that has wrought it out, to him who has obtained eternal redemption for us. See Job_33:24, Job_33:28. 4. “He has not only saved thee from death and ruin, but has made thee truly and completely happy, with honour, pleasure, and long life.” (1.) “He has given thee true honour and great honour, no less than a crown: He crowns thee with his lovingkindness and tender mercies;” and what greater dignity is a poor soul capable of than to be advanced into the love and favour of God? This honour have all his saints. What is the crown of glory but God's favour? (2.) “He has given thee true pleasure: He satisfies thy mouth with good things” (Psa_103:5); it is only the favour and grace of God that can give satisfaction to a soul, can suit its capacities, supply its needs, and answer to its desires. Nothing but divine wisdom can undertake to fill its treasures (Pro_8:21); other things will surfeit, but not satiate, Ecc_6:7; Isa_55:2. (3.) “He has given thee a prospect and pledge of long life: Thy youth is renewed like the eagle's.” The eagle is long-lived, and, as naturalists say, when she is nearly 100 years old, casts all her feathers (as indeed she changes them in a great measure every year at moulting time), and fresh ones come, so that she becomes young again. When God, by the graces and comforts of his Spirit, recovers his people from their decays, and fills them with new life and joy, which is to them an earnest of eternal life and joy, then they may be said to return to the days of their youth, Job_33:25.

JAMISO , "diseases— as penal inflictions (Deu_29:22; 2Ch_21:19).

SBC, "I. He "forgiveth all thine iniquities." Thine iniquities are in-equities. There is nothing just or right in thee. He forgiveth thee thine evil nature, and He forgiveth all its evil fruit. And His forgiveness, like His power, fulfils itself in works.

II. He "healeth all thy diseases." Corruption and disease have a spiritual origin. The Divine art of healing therefore lies in the forgiveness of sin. Remove the in-equities of the soul, and universal healing comes in. Christ healeth all thy diseases by forgiving all thine iniquities.

III. He "redeemeth thy life from destruction." As righteousness, peace, and eternal life are an indissoluble unity, so are iniquity, misery, and destruction. Therefore He who forgiveth our iniquities redeems our life from destruction. The removal of all in-equity from our spiritual nature is not only the removal of all disease, but of the ground of disease; and the removal of all disease and of the ground of disease is redemption from death.

IV. "He crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies." The Lord our God is more than a Redeemer. He does not pardon His criminals and then dismiss them. He pardons them and receives them into His house; He makes them all children: and all His children are His heirs, and all His heirs are princes, and all His princes are crowned.

V. "He satisfieth thy mouth with good things." All the capacities of the immortal nature shall be filled, and the fulness shall be a fulness of good. "For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside Thee, what He hath prepared for him that waiteth for Him."

VI. And then the crown of crowns. His youth is renewed like the eagle’s, not once renewed, to sink again into the frailty and dulness of age, but ever and evermore renewed, by the ceaseless communication of life from the source of life. Eternal life will be nothing less than joyous progression towards the perfection of youth.

J. Pulsford, Quiet Hours, p. 231.

CALVI , "3.Who forgiveth all thy iniquities He now enumerates the different kinds

of the divine benefits, in considering which he has told us that we are too forgetful

and slothful. It is not without cause that he begins with God’s pardoning mercy, for

reconciliation with him is the fountain from which all other blessings flow. God’s

goodness extends even to the ungodly; but they are, notwithstanding, so far from

having the enjoyment of it, that they do not even taste it. The first then of all the

blessings of which we have the true and substantial enjoyment, is that which consists

in God’s freely pardoning and blotting out our sins, and receiving us into his favor.

Yea, rather the forgiveness of sins, since it is accompanied with our restoration to

the favor of God, also sanctifies whatever good things he bestows upon us, that they

may contribute to our welfare. The second clause is; either a repetition of the same

sentiment, or else it opens up a wider view of it; for the consequence of free

forgiveness is, that God governs us by his Spirit, mortifies the lusts of our flesh,

cleanses us from our corruptions, and restores us to the healthy condition of a godly

and an upright life. These who understand the words, who healeth all thy diseases,

as referring to the diseases of the body, and as implying that God, when he has

forgiven our sins, also delivers us from bodily maladies, seem to put upon them a

meaning too restricted. I have no doubt that the medicine spoken of has a respect to

the blotting out of guilt; and, secondly, to the curing us of the corruptions inherent

in our nature, which is effected by the Spirit of regeneration; and if any one will add

as a third particular included, that God being once pacified towards us, also remits

the punishment which we deserve, I will not object. Let us learn from this passage

that, until the heavenly Physician succor us, we nourish within us, not only many

diseases, but even many deaths.

SPURGEO , "Ver. 3. Who forgiveth all thine iniquities. Here David begins his list

of blessings received, which he rehearses as themes and arguments for praise. He

selects a few of the choicest pearls from the casket of divine love, threads them on

the string of memory, and hangs them about the neck of gratitude. Pardoned sin is,

in our experience, one of the choicest boons of grace, one of the earliest gifts of

mercy, — in fact, the needful preparation for enjoying all that follows it. Till

iniquity is forgiven, healing, redemption, and satisfaction are unknown blessings.

Forgiveness is first in the order of our spiritual experience, and in some respects

first in value. The pardon granted is a present one—forgiveth;it is continual, for he

still forgiveth;it is divine, for God gives it; it is far reaching, for it removes all our

sins; it takes in omissions as well as commissions, for both these are in-equities;and

it is most effectual, for it is as real as the healing, and the rest of the mercies with

which it is placed.

Who healeth all thy diseases. When the cause is gone, namely, iniquity, the effect

ceases. Sicknesses of body and soul came into the world by sin, and as sin is

eradicated, diseases bodily, mental, and spiritual will vanish, till "the inhabitant

shall no more say, I am sick." Many-sided is the character of our heavenly Father,

for, having forgiven as a judge, he then cures as a physician. He is all things to us, as

our needs call for him, and our infirmities do but reveal him in new characters.

"In him is only good,

In me is only ill,

My ill but draws his goodness forth,

And me he loveth still."

God gives efficacy to medicine for the body, and his grace sanctifies the soul.

Spiritually we are daily under his care, and he visits us, as the surgeon does his

patient; healing still (for that is the exact word) each malady as it arises. o disease

of our soul baffles his skill, he goes on healing all, and he will do so till the last trace

of taint has gone from our nature. The two alls of this verse are further reasons for

all that is within us praising the Lord.

The two blessings of this verse the Psalmist was personally enjoying, he sang not of

others but of himself, or rather of his Lord, who was daily forgiving and healing

him. He must have known that it was so, or he could not have sung of it. He had no

doubt about it, he felt in his soul that it was so, and, therefore, he bade his pardoned

and restored soul bless the Lord with all its might.

EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.

Ver. 3. Who forgiveth all thine iniquities. Thine iniquities are more than can be

numbered; and they are an intolerable burden, so that thy soul under them "can in

no wise lift up herself." He forgiveth them all. He relieveth thee of all. He taketh the

dreadful burden from thy back, the galling yoke from thy neck, and makes thee

free... Thine iniquities are in-equities. There is nothing just or right in thee. Thy

very nature is an inequity bringing forth nothing but in-equities. Inequities towards

thy God, in-equities towards thy neighbour, and in-equities towards thyself, make

up the whole of thy life. Thou art a bad tree, and a bad tree cannot bring forth good

fruit. John Pulsford, in. "Quiet Hours, "1857.

Ver. 3. All thine iniqities. In this lovely and well-known Psalm, we have great fulness

of expression, in reference to the vital subject of redemption.

Who forgiveth all thine iniquities. It is not "some" or "many of thine iniquities."

This would never do. If so much as the very smallest iniquity, in thought, word, or

act, were left unforgiven, we should be just as badly off, just as far from God, just as

unfit for heaven, just as exposed to hell, as though the whole weight of our sins were

yet upon us. Let the reader ponder this deeply. It does not say, "Who forgiveth thine

iniquities previous to conversion." There is no such notion as this in Scripture.

When God forgives, he forgives like himself. The source, the channel, the power,

and the standard of forgiveness are all divine. When God cancels a man's sins, he

does so according to the measure in which Christ bore those sins. ow, Christ not

only bore some or many of the believer's sins, he bore them "all, "and, therefore,

God forgives "all." God's forgiveness stretches to the length of Christ's atonement;

and Christ's atonement stretches to the length of every one of the believer's sins,

past, present, and future. "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all

sin." 1 John 1:9. "Things ew and Old, "1858.

Ver. 3. Who healeth all thy diseases. In one of the prisons of a certain country, was a

man who had committed high treason: for this crime he was in due time tried, and,

being found guilty, was condemned to die. But more than this; he was afflicted with

an inward disease, which generally proves mortal. ow we may truly say, that this

man is doubly dead; that his life is forfeited twice over: the laws of his country have

pronounced him guilty of death, and therefore his life is forfeited once to the laws of

his country, and, if he had not died in this way, he must die of his disease; he is,

therefore, "twice dead." ow suppose that the sovereign of that country had made

up his mind to wish to save that prisoner's life, could he save it? He could indeed

take off the penalty of the law; he could give him a free pardon, and so restore the

life, as sure as it is forfeited by the just sentence of the law; but, unless he could also

send a physician, who could cure the man of his disease, he would die by that, and

his pardon would only lengthen out for a few weeks or months a miserable

existence. And if this disease were not only a mortal disease, but an infectious one,

likely to spread itself by the breath of the patient, and a contagious one, likely to

spread by the touch of the patient's body or clothes, then it would be dangerous to

others to come near that man; and unless he were cured, and thoroughly and

entirely cured, the man, though pardoned, would still be a fit inmate only for the

pest-house, and could not be received into the houses of the healthy. You have seen

such a case as this, brethren; you are at this very moment, perhaps, sitting close by a

person in this case yes, and perhaps you are in this very case yourself! Perhaps, do I

say? I should say, you ARE in this very case, unless you are really and truly a

Christian, a believer in Christ Jesus. W. Weldon Champneys, 1842.

Ver. 3. All thy diseases. The body experienceth the melancholy consequences of

Adam's offence, and is subject to many infirmities; but the soul is subject to as

many. What is pride, but lunacy; what is anger, but a fever; what is avarice, but a

dropsy; what is lust, but a leprosy; what is sloth, but a dead palsy? Perhaps there

are spiritual maladies similar to all corporeal ones. George Horne.

Ver. 3. All thy diseases. O my soul, consider the multitude of infirmities, to which

thou art subject; thou hast many suggestions of the flesh; and thou art apt to yield

unto them, and strivest not against them by earnest prayer and holy meditations;

this is an infirmity. In thy prayers to God, thy thoughts are often wandering, and

thou thinkest of other matters, far unworthy of that great Majesty to whom thou

prayest: or if not so, yet thou art quickly weary, thy spirits are drowsy in it, and

thou hadst rather be doing of something else; this is an infirmity. And indeed thou

hast infirmities in all thy senses. In thy seeing, thou canst see a mote in thy brother's

eye, and canst not see a beam in thine own eye. In thy smelling, thou thinkest suavis

odor lucri ex re qualibet, that the savour of gain is sweet, from whence soever it rise.

In thy hearing, thou art gladder to hear the profane and idle discourses, than such

as be serious and holy; these are thy infirmities: and, O my soul, if I should cut thee

up into as many parts as an anatomist, and examine the infirmities of every part,

should I not have cause, just cause, to cry out with Saint Paul, O wretch that I am,

who shall deliver me from this body of sin? Who shall heal me of all these

infirmities? for whether we call them sins, and then God forgives them; or call them

infirmities, and then he heals them; they are to us, all one benefit; in God, all one

kindness; that as either of them is well worth remembering; so for both of them, we

have just cause to bless him and to praise his name. Sir Richard Baker.

Ver. 3. All thy diseases. Our understandings are so bad that they understand not

their own badness; our wills, which are the queens of our souls, become the vassals

of sin; our memory, like jet, good only to draw straws and treasure up trifles of no

moment; our consciences, through errors in our own understanding, sometimes

accusing us when we are innocent, sometimes acquitting us when we are guilty; our

affections all disaffected and out of order. Must not that needs be a monstrous face,

wherein the blueness which should be in the veins is in the lips, the redness which

should be in the cheeks, in the nose; the hair that should grow on the head, on the

face? and must not our souls needs seem ugly in the sight of God, who have grief

growing there where joy should, and joy where grief should? We love what we

should hate and hate where we should love; we fear where no fear is, and fear not

where we ought to fear; and all our affections either mistake their object, or exceed

their due measure. Thomas Fuller.

ELLICOTT, "(3) Forgiveth.—The first “benefit” to one who aims at the higher life

is the knowledge of the Divine readiness to forgive and renew, and this, as Augustine

remarks, implies a quick moral sense: “God’s benefits will not be before our eyes

unless our sins are also before our eyes.”

Diseases.—Here chiefly in a moral sense, as the parallelism “iniquity” shows, even if

the next verse, taken literally, implies an allusion to physical suffering as well.

WHEDO , "3. Who forgiveth—The chief blessing to a guilty soul. But this is not

only an acknowledgment of the uniform readiness of God to forgive, (as Exodus

34:6-7,) but a special confession of what God had done for him: and the freshness of

David’s joy, and confession of pardon, and his repeated recurrence to the same

thing, (Psalms 103:8; Psalms 103:10; Psalms 103:12,) evidence some recent

remarkable instance of this forgiving grace, which accords well with the date and

authorship assigned in the introduction. Compare Psalms 23, 116. The same applies

to the second clause of the verse. Compare Psalms 38

4 who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion,

BAR ES, "Who redeemeth thy life from destruction - That is, who saves it from death when exposed to danger, or when attacked by disease. The word “destruction” or “corruption” here is equivalent to the grave, since it is there that the body returns to corruption. Compare the notes at Psa_16:10.

Who crowneth thee - The idea here is not merely that God is the source of these blessings, but that there is something of beauty, of dignity, of honor, as in the conferring of a crown or garland on anyone. Compare the notes at Psa_65:11.

With loving-kindness and tender mercies -mercy and compassions. God showed mercy to him - evinced compassion - and these were so abundant that they might be said to be the crown or ornament of his life.

CLARKE, "Who redeemeth -

3. Preservation from destruction. הגואל haggoel, properly, redemption of life by the kinsman; possibly looking forward, in the spirit of prophecy, to him who became partaker of our flesh and blood, that he might have the right to redeem our souls from death by dying in our stead.

4. Changing and ennobling his state; weaving a crown for him out of loving-kindness and tender mercies.

GILL, "Who redeemeth thy life from destruction,.... Not from temporal destruction, to which the natural life is subject, through diseases, dangerous occurrences, and the malice of enemies; to be delivered from which is a blessing, and for which God is to be praised; but from eternal destruction, the destruction of the body and soul in hell; and so the Targum,

"who redeemest thy life from hell;''

to which destruction all men are liable through sin; their ways lead unto it, and grace only prevents it: the people of God are redeemed from sin, the cause of it; and from the curse of the law, in the execution of which it lies; and from Satan, the executor of it; and

all this by Christ, who is the Redeemer appointed and sent, and who being mighty, and so equal to the work, has obtained eternal redemption; through which the saints are secure from going down to the pit of destruction, or from wrath to come; and this is a blessing they can never be enough thankful for; see Luk_1:68,

who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; with all other blessings which flow from the lovingkindness and tender mercy of God, even all the blessings of the everlasting covenant, the sure mercies of David; all the spiritual blessings with which the saints are blessed in Christ, the grace given them in him, and the mercy kept with him for evermore; all things pertaining to life and godliness given in regeneration; the fruits of great love and abundant mercy, with all the other supplies of grace between that and eternal glory: "crowning" with these denotes an application and enjoyment of them, the great plenty and abundance of them, a being surrounded and loaded with them; as also the honour that goes along with them, which makes those that have them great and glorious, rich and honourable; as well as preservation and protection by them; these encompassing about as a crown the head, and as a shield the body; see Psa_5:12, where the same word is used as here.

JAMISO , "redeemeth— Cost is implied.

destruction— literally, “pit of corruption” (Psa_16:10).

crowneth— or, “adorneth” (Psa_65:11).

tender mercies— compassions (compare Psa_25:6; Psa_40:11).

CALVI , "4Who redeemeth thy life from the grave The Psalmist expresses more

plainly what our condition is previous to God’s curing our maladies — that we are

dead and adjudged to the grave. The consideration that the mercy of God delivers

us from death and destruction ought, therefore, to lead us to prize it the more

highly. If the resurrection of the soul from the grave is the first step of spiritual life,

what room for self-gloriation is left to man? The prophet next teaches us that the

incomparable grace of God shines forth in the very commencement of our salvation,

as well as in its whole progress; and the more to enhance the commendation of this

grace, he adds the word compassions in the plural number. He asserts that we are

surrounded with them; as if he had said, Before, behind, on all sides, above and

beneath, the grace of God presents itself to us in immeasurable abundance; so that

there is no place devoid of it. The same truth he afterwards amplifies in these words,

thy mouth is satisfied, by which metaphor he alludes to the free indulgence of the

palate, to which we surrender ourselves when we have a well-furnished table; for

those who have scanty fare dare scarcely eat till they are half satisfied. (165) ot

that he approves of gluttony in greedily devouring God’s benefits, as men give loose

reins to intemperance whenever they have great abundance; but he borrowed this

phraseology from the common custom of men, to teach us that whatever good things

our hearts can wish flow to us from God’s bounty, even to perfect satisfaction.

Those who take the Hebrew word עדי, adi, for ornament, (166) mar the passage by a

mere conceit of their own; and I am surprised how so groundless an imagination

should have come into their minds, unless it may be accounted for from the

circumstance that it is usual for men of a prying or inquisitive turn of mind, when

they would show their ingenuity, to bring forward mere puerilities. The Psalmist

next adds, that God was constantly infusing into him new vigor, so that his strength

continued unimpaired, even as the Prophet Isaiah, (Isaiah 65:20) in discoursing on

the restoration of the Church, says that a man of a hundred years old shall be like a

child. By this mode of expression, he intimates that God, along with a very abundant

supply of all good things, communicates to him also inward rigor, that he may enjoy

them; and thus his strength was as it were continually renewed. From the

comparison of the eagle, the Jews have taken occasion to invent, for the purpose of

explanation, a fabulous story. Although they know not even the first elements of any

science, yet so presumptuous are they, that whatever may be the matter treated of,

they never hesitate to attempt to explain it, and whenever they meet with any thing

which they do not understand, there is no figment so foolish that they do not bring

forward, as if it were an oracle of God. Thus, for expounding the present passage,

they give out that eagles, every tenth year, ascend to the elemental fire, that their

feathers may be burnt, (167) and that then they plunge themselves into the sea, and

immediately new feathers grow upon them. But we may easily gather the simple

meaning of the Prophet from the nature of the eagle, as described by philosophers,

and which is well-known from observation. That bird continues fresh and vigorous,

even to extreme old age, unenfeebled by years, and exempt from disease, until it

finally dies of hunger. That it is long-lived is certain; but at last, its beak or bill

grows so great that it cannot any longer take food, and, consequently, is forced to

suck blood, or to nourish itself by drinking. Hence the ancient proverb in reference

to old men who are addicted to drinking, The eagle’s old age; for necessity then

constrains eagles to drink much. But as drink alone is insufficient to maintain life,

they die rather through hunger, than fail by the natural decay of strength. (168)

ow we perceive, without the help of any invented story, the genuine meaning of the

Prophet to be, that as eagles always retain their rigor, and even in their old age are

still youthful, so the godly are sustained by a secret influence derived from God, by

which they continue in the possession of unimpaired strength. They are not always,

it is true, full of bodily vigor while in this world, but rather painfully drag on their

lives in continual weakness; still what is here said applies to them in a certain sense.

This unquestionably is common to all in general, that they have been brought out of

the grave, and have experienced God to be bountiful to them in innumerable ways.

Were each of them duly to reflect how much he is indebted to God, he would say

with good reason that his mouth is filled with good things; just as David, in Psalms

40:5, and Psalms 139:18, confesses that he was unable to reckon up the Divine

benefits, because “they are more in number than the sands of the sea.” Did not our

own perverseness blind our understandings, we would see that, even in famine, we

are furnished with food in such a manner, as that God shows us the manifold riches

of his goodness. With regard to the renovation of our strength, the meaning is, that

since, when our outward man decays, we are renewed to a better life, we have no

reason to be troubled at the giving way of our strength, especially when he sustains

us by his Spirit under the weakness and languishing of our mortal frames.

“They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength;

they shall mount up with wings as eagles.”

Isaiah 40:31

The eagle seems to have borrowed its Hebrew name נשר, nesher, from the shedding

of its plumage. Its root is the Chaldee verb נשר, nashar, decidit, defluxit ,he fell, he

shed “The name agrees with שור, to look at, ” says Bythner, “because the eagle can

look at the sun with a straight and steady gaze; also with ישר, to be straight, because

it flies in a straight course.”

SPURGEO , "Ver. 4. Who redeemeth thy life from destruction. By purchase and

by power the Lord redeems us from the spiritual death into which we had fallen,

and from the eternal death which would have been its consequence. Had not the

death penalty of sin been removed, our forgiveness and healing would have been

incomplete portions of salvation, fragments only, and but of small value, but the

removal of the guilt and power of sin is fitly attended by the reversal of the sentence

of death which had been passed upon us. Glory be to our great Substitute, who

delivered us from going down into the pit, by giving himself to be our ransom.

Redemption will ever constitute one of the sweetest notes in the believer's grateful

song.

Who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies. Our Lord does

nothing by halves, he will not stay his hand till he has gone to the uttermost with his

people. Cleansing, healing, redemption, are not enough, he must needs make them

kings and crown them, and the crown must be far more precious than if it were

made of corruptible things, such as silver and gold; it is studded with gems of grace

and lined with the velvet of lovingkindness; it is decked with the jewels of mercy,

but made soft for the head to wear by a lining of tenderness. Who is like unto thee,

O Lord! God himself crowns the princes of his family, for their best things come

from him directly and distinctly; they do not earn the crown, for it is of mercy not of

merit; they feel their own unworthiness of it, therefore he deals with tenderness;but

lie is resolved to bless them, and, therefore, he is ever crowning them, always

surrounding their brows with coronets of mercy and compassion. He always crowns

the edifice which he commences, and where he gives pardon he gives acceptance too.

"Since thou wast precious in my sight thou hast been honourable, and I have loved

thee." Our sin deprived us of all our honours, a bill of attainder was issued against

us as traitors; but he who removed the sentence of death by redeeming us from

destruction, restores to us more than all our former honours by crowning us anew.

Shall God crown us and shall not we crown him? Up, my soul, and cast thy crown at

his feet, and in lowliest reverence worship him, who has so greatly exalted thee, as to

lift thee from the dunghill and set thee among princes.

EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.

Ver. 4. Who redeemeth thy life from destruction. From his earliest days the Psalmist

was the child of Providence. Many were the hairbreadth escapes and the wonderful

deliverances, which he experienced. Dangers of various kinds presented themselves

as his years advanced. The jaw of the lion, and the paw of the bear, at various times

threatened to terminate his existence, and at others the ruthless hand of man. The

same God who delivered him from the sword of Goliath, rescued his life from the

javelin of Saul. The Almighty Friend who had covered his head in the day of battle,

delivered him, at one moment, from the lords of the Philistines, saved him at

another out of the hands of the men of Keilah; and again preserved to him his life

and throne from the unnatural rebellion of his own son. Well, therefore, might the

Psalmist stir up his soul, and all that was within him, to bless the Lord with most

fervent gratitude, who, by so many signal deliverances, had "redeemed his life from

destruction." John Stevenson.

Ver. 4. Who redeemeth. Preservation from destruction, lawgh haggoel, properly,

redemption of life by the kinsman;possibly looking forward, in the spirit of

prophecy, to him who became partaker of our flesh and blood, that he might have

the right to redeem our souls from death by dying in our stead. Adam Clarke.

Ver. 4. From the pit, including death, the grave, Hades. The Targum renders "from

Gehenna." J. J. S. Perowne.

Ver. 4. Tender mercies. I do not know that I can do better than tell you a little

incident that took place in my native town of Stirling. Workmen were blasting the

castle rock, near where it abuts upon a walk that lies open to the street. The train

was laid and lit, and an explosion was momentarily expected. Suddenly trotting

round the great wall of the cliff, came a little child going straight to where the match

burned. The men shouted—(it was mercy) —and by their very terror in shouting,

alarmed and bewildered the poor little thing. By this time the mother also had come

round: in a moment saw the danger; opened wide her arms, and cried from her very

heart, "Come to me, my darling, "—(that was tender mercy) —and instantly,

with eager pattering feet, and little arms opened to her arms, and tear-filled eyes

answering to her eyes—the little thing ran back and away, and stopped not until

she was clasped in her mother's bosom—wealth of sunny hair loosened on it, and

lips coral red pressed to mother's pallid lip of fear—as the motherly heart gave

way to tears, in the thought of so imperilled an escape: for it was barely by a second,

as the roar of the shattered rock told. Alexander B. Grosart, in "The Pastor and

Helper of Joy, "1865.

BE SO , "Verse 4-5

Psalms 103:4-5. Who redeemeth thy life from destruction — Both temporal and

eternal; from deadly dangers and miseries. Who crowneth thee with lovingkindness

— That is, encompasseth and adorneth thee therewith, as with a crown. Who

satisfieth thy mouth with good things — Satisfieth all thy just desires and

necessities. So that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s — That is, as some interpret

the words, As the eagle appears to renew her youth with her plumage, when she

casts off all her old feathers, and gets new ones, whereby she seems to grow young

again. But, as this is common to all birds, it is hardly to be supposed that the

psalmist would have alluded to it here as if it were peculiar to the eagle. This

circumstance, however, is most observable in hawks, vultures, and especially in

eagles, which, when they are near a hundred years old, cast their feathers and

become bald, like young ones, and then new feathers sprout out. But the psalmist

seems chiefly to refer to the long lives of eagles, and their great strength and vigour

at a very advanced age. Hence the old age of an eagle is used proverbially for a lively

and vigorous old age.

5 who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

BAR ES, "Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things - The word translated “thy mouth” here is rendered in the Chaldee “thy age;” in the Arabic, the Septuagint, and the Latin Vulgate, “thy desire;” in the Syriac, “thy body;” DeWette renders it, “thy age.”

So also Tholuck. The Hebrew word - ădıy‛ עדי - is rendered “ornaments” in Exo_33:4-6; 2Sa_1:24; Isa_49:18; Jer_2:32; Jer_4:30; Eze_7:20; Eze_16:11, Eze_16:17 (margin,); Eze_23:40; and “mouth” in Psa_32:9, as here. These are the only places in which it occurs. Gesenius renders it here “age,” and supposes that it stands in contrast with the word “youth” in the other part of the verse. The connection would seem to demand this, though it is difficult to make it out from any usage of the Hebrew word. Professor Alexander renders it “thy soul” - from the supposition that the Hebrew word “ornament” is used as if in reference to the idea that the “soul” is the chief glory or ornament of man. This seems, however, to be a very forced explanation. I confess myself unable to determine the meaning.

So that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s - Compare Isa_40:31. The allusion, to which there is supposed to be a reference here, is explained in the notes at that passage. Whatever may be true in regard to the supposed fact pertaining to the eagle, about its renewing its strength and vigor in old age, the meaning here is simply that the strength of the psalmist in old age became like the strength of the eagle. Sustained by the bounty of God in his old age he became, as it were, young again.

CLARKE, "Who satisfieth thy mouth -

5. For continual communications of spiritual and temporal good; so that the vigor of his mind was constantly supported and increased.

Thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s - There is such a vast variety of the eagle, or genus Falco, that it is not easy to determine which is meant here.

The Hebrew נשר neser is a general name for such as were known in the land of Judea; which were probably such as belong to the genus Aquila, comprehending forty-one species and seven varieties.

There are as many legends of the eagle among the ancient writers, as there are of some saints in the calendar; and all equally true. Even among modern divines, Bible Dictionary men, and such like, the most ridiculous tales concerning this bird continue to be propagated; and no small portion of them have been crowded into comments on this very verse. One specimen my old Psalter affords, which, for its curiosity, I shall lay before the reader: -

Trans. Newed sal be als of aeren thi youthed.

Par - The arne when he is greved with grete elde, his neb waxis so gretely, that he may nogt open his mouth and take mete: bot then he smytes his neb to the stane, and has away the solgh, and than he gaes til mete, and be commes yong a gayne. Swa Criste duse a way fra us oure elde of syn and mortalite, that settes us to ete oure brede in hevene, and newes us in hym.

The plain English of all this is: -

“When the arne [eagle, from the Anglo-Saxon a word which Dr. Jamieson has not entered in his dictionary] is oppressed with old age, his bill grows so much that he cannot open his mouth in order to take meat. He then smites his bill against a stone, and breaks off the slough - the excrescence that prevented him from eating; and then he goes to his ordinary food, and becomes young again. So Christ takes away from us our old age of sin and death, and gives us to eat of that bread which comes down from heaven: and thus gives us a new life in himself.”

I believe the meaning of the psalmist is much more simple: he refers to the moulting of birds, which, in most, takes place annually, in which they cast their old feathers and get a new plumage. To express this, he might as well have chosen any bird, as this is common to all the feathered race; but he chose the king of the birds, because of his bulk, his strength, and vivacity.

The long life of the eagle might have induced the psalmist to give it the preference. An eagle was nine years in the possession of Owen Holland, Esq., of Conway, in Wales, and had lived thirty-two years in the possession of the gentleman who made it a present to him: but of its previous age, for it came from Ireland, we are not informed. Keysler relates that an eagle died at Vienna, after a confinement of one hundred and four years!

The eagle can subsist a long time without food. That first mentioned above, through the neglect of a servant, was twenty-one days without food, and yet survived this long fast.

The meaning and moral of the psalmist are not difficult of comprehension. The Israelites, when redeemed from their captivity, should be so blessed by their God that they should reacquire their political strength and vigor; and should be so quickened by the Divine Spirit, that old things should be passed away, and all things become new.

GILL, "Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things,.... With the good things in the heart of God, with his favour and lovingkindness, as with marrow and fatness; with the good things in the hands of Christ, with the fulness of grace in him, with pardon, righteousness, and salvation by him; with the good things of the Spirit of God, his gifts and graces; and with the provisions of the Lord's house, the goodness and fatness of it; these he shows unto his people, creates hungerings and thirstings in them after them, sets their hearts a longing after them, and then fills and satisfies them with them: hence the Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, and Arabic versions render it, "who filleth thy desire with good things": the word used has sometimes the signification of an ornament; wherefore Aben Ezra interprets it of the soul, which is the glory and ornament of the body, and renders it, "who satisfieth thy soul with good things"; which is not amiss: "so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's"; not the youth of the body, or the juvenile vigour of it; nor the outward prosperity of it; but the youth of grace, or a renewal of spiritual love and affection to divine and heavenly persons and things; of holy zeal for God, his ways and worship; for Christ, his Gospel, truths, and ordinances; of spiritual joy and comfort, strength, liveliness, and activity, as formerly were in the days of espousals, in the youth

of first conversion, or when first made acquainted with the best things; so that though the outward man may decay, yet the inward man is renewed day by day: and this is said to be "like the eagle's", whose youth and strength are renewed, as some observe (a), by dropping their feathers, and having new ones, by feeding upon the blood of slain creatures; and whereas, when they are grown old, the upper part of their bill grows over the lower part (b), so that they are not able, to eat, but must die through want; Austin (c)says, that by rubbing it against a rock, it comes to its use of eating, and so recovers its strength: but there is no need to have recourse to any of these things; for as the old age of au eagle is lively and vigorous, like the youth of another creature; so it is here signified, that saints through the grace of God, even in old age, become fat and flourishing, and fruitful, and are steadfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, run and are not weary, walk and faint not, Isa_40:31, all which are inestimable mercies, and the Lord is to be praised for them.

JAMISO , "By God’s provision, the saint retains a youthful vigor like the eagles (Psa_92:14; compare Isa_40:31).

SPURGEO , "Ver. 5. Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things, or rather "filling

with good thy soul." o man is ever filled to satisfaction but a believer, and only

God himself can satisfy even him. Many a worldling is satiated, but not one is

satisfied. God satisfies the very soul of man, his noblest part, his ornament and

glory; and of consequence he satisfies his mouth, however hungry and craving it

might otherwise be. Soul-satisfaction loudly calls for soul-praise, and when the

mouth is filled with good it is bound to speak good of him who filled it. Our good

Lord bestows really good things, not vain toys and idle pleasures; and these he is

always giving, so that from moment to moment he is satisfying our soul with good:

shall we not be still praising him? If we never cease to bless him till he ceases to bless

us, our employment will be eternal.

So that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's. Renewal of strength, amounting to a

grant of a new lease of life, was granted to the Psalmist; he was so restored to his

former self that he grew young again, and looked as vigorous as an eagle, whose eye

can gaze upon the sun, and whose wing can mount above the storm. Our version

refers to the annual moulting of the eagle, after which it looks fresh and young; but

the original does not appear to allude to any such fact of natural history, but simply

to describe the diseased one as so healed and strengthened, that he became as full of

energy as the bird which is strongest of the feathered race, most fearless, most

majestic, and most soaring. He who sat moping with the owl in the last Psalm, here

flies on high with the eagle: the Lord works marvellous changes in us, and we learn

by such experiences to bless his holy name. To grow from a sparrow to an eagle, and

leave the wilderness of the pelican to mount among the stars is enough to make any

man cry, "Bless the Lord, O my soul."

Thus, is the endless chain of grace complete. Sins forgiven, its power subdued, and

its penalty averted, then we are honoured, supplied, and our very nature renovated,

till we are as new-born children in the household of God. O Lord we must bless

thee, and we will; as thou dost withhold nothing from us so we would not keep back

from thy praise one solitary power of our nature, but with all our heart, and soul,

and strength praise thy holy name.

EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.

Ver. 5. Who satisfieth thy mouth. The word rendered "mouth, " is Kyre, which is

rendered ornaments in our version in all other passages—eleven in number—

where it occurs, except here and in Psalms 32:9, where it is rendered "mouth; "and

even there it ought properly be translated ornament, and here the sense seems to be

thy ornament, tbat which is thy glory, thy spirit, Ps 16:9 62:8. It is true that the soul

yvpg is here addressed (Psalms 103:1); but the spirit may be called the ornament or

glory of the soul. Christopher Wordsworth.

Ver. 5. Satisfieth thy mouth. Kimchi understands the phrase as expressing David's

recovery from sickness. In sickness the soul abhorreth bread, and even dainty meat,

Job 33:20. The physician, too, limits the diet of the patient, and prescribes things

which are nauseous to the palate. The commentator, therefore, supposes that David

here describes the blessing of health, by his mouth being filled with good things.

Editorial ote to Calvin in loc.

Ver. 5. Satisfieth. God can so satisfy the soul, that each chink and cranny therein

shall be filled with spiritual joy. Thomas Fuller.

Ver. 5. With good things. Mark, what does the Lord satisfy with? "good things."

ot rich things, not many things, not everything I ask for, but "good things." All my

need fully supplied, and everything "good." Goodness is God expressed. All his

blessings partake of his own nature. They are holy blessings, holy mercies.

Everything that satisfies must have the nature of God in it. othing else will ever

"satisfy." The heart was made for God, and only God can meet it. Frederick

Whitfield, 1874.

Ver. 5. Thy youth is renewed like the eagle's. It is an ancient fable that the eagle is

able to renew his youth when very old, and poetical allusion is made to it in this

Psalm; but this idea is doubtless founded in reality on the great longevity of the

bird, and its power, in common with other birds, of moulting its plumage

periodically, and so increasing its strength and activity. Hugh Mac Millan. {1}

{1} We might have filled much of our space with the fables from the rabbis and the

fathers in reference to eagles; but they are too absurd, and ought never to be

repeated. We hope, therefore, that the reader will excuse if not commend the

omission.

Ver. 5. Thy youth is renewed like the eagle's. —The Scripture knows nothing of the

idea that the eagle when old renews its youth. That there is nothing of this kind

contained in Isaiah 40:31, which is commonly appealed to, but that it is rather the

powerful flight of the eagle that is there referred to, "they mount up on wings like

the eagle, they run and are not weary, "is evident from the parallel, fly, run, march.

E.W. Hengstenberg.

Ver. 5. Thy youth is renewed like the eagle's. Thy activity will renew itself like the

eagle. That is to say, From day to day he will receive and increase his strength and

rigour, so that he may thrive and flourish like the eagle. The comparison with the

eagle is not drawn in point of renovation, but in point of vigour and activity

continually renewing itself; as Isaiah 40:31, says, "They that wait upon the LORD

shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles." Venema.

Ver. 5. Thy youth is renewed like the eagle's. This renovation of his youth may be

understood three ways. First, as to his natural state, or bodily strength. Secondly, as

to his civil state, or worldly successes, as to his honour and kingly-renown. Thirdly,

as to his spiritual state, or the heightening of his gifts, graces, and comforts. It is

probable David had found a declension in all these, and at last, through the

goodness of God and his blessing upon him, the renewing of them all from that

oldness to a youthfulness again, like that of eagles. Joseph Garyl.

Ver. 5. Thy youth is renewed like the eagle's. However bold it may sound, we say not

too much when we speak of an eternal youth, as the glorious privilege of the devout

servant of the Lord, but of him alone. All that with reason charms and captivates in

the appearance of youth, is seen in heightened measure where the spiritual life

develops itself undisturbed in fellowship with God. Does the innocence of youth

attract you? In the natural life it is but too frequently a misleading appearance; but

in the life of the soul it returns to a certain extent when the heart is purified through

the power of the Holy Ghost, and the life is renewed in conformity with that of

Christ the Lord. Does the enjoyment of youth surpass in your estimation that of any

other here below? Be it so; yet all too speedily it is driven away by the cares of later

years, whilst enjoyment free from care even in the dark days may dwell in the heart

whereon has descended the peace of God through faith. The strength of youth,

seems it to you desirable? Ah! day by day stamps truth upon the words: "Youth

shall faint and be weary; "but even when the natural strength has already long

attained its zenith, the Christian often feels himself elevated through a power from

on high, which lifts him above physical weakness; and what no strength of sinew or

muscle could accomplish is attained through the power of implicit faith. Yea, even

the beautiful developement which the period of youth shows you, ye would not seek

in vain in that man who, leaning on God's hand, forgetting the things that are

behind, stretches forward from light to light, from strength to strength, from bliss to

bliss. How, finally, can hope, that makes the youthful heart beat high with throbs of

joy, be lacking to him? The fairest part of life the sensual man sees soon behind him,

the spiritual man always in prospect; and like the eagle, this last can often from the

low atmosphere round him soar to the pure, clear ether, whence already from afar

the image, nay, the ineffable reality, shows him a more than earthly joy.

Eternal youth: it may, yet much more than for David, now be the portion of every

Christian, but for these alone. Without faith and hope in the heart, even the bravest

determination to remain young always, or at least as long as possible, must give

away before the first great storm of life. Yet even when faith and hope are not

strangers to us, whence is it that in our spiritual life there is frequently so little of

the "eagle" spoken of here, and so much of the "sparrow alone upon the housetop,

"referred to in Psalms 102:7 Can it be that we allow ourselves too little to be

satisfied with the good things of which David had spoken immediately before; that is

to say, that we live so little on the best things which God has to bestow, — his

word, his Spirit, his grace? Only through these do we attain that lasting second

birth, of which the eagle is the emblem, and an unfading youth of heart the

inestimable fruit. Ye who are young in years, seek this undying youth above all the

joys of early life! Recover it, ye middle-aged, in living fellowship with him who

maketh all things new within! Preserve it, old friends of God and of his Christ, as

your fairest crown here on earth, and the earnest of your bliss in heaven. And thou,

Christian, who sittest down disconsolate, bethink thyself; the eagle lets his wings

hang down, only thereafter to soar with stronger flight! J.J. Van Oosterzee, in "The

Year of Salvation, "1874.

ELLICOTT, "(5) Mouth.—On the Hebrew word thus rendered, see Psalms 32:9.

The word there adopted (“trappings,” or “ornaments”) would Commend itself here,

from the evident allusion in the next clause to the moulting of the bird, and its

appearance in new plumage, if the expression “to satisfy ornament with good” were

in any way intelligible. The LXX. and Vulg. have “desire; the Syriac “body;” but

the Chaldee, “age,” which is supported (Gesenius) by the derivation, gives the best

sense:—

Who satisfleth thine age with good, so that

Thy youth renews itself like the eagle.

The eagle’s.—Heb., nesher; properly, the griffon, or great vulture. See Exodus 19:4;

and ote to Obadiah 1:4.

The rendering of the Prayer Book, “like the eagle’s,” follows the LXX. The idea that

the eagle renewed its youth formed the basis of a Rabbinical story, and no doubt

appears also in the myth of the Phœnix. But the psalmist merely refers to the fresh

and vigorous appearance of the bird with its new plumage.

6 The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.

BAR ES, "The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment - That is, “justice.” He sees that justice is done to the oppressed. He is on their side. His law, his commands, his judicial decisions, his providential interpositions, are in their favor. This does not mean that it will he done at once; or that there will never be any delay; or that they may not suffer even for a long time - for this occurs in fact; but the meaning is, that God has their true interest at heart; that at proper times, and whenever and whereever there are any dealings of his in the case, his acts are in favor of those that are oppressed; and that there will be sooner or later such interpositions in their behalf as shall entirely vindicate their cause.

For all that are oppressed - By harsh laws; by unjust governments; by slavery; by unrighteous decisions in courts; by the pride and power of wicked people. Compare the

notes at Isa_1:17, notes at Isa_1:23-27.

CLARKE, "The Lord executeth - This shall be done because the Lord will avenge his elect who have cried unto him day and night for his deliverance: “He is slow to anger;” but he will punish. “He is plenteous in mercy,” and he will save. The persevering sinner shall be destroyed; the humble penitent shall be saved.

GILL, "The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed. Not only for the Israelites oppressed by the Egyptians, though the psalmist might have them in his view, by what follows; for whom the Lord did justice, by delivering them out of the hands of their oppressors, and by punishing Pharaoh and his people, and bringing down judgments upon them, both in Egypt and at the Red sea; but for all other oppressed ones in common, the poor, the widow, and the fatherless, who are often oppressed by the rich and mighty; the Lord judges their cause, and does them right, and frees them from their oppression; and so all good men who are oppressed by tyrannical princes and cruel persecutors, and all such whom the man of the earth, the man of sin, antichrist, oppresses, Psa_10:18 and all those who are oppressed by the devil, buffeted by Satan, and bore down with his temptations; the Lord rebukes him in his own time, and delivers his people out of his hands; which is matter of praise and thankfulness: the psalmist, in this verse and the following, passes to the consideration of the good things God did for others, in order to keep up a warm sense of divine goodness upon his heart.

HE RY, "Hitherto the psalmist had only looked back upon his own experiences and thence fetched matter for praise; here he looks abroad and takes notice of his favour to others also; for in them we should rejoice and give thanks for them, all the saints being fed at a common table and sharing in the same blessings.

I. Truly God is good to all (Psa_103:6): He executes righteousness and judgment, not only for his own people, but for all that are oppressed; for even in common providence he is the patron of wronged innocency, and, one way or other, will plead the cause of those that are injured against their oppressors. It is his honour to humble the proud and help the helpless.

II. He is in a special manner good to Israel, to every Israelite indeed, that is of a clean and upright heart.

JAMISO , "Literally, “righteousness and judgments,” denoting various acts of God’s government.

K&D 6-10, "His range of vision being widened from himself, the poet now in Psa_103:6 describes God's gracious and fatherly conduct towards sinful and perishing men, and that as it shines forth from the history of Israel and is known and recognised in the light of revelation. What Psa_103:6 says is a common-place drawn from the history of

Israel. טיםdמש is an accusative governed by the עשה that is to be borrowed out of עשה (so Baer after the Masora). And because Psa_103:6 is the result of an historical retrospect

and survey, יודיע� in Psa_103:7 can affirm that which happened in the past (cf. Psa_

96:6.); for the supposition of Hengstenberg and Hitzig, that Moses here represents Israel like Jacob, Isaac, and Joseph in other instances, is without example in the whole Israelitish literature. It becomes clear from Psa_103:8 in what sense the making of His ways known is meant. The poet has in his mind Moses' prayer: “make known to me now Thy way” (Exo_33:13), which Jahve fulfilled by passing by him as he stood in the cleft of the rock and making Himself visible to him as he looked after Him, amidst the proclamation of His attributes. The ways of Jahve are therefore in this passage not those in which men are to walk in accordance with His precepts (Psa_25:4), but those which He Himself follows in the course of His redemptive history (Psa_67:3). The confession drawn from Exo_34:6. is become a formula of the Israelitish faith (Psa_86:15; Psa_

145:8; Joe_2:13; Neh_9:17, and frequently). In Psa_103:9. the fourth attribute (ורב־חסד)

is made the object of further praise. He is not only long (ארך� from רך�g, like בדR from בדR) in anger, i.e., waiting a long time before He lets His anger loose, but when He contends, i.e., interposes judicially, this too is not carried to the full extent (Psa_78:38), He is not

angry for ever (נטר, to keep, viz., anger, Amo_1:11; cf. the parallels, both as to matter and words, Jer_3:5; Isa_57:16). The procedure of His righteousness is regulated not according to our sins, but according to His purpose of mercy. The prefects in Psa_103:10state that which God has constantly not done, and the futures in Psa_103:9 what He continually will not do.

CALVI , "6.Jehovah executeth righteousness David having recounted the Divine

benefits bestowed upon himself, now passes from this personal consideration to take

a wider view of the subject. There is, however, no doubt that when he declares God

to be the succorer of the oppressed, he includes himself among the number, for he

had enjoyed the Divine help under many persecutions; and, from his own

experience, he describes the character in which God is accustomed to manifest

himself towards all who are unrighteously afflicted. As the faithful, while in this

world, are always living among wolves, by using the plural number, he celebrates a

variety of deliverances, to teach us that it is God’s ordinary work to succor his

servants whenever he sees them injuriously treated. Hence we are taught to exercise

patience when we find that God takes it upon him to avenge our wrongs, and that he

covers us with the shield of his justice, or defends us with the sword of his judgment,

as often as we are assaulted wrongfully.

SPURGEO , "Ver. 6. The LORD executeth righteousness and judgment for all that

are of oppressed. Our own personal obligations must not absorb our song; we must

also magnify the Lord for his goodness to others. He does not leave the poor and

needy to perish at the hands of their enemies, but interposes on their behalf, for he

is the executor of the poor and the executioner of the cruel. When his people were in

Egypt he heard their groanings and brought them forth, but he overthrew Pharaoh

in the Red Sea. Man's injustice shall receive retribution at the hand of God. Mercy

to his saints demands vengeance on their persecutors, and he will repay it. o blood

of martyrs shall be shed in vain; no groans of confessors in prison shall be left

without inquisition being made concerning them. All wrongs shall be righted, all the

oppressed shall be avenged. Justice may at times leave the courts of man, but it

abides upon the tribunal of God. For this every right-minded person will bless God.

Were he careless of his creature's good, did he neglect the administration of justice,

did he suffer high-handed oppressors finally to escape, we should have greater

reason for trembling than rejoicing; it is not so, however, for our God is a God of

justice, and by him actions are weighed; he will mete out his portion to the proud

and make the tyrant bite the dust, —yea, often he visits the haughty persecutor

even in this life, so that "the Lord is known by the judgments which he executeth."

EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.

Ver. 6. The LORD executeth rghteousness, &c. Rising from personal blessings to

general, the comprehensive fact, evermore to the glory of God, is his sympathy with

the suffering and oppressed, and his ready and effective interposition in their ease.

Who will not praise him that he careth so kindly and so gloriously for those who

suffer cruel wrongs from wicked oppressors? Henry Cowles.

BE SO , "Verse 6-7

Psalms 103:6-7. The Lord executeth judgment for all that are oppressed — Which,

being a singular perfection, and one wherein most of the princes of the world were

and are defective, is justly celebrated in God. He made known his ways unto Moses

— His laws, often called his ways; or, the methods of his dealing with men, and

especially with his people; his merciful and gracious nature and providence, which

is particularly called God’s way, Exodus 33:13, compared with Psalms 103:18-19,

and chap. Psalms 34:6-7, and which is here described in the following verses. His

acts, &c. — His marvellous and gracious works.

COFFMA , "Verse 6

THE EXHORTATIO FOR ISRAEL

"Jehovah executeth righteous acts,

And judgment for all that are oppressed.

He made known his ways unto Moses,

His doings unto the children of Israel.

Jehovah is merciful and gracious,

Slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness.

He will not always chide,

either will he keep his anger forever.

He hath not dealt with us after our sins,

or rewarded us after our iniquities.

For as the heavens are high above the earth,

So great is his lovingkindness toward them that fear him.

As far as the east is from the west,

So hath he removed our transgressions from us.

Like as a father pitieth his children,

So Jehovah pitieth them that fear him."

That the children of Israel are the ones particularly addressed in these lines is

evident from the mention of Moses and the specific mention of them in Psalms

103:7.

"For all that are oppressed" (Psalms 103:6). The meaning of this may not be

restricted to a minority of unfortunates, because the whole nation of Israel is meant.

"The whole nation was once in bondage; and the thought here is retrospective to the

days of Moses."[6]

"Slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness" (Psalms 103:8). Here are given

two of the "Thirteen Attributes of God" as revealed in Exodus 34:6-7; Joel 2:13.

Jonah named five of these in his prayer (Jonah 4:2).

"Thou hast not dealt with us after our sins, etc." (Psalms 103:10). "Just take a look

at what the holy and righteous God did to the fallen angels, the antediluvian world,

Sodom and Gomorrah, and the lost generation of Israel in the wilderness, and

marvel at how leniently God has dealt with you; and this will surely deepen your

gratitude and appreciation for the Divine mercy toward you."[7]

"As the heavens are high above the earth" (Psalms 103:11). Bold as this simile is, it

is nevertheless inadequate, because God's kindness to them that love him is infinite.

"As far as the east is from the west" (Psalms 103:12). How far is this? Again, we

have a suggestion of infinity, because, there is no such thing as getting to the end

either of the east or the west. The genius of this simile is that the same thing is not

true of the north and the south. When God forgives the sins of his children, he even

forgets them (Jeremiah 32:31-35).

"Like as a father pitieth his children" (Psalms 103:13). God's pity of his human

children is fully merited. The frailty and infirmities of life, its astounding brevity,

the pressing necessities of work for survival, the prevalence of temptations, the

weakness, uncertainties, doubts, fears and anxieties that continually encroach upon

the thoughts of God's children, as well as the inherent danger in the implacable

hatred of the righteous by the Evil One, are far more than enough to deserve pity,

even from God.

7 He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel:

BAR ES, "He made known his ways unto Moses - This is another ground of praise - that God had “revealed his will;” that this had been done in an indubitable manner to Moses; and that these revelations had been recorded by him for the instruction and guidance of his people. The word “ways” here means his laws; his methods of administration; the principles on which he governs mankind, and the conditions on which he will save people. There is no higher ground of gratitude to God than the fact that he has given a revelation to mankind.

His acts unto the children of Israel - His methods of doing things have been made known to them; and his acts - his interpositions - have been in their favor.

CLARKE, "He made known his ways unto Moses - From the earliest part of our history he has been our protector and defense. His wonderful acts in behalf of the children of Israel are so many proofs of his mercy, power, and goodness; and so many reasons why we should now trust in him.

GILL, "He made known his ways unto Moses,.... The ways in which he himself walks, the steps and methods which he has taken to show forth his glory; his way in creation, and the order of it, as in Gen_1:1, for though, by the light of nature, it might be known that God created all things; yet, without a revelation from him, it could never have been known in what manner he made them, and the peculiar work of each of the six days, in which they were made; this was made known to Moses; as also his way in providence, which sometimes is in the deep, and past finding out: Moses was made acquainted with the methods of divine Providence, with many special instances of it, relating both to himself in his infancy and in riper years, and to the people of Israel in their march from Egypt to Canaan's land; and the Lord likewise made known unto him his way of grace and mercy, life and salvation, by Christ, which he desired to show him, and he did, Exo_33:13. Christ was made known to him, as the seed of the woman that should break the serpent's head, as God's salvation, old Jacob waited for: he was shown him in the types of the passover lamb, the brasen serpent, and the rock in the wilderness, and in other things; the way of atonement, by the sacrifice of Christ, was made known to him through the sacrifices which he from God enjoined the people of

Israel: hence he wrote of Christ, and of what he should do and suffer; and so fully, that the Apostle Paul said no other things than what he did, Joh_5:46 moreover, the Lord made known to him the ways in which he would have him and the people of Israel to walk; the way of his commandments, his statutes and ordinances; which were made known to him, to deliver to them, and was a peculiar favour, Psa_147:19,

his acts unto the children of Israel; his works, his wonderful works; his plagues on their enemies the Egyptians; his redemption of them out of the house of bondage; his leading them through the Red sea as on dry land; his feeding them with manna in the wilderness, protecting them from their enemies, bringing them into the land of Canaan, and settling them there; see Psa_78:11.

HE RY, "II. He is in a special manner good to Israel, to every Israelite indeed, that is of a clean and upright heart.

1. He has revealed himself and his grace to us (Psa_103:7): He made known his ways unto Moses, and by him his acts to the children of Israel, not only by his rod to those who then lived, but by his pen to succeeding ages. Note, Divine revelation is one of the first and greatest of divine favours with which the church is blessed; for God restores us to himself by revealing himself to us, and gives us all good by giving us knowledge. He has made known his acts and his ways (that is, his nature, and the methods of his dealing with the children of men), that they may know both what to conceive of him and what to expect from him; so Dr. Hammond. Or by his ways we may understand his precepts, the way which he requires us to walk in; and by his acts, or designs (as the word signifies), his promises and purposes as to what he will do with us. Thus fairly does God deal with us.

JAMISO , "ways— of providence, etc., as usual (Psa_25:4; Psa_67:2).

acts— literally, “wonders” (Psa_7:11; Psa_78:17).

CALVI , "7He hath made known his ways to Moses David now speaks in the name

of the chosen people; and this he does very suitably, being led to it by the

consideration of the benefits which God had bestowed upon himself. Convinced that

it was only as a member of the Church that he had been enriched with so many

blessings, he immediately carries back his contemplations to the common covenant

made with the people of Israel. He, however, continues the same train of thought as

in the preceding verse; for these ways, which he says had been shown to Moses, were

nothing else than the deliverance wrought for the people until they entered the

promised land. He selected this as an instance of God’s righteousness and judgment,

surpassing all others, to prove that God always shows himself righteous in succoring

those who are oppressed. But since this instance depended upon the Divine promise,

he doubtless has an eye principally to it; his language implying that God’s

righteousness was clearly demonstrated and seen in the history of the chosen people,

whom he had adopted, and with whom he had entered into covenant. God is said to

have made known his ways first to Moses, who was his servant and messenger, and

afterwards to all the people. Moses is here represented as invested with the office to

which he was Divinely appointed; for it was God’s will to be made known to the

people by the hand and working of that distinguished man. The ways, then, and the

doings of God, are his rising up with wonderful power to deliver the people, his

leading them through the Red Sea, and his manifesting his presence with them by

many signs and miracles. But as all this flowed from the free covenant, David

exhorts himself and others to give thanks to God for having chosen them to be his

peculiar people, and for enlightening their minds by the truths of his law. Man,

without the knowledge of God, being the most miserable object that can be

imagined, the discovery which God has been pleased to make to us in his Word, of

his fatherly love, is an incomparable treasure of perfect happiness.

SPURGEO , "Ver. 7. He made known his ways unto Moses. Moses was made to see

the manner in which the Lord deals with men; he saw this at each of the three

periods of his life, in the court, in retirement, and at the head of the tribes of Israel.

To him the Lord gave specially clear manifestations of his dispensations and modes

of ruling among mankind, granting to him to see more of God than had before been

seen by mortal man, while he cornmaned with him upon the mount.

His acts unto the children of Israel. They saw less than Moses, for they beheld the

deeds of God without understanding his method therein, yet this was much, very

much, and might have been more if they had not been so perverse; the stint was not

in the revelation, but in the hardness of their hearts. It is a great act of sovereign

grace and condescending love when the Lord reveals himself to any people, and they

ought to appreciate the distinguished favour shown to them. We, as believers in

Jesus, know the Lord's ways of covenant grace, and we have by experience been

made to see his acts of mercy towards us; how heartily ought we to praise our divine

teacher, the Holy Spirit, who has made these things known to us, for had it not been

for him we should have continued in darkness unto this day, "Lord, how is it that

thou wilt manifest thyself unto us and not unto the world?" Why hast thou made us

"of the election who have obtained it" while the rest are blinded?

Observe how prominent is the personality of God in all this gracious teachingâ

€”"He made known." He did not leave Moses to discover truth for himself, but

became his instructor. What should we ever know if he did not make it known? God

alone can reveal himself. If Moses needed the Lord to make him know, how much

more do we who are so much inferior to the great law-giver?

EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.

Ver. 7. He made known his ways unto Moses. When Moses went up to Mount Sinai

and tarried there with God the space of forty days, we may well think that God in

that time, revealed many secrets to him; and particularly "made known his ways;

"(Exodus 33:19); not only his ways in which he would have us to walk, but his ways

in which he walks himself, and the course he holds in the government of worldly

affairs; why he suffers the wicked to prosper, and why the godly to be oppressed.

These "ways" of his he made known to Moses; to the children of Israel, only "his

acts." He showed them his wonderful favours to themselves in the wilderness, and

that was his righteousness; but he showed them not his ways, and the course he held

in them: they saw only the events of things, they saw not the reasons of them, as

Moses did. Sir Richard Baker.

8 The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.

BAR ES, "The Lord is merciful and gracious - See the notes at Psa_78:38. The idea here is derived evidently from Exo_34:6-7 - that great and glorious statement of God himself in regard to his own character. Our world is a different world under that statement from what it would be if that and kindred declarations had not been made. There is here a “progression” of thought; an “advance” on the previous statements. At first the psalmist referred to his own individual experience Psa_103:3-5; then he referred to the dealings of God toward the Hebrew people Psa_103:6-7; and now he rises to the general contemplation of his character as it relates to all mankind. It was a characteristic of God in respect to all, that he was kind, compassionate, and forbearing.

Slow to anger - That is, patient; not soon excited; bearing much, and bearing it long. See Jam_5:11; compare Exo_34:6-7.

And plenteous in mercy -Margin, “great of mercy.” The Hebrew word means “much,” or great;” and the idea is, that mercy is not manifested by him in small or stinted measure. It is rich; full; abundant; overflowing; free.

CLARKE, "The Lord is merciful - See the note on Psa_86:15.

GILL, "The Lord is merciful and gracious,.... So he made himself known to Moses, Exo_34:6, and so David found him to be, and therefore calls upon his soul to bless his name. God is "merciful" in the most tender and affectionate manner; he has bowels of mercy, which yearn towards his people, as those of a tender parent to its child, as the word signifies; his mercy is free, without any motive or merit in men to engage it; he delights in showing it; he constantly bestows it; it is the source of all good things; it is communicated through Christ; all mercies temporal and spiritual come by him; and this lays a foundation for faith and hope: and he is gracious, as appears in the eternal choice of his people to salvation; in providing a Saviour and a ransom for them; in giving all grace and the blessings of it to them in his Son; in giving him for them, and all things to them with him; in justifying them by his righteousness; in pardoning their sins for his sake; in taking them into his family; in regenerating, calling, preserving, and saving them:

slow to anger, or "longsuffering" (d); even to wicked men, to the vessels of wrath, to the old world, yea, to Jezebel, to whom he gave space to repent; which longsuffering being abused and despised, is an aggravation of condemnation: but rather here it

intends God's longsuffering to his people, as before conversion, waiting till the time comes that he is gracious to them; and after conversion, notwithstanding their backslidings and revoltings; and this longsuffering is their salvation:

and plenteous in mercy; large and abundant in it, as appears by the various instances of it, and ways and methods in which he shows it; in election, in the covenant, in redemption, in regeneration, in pardon and eternal life; and by the abundance of it which he bestows on every one of his people; and by the vast numbers which do partake of it.

HE RY, "He has never been rigorous and severe with us, but always tender, full of compassion, and ready to forgive.

(1.) It is in his nature to be so (Psa_103:8): The Lord is merciful and gracious; this was his way which he made known unto Moses at Mount Horeb, when he thus proclaimed his name (Exo_34:6, Exo_34:7), in answer to Moses's request (Psa_33:13), I beseech thee, show me thy way, that I may know thee. It is my way, says God, to pardon sin. [1.] He is not soon angry, Psa_103:8. He is slow to anger, not extreme to mark what we do amiss nor ready to take advantage against us. He bears long with those that are very provoking, defers punishing, that he may give space to repent, and does not speedily execute the sentence of his law; and he could not be thus slow to anger if he were not plenteous in mercy, the very Father of mercies.

JAMISO , "God’s benevolence implies no merit. He shows it to sinners, who also are chastened for a time (Exo_34:6).

keep (anger)— in Lev_19:18, bear a grudge (Jer_3:5, Jer_3:12).

CALVI , "8.Jehovah is merciful and gracious David seems to allude to the

exclamation of Moses, recorded in Exodus 34:6, where the nature of God, revealed

in a remarkable way, is more clearly described than in other places. When Moses

was admitted to take a nearer view of the Divine glory than was usually obtained, he

exclaimed upon beholding it, “O God! merciful and gracious, forgiving iniquity,

slow to wrath, and abundant in goodness.” As, therefore, he has summarily

comprehended in that passage all that is important for us to know concerning the

Divine character, David happily applies these terms, by which God is there

described, to his present purpose. His design is to ascribe entirely to the goodness of

God the fact that the Israelites, who by their own wickedness forfeited from time to

time their relation to him, as his adopted people, nevertheless continued in that

relation. Farther, we must understand in general, that the true knowledge of God

corresponds to what faith discovers in the written Word; for it is not his will that we

should search into his secret essence, except in so far as he makes himself known to

us, a point worthy of our special notice. We see that whenever God is mentioned, the

minds of men are perversely carried away to cold speculations, and fix their

attention on things which can profit them nothing; while, in the meantime, they

neglect those manifestations of his perfections which meet our eyes, and which

afford a vivid reflection of his character. To whatever subjects men apply their

minds, there is none from which they will derive greater advantage than from

continual meditation on his wisdom, goodness, righteousness, and mercy; and

especially the knowledge of his goodness is fitted both to build up our faith, and to

illustrate his praises. Accordingly, Paul, in Ephesians 3:18, declares that our height,

length, breadth, and depth, consists in knowing the unspeakable riches of grace,

which have been manifested to us in Christ. This also is the reason why David,

copying from Moses, magnifies by a variety of terms the mercy of God. In the first

place, as we have no worse fault than that devilish arrogance which robs God of his

due praise, and which yet is so deeply rooted in us, that it cannot be easily

eradicated; God rises up, and that he may bring to nought the heaven-daring

presumption of the flesh, asserts in lofty terms his own mercy, by which alone we

stand. Again, when we ought to rely upon the grace of God, our minds tremble or

waver, and there is nothing in which we find greater difficulty than to acknowledge

that He is merciful to us. David, to meet and overcome this doubting state of mind,

after the example of Moses, employs these synonymous terms: first, that God is

merciful; secondly, that he is gracious; thirdly, that he patiently and

compassionately bears with the sins of men; and, lastly, that he is abundant in

mercy and goodness.

SPURGEO , "Ver. 8. The Lord is merciful and gracious. Those with whom he

deals are sinners. However much he favours them they are guilty and need mercy at

his hands, nor is he slow to compassionate their lost estate, or reluctant by his grace

to lift them out of it. Mercy pardons sin, grace bestows favour: in both the Lord

abounds. This is that way of his which he made known to Moses (Exodus 34:6), and

in that way he will abide as long as the age of grace shall last, and men are yet in this

life. He who "executeth righteousness and judgment, " yet delighteth in mercy.

Slow to anger. He can be angry, and can deal out righteous indignation upon the

guilty, but it is his strange work; he lingers long, with loving pauses, tarrying by the

way to give space for repentance and opportunity for accepting his mercy. Thus

deals he with the greatest sinners, and with his own children much more so: towards

them his anger is shortlived and never reaches into eternity, and when it is shown in

fatherly chastisements he does not afflict willingly, and soon pities their sorrows.

From this we should learn to be ourselves slow to anger; if the Lord is longsuffering

under our great provocations how much more ought we to endure the errors of our

brethren!

And plenteous in mercy. Rich in it, quick in it, overflowing with it; and so had he

need to be or we should soon be consumed. He is God, and not man, or our sins

would soon drown his love; yet above the mountains of our sins the floods of his

mercy rise.

"Plenteous grace with thee is found,

Grace to cover all my sin;

Let the healing streams abound,

Make and keep me pure within."

All the world tastes of his sparing mercy, those who hear the gospel partake of his

inviting mercy, the saints live by his saving mercy, are preserved by his upholding

mercy, are cheered by his consoling mercy, and will enter heaven through his

infinite and everlasting mercy. Let grace abounding be our hourly song in the house

of our pilgrimage. Let those who feel that they live upon it glorify the plenteous

fountain from which it so spontaneously flows.

EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.

Ver. 8 Merciful and gracious, slow to stager and plenteous in mercy. O my soul, bere

are four properties spoken of to be in God, and are all so necessary, that we could

not miss one of them. If he were not "merciful" we could hope for no pardon; and if

he were no more but merciful we could hope for no more but pardon; but when

besides his being merciful he is also "gracious, "this gives us a further hope, a hope

of a donative; and then it will not be what we are worthy to receive, but what it is fit

for him to give. If he were not "slow to anger" we could expect no patience; but

when besides his slowness to anger he is also "full of compassion; "this makes us

expect he will be the good Samaritan, and not only bind up our wounds, but take

care also for our further curing. What though he chide and be angry for a time; it is

but our being patient a while with him, as he a long time hath been patient with us.

Sir R. Baker.

Ver. 8 Slow to anger. In Scripture we find that slowness to anger, and hastiness to

be angry, are expressed by the different frame of the nostrils; as, namely, when the

Lord is said to be "slow to anger, " the Hebrew is, long of nostrils. Joseph Caryl.

Ver. 8. Plenteous in mercy. dmxykw, "great mighty in mercy, " placing his chief

glory in this attribute, and hereby teaching us how to estimate true greatness.

George Horne.

Ver. 8. Plenteous in mercy. It is a thing marvellously satisfactory and pleasing to the

heart of a man to be still taking from a great heap; and upon this ground are those

proverbial sayings, There is no fishing like to fishing in the sea, no service like the

service of a king: because in one there is the greatest plenty and abundance of that

kind of pleasure that fishers look after; and for them that serve, and must live by

their service, there is none like that of princes, because they have abundance of

reward and of opportunity whereby to recompense the services of those that do wait

and attend upon them... And upon the same ground it is that the Scriptures, in

several places do not only assert and testify that God is "merciful" and "gracious,

"but abundant in mercy and full of grace; and not simply that there is redemption

in him, but plenteousness of redemption, Ps 86:5 130:7; Isaiah 55:7, "Let the wicked

forsake his way, "etc.; "Let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon

him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." The commodity which we

stand in need of is mercy and the pardon of our sins, because we have been unholy

and ungodly creatures; this commodity is abundantly in God. There it is treasured

up as waters are in the store-house of the sea; there is no end of the treasures of his

grace, mercy, pardon, and compassion. There is no man, being in want, but had

rather go to a rich man's door to be relieved, than to the door of a poor man, if he

kuoweth the rich man to be as liberal and as bountifully disposed as the poor man

can be. John Goodwin, on, "Being filled with the Spirit."

BE SO , "Verses 8-10

Psalms 103:8-10. The Lord is merciful and gracious — See on Exodus 34:6. Slow to

anger — ot speedily punishing sinners, but patiently waiting for their repentance.

He will not always chide — Or contend by his judgments with sinners, but is ready

to be reconciled to them, namely, upon their repentance, as is manifest from

innumerable texts, and from the whole scope and design of the Scriptures. either

will he keep his anger for ever — The word anger, though not in the original, is

necessarily understood here, as it is also Jeremiah 3:5, and in many other places. He

hath not dealt with us after our sins — He hath punished us less than our iniquities

have deserved.

SIMEO , "THE GOOD ESS OF GOD

Psalms 103:8-13. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in

mercy. He will not always chide; neither will he keep his anger for ever. He hath not

dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities, for as the

heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As

far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.

Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.

WE cannot form a juster conception of the Deity than from the history of the

Israelites. In the mixture of mercy and judgment which is there recorded, we see

every one of his perfections displayed in most lively characters [ ote: ver. 7]. His

dealings with us indeed are less discernible: but, the more they are scrutinized, the

more will they appear to be regulated according to the counsels of unerring wisdom

and unbounded goodness. The words before us will naturally lead us to a

contemplation of this subject: and we shall have abundant evidence of their truth,

while we consider his goodness,

I. Generally, as it is in himself—

The “mercy and grace” of our God are chiefly discovered by,

1. His patience in bearing with us—

[Had God been such an one as ourselves, he would long since have broke forth in

anger against the whole world, and consumed them in his heavy displausure. But,

notwithstanding the multitude of their provocations, he has been long-suffering

towards them [ ote: 2 Peter 3:9.], and has waited to be gracious unto them [ ote:

Isaiah 30:18]. He has borne with many vessels of wrath, that have been daily fitting

themselves for destruction [ ote: Romans 9:22.]: and has kept mercy for thousands

[ ote: Exodus 34:6-7.], who have been continually occupied in casting it away. The

description which ehemiah gives of the divine patience as manifested in his day

[ ote: ehemiah 9:16-21.], is no less realized towards the whole world at this very

hour.]

2. His mercy in pardoning us—

[God, in infinite compassion, laid our iniquities upon his only dear Son [ ote: lsai.

53:6.], and exacted of him our debt [ ote: Isaiah 53:7. Lowth’s Trapslation.], in

order that he might exercise mercy towards us consistently with the demands of

truth and justice [ ote: Romans 3:25-26.]. And, having provided such a remedy, he

delights in extending its benefits even to the vilest of the human race [ ote: Micah

7:18.]. Thousands that are now glorified in heaven, and thousands too that are yet

compassed with infirmities on earth, can attest, that with him is plenteous,

redemption [ ote: Psalms 130:7-8.], and that he is rich in mercy unto all that call

upon, him [ ote: Romans 10:12-13.].]

ot to dwell on general views of his goodness, let us consider it,

II. Particularly as it manifests itself towards us—

It is here more minutely delineated:

1. In reference to his patience—

[God will “chide” his people for their sins; nor would he act worthy of himself, if he

did not manifest his displeasure against the violations of his holy law [ ote:

Hebrews 12:6-7.]. But we must all confess that he punishes neither soon—nor

long—nor according to our deserts. ot soon; for then he would be “always

chiding,” seeing that we give continual occasion for his displeasure to arise. But he is

not extreme to mark what is done amiss [ ote: Psalms 130:3.], well knowing that if

he should contend with us for every fault, we could not answer him one of a

thousand [ ote: Job 9:3.]. or will he visit us long; if he hide his face, it is hut for a

little moment [ ote: Isaiah 54:7-8.], and if he wound us, it is, for the most part, but a

very short time before he binds us up again and heals us [ ote: Hosea 6:1-2.]. He

will not be always wroth, lest our spirits should faint, and fail by reason of his

displeasure [ ote: Isaiah 57:16.]. or does he at any time “deal with us according to

our iniquities,” Where must every one of us have been if he had entered into

judgment with us according to the strict tenour of his law [ ote: Compare Galatians

3:10. with Psalms 143:2.]? Whatever trials we may have been called to endure, they

have been infinitely less than our iniquities have deserved [ ote: Job 11:6.].]

2. In reference to his mercy—

[This has been boundless in its extent. Who can measure the vast expanse of heaven

[ ote: Jeremiah 31:37.]? Yet such is the mercy of our God, having heights that

cannot be explored, and depths that cannot be fathomed [ ote: Ephesians 3:18-19.].

It reaches, not only to all persons, but to the utmost extent of their necessities or

desires. It is also tender in its exercise. Can any thing on earth afford us a stronger

image of tenderness, than a parent striving to soothe the anguish of his agonizing

infant? Yet such is the anxiety which God himself feels to heal our wounded spirits,

and comfort us under all our conflicts [ ote: Hosea 11:8. Jeremiah 31:20.]. It is,

moreover, lasting in its effects. Let a straight line be drawn from east to west; and

the further it is drawn, the further shall the ends be removed from each other. Thus

it is with respect to our sins which he has pardoned: they are put away from us to

the remotest distance, never to meet upon our souls again, never to be remembered

against us to all eternity [ ote: ver. 17. Micah 7:19.].]

Infer—

1. How base is it to sin against such a God!

[Sin, of whatever kind, is really directed against him [ ote: Psalms 51:4.]. And shall

it appear a light matter to us to offend such a God? See this argument urged by

Ezra [ ote: Ezra 9:13-14, Hebrews 8:12.]; and let every temptation be repelled with

this indignant expression, How shall I do this great wickedness, and sin against God

[ ote: Genesis 39:9.]?]

2. How ought we to fear and love our God!

[It is twice observed in the text, that God’s mercy is displayed “to them that fear

him:” and it is manifested on purpose that he may be feared [ ote: Psalms 130:4.].

Let us therefore not despise the riches of his goodness [ ote: Romans 2:4.], but

improve them for the confirming of our fear [ ote: Hosea 3:5.], and the quickening

of our love [ ote: Psalms 116:12; Psalms 145:8-9; Psalms 145:21.].]

9 He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever;

BAR ES, "He will not always chide - Rebuke; contend; strive; for so the Hebrew word means. He will not always contend with people, or manifest his displeasure. See the notes at Isa_57:16; notes at Psa_78:38-39. This implies that he may chide or rebuke his people, but that this will not be forever. He will punish them; he will manifest his displeasure at their sins; he will show that he does not approve of their course, but he will show that he “loves them,” and does not seek their ruin.

Neither will he keep his anger for ever - The words “his anger” are supplied by the translators, but not improperly. The meaning is the same as in the former member of the sentence. He will not cherish hatred when the object of the chastisement is accomplished. It is not his character to retain anger for its own sake, or for any personal gratification.

CLARKE, "He will not always chide - He will not contend with us continually. He has often reproved, often punished us; but his mercy ever rejoiced over judgment.

GILL, "He will not always chide,.... He sometimes does chide his children, though never but when they have done a fault; always for their sins, in order to bring them to a sense and acknowledgment of them, and to depart from them; not for chiding sake, as some parents, to gratify their passion and ill humour, who correct for their own pleasure; but the Lord chides and corrects for the profit of his children, that they may be partakers of his holiness; he ever does it for their good, but he will not always chide, or continue it ever: or "he will not always contend" (e), strive with them, litigate a point with them, hold out a controversy, not being able to stand before him; he knows their frame, their weakness, and frailty; see Isa_57:16,

neither will he keep his anger for ever; though he does with the wicked, yet not with his own people; that endures but for a moment, and is rather seeming than real; and what does appear is soon turned away; he does not retain it long, he is quickly pacified towards them for all they have done, and smiles again upon them, Mic_7:18.

SBC, "I. In the mind of the psalmists there was nothing contradictory between faith in God as a righteous Judge and faith in God as being longsuffering and of great kindness. They did not think of God as divided between His sense of justice and His love of mercy, because they understood that mercy was never forgotten in His judgments. They felt that His judgments were the truest mercies both for themselves and for the world at large. So deep was their conviction of the blessedness of God’s judgments that some of their most joyous strains are those in which they proclaim God as coming to judge the world in righteousness.

II. The text shows the fatherly character of God. He is our Father because He created and preserves us; He is our Father because He rules us by the stern yet loving discipline of His righteous judgment; He is our Father because He is full of love, and forgiveness, and tender, fatherly pity, knowing our frame and remembering that we are dust.

III. Here then is a proof of the Divine source whence the inspirations of the psalmists came. They knew God as their Father because the Spirit of adoption was speaking to their hearts.

G. Forbes, The Voice of God in the Psalms, p. 149.

HE RY, " He is not long angry; for (Psa_103:9) he will not always chide, though we always offend and deserve chiding. Though he signify his displeasure against us for our sins by the rebukes of Providence, and the reproaches of our own consciences, and thus cause grief, yet he will have compassion, and will not always keep us in pain and terror, no, not for our sins, but, after the spirit of bondage, will give the spirit of adoption. How unlike are those to God who always chide, who take every occasion to chide, and never know when to cease! What would become of us if God should deal so with us? He will not keep his anger for ever against his own people, but will gather them with everlasting mercies, Isa_54:8; Isa_57:16.

JAMISO , "

CALVI , "9He will not always chide David, from the attributes ascribed to God in

the preceding verse, draws the conclusion, that when God has been offended, he will

not be irreconcilable, since, from his nature, he is always inclined to forgive. It was

necessary to add this statement; for our sins would be continually shutting the gate

against his goodness were there not some way of appeasing his anger. David tacitly

intimates that God institutes an action against sinners to lay them low under a true

sense of their guilt; and that yet he recedes from it whenever he sees them subdued

and humbled. God speaks in a different manner in Genesis 6:3, where he says, “My

Spirit shall no longer strive with man,” because the wickedness of men being fully

proved, it was then time to condemn them. But here David maintains that God will

not always chide, because so easy is he to be reconciled, and so ready to pardon, that

he does not rigidly exact from us what strict justice might demand. To the same

purpose is the language in the second clause: nor will he keep anger for ever The

expression, to keep anger for ever, corresponds with the French phrase, Je lui garde,

Il me l’a garde, (171) which we use when the man, who cannot forgive the injuries

he has received, cherishes secret revenge in his heart, and waits for an opportunity

of retaliation. ow David denies that God, after the manner of men, keeps anger on

account of the injuries done to him, since he condescends to be reconciled. It is,

however, to be understood that this statement does not represent the state of the

Divine mind towards all mankind without distinction: it sets forth a special privilege

of the Church; for God is expressly called by Moses, (Deuteronomy 5:9) “a terrible

avenger, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children.” But David, passing

by unbelievers, upon whom rests the everlasting and unappeasable wrath of God,

teaches us how tenderly he pardons his own children, even as God himself speaks in

Isaiah, (Isaiah 54:7,) “For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great

mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from them for a moment;

but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee.”

SPURGEO , "Ver. 9. He will not always chide. He will sometimes, for he cannot

endure that his people should harbour sin in their hearts, but not for ever will he

chasten them; as soon as they turn to him and forsake their evil ways he will end the

quarrel. He might find constant cause for striving with us, for we have always

something in us which is contrary to his holy mind, but he refrains himself lest our

spirits should fail before him. It will be profitable for any one of us who may be at

this time out of conscious fellowship with the Lord, to inquire at his hands the

reason for his anger, saying, "Shew me wherefore thou contendest with me?" For he

is easily entreated of, and soon ceaseth from his wrath. When his children turn from

their sins he soon turns from his chidings.

either will he keep his anger for ever. He bears no grudges. The Lord would not

have his people harbour resentments, and in his own course of action he sets them a

grand example. When the Lord has chastened his child he has done with his anger:

he is not punishing as a judge, else might his wrath burn on, but he is acting as a

father, and, therefore, after a few blows he ends the matter, and presses his beloved

one to his bosom as if nothing had happened; or if the offence lies too deep in the

offender's nature to be thus overcome, he continues to correct, but he never ceases

to love, and he does not suffer his anger with his people to pass into the next world,

but receives his erring child into his glory.

EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.

Ver. 9. He will not always chide. Certainly it is as unpleasing to God to chide, as it is

to us to be chidden; and so little he likes of anger, that he rids his hands of it as fast

as th can: he is not so slow in coming to it, but he is as quick in getting from it; for

chiding is a bar to mercy, and anger an impediment to compassion; nothing is so

distasteful to God as that any block should lie in the way of his mcrcy, or that the

liberty of his compassion should have any cause of restraint: and then we may be

sure he will not himself lay a block in the way with chiding, nor be a cause to

restrain his compassion by keeping his anger. Sir R. Baker.

Ver. 9. (Second Clause). To keep anger for ever, corresponds with the French

phrase, Je lui garde, Il me la garde, (*"I am watching him, as he has watched to do a

bad turn to me") which we use when the man, who cannot forgive the injuries he

has received, cherishes secret revenge in his heart, and waits for an opportunity of

retaliation. ow David denies that God, after the manner of men, keeps anger on

account of injuries done to him, since he condescends to be reconciled. Calvin.

WHEDO , "9. Chide—Contend, as an adversary at law.

His anger—These words are not in the original, but “anger,” judicially construed, is

implied. The exact doctrine of this verse is expanded Isaiah 57:16 and Micah 7:18-

19.

Always… for ever—Two Hebrew words signifying endless duration. The passage

applies to the disciplinary and afflictive dispensations of God toward his children, as

the context shows, (compare Exodus 34:6-7; Psalms 78:38,) not his judgments on the

wicked, as in Psalms 73:18-20; Psalms 9:17

10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.

BAR ES, "He hath not dealt with us after our sins - All may say this, and this “is” a ground of thanksgiving and praise. It is a matter for which we should render unceasing praise that God has not done to us as our sins deserved. Who of us can fail to stand in awe and to tremble when we think what God “might” have justly done to us; what sufferings he “might” have brought upon us, which would have been no more than we have deserved; what pain of body, what distress of mind, what anguish of bereavement - what sorrow, danger, sickness, losses - we “might” have suffered before the point would be reached at which it could be said that we were suffering more than a holy and just God might properly inflict on us.

Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities - That is, he has not inflicted suffering on us that could be regarded in any proper sense as a just retribution for what we have done; or, so that it could properly be said that the one fairly “measured” the other.

CLARKE, "He has not dealt with us after our sins - He has never apportioned our punishment to our sins, nor has he regulated the exercise of his mercy by our merits.

GILL, "He hath not dealt with us after our sins,.... God deals with his people, and deals with them roundly, for their sins, reproving them by his Spirit, and by his ministers, and by his chastising rod; but not after or according to them, or as they deserve; in this David acknowledges himself and other saints, with whom he joins, to be sinners, to have been guilty of sins, as none live without them; and that God had taken notice of them, and chastised them for them; but in great moderation, and not according to the due demerit of them:

nor rewarded us according to our iniquities; had he, if every transgression had received its just recompence of reward, they must have been sent to hell; the lake burning with fire and brimstone must have been their portion; the wages of sin is eternal death: the reason why God deals not with nor rewards his people according to the due desert of their sins is because Christ has bore them, and the chastisement of them, and made satisfaction to divine justice for them; see Ezr_9:13.

HE RY, "We have found him so; we, for our parts, must own that he has not dealt with us after our sins, Psa_103:10. The scripture says a great deal of the mercy of God, and we may all set to our seal that it is true, that we have experienced it. If he had not been a God of patience, we should have been in hell long ago; but he has not rewarded us after our iniquities; so those will say who know what sin deserves. He has not inflicted the judgments which we have merited, nor deprived us of the comforts which we have forfeited, which should make us think the worse, and not the better, of sin; for God's patience should lead us to repentance, Rom_2:4

CALVI , "10.He hath not dealt with us after our sins The Psalmist here proves

from experience, or from the effect, what he has stated concerning the Divine

character; for it was entirely owing to the wonderful forbearance of God that the

Israelites had hitherto continued to exist. Let each of us, as if he had said, examine

his own life; let us inquire in how many ways we have provoked the wrath of God?

or, rather, do we not continually provoke it? and yet he not only forbears to punish

us, but bountifully maintains those whom he might justly destroy.

SPURGEO , "Ver. 10. He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us

according to our iniquities. Else had Israel perished outright, and we also had long

ago been consigned to the lowest hell. We ought to praise the Lord for what he has

not done as well as for what he has wrought for us; even the negative side deserves

our adoring gratitude. Up to this moment, at our very worst estate, we have never

suffered as we deserved to suffer; our daily lot has not been apportioned upon the

rule of what we merited, but on the far different measure of undeserved kindness.

Shall we not bless the Lord? Every power of our being might have been rent with

anguish, instead of which we are all in the enjoyment of comparative happiness, and

many of us are exceedingly favoured with inward joy; let then every faculty, yea, all

that is within us, bless his holy name.

EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.

Ver. 10. He hath not dealt with us after our sins. Might we not have expected, with

such conduct, that God would have withdrawn from us the blessing of his

providence, withheld from us the communication of his Spirit, permitted us to find

the means of grace profitless, left our temptations to multiply, and suffered us to

sink into a state of fixed backsliding? —and then, with our hearts at last sinking

into too natural depression, might we not have seemed to hear him saying to us this

day, "Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove

thee; know, therefore, and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast

forsaken the Lord thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord God of

Hosts." Baptist W. oel, 1798-1873.

Ver. 10. He hath not dealt with us after our sins. Why is it that God hath not dealt

with us after our sins? Is it not because he hath dealt with another after our sins?

Another who look our sins upon him; of whom it is said, that "God chastened him

in his fierce wrath"? and why did he chasten him, but for our sins? O gracious God,

thou art too just to take revenge twice for the same faults; and therefore, having

turned thy fierce wrath upon him, thou wilt not turn it upon us too; but having

rewarded him according to our iniquities, thou wilt now reward us according to his

merits. Sir R. Baker.

EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.

Ver. 10. Work out the terrible supposition, show the reasons why it has not yet been

actually so; then suggest that it may yet become a terrible fact, and exhort the guilty

to seek mercy.

11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him;

BAR ES, "For as the heaven is high above the earth - See the notes at Psa_57:10. Compare the notes at Isa_55:9. The literal translation of the phrase here would be, “For like the height of the heavens above the earth.” The heavens - the starry heavens - are the highest objects of which we have any knowledge; and hence, the comparison is used to denote the great mercy of God - meaning that it is as great as can be conceived; that there is nothing beyond it; that we cannot imagine that it could be greater - as we can imagine nothing higher than the heavens.

So great is his mercy toward them that fear him - To those who reverence and serve him. That is, His mercy is thus great in forgiving their offences; in imparting grace; in giving them support and consolation.

CLARKE, "For as the heaven is high above the earth - Great and provoking as our crimes may have been, yet his mercies have, in their magnitude and number, surpassed these, as far as the heavens are elevated beyond the earth.

GILL, "For as the heaven is high above the earth,.... Which is the greatest distance known, or can be conceived of; the space between the heaven and the earth is seemingly almost infinite; and nothing can more illustrate the mercy of God, which reaches to the heavens, and is in heaven; though this is but a faint representation of the largeness and abundance of it, and which indeed is boundless and infinite:

so great is his mercy towards them that fear him, or, his mercy hath prevailed over them that fear him (a); as the waters of the flood prevailed upon the earth, and reached and overflowed the highest hills, Gen_7:18, so abundant and superabundant is the grace of God over them that "fear" him. Which character is given, not as being the cause of their obtaining mercy, but as descriptive of the persons that partake of it; on whom it has such an effect, as to cause them to fear the Lord, and his goodness; and is mentioned to prevent obstinate and presumptuous sinners expecting it, or trusting to it.

HE RY, ". He has pardoned our sins, not only my iniquity (Psa_103:3), but our transgressions, Psa_103:12. Though it is of our own benefit, by the pardoning mercy of God, that we are to take the comfort, yet of the benefit others have by it we must give him the glory. Observe, (1.) The transcendent riches of God's mercy (Psa_103:11): As the heaven is high above the earth (so high that the earth is but a point to the vast expanse), so God's mercy is above the merits of those that fear him most, so much above and beyond them that there is no proportion at all between them; the greatest performances of man's duty cannot demand the least tokens of God's favour as a debt, and therefore all the seed of Jacob will join with him in owning themselves less than the least of all God's mercies, Gen_32:10. Observe, God's mercy is thus great towards those that fear him,not towards those that trifle with him. We must fear the Lord and his goodness.

JAMISO , "great— efficient.

K&D 11-14, "The ingenious figures in Psa_103:11. (cf. Psa_36:6; Psa_57:11) illustrate the infinite power and complete unreservedness of mercy (loving-kindness).

Psa_14:1; Psa_53:2, in exact ,התעיבו and השחיתו has Gaja (as have also הרחיק texts), in

order to render possible the distinct pronunciation of the guttural in the combination רח. Psa_103:13 sounds just as much like the spirit of the New Testament as Psa_103:11, Psa_103:12. The relationship to Jahve in which those stand who fear Him is a filial relationship based upon free reciprocity (Mal_3:11). His Fatherly compassion is (Psa_103:14) based upon the frailty and perishableness of man, which are known to God, much the same as God's promise after the Flood not to decree a like judgment again

(Gen_8:21). According to this passage and Deu_31:21, יצרנו appears to be intended of the

moral nature; but according to Psa_103:14, one is obliged to think rather of the natural

form which man possesses from God the Creator (יצרiו, Gen_2:7) than of the form of heart which he has by his own choice and, so far as its groundwork is concerned, by

inheritance (Psa_51:7). In זכור, mindful, the passive, according to Böttcher's correct apprehension of it, expresses a passive state after an action that is completed by the

person himself, as in טוה��, and the like. In its form Psa_103:14 ,ידוע� reminds one of the Book of Job Job_11:11; Job_28:23, and Psa_103:14 as to subject-matter recalls Job_7:7,and other passages (cf. Psa_78:39; Psa_89:48); but the following figurativerepresentation of human frailty, with which the poet contrasts the eternal nature of the divine mercy as the sure stay of all God-fearing ones in the midst of the rise and decay of things here below, still more strongly recalls that book.

CALVI , "11.For in proportion to the height of the heavens above the earth The

Psalmist here confirms by a comparison the truth that God does not punish the

faithful as they have deserved, but, by his mercy, strives against their sins. The form

of expression is equivalent to saying that God’s mercy towards us is infinite. With

respect to the word גבר, gabar, it is of little consequence whether it is taken in a

neuter signification, or in a transitive, as is noted on the margin; for in either way

the immeasurableness of God’s mercy is compared to the vast extent of the world.

As the mercy of God could not reach us, unless the obstacle of our guilt were taken

away, it is immediately added, (verse 12th,) that God removes our sins as far from

us as the east is distant from the west The amount is, that God’s mercy is poured out

upon the faithful far and wide, according to the magnitude of the world; and that, in

order to take away every impediment to its course, their sins are completely blotted

out. The Psalmist confirms what I have just now stated, namely, that he does not

treat in general of what God is towards the whole world, but of the character in

which he manifests himself towards the faithful. Whence also it is evident that he

does not here speak of that mercy by which God reconciles us to himself at the first,

but of that with which he continually follows those whom he has embraced with his

fatherly love. There is one kind of mercy by which he restores us from death to life,

while as yet we are strangers to him, and another by which he sustains this restored

life; for that blessing would forthwith be lost did he not confirm it in us by daily

pardoning our sins. Whence also we gather how egregiously the Papists trifle in

imagining that the free remission of sins is bestowed only once, and that afterwards

righteousness is acquired or retained by the merit of good works, and that whatever

guilt we contract is removed by satisfactions. Here David does not limit to a moment

of time the mercy by which God reconciles us to himself in not imputing to us our

sins, but extends it even to the close of life. ot less powerful is the argument which

this passage furnishes us in refutation of those fanatics who bewitch both themselves

and others with a vain opinion of their having attained to perfect righteousness, so

that they no longer stand in need of pardon.

SPURGEO , "Ver. 11. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his

mercy toward them that fear him. Boundless in extent towards his chosen is the

mercy of the Lord; it is no more to be measured than the height of heaven or the

heaven of heavens. "Like the height of the heavens" is the original language, which

implies other points of comparison besides extent, and suggests sublimity, grandeur,

and glory. As the lofty heavens canopy the earth, water it with dews and rains,

enlighten it with sun, moon, and stars, and look down upon it with unceasing

watchfulness, even so the Lord's mercy from above covers all his chosen, enriches

them, embraces them, and stands for ever as their dwellingplace. The idea of our

version is a very noble one, for who shall tell how exceeding great is the height of

heaven? Who can reach the first of the fixed stars, and who can measure the utmost

bounds of the starry universe? Yet so great is his mercy! Oh, that great little word

so! All this mercy is for "them that fear him; "there must be a humble, hearty

reverence of his authority, or we cannot taste of his grace. Godly fear is one of the

first products of the divine life in us, it is the beginning of wisdom, yet it fully

ensures to its possessor all the benefits of divine mercy, and is, indeed, here and

elsewhere, employed to set forth the whole of true religion. Many a true child of God

is full of filial fear, and yet at the same time stands trembling as to his acceptance

with God; this trembling is groundless, but it is infinitely to be preferred to that

baseborn presumption, which incites men to boast of their adoption and consequent

security, when all the while they are in the gall of bitterness. Those who are

presuming upon the infinite extent of divine mercy, should here be led to consider

that although it is wide as the horizon and high as the stars, yet it is only meant for

them that fear the Lord, and as for obstinate rebels, they shall have justice without

mercy measured out to them.

EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.

Ver. 11. Our mind cannot find a comparison too large for expressing the

superabundant mercy of the Lord toward his people. David Dickson.

WHEDO , "11. As the heaven is high above the earth—The highest measure of

comparison the mind can grasp. Comp. Psalms 36:5; Psalms 57:10.

Them that fear him—So, also, Psalms 103:13; Psalms 103:17-18. This shows he is

speaking of God’s fatherly chastisements of his people. He looks at their sin in the

light of their earthly misery and temptation, (Psalms 103:14,) and mingles

compassion with severity, “that we might be partakers of his holiness.” Hebrews

12:10

BE SO , "Verses 11-13

Psalms 103:11-13. As the heaven, &c., so great is his mercy — So much above our

deserts and expectations, and above the mercy which one man shows to another;

toward them that fear him — Which clause he adds here, as also Psalms 103:17-18,

to prevent men’s mistakes and abuses of God’s mercy, and to overthrow the vain

hopes which impenitent sinners build thereon. As far as the east, &c., so far hath he

removed our transgressions — The guilt of our sins, from our persons and

consciences. The sense is, He hath fully pardoned them so as never to remember

them more. Like as a father pitieth, &c. — o father can be more indulgent and

tender hearted to his returning children, than the Lord is to those who so reform, by

his chastisements, as to fear afterward to offend him. Thus, in these three verses,

“we are presented with three of the most beautiful, apposite, and comforting

similitudes in the world. When we lift up our eyes, and behold around us the lofty

and stupendous vault of heaven, encircling, protecting, enlightening, refreshing, and

cherishing the earth, and all things which are therein, we are bidden to contemplate,

in this glass, the immeasurable height, the boundless extent, and the salutary

influences of that mercy which, as it were, embraced the creation, and is over all the

works of God. Often as we view the sun arising in the sea, and darkness flying away

before his face toward the opposite quarter of the heavens, we may see an image of

that goodness of Jehovah, whereby we are placed in the regions of illumination, and

our sins are removed, and put far away out of his sight. And, that our hearts may, at

all times, have confidence toward God, he is represented as bearing toward us the

fond and tender affection of a father, ever ready to defend, to nourish, and to

provide for us, to bear with us, to forgive us, and receive us in the paternal arms of

everlasting love.” — Horne. “One would think it impossible,” says another eminent

divine, “if daily experience did not convince us to the contrary, that human

creatures should be regardless of such love, and ungrateful to so solicitous a

benefactor! For my own part, I cannot conceive it possible for any heart to be

unaffected or uninfluenced by such a composition as this before us.”

12 as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

BAR ES, "As far as the east is from the west - As far as possible; as far as we can imagine. These are the points in our apprehension most distant from each other, and as we can conceive nothing beyond them, so the meaning is, that we cannot imagine our sins could be more effectually removed than they are. The literal meaning of the Hebrew is, “like the distance of the east from the west” or, “like its being far.”

So far hath he removed our transgressions from us - That is, he has put them entirely away. They are so removed that they cannot affect us any more. We are safe from all condemnation for our sins, as if they had not been committed at all. Compare the notes at Isa_43:25; notes at Isa_44:22.

CLARKE, "As far as the east is from the west - As the east and the west can never meet in one point, but be for ever at the same distance from each other, so our sins and their decreed punishment are removed to an eternal distance by his mercy.

GILL, "As far as the east is from the west,.... Which Kimchi thinks is mentioned because it contains the length of the habitable world; and therefore it is not said as far as the north is from the south; since a man can go from east to west, but not from north to south, because of the extreme heat and cold. But this distance is not given with respect to those opposite parts of the earth, which scarcely exceed 12700 miles; but with respect to those opposite points in the heavens: and the meaning is, that as far as the eastern point of the heavens is from the western point of them; which more illustrates the matter in hand, or the blessing later mentioned, than the other.

So far hath he removed our transgressions from us; which removed men and angels from God, and set them at a distance from him; and which, if not removed, are such burdens as must sink men down into the lowest hell; and yet cannot be removed by anything that they can do; not by any sacrifices, services, or duties of any kind; nor in any other way, nor by any other person, than the Lord himself: and this is to be understood not of a removal of the being of sin out of his people, for that is not done in this life; rather of the removal of the guilt of sin, by a special application of pardoning grace and mercy; see 2Sa_12:13, but, best of all, of a removal of sins to Christ, and of them by his sacrifice and satisfaction: Christ engaged as a surety for his people; Jehovah the Father considered him as such; and therefore did not impute their sins to them, but to him; and when he sent him in the likeness of sinful flesh, he removed them from them, and laid them upon him; who voluntarily took them on himself, cheerfully bore them, and, by bearing them, removed the iniquity of the land in one day; and carried them away to the greatest distance, and even put them away for ever by the sacrifice of himself; and upon the satisfaction he gave to divine justice, the Lord removed them both from him and them; justified and acquitted him, and his people in him: and by this means so effectually, and so far, are their transgressions removed, that they shall never be seen any more, nor ever be imputed to them, nor be brought against them to their condemnation; in consequence of which, pardon is applied to them, and so sin is removed from their consciences, as before observed; see Lev_16:21.

HE RY, " The fulness of his pardons, an evidence of the riches of his mercy (Psa_103:12): As far as the east is from the west (which two quarters of the world are of greatest extent, because all known and inhabited, and therefore geographers that way reckon their longitudes) so far has he removed our transgressions from us, so that they shall never be laid to our charge, nor rise up in judgment against us. The sins of believers shall be remembered no more, shall not be mentioned unto them; they shall be sought for, and not found. If we thoroughly forsake them, God will thoroughly forgive them.

JAMISO , "removed ... from us— so as no longer to affect our relations to Him.

SPURGEO , "Ver. 12. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed

our transgressions from us. O glorious verse, no word even upon the inspired page

can excel it! Sin is removed from us by a miracle of love! What a load to move, and

yet is it removed so far that the distance is incalculable. Fly as far as the wing of

imagination can bear you, and if you journey through space eastward, you are

further from the west at every beat of your wing. If sin be removed so far, then we

may be sure that the scent, the trace, the very memory of it must be entirely gone. If

this be the distance of its removal, there is no shade of fear of its ever being brought

back again; even Satan himself could not achieve such a task. Our sins are gone,

Jesus has borne them away. Far as the place of sunrise is removed from yonder

west, where the sun sinks when his day's journey is done, so far were our sins

carried by our scapegoat nineteen centuries ago, and now if they be sought for, they

shall not be found, yea, they shall not be, saith the Lord. Come, my soul, awaken

thyself thoroughly and glorify the Lord for this richest of blessings. Hallelujah. The

Lord alone could remove sin at all, and he has done it in a godlike fashion, making a

final sweep of all our transgressions.

EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.

Ver. l2. As far as the east is from the west. The expression taken from the distance of

the east from west is pitched upon, saith Kimchi, because those two quarters of the

world are of greatest extent, being all known and inhabited. From whence it is that

geographies reckon that way their longitudes, as from north to south their latitudes.

Henry Hammond.

Ver. 12. When sin is pardoned, it is never charged again; the guilt of it can no more

return than east can become west, or west become east. Stephen Charnock.

WHEDO , "12. As far as the east is from the west—The antithesis denotes the

extreme boundaries of the world or universe. For the figure, see on Psalms 50:1. The

phrase is proverbial for what is measurable, as in Psalms 103:11.

So far hath he removed our transgressions—A testimony to the witness of absolute

forgiveness and acceptance worthy of the ew Testament.

13 As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;

BAR ES, "Like as a father pitieth his children - Hebrew, “Like the compassion of a father for his children.” See the notes at Mat_7:7-11. God often compares himself with a father, and it is by carrying out our ideas of what enters into the parental character that we get our best conceptions of the character of God. See the notes at Mat_6:9. That which is referred to here, is the natural affection of the parent for the child; the tender love which is borne by the parent for his offspring; the disposition to care for its needs; the readiness to forgive when an offence has been committed. Compare Luk_15:22-24. Such, in an infinitely higher degree, is the compassion - the kindness - which God has for those that love him.

So the Lord pitieth them that fear him - He has compassion on them. He exercises toward them the paternal feeling.

CLARKE, "Like as a father pitieth his children - This is a very emphatic verse, and may be thus translated: “As the tender compassions of a father towards his children; so the tender compassicns of Jehovah towards them that fear him.” Nothing can place the tenderness and concern of God for his creatures in a stronger light than this. What yearnings of bowels does a father feel toward the disobedient child, who, sensible of his ingratitude and disobedience, falls at his parent’s feet, covered with confusion and melted into tears, with, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am not worthy to be called thy son!” The same in kind, but infinitely more exquisite, does God feel when the penitent falls at his feet, and implores his mercy through Christ crucified.

GILL, "Like as a father pitieth his children,.... When in any affliction, disorder, or distress: the Lord stands in the relation of a Father to his people; they are his children by adopting grace, through the covenant of grace with them; by a sovereign act of his own will he puts them among the children, predestinates them to the adoption of children; and sends his Son to redeem them, that they might receive it, and his Spirit to bear witness to their spirits, that they are his children; and towards these he has all the affections of a tender parent.

So the Lord pitieth them that fear him; not with a servile fear, which is unsuitable to the relation of children; but with reverence and godly fear, with a fear of him and his goodness, and on account of that; a filial fear, such a reverence as children should have of a father: and this character belongs to all the saints of all nations, Jews or Gentiles; and seems to be here given an purpose to include all; and that the divine pity and compassion might not be thought to be restrained to any particular nation. And, as the fruit of his tender mercy, he looks upon his children in their lost estate, and brings them out of it; he succours them under all their temptations; he sympathizes with them under all their afflictions: being full of compassion, he forgives their iniquities; and in the most tender manner receives them when they have backslidden, and heals their backslidings. The Targum in the king of Spain's Bible is,

"so the Word of the Lord pities,''

HE RY 13-14, "He has pitied our sorrows, Psa_103:13, Psa_103:14. Observe, (1.) Whom he pities - those that fear him, that is, all good people, who in this world may become objects of pity on account of the grievances to which they are not only born, but born again. Or it may be understood of those who have not yet received the spirit of adoption, but are yet trembling at his word; those he pities, Jer_31:18, Jer_31:20. (2.) How he pities - as a father pities his children, and does them good as there is occasion. God is a Father to those that fear him and owns them for his children, and he is tender of them as a father. The father pities his children that are weak in knowledge and instructs them, pities them when they are froward and bears with them, pities them when they are sick and comforts them (Isa_66:13), pities them when they have fallen and helps them up again, pities them when they have offended, and, upon their submission, forgives them, pities them when they are wronged and gives them redress; thus the Lord pities

those that fear him. (3.) Why he pities - for he knows our frame. He has reason to know our frame, for he framed us; and, having himself made man of the dust, he remembers that he is dust, not only by constitution, but by sentence. Dust thou art. He considers the frailty of our bodies and the folly of our souls, how little we can do, and expects accordingly from us, how little we can bear, and lays accordingly upon us, in all which appears the tenderness of his compassion.

JAMISO , "pitieth— literally, “has compassion on.”

CALVI , "13.As a father is compassionate towards his children, The Psalmist not

only explains by a comparison what he has already stated, but he at the same time

assigns the cause why God so graciously forgives us, which is, because he is a father

It is then in consequence of God’s having freely and sovereignly adopted us as his

children that he continually pardons our sins, and accordingly we are to draw from

that fountain the hope of forgiveness. And as no man has been adopted on the

ground of his own merit, it follows that sins are freely pardoned. God is compared

to earthly fathers, not because he is in every respect like them, but because there is

no earthly image by which his unparalleled love towards us can be better expressed.

That God’s fatherly goodness may not be perverted as an encouragement to sin,

David again repeats that God is thus favorable only to those who are his sincere

worshippers. It is indeed a proof of no ordinary forbearance for God to “make his

sun to rise on the evil and on the good,” (Matthew 5:45;) but the subject here treated

is the free imputation of the righteousness by which we are accounted the children

of God. ow this righteousness is offered only to those who entirely devote

themselves to so bountiful a Father, and reverently submit to his word. But as our

attainments in godliness in this world, whatever they may be, come far short of

perfection, there remains only one pillar on which our salvation can securely rest,

and that is the goodness of God.

SPURGEO , "Ver. 13. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth

them that fear him. To those who truly reverence his holy name, the Lord is a father

and acts as such. These he pities, for in the very best of men the Lord sees much to

pity, and when they are at their best state they still need his compassion. This should

check every propensity to pride, though at the same time it should yield us the

richest comfort. Fathers feel for their children, especially when they are in pain,

they would like to suffer in their stead, their sighs and groans cut them to the quick:

thus sensitive towards us is our heavenly Father. We do not adore a god of stone,

but the living God, who is tenderness itself. He is at this moment compassionating

us, for the word is in the present tense; his pity never fails to flow, and we never

cease to need it.

EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.

Ver. 13. Like as a father pitieth his children, etc. A chaplain to seamen, at an

American port, visited a sailor who appeared to be near death. He spoke kindly to

the man upon the state of his soul, and directed him to cast himself on Jesus. With

an oath, the sick man bade him begone. The chaplain then told him that he must be

faithful to him, for if he died impenitent he would be lost for ever. The man was

sullen and silent, and pretentted to fall asleep. The visit was repeated more than

once, with similar ill success. At length the chaplain, suspecting that the sailor was a

Scotchman, repeated a verse of the old version of the Psalms:

"Such pity as a father hath

Unto his children dear.

Like pity shows the Lord to such

As worship him in fear."

Tears started into the sailor's eyes as he listened to these words. The chaplain asked

him if he had not had a pious mother. The man broke into tears. Yes, his mother

had, in years gone by, taught him these words, and had also prayed to God for him.

Since then he had been a wanderer by sea and land; but the memory of her faith

and love moved his heart. The appeals made to him were blessed by the Spirit of

God. His life was spared, and proved the reality of his conversion.

Ver. 13. Like as a father. It is to be observed in this verse, what kind of mercy the

prophet attributes to God. He says not, As man pities man, as the rich the poor man,

as the strong the feeble, as the freeman the captive, but he makes mention of that

pity which a father shows to his son, which is the greatest of all. The word Mxr itself

supports this view, as it properly signifies viscarum commotis. An example of this

we have in 1 Kings 3:23-27 in the case of the woman who could not bear the

slaughter of her child... And afterwards in the case of the father of the prodigal. Lu

15:11-32. Musculus.

Ver. 13. As a father pitieth his children. The father pitieth his children that are

weak in knowledge, and instructs them; pities them when they are froward, and

bears with them; pities them when they are sick, and comforts them; when they are

fallen, and helps them up again; when they have offended, and upon their

submission, forgives them; when they are wronged, and rights them. Thus "the

Lord pitieth them that fear him." Matthew Henry.

Ver. 13. So the Lord pitieth, &c. So and ten thousand times more than so. For he is

the "Father of all mercies, "and the Father of all the fatherhoods in heaven and

earth. Ephesians 3:15. John Trapp.

Ver. 13. The Load pitieth. Though it be commonly said, "It is better to be envied,

than pitied; "yet here it is not so: but it is a far happier thing to be pitied of God,

than to be envied of men. Sir R. Baker.

Ver. 13. Them that fear him. The fear of God is that deference to God which leads

you to subordinate your will to his; makes you intent on pleasing him; penitent in

view of past wilfulness; happy in his present smile; transported by his love; hopeful

of his glory. George Bowen.

Ver. 13. Them that fear him. It may be understood of those who have not yet

"received the spirit of adoption, "but are yet "trembling at his word, "those he

"pities." Matthew Henry.

Ver. 13-14. The good father doth not turn off the child for being weak and sickly;

but is so much the more indulgent as his necessity requires succour. If his stomach

refuse meat, or cannot answer it with digestion, will he put him out of doors? o;

when the Shunamite's son complains of his head, she lays him in her bosom. A

mother is good to all the fruit of her womb, most kind to the sick infant: when it lies

with its eyes fixed on her, not able to declare its grief, or to call for what it desires,

this doubles her compassion: "So the Lord doth pity us, remembering our frame,

considering that we are but dust"; that our soul works by a lame instrument; and

therefore he requires not that of an elemental composition, which he doth of

angelical spirits. The son is commanded to write out such a copy fairly; he doth his

best, far short of the original; yet the father doth not chide, but encourage him. Or

he gives him a bow and arrows, bids him shoot to such a mark; he draws his utmost

strength, lets go cheerfully: the arrow drops far short, yet the son is praised, the

father pleased. Temptation assaults us, lust buffets us, secular business diverts us,

manifold is our weakness, but not beyond our Father's forgiveness: "He will spare

us, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him, " Malachi 3:17. Thomas Adams.

ELLICOTT-GREAT TEXTS, "Verse 13-14

The Father’s Pity

Like as a father pitieth his children,

So the Lord pitieth them that fear him.

For he knoweth our frame;

He remembereth that we are dust.—Psalms 103:13-14.

1. “Like as a father.” The history of religion shows that it has not been easy for men

to think of God in that extremely simple and human fashion; and yet, to Christians,

no other way of thinking appears so obvious or so natural. It met us in our

childhood, grew into the thinking of our youth, and has swayed the conceptions we

have formed of that august and invincible power that works for righteousness and

peace for evermore. We lisped it in our earliest hymns. It had a place in the first

prayers we offered at our mother’s knee. It was set out in many winsome forms in

the Sunday school; and when we realized something of the joy of the Divine pardon,

we felt more deeply than ever the entire appropriateness and unsurpassed charm of

the poet’s words. God is like a father. It saturates the Christian atmosphere. It is

shaping the thought and the life of the world.

And yet it is a matter of historic fact that men were thinking and inquiring for ages

before they were able to interpret God in the terms of human fatherhood. Groping

after God, if haply they might find Him, they sought their symbols first of all in the

many-leaved picture book of nature, and said, God is like the sun, shining in its

strength, and filling the world with its radiance. The moon is His symbol as it casts

its light on the path of the pilgrim in the night. “God is like the rock,” they

exclaimed; “His work is perfect.” He abides amid the storms and stress of life, stable

as the everlasting hills.

Quite late in history did men come to the human in their quest for the terms in

which they might express God; and when they reached this point, they seized at first

only upon the more arresting qualities of the animal in man, and said, “God is like

Hercules” in the invincible strength with which He crushes the evils in the world,

and makes an end of them. Later still, Plato advanced to the suggestion that God

was like a “geometer,” a thinker and fashioner, full of ideas and ideals; and, latest of

all, in one of the youngest portions of the Old Testament, not in Genesis, not in any

part of the Pentateuch, but in this wonderful and most gracious lyric, the 103rd

Psalm, possibly one of the last contributions of Hebrew Psalmody, the seer surpasses

all the great historical religions, and pictures God to us as a pitiful, compassionate,

sin-forgiving, and soul-healing Father, and thus supplies the basis for the most true,

most worthy, and most inspiring conception of God.

There was once a group of friends standing at the house door, gazing in wonder at

an eclipse. It was a cloudless night; and, as they saw the shadow of the earth gliding

so punctually over the face of the brilliant moon, a solemn emotion of awe fell upon

every mind, and in absolute silence they watched the magnificent phenomenon.

Everything connected with their daily lives seemed for a season to be forgotten; they

were citizens of infinitude; all their thoughts were swept into the regions of

immensity. But suddenly the silence was broken by a cry from the nursery where a

child had been laid to sleep. In that company, how soon you could tell who was the

mother; in a moment she had left the scene, had rushed upstairs, and was clasping

the baby in her embrace! What were the wonders of nature compared to the needs

of a suffering child? More sacred than the music of the spheres was that feeble

appeal for pity; more powerful than the sweet influence of the Pleiades was the

attraction of love which at once absorbed that woman’s soul. Then was she most like

God, not when she was exalted into amazement at the marvels of the sky, but when

she was soothing pain and chasing fear by tenderness and pity.1 [ ote: F. Walters.]

2. In depicting the milder and kindlier aspect of God’s character the Old Testament

writers make pity the ground quality on which everything is based. With the Psalm

writers it is a standing description of God on this side of His nature that He is

“gracious and full of compassion.” His compassion for the perishable life and

oppressed state of Israel is expressly assigned by the prophets as His reason for

“redeeming” His people and forgiving their rebellions with long-suffering mercy.

When He withdraws locusts from the wasted fields of Palestine, it is because He

pities His people’s sufferings. The repentant city of ineveh is spared because its

helpless myriads touched in God’s great heart such ruth as Jonah had for his

withering gourd. And after Jerusalem’s fall, the patriot-poet who mourned so

exquisitely over its ruin finds the explanation of all disaster in these plaintive, half-

reproachful words, “Thou hast not pitied.” It reads as if the Almighty’s long-

suffering patience with men, His gracious kindness to His people, His relenting, even

His mercy in pardoning sin, were all felt by these old Hebrews to root themselves in

that beautiful sentiment of compassion with which a Being so immense and self-

contained in blessedness must look down on the fragile and sorrowful creatures

whose origin, whose habitation, and whose end are all of them in the dust.

“Pity lies at the core of all the great religions.” The chapters of the Koran, all of

them, begin with these words: “In the name of God, the compassionate, the

merciful.” The vast religion of Buddha numbers five hundred million votaries, and

pity is the keynote to it all.1 [ ote: M. J. McLeod, Heavenly Harmonics for Earthly

Living, 99.]

3. The sense of God’s fatherly compassion grows out of man’s deepest experience.

The Psalmist is face to face with his own life, and with the life of Israel. He looks

back in his history, and counts up the “benefits” he has received from the Lord:

forgiveness and healing, solace and renewal, quickening and uplift. He is swayed by

the spirit of praise and adoration and love; and out of his own growing affection

there leaps up irresistibly this thought of God. It must be so. The God who meets his

sin with such pity and pardon, bears with his errors and guilty ignorance so

patiently, must have the heart of a father. These are the gifts of love. They reveal

wisdom, intelligence, adaptation of means to an end, but chiefly they show the same

sort of care for the soul of man as a loving father shows for his child; they disclose

the Divine heart. God forgives as a father does the mistakes and follies and sins of

his son. He delivers from peril, He crowns with loving-kindness and tenderness. He

satisfies the soaring desires of the spirit; He renews the springs of life. “Like as a

father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.”

But the most vital element in the Psalmist’s experience is the forgiveness of his sins.

It is to that he recurs again and again. God forgives as only a father-heart in its

fullest flow of pity and compassion can forgive. For it is not easy to forgive. Brothers

have been known to pursue one another in a spirit of retaliation for years, and some

fathers and mothers have shown hardness of heart towards their own offspring; but

God forgives with a generosity and completeness which show that no father has a

love so large as His.

Who is a pardoning God like Thee,

Or who has grace so rich and free!

It seems impossible to exaggerate in describing it. Listen to the singer as, with soul

bursting with thankfulness, he says, God does chide—but not always; nor does He

keep His anger for ever. Take your measuring-glass and look up into the heavens.

Let your gaze reach out to the farthest depths of the infinite blue, soar and still soar,

and still you do not reach the boundaries of His forgiving love: “He hath not dealt

with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the

heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.”

Years ago when death came to me first and took a child, the anguish was great.

Watching her while she lay dying, I learnt for the first time what is meant by the

words, “Like as a father pitieth his children.” Only so could I be taught the pity of

God. And I learnt too, at the same time, what God must feel at the loss of His

children. What are all these passionate affections but parables of Divine things?

Shall God suffer and not we?1 [ ote: Life of R. W. Dale of Birmingham, 21.]

My little Son, who look’d from thoughtful eyes

And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise,

Having my law the seventh time disobey’d,

I struck him, and dismiss’d

With hard words and unkiss’d,

His Mother, who was patient, being dead.

Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep,

I visited his bed,

But found him slumbering deep,

With darken’d eyelids, and their lashes yet

From his late sobbing wet.

And I, with moan,

Kissing away his tears, left others of my own;

For on a table drawn beside his head,

He had put, within his reach,

A box of counters, and a red-vein’d stone,

A piece of glass abraded by the beach

And six or seven shells,

A bottle with bluebells

And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art,

To comfort his sad heart.

So when that night I pray’d

To God, I wept, and said:

Ah, when at last we lie with tranced breath,

ot vexing Thee in death,

And Thou rernemberest of what toys

We made our joys,

How weakly understood,

Thy great commanded good,

Then, fatherly not less

Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay,

Thou’lt leave Thy wrath, and say,

“I will be sorry for their childishness.”1 [ ote: Coventry Patmore, The Unknown

Eros.]

4. The ew Testament discloses the fact that the pity of God is the sympathy of One

who associates Himself with us and undertakes for us. When we speak of the

Incarnation we think of the Divine in the human. But there is another side to that

great truth. There is the human in the Divine—what Robertson of Brighton used to

call the humanity of Deity, and what the late Principal Edwards of Bala called “the

humanity of God.” That is something which makes Him one with us, so that He

identifies Himself with us, and, in a word, pities us. ow nobody resents that kind of

pity, the pity of a genuine sympathy, which makes a man suffer because you suffer

and compels him so to identify himself with you as to enter into your experience.

That comes to you like balm; there is healing in it. It stands by your side; it puts its

arms around you, so to speak, and in quivering tones says: “My brother, my sister,

my child, this misfortune touches us both, for you are bone of my bone, and flesh of

my flesh. Because you suffer I must suffer. In the name of our common humanity, in

the name of God, let us try to help each other.” That is pity. That is the pity of God;

for that is the pity of love.

What is the meaning of Gethsemane and the cross but this, that the Son of God by

virtue of His identification with us in His humanity entered sympathetically into the

sin and suffering of the world? ot that He shared our sin by actual transgression,

for He knew no sin; but as a father shares the sin and shame and suffering of his

child, so the Lord Jesus shared our sin and shame and suffering. “Himself bare our

sins in his own body on the tree.” “He was wounded for our transgressions, he was

bruised for our iniquities.” He who knew no sin “was made sin for us.” How

otherwise could He have made atonement for us? And what is the teaching of the

parable of the Prodigal Son in this regard? How did the father pity his wandering

boy? He yearned for him when he was away in the far country; he knew well what it

all meant—the degradation, the undying stain, the suffering. And for every pang in

the heart of the son there was an answering pang in the heart of the father. And how

did the pity express itself? While the son was yet a great way off the father saw him,

and had compassion on him, and ran to meet him. Ah! pity does not think of its

dignity. The pity of some people could never get beyond a walk; it is too often on

stilts. The father’s pity made him run; he ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.

And that is the pity of God; that is how it is unfolded in the story of redemption.

A chord which has been once set in unison with another vibrates (they say) when its

fellow is sharply struck. God has set His heart through human suffering into

perpetual concord with human hearts. Strike them, and the heart of God quivers for

fellowship. If this is compassion, it is so in a more literal sense than when we use the

word as a mere synonym for pity. It is sympathy, in the Greek and ew Testament

sense; it is, as our version has it, being “touched” with the same feeling. It is the

remembrance of His own human past which stirs within the soul of Christ, when,

now, from His high seat, He sees what mortal men endure.1 [ ote: J. O. Dykes.]

5. The Psalmist says that man’s weakness makes a sure appeal to the Father’s heart.

“For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.” Dust is a synonym

for frailty. While the mountains stand fast for generations, the dust into which they

are slowly worn has no abiding place. The winds toss it, carrying its unresisting

particles whithersoever they will. And the stuff out of which we are fashioned is just

as unstable and never at one stay. Our lives are of slenderer fibre than unspun silk,

brittle as threads of fine-drawn glass, breath-breakable as the texture that holds

together only in a vacuum. The Psalmist goes on to speak of death, reminding us

that man is like a flower of the field which, untended by human care, unscreened by

human device, unwarmed by human art, shrivels at the first sign of change and the

first moan of desert wind, and dies neglected and forlorn. Through the entire round

of his days he is ever matching and measuring his puny capacities against the

strong. Death, which draws the curtain over his cold, inert, baffled clay, is but the

last phase in that ever-recurring spectacle of impotence. And yet man draws the

Almighty God down to his help; and, marvellous to say, man draws God by reason

of his very frailty. Of the sum of that human life over which He bends I am but a

thousand-millionth part, and yet “the Lord thinketh upon me,” who “am poor and

needy”—thinketh of me the more closely for that very reason.

In his essay on “The Sublime and Beautiful,” Burke points out the fact that we

always associate physical smallness with the idea of beauty, and he supports his rule

by reminding us that in every known language terms of endearment are

diminutives. Is not the reason for this common note in the taste and speech of

mankind that the hearts of the strong and the chivalrous are captured by the very

weakness which solicits defence? When we are called upon to play the part of

providence to the helpless we experience a mysterious satisfaction which influences

our æsthetic judgment, and the helpless grow beautiful in our eyes. And does not

this peculiarity in human nature give us the clue to a mystery in the heart of God?

When He made man He put Divine qualities into a slender framework, filled up

with delicate clay, because to such beings the deepest secret of His tenderness could

be spoken.1 [ ote: T. G. Selby.]

Will you say to a mother, Why do you waste such love on that poor child? Do you

not see that he is a cripple, has curvature of the spine, always will be a cripple? See

the little fellow creeping on his hands and knees! The doctor says that he can never

be strong; always will be a source of anxiety to you; most likely never will be able to

walk. Why worry so over him? What good will he ever be? Ah, if you spoke thus,

she would give you a look that would shrivel you.

My silent boy, I hold thee to my breast,

Just as I did when thou wast newly born.

It may be sinful, but I love thee best,

And kiss thy lips the longest night and morn.

Oh, thou art dear to me beyond all others,

And when I breathe my trust and bend my knee

For blessing on thy sisters and thy brothers,

God seems the nighest when I pray for thee.1 [ ote: M. J. McLeod, Heavenly

Harmonies for Earthly Living, 110.]

6. God’s intimate knowledge of our weakness is the sure pledge of tender parental

treatment. It is certain that a very great part of the harshness of judgment which

passes among men is the result of imperfect knowledge. You do not know the man

you are speaking about; you do not know the natural infirmities, the bodily

hindrances, the constitutional causes which affect the person whom you are

blaming. You cannot take into your calculation all the circumstances, all the

pressure, all the temptation. You cannot read his motives, you cannot dip into the

secret processes going on in that man’s mind. If you could see all this, your feelings

would be very different, and your sentiments would be reversed.

ow, of all upon earth, a parent can best estimate these things in his own child. Has

he not watched him from the first passages of his dawning life? Has he not seen the

moulding of his frame? Has he not become intimate with the secret framework of

his being? Can he not take a more comprehensive view of him than any other man

can? And this pity flowing from parental knowledge is the shadow of that love of

God. He sees what no other eye sees, and His calculations include all the extenuating

circumstances—the health, the position, the conflict, the effort, the struggle, the

sorrow, the penitence. “He knows” and—blessed be God for the kind word, a word

very rarely known to us—” He remembers.” And so pity is the child of knowledge.

“Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he

knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.”

ot as one blind and deaf to our beseeching,

either forgetful that we are but dust,

ot as from heavens too high for our upreaching.

Coldly sublime, intolerably just:—

ay but Thou knewest us, Lord Christ Thou knowest,

Well Thou rememberest our feeble frame,

Thou canst conceive our highest and our lowest,

Pulses of nobleness and aches of shame.

Therefore have pity!—not that we accuse Thee,

Curse Thee and die and charge Thee with our woe;

ot thro’ Thy fault, O Holy One, we lose Thee,

ay, but our own,—yet hast Thou made us so!

Then tho’ our foul and limitless transgression

Grows with our growing, with our breath began,

Raise Thou the arms of endless intercession.

Jesus, divinest when Thou most art man!1 [ ote: F. W. H. Myers, Saint Paul.]

7. The Psalmist based the pity of our Heavenly Father on His special knowledge of

our frame—such knowledge as only the Framer of it can possess. But to know man’s

frame, to know what is in man, even to search and try with Divine inspection the

heart and spirit of a man, is after all something less intimate and perfect than to be a

man. To learn a child’s lessons, feel a youth’s passions, think a man’s thoughts; to

be actually tempted to evil as men are tempted, and find out by trial how hard it is

for them to be good; to undergo the moral probation and discipline peculiar to a

human creature, impossible to the Creator; this must give—or, if we are to think

about the subject at all, it must be supposed by us to have given—to the Son of God

a fresh acquaintance with human experience, of quite another sort from the

omniscience of the creating Father. At all events, who can help feeling this, that, if it

is possible for any one to know us, understand us, and do us justice, Jesus Christ is

that One; since, as our Maker, He both knows what He made us fit to be and to do

and, as our Fellow-Man, has learned through what hindrances and temptations we

have become what we are?

An obelisk, originally brought from Egypt, stands in the piazza of St. Peter’s at

Rome. It was put into its present position in the sixteenth century. It weighs a little

short of a million pounds, and required the strength of eight hundred men, one

hundred and fifty horses, and forty-six cranes, to lift it on to its pedestal. The

crowds who witnessed the feat were forbidden to speak under pain of death. As the

ropes were tugged by hosts of workmen, and the huge obelisk slowly reared itself

like a waking giant, the movement suddenly stopped and the ropes threatened to

give way. The huge mass was about to fall crashing upon the pavement. An old

sailor in the crowd, familiar with the humours of ropes and the methods of treating

them, broke the silence and cried, “Pour water on the ropes!” The advice was

quickly followed, the ropes tightened, and the obelisk slowly rose again and settled

securely upon its base. In our past life how often have strain, tension, and peril come

to us! The ties by which we were knit to goodness, to truth, to purity, to faith, were

sorely tested, and seemed ready to snap and plunge us into ruin. Some temptation

arose out of all proportion to the staying power of our trust in God, some shock

fraught with impending disaster to the character, some partial alienation from right

paths threatening to strand our lives in uselessness. But the eye of infinite wisdom

was watching, and God remembered the weakness of the flesh. From within the

unseen there came a voice that saved us, and the peril was overpast. The strain

eased off, character strengthened itself to the emergency, and we were kept in the

plane of our providential lot. And through this wise, watchful pity of our infirmities

we come to find ourselves with a place in the living temple, monuments of the

gentleness, the sympathy, and the upholding power of the God who pities the frail.

In the moments which show most our weakness the Lord remembers that we are but

dust, and fortifies us against the strains and hazards which belong to our earthly

course.1 [ ote: T. G. Selby, The God of the Frail, 14.]

8. Who are they that experience this pity of God? What does the text say? “Like as a

father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.” The same

expression occurs in the eleventh verse: “As the heaven is high above the earth, so

great is his mercy toward them that fear him.” And again in the seventeenth verse:

“The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him.”

ow, let us not imagine for a moment that God does not yearn with compassion over

men who are utterly reckless, men who are breaking through God’s law, and

treading the path that leadeth to destruction. God pities them; but, then, observe,

they are indifferent to Him; and if we are indifferent to any one, we do not care for

that one’s pity, we have no wish for his compassion. God’s compassion goes forth

upon all men, but all men cannot receive it, and do not receive it. It is not the idea of

terror that is conveyed by this word “fear.” We do not crave mercy from a tyrant;

we demand justice from him. If one might translate this word “fear” one should do

so by two words—“reverential love.” We can receive real sympathy only from those

we love with reverence. When we are bearing a great trial, when we are going

through our testing time, when we are bowing under a heavy sorrow, who are the

men and women from whom we seek sympathy or pity? It may be we seek for the

companionship of but one—only one—for whom our love is deep and reverent.

Bunyan in his long treatise On the Fear of God deals with the matter of “right fear”

very fully. “Take heed,” he says in that treatise, “of hardening thy heart at any time

against convictions of judgments. I bid you before to beware of a hard heart, now I

bid you beware of hardening your soft heart. The fear of the Lord is the pulse of the

soul. Pulses that beat are the best sighs of life; but the worst show that life is present.

Intermitting pulses are dangerous. David and Peter had an intermitting pulse in

reference to this fear.” Christian is no coward, and the adjective right is emphatic

when he speaks of right fear. The word fear has two senses, according as it relates to

dangerous or to sublime things. In the one connexion it is a sense of danger; in the

other it is the faculty of reverence, the habit of wonder, the continued power of awe

and admiration. Christian’s analysis of it includes both these senses. (1) It rises in

the conviction of sin—not (it will be observed) in the approach of punishment, but

in the horror of sin itself, as a thing to be abhorred apart from its consequences. (2)

It leads to a laying hold on Christ for salvation—in which the sense of danger and

the faculty of reverence are combined. (3) It begets in the soul a great reverence for

God.1 [ ote: John Kelman, The Road, ii. 162.]

Among the children of God, while there is always that fearful and bowed

apprehension of His majesty, and that sacred dread of all offence to Him, which is

called the Fear of God, yet of real and essential fear there is not any, but clinging of

confidence to Him as their Rock, Fortress, and Deliverer; and perfect love, and

casting out of fear; so that it is not possible that, while the mind is rightly bent on

Him, there should be dread of anything either earthly or supernatural; and the

more dreadful seems the height of His majesty, the less fear they feel that dwell in

the shadow of it (“Of whom shall I be afraid”), so that they are as David was,

“devoted to His fear”; whereas, on the other hand, those who, if they may help it,

never conceive of God, but thrust away all thought and memory of Him, and in His

real terribleness and omnipresence fear Him not nor know Him, yet are by real,

acute, piercing, and ignoble fear, haunted for evermore.2 [ ote: Ruskin, Modern

Painters, ii. ch. xiv. (Works, iv. 199).]

SBC, "I. In the mind of the psalmists there was nothing contradictory between faith in God as a righteous Judge and faith in God as being longsuffering and of great kindness. They did not think of God as divided between His sense of justice and His love of mercy, because they understood that mercy was never forgotten in His judgments. They felt that His judgments were the truest mercies both for themselves and for the world at large. So deep was their conviction of the blessedness of God’s judgments that some of their most joyous strains are those in which they proclaim God as coming to judge the world in righteousness.

II. The text shows the fatherly character of God. He is our Father because He created and preserves us; He is our Father because He rules us by the stern yet loving discipline of His righteous judgment; He is our Father because He is full of love, and forgiveness, and tender, fatherly pity, knowing our frame and remembering that we are dust.

III. Here then is a proof of the Divine source whence the inspirations of the psalmists came. They knew God as their Father because the Spirit of adoption was speaking to their hearts.

G. Forbes, The Voice of God in the Psalms, p. 149.

References: Psa_103:11.—Sermons for Sundays, Festivals, and Fasts, 1st series, p. 292. Psa_103:12.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xix., No. 1108.

Psalms 103:13

(with Heb_2:17; Heb_4:15)

The thought which I desire, by the comparison of these texts, to suggest is this: how the compassion of God for men disclosed in the Old Testament has grown in the New into the fellow-feeling of Christ. We have not lost our Father’s pity; we have gained a Brother’s sympathy.

I. Both halves of revelation agree in giving impartial prominence to two aspects of God’s moral attitude towards us: to His aspect of displeasure towards the sinner as identified with his sin and His aspect of grace towards the sinner as separable from his sin. But looking only to the gracious or favourable side of the Divine character, I am struck by this, that in those Old Testament writings which make most of the kindlier and milder

attributes of Jehovah the grand quality on which everything is made to rest is His pity. The inconceivable vastness of that interval which divides God from men was ever present to the devout Hebrew. It was across this gulf of contrast that Hebrew piety always represented Jehovah as regarding man. He beheld them creatures of yesterday, small, and frail, and evil, evanescent and sorrowful. He pitied them. Very beautiful to think of is this tender turning of the great Divine heart toward such as we are, and the waking up of pity at each new sight of our pitiable mood. Whatever the Old Testament discloses of Divine kindness to men, of gentle forbearance, and enduring, watchful care, and abundant forgiveness, and healing helpfulness, seems all of it to be the condescension of One who is too great to be anything else than nobly pitiful.

II. There is no doubt whatever that some souls, fed on such views of God as these, did grow up to a spiritual stature quite heroical. True greatness of soul is near of kin to a manly lowliness of soul, and he who frankly and profoundly worships Him who is alone noble enough for worship will find himself ennobled.

III. At the same time, the characteristic tendency of Old Testament saints to look at the Divine goodness as coloured by His pity, and as having a constant reference to His distance above His creatures, implied an imperfect appreciation of His love. Love has not done its best when from above it pities us who are below. One better thing it had to do; and at last, when the world was ripe to bear it, love came and did it. Love when it is perfect vanquishes what it cannot obliterate: the distinctions of high and low, of great and small. It refuses to be separated from its loved one. Down from His height of serene, compassionate Divinity, therefore, love drew the Eternal Son of God, to become a Brother of the men whose Father He was. God has entered into a new relation to humanity. He has, what once He had not, a fellow-feeling, that fellow-feeling which springs from the touch of kinship. In brief, to the paternity of God has been added the fraternal tie.

IV. There are three directions in which actual experience must be held to modify even the compassions of the Most Merciful. (1) It gives such knowledge of every similar sufferer’s case as no mere spectator can have. (2) By His incarnation Christ has put Himself on our own level. He has abolished at His own choice the gulf which parted us. He is our Equal; He is our Fellow. (3) A chord which has been once set in unison with another vibrates, they say, when its fellow is sharply struck. God has set His heart through human suffering into perpetual concord with human hearts. Strike them, and the heart of God quivers for fellowship. It is the remembrance of His own human past which stirs within the soul of Christ when, now from His high seat, He sees what mortal men endure. An echo from an unforgotten passion answers back to all the cries and sighs that go daily up from men and women who to this hour on earth must toil, and weep, and pray, and agonise, and die.

J. Oswald Dykes, Sermons, p. 138.

I. Jesus made Deity attractive. He presented Him in such a fashion that human love humanly expressed could give itself to Him. The incarnation of God translated theology out of metaphysics into the physical, brought the apprehension of it within the scope of those senses that feed the soul. Pity, tenderness, courtesy of manner, sweetness of speech, patience, bravery, humility, faith, hope—these in Jesus were revealed as Divine, as God in the flesh, as Deity brought nigh.

II. There is nothing so fine in its influence or so sweet in its expression as the authority of love. We yielded loving obedience to it when we were children, as we heard its words from the mouth of mother and father. We never doubted their right to speak it. We never thought it was unnecessary. No more should we when God commands us. God is father and mother to us. His commands are wishes in our behalf, suggestions to us, entreaties, prayers, and whatever else is natural for love to feel and do for those it calls its own. This idea of the commands of God gives the mind a right standpoint from which to see the face and to hear the advice of that heavenly Fatherhood which is over us all in its solicitude, anxiety, and deathless love.

III. In the future we shall grow into this love as trees grow to their leaves and their blossoms. We are human now, but we are learning to be Divine. The creeds may not help us; but the loving and the forgiving, the bearing and the fighting, the weeping and the laughing, will. Our day will come after night, and our calm after storm. We are men and women now; we shall be angels by-and-bye: and what are angels but men fully grown and women to whom all possible whiteness and sweetness has come? Our Father will give us new names when we are grown enough to look like Him.

W. H. Murray, The Fruits of the Spirit, p. 397.

I. Upon the three grounds of creation, property, and unity we base the parental tenderness of God. And if once that fact be established, there are two things which become impossible for ever. (1) The one impossibility is that God should ever feel contempt for us. Pity is a respectful feeling; real pity never despises: it always acts delicately. (2) The other impossibility is that God should ever feel any unkindness towards us.

II. Notice one or two of the characteristic features which mark a father. (1) Anticipation. We have an amazing history yet to learn of what has been the anticipatory character of God’s love to us. (2) Patience. Of all the marvels of God, the greatest marvel is His longsuffering. If you ask the secret of this wonderful endurance of God, how it is that He has borne all the insults and all the irritation which we all have been continually giving Him, the answer lies in the deep principle of parental character. (3) God’s pity is not a weak pity; it is not a morbid pity; it is not a pity that cannot punish. He does punish His own children; in this world He punishes them more severely than other men.

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 9th series, p. 186.

References: Psa_103:13.— Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxviii., No. 1650; J. Baillie, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxx., p. 230.

Psalms 103:13-14

I. There is no evidence to be derived of the existence of pity in any overruling Deity as far as the laws of nature reveal the Divine character. As we rise from the lower to the higher organised animals, there does begin to be a very distinct manifestation of affection. Among men the feeling of pity is first disclosed in a very clear way. We are prepared to believe that the analogy of this line of development continues, and that in angels it is as

much superior to what it is in the highest men as in the highest men it is superior to what it is in the lowest; and we are prepared to believe that above angels and all supernal beings, in God Himself, it takes on a grandeur and dignity, utterly inconceivable to men and commensurate with the infinite-ness of God’s own nature.

II. If we look at human society as an organisation, we shall find that it does not fitly serve as an analogue of the Divine nature. As a ruler, man cannot have pity. Government was not meant for purposes of restoration. It was meant to be a restraining, guiding, penal institution.

III. Above all other places, it is in the family and in the individual heart that we find the full disclosure of pity, or a state of sympathy and helpfulness in view of another’s suffering. If one would gain the clearest ideas of the scope and nature of pity, he must study it in the family. There we see: (1) that love inflicts pain. (2) Where suffering is inflicted by a wise and loving parent, the object of it is not to avenge a wrong done to the parent. (3) Pity is consistent with penalty.

In view of these statements, I remark: (a) Pity on the part of God will not prevent the infliction of penalty among transgressors. (b) Those who are suffering the just consequences of their sins are not on that account excluded from God’s pity. (c) All who are striving to live aright in this world, although they are far from successful, may be comforted in the thought that there are more who sympathise with them than they know or dream.

H. W. Beecher, Sermons, 3rd series, p. 326.

14 for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.

BAR ES, "For he knoweth our frame - Our formation; of what we are made; how we are made. That is, he knows that we are made of dust; that we are frail; that we are subject to decay; that we soon sink under a heavy load. This is given as a reason why he pities us - that we are so frail and feeble, and that we are so easily broken down by a pressure of trial.

He remembereth that we are dust -Made of the earth. Gen_2:7; Gen_3:19. In his dealings with us he does not forget of what frail materials he made us, and how little our frames can bear. He tempers his dealings to the weakness and frailty of our nature, and his compassion interposes when the weight of sorrows would crush us. Remembering, too, our weakness, he interposes by his power to sustain us, and to enable us to bear what our frame could not otherwise endure. Compare the notes at Isa_

57:16.

CLARKE, "For he knoweth our frame - yitsrenu, “our formation;” the יצרנוmanner in which we are constructed, and the materials of which we are made. He knows we cannot contend with him, and if he uses his power against us, we must be crushed to destruction. In all his conduct towards us he considers the frailty of our nature, the untowardness of our circumstances, the strength and subtlety of temptation, and the sure party (till the heart is renewed) that the tempter has within us. Though all these things are against us, yet it must ever be said, whatever use we make of it, “the grace of God is sufficient for us.” But alas! alas! who makes use of that sufficient grace? Here, then, is cause for condemnation. But, O amazing mercy! if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him; for he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are but dust. The man who can say, in the face of these Scriptures, Let us sin that grace may abound, is a brute and demon, who has neither lot nor part in this thing.

GILL, "For he knoweth our frame,.... The outward frame of their bodies, what brittle ware, what earthen vessels, they be; he being the potter, they the clay, he knows what they are able to bear, and what not; that if he lays his hand too heavy, or strikes too hard, or repeats his strokes too often, they will fall in pieces: he knows the inward frame of their minds, the corruption of their nature, how prone they are to sin; and therefore does not expect perfect services from them: how impotent they are to that which is good; that they can do nothing of themselves; nor think a good thought, nor do a good action; and that their best frames are very uncertain ones; and that, though the spirit may be willing, the flesh is weak. The word used is the same that is rendered "imagination", Gen_6:5, and by which the Jews generally express the depravity and corruption of nature; and so the Targum here paraphrases it,

"for he knows our evil concupiscence, which causes us to sin;''

and to this sense Kimchi.

He remembereth that we are dust (b); are of the dust originally, and return to it again at death; and into which men soon crumble when he lays his hand upon them; this he considers, see Psa_78:38. The Targum is,

"it is remembered before him, that we are of the dust:''

the Septuagint version makes a petition of it, "remember that we are dust"; and so the Arabic version. And we should remember it ourselves, and be humble before God; and wonder at his grace and goodness to us, Gen_18:27.

JAMISO , "he— “who formed,” Psa_94:9.

knoweth our frame— literally, “our form.”

we are dust— made of and tending to it (Gen_2:7).

CALVI , "14.For he knoweth David here annihilates all the worth which men

would arrogate to themselves, and asserts that it is the consideration of our misery,

and that alone, which moves God to exercise patience towards us. This again we

ought carefully to mark, not only for the purpose of subduing the pride of our flesh,

but also that a sense of our unworthiness may not prevent us from trusting in God.

The more wretched and despicable our condition is, the more inclined is God to

show mercy, for the remembrance that we are clay and dust is enough to incite him

to do us good.

SPURGEO , "Ver. 14. For he knoweth our frame. He knows how we are made, for

he made us. Our make and build, our constitution and temperament, our prevailing

infirmity and most besetting temptation he well perceives, for he searches our

inmost nature.

He remembereth that we are dust. Made of dust, dust still, and ready to return to

dust. We have sometimes heard of "the Iron Duke, " and of iron constitutions, but

the words are soon belied, for the Iron Duke is dissolved, and other men of like

rigour are following to the grave, where "dust to dust" is an appropriate requiem.

We too often forget that we are dust, and try our minds and bodies unduly by

excessive mental and bodily exertion, we are also too little mindful of the infirmities

of others, and impose upon them burdens grievous to be borne; but our heavenly

Father never overloads us, and never fails to give us strength equal to our day,

because he always takes our frailty into account when he is apportioning to us our

lot. Blessed be his holy name for this gentleness towards his frail creatures.

EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.

Ver. 14. He knoweth our frame. "Our formation; "the manner in which we are

constructed, and the materials of which we are made. Adam Clarke.

Ver. 14. He knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust. ot like some

unskilled empiric, who hath but one receipt for all, strong or weak, young or old;

but as a wise physician considers his patient, and then writes his bill. Men and devils

are but God's apothecaries, they make not our physic, but give what God prescribes.

Balaam loved Balak's fee well enough, but could not go a hair's breadth beyond

God's commission. William Gumall.

Ver. 14. He remembereth that we are dust. As if the very matter out of which man

was first made, though without sin, were a disadvantage to him, in the resisting of

sin. It was a disadvantage before man had any sin in him, how much more is it now

when most men have nothing at all in them but sin, and the best have very much.

"That which is born of the flesh, "saith Christ, "is flesh." Corrupt nature can

produce none but corrupt acts. Joseph Caryl.

Ver. 14. We are dust.

O how in this Thy quire of souls I stand,

—Propt by Thy hand—

A heap of sand!

Which busie thoughts—like winds—would scatter quite,

And put to flight,

But for Thy might;

Thy hand alone doth tame

Those blasts, and knit my frame. Henry Vaughan.

Ver. 14, 16. We are dust. I never see one of those spiral pillars of dust which, like a

mimic simoon, rush along the road upon a windy day, with- ont thinking, "There is

an image of life." Dust and a breath! Observe how the apparent "pillar" is but a

condition, an active condition, of the particles of dust, and those particles

continually changing. The form depends upon the incessant movement. The heavy

sand floats on the impalpable air while it partakes its motion; let that cease and it

fails, So the dull clods of the field, smitten by force, take wings and soar in life,

partake for a time its rapid course, and then, the force exhausted, fall back into

their former state. A whirl, a flux, maintained by forces without, and ceasing when

they are withdrawn; that is our life. James Hinton, in "Thoughts on, Health and

some of its Conditions, " 1871.

BE SO , "Verses 14-16

Psalms 103:14-16. For he knoweth our frame — The weakness and mortality of our

natures, and the frailty and misery of our condition, (as the expression seems to be

explained in the following clause) That we are but dust — And that if he should let

loose his hand upon us, we should be irrecoverably destroyed. For, as for man —

Fallen, mortal man; his days are as grass — Which grows out of the earth, rises but

a little way above it, and soon withers and returns to it again: see Isaiah 40:6-7. As a

flower of the field — If man, in his best estate, seem somewhat more than grass; if

he flourish in health and strength, youth and beauty, riches and honour; if he look

fresh and fair, gay and lovely, glorious and powerful; yet even then he is but as a

flower which, though distinguished a little from the grass, will wither with it; yea, as

a flower of the field — Which is more exposed to winds and other violences than the

flowers of the garden, that are secured by the art and care of the gardener; so he

flourisheth — Unfolds his beauty in youth, and flourishes a while in the vigour of

manhood; but the wind — A blasting or blighting wind, unseen and unlooked for;

passeth over it — Over the flower, even when it is in its perfection; and it is gone —

It droops, shrinks, and bows its head; its leaves fall off, and it sinks into the ground

that gave it birth. And the place thereof shall know it no more — There is no more

any appearance or remembrance of it in the place where it stood and flourished.

Thus the life of man is not only wasting of itself, but its period is liable to be

anticipated by a thousand accidents. If the breath of the divine displeasure pass over

him, and God, with rebukes, correct him for iniquity, his beauty consumes away like

a moth fretting a garment: his comeliness and vigour; his prosperity, wealth, and

glory; his health, strength, and life, waste away gradually, or vanish suddenly; and

he bows his drooping head and mingles again with his native dust; his friends and

his companions look for him at the accustomed spot which he once adorned, but in

vain: the earth has opened her mouth to receive him, and his place shall know him

no more

COFFMA , "Verse 14

GOD'S CO SIDERATIO OF MA 'S FRAILTY

"For he knoweth our frame;

He remembereth that we are dust.

As for man, his days are as grass;

As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.

For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone;

And the place thereof shall know it no more.

But the lovingkindness of Jehovah is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that

fear him,

And his righteousness unto children's children;

To such as keep his covenant,

And to those that remember his precepts to do them."

The first part of this paragraph gives some of the reasons for God's pity mentioned

in the preceding verses. especially man's weakness and the brevity of his existence.

"From everlasting to everlasting ... unto children's children" (Psalms 103:17). As a

special encouragement to his children, particularly those who keep the covenant and

remember the precepts of God to do them, God reminds us here that his mercies

and lovingkindness are eternal, benefitting, not merely those who love him, but also

extending the benefits to their children.

"To such as keep his covenant and remember his precepts to do them" (Psalms

103:18). There is a reciprocal element in the great blessings and mercies of God,

which are never bestowed upon the wicked and the righteous alike, except in the

matter of such general blessings as the sunshine and the rain provided for both. The

special lovingkindness and mercy of God in evidence here are promised to the

obedient.

15 The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field;

BAR ES, "As for man - literally, “Man; like the grass are his days!” The thought is

fixed on man: man so frail and weak; man, not only made originally of earth, but man delicate, feeble, soon to pass away like the springing grass, or like the fading flower.

His days are as grass - See the notes at Psa_90:5-6; compare Isa_40:6-8, notes; 1Pe_1:24, note.

As a flower of the field - As a blossom. It opens with beauty and fragrance, but soon fades and perishes.

So he flourisheth - Rather, “So he blossoms.” That is, he is like a flower that is fresh and beautiful, and that soon withers away.

CLARKE, "His days are as grass - See the note on Psa_90:5.

GILL, "As for man, his days are as grass,.... He himself is like the grass which springs out of the earth; continues on it for a time, and then drops into it; the continuance of the grass is very short, it flourishes in the morning, is cut down at evening, and withers; see Psa_90:5. As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth; which denotes the goodliness of man, and describes him in his best estate, as possessed of health, riches, honour, and all the gifts and endowments of nature; and yet, with all these, is only like a field flower, exposed to every wind, liable to be cropped by every hand, and to be trampled upon by the beasts of the field; and therefore flourishes not long: so very precarious and uncertain is man in his most flourishing circumstances; see Isa_40:6.

HE RY, " He has perpetuated his covenant-mercy and thereby provided relief for our frailty, Psa_103:15-18. See here, (1.) How short man's life is and of what uncertain continuance. The lives even of great men and good men are so, and neither their greatness nor their goodness can alter the property of them: As for man, his days are as grass, which grows out of the earth, rises but a little way above it, and soon withers and returns to it again. See Isa_40:6, Isa_40:7. Man, in his best estate, seems somewhat more than grass; he flourishes and looks gay; yet then he is but like a flower of the field,which, though distinguished a little from the grass, will wither with it. The flower of the garden is commonly more choice and valuable, and, though in its own nature withering, will last the longer for its being sheltered by the garden wall and the gardener's care; but the flower of the field (to which life is here compared) is not only withering in itself, but exposed to the cold blasts, and liable to be cropped and trodden on by the beasts of the field. Man's life is not only wasting of itself, but its period may be anticipated by a thousand accidents. When the flower is in its perfection a blasting wind, unseen, unlooked for, passes over it, and it is gone; it hangs the head, drops the leaves, dwindles into the ground again, and the place thereof, which was proud of it, now knows it no more. Such a thing is man: God considers this, and pities him; let him consider it himself, and be humble, dead to this world and thoughtful of another.

JAMISO , "So short and frail is life that a breath may destroy it.

it is gone— literally, “it is not.”

know it no more— no more recognize him (Psa_90:6; Isa_40:6-8).

K&D 15-18, "The figure of the grass recalls Psa_90:5., cf. Isa_40:6-8; Isa_51:12; that

of the flower, Job_14:2. אנוש is man as a mortal being; his life's duration is likened to that of a blade of grass, and his beauty and glory to a flower of the field, whose fullest bloom

is also the beginning of its fading. In Psa_103:16 �ו )the same as in Isa_40:7.( refers to

man, who is compared to grass and flowers. יR is �άν with a hypothetical perfect; and the wind that scorches up the plants, referred to man, is an emblem of every form of peril that threatens life: often enough it is really a breath of wind which snaps off a man's life. The bold designation of vanishing away without leaving any trace, “and his place knoweth him no more,” is taken from Job_7:10, cf. ibid. Job_8:18; Job_20:9. In the midst of this plant-like, frail destiny, there is, however, one strong ground of comfort. There is an everlasting power, which raises all those who link themselves with it above the transitoriness involved in nature's laws, and makes them eternal like itself. This

power is the mercy of God, which spans itself above (על) all those who fear Him like an eternal heaven. This is God's righteousness, which rewards faithful adherence to His covenant and conscientious fulfilment of His precepts in accordance with the order of

redemption, and shows itself even to (ל�) children's children, according to Exo_20:6; Exo_34:7; Deu_7:9 : on into a thousand generations, i.e., into infinity.

CALVI , "To the same purpose is the comparison immediately following, (verse

15,) that all the excellency of man withers away like a fading flower at the first blast

of the wind. Man is indeed improperly said to flourish. But as it might be alleged

that he is, nevertheless, distinguished by some endowment or other, David grants

that he flourishes like the grass, instead of saying, as he might justly have done, that

he is a vapor or shadow, or a thing of nought. Although, as long as we live in this

world, we are adorned with natural gifts, and, to say nothing of other things, “live,

and move, and have our being in God,” (Acts 17:28;) yet as we have nothing except

what is dependent on the will of another, and which may be taken from us every

hour, our life is only a show or phantom that passes away. The subject here treated,

is properly the brevity of life, to which God has a regard in so mercifully pardoning

us, as it is said in another psalm: “He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind

that passeth away, and cometh not again,” (Psalms 78:39.) If it is asked why David,

making no mention of the soul, which yet is the principal part of man, declares us to

be dust and clay? I answer, that it is enough to induce God mercifully to sustain us,

when he sees that nothing surpasses our life in frailty. And although the soul, after it

has departed from the prison of the body, remains alive, yet its doing so does not

arise from any inherent power of its own. Were God to withdraw his grace, the soul

would be nothing more than a puff or blast, even as the body is dust; and thus there

would doubtless be found in the whole man nothing but mere vanity.

SPURGEO , "Ver. 15. As for man, his days are as grass. He lives on the grass, and

lives like the grass. Corn is but educated grass, and man, who feeds on it, partakes

of its nature. The grass lives, grows, flowers, falls beneath the scythe, dries up, and

is removed from the field: read this sentence over again, and you will find it the

history of man. If he lives out his little day, he is cut down at last, and it is far more

likely that he will wither before he comes to maturity, or be plucked away on a

sudden, long before he has fulfilled his time.

As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. He has a beauty and a comeliness even as

the meadows have when they are yellow with the king-cups, but, alas, how short-

lived! o sooner come than gone, a flash of loveliness and no more! Man is not even

like a flower in the conservatory or in the sheltered garden border, he grows best

according to nature, as the field-flower does, and like the unprotected beautifier of

the pasture, he runs a thousand risks of coming to a speedy end. A large

congregation, in many-coloured attire, always reminds us of a meadow bright with

many hues; and the comparison becomes sadly true when we reflect, that as the

grass and its goodliness soon pass away, even so will those we gaze upon, and all

their visible beauty. Thus, too, must it be with all that comes of the flesh, even its

greatest excellencies and natural virtues, for "that which is born of the flesh is flesh,

"and therefore is but as grass which withers if but a breath of wind assails it. Happy

are they who, born from above, have in them an incorruptible seed which liveth and

abideth for ever.

EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.

Ver. 15. As for man. The insignificance of man is especially brought out by the use

of E OSH here. Robert Baker Girdlestone.

Ver. 15. Man comes forth, says Job, like a flower, and is cut down; he is sent into the

world the fairest and noblest part of God's works, fashioned after the image of his

Creator, with respect to reason and the great faculties of the mind; he cometh forth

glorious as the flower of the field; as it surpasses the vegetable world in beauty, so

does he the animal world in the glory and excellence of his nature. The one, if no

untimely accident oppress it, soon arrives at the full period of its perfection, —is

suffered to triumph for a few moments, and is plucked up by the roots in the very

pride and gayest stage of its being; —or if it happens to escape the hands of

violence, in a few days it necessarily sickens of itself and dies away. Man likewise,

though his progress is slower, and his duration somewhat longer, yet the periods of

his growth and declension are nearly the same, both in the nature and manner of

them. If he escapes the dangers which threaten his tenderer years, he is soon got into

the full maturity and strength of life; and if he is so fortunate as not to be hurried

out of it then by accidents, by his own folly and intemperance—if he escapes these,

he naturally decays of himself, —a period comes fast upon him, beyond which he

was not made to last. Like flowers or fruits which may be plucked up by force

before the time of their maturity, yet cannot be made to outgrow the period when

they are to fade and drop of themselves; when that comes, the hand of nature then

plucks them both off, and no art of the botanist can uphold the one, or skill of the

physician preserve the other, beyond the periods to which their original frames and

constitutions were made to extend. As God has appointed and determined the

several growths and decays of the vegetable race, so he seems as evidently to have

prescribed the same laws to man, as well as all living creatures, in the first

rudiments of which there are contained the specific powers of their growth,

duration and extinction; and when the evolutions of those animal powers are

exhausted and run down, the creature expires and dies of itself, as ripe fruit falls

from the tree, or a flower preserved beyond its bloom, drops and perishes upon the

stalk. Lawrence Sterne, 1713-1768.

Ver. 15. The Psalmist saith of man, as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. It is not

a flower of the garden, but of the "field." This latter is more subject to decay than

the former, because it lies more open to the nipping air and violent winds, and to the

browsing mouth of the beast, and is more liable to be trampled upon: by all these

ways it decayeth as well as by the scorching sun, and its own fading temper. John

Edwards, in "Theologia Reformata."

Ver. 15. As flower of the field.

What is life! like a flower, with the bane in its bosom,

Today full of promise—tomorrow it dies! —

And health—like the dew-drop that hangs in its blossom,

Survives but a night, and exhales to the skies!

How oft beneath the bud that is brightest and fairest,

The seeds of the canker in embryo lurk!

How oft at the root of the flower that is rarest—

Secure in its ambush the worm is at work? James Beattie, 1735-1803.

SIMEO , "PERPETUITY OF GOD’S MERCY

Psalms 103:15-18. As for man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he

flourisheth: for the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall

know it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon

them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children’s children; to such as keep

his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them.

THE consideration of the shortness and uncertainty of human life is at all times

seasonable, and more especially on such an occasion as this; when &c. [ ote: The

occasion may be stated as for a Funeral, or on ew Year’s Day.] — — — If indeed

we had no hope beyond the grave, such a subject would be most gloomy and

appalling: but when connected, as in the passage before us, with the unbounded

mercy of our God, it is full of consolation to all who are looking forward to the

eternal world. But we must have a good hope that we shall be partakers of God’s

mercy, or else not even the glorious description which is here given of it will divest

death of its sting, or reconcile us to the thought of approaching dissolution. Let us

then from these words consider,

I. The character of God’s people—

In general terms they are represented as “fearing God.” This of itself would be

sufficient to distinguish them from all other people, more especially as it marks “the

spirit of their minds.” A humble sense of his presence, a dread of doing any thing

contrary to his will, and a filial desire to please him, universally distinguish his

children: but still they are more clearly discerned by the characters assigned to

them in our text:

1. They “keep God’s covenant”—

[This is the covenant which was made with Abraham [ ote: Galatians 3:16-17.];

and of which Christ is the surety: he has undertaken to accomplish every thing for

his believing people; to expiate their sins by his blood, and to renew their souls by

his grace — — — “It is ordered in all things and sure [ ote: 2 Samuel 23:5.]” — —

— This the Believer sees to be exactly suited to his necessities, in that it provides

every thing for him, and only requires that he receive thankfully what is thus

offered to him freely. This therefore he embraces: “He lays hold on it” as all his

hope: and he relies upon it with his whole heart — — —]

2. They “do his commandments”—

[They are not negligent of good works, though they do not rely upon them for their

justification before God: “they love God’s law,” which is written in their hearts: and

they treasure up in their minds his precepts, no less than his promises. To do the

will of God, to do it universally without exception, and constantly without

intermission, is the one desire of their hearts. They would gladly, if it were possible,

“stand perfect and complete in all the will of God,” being “holy, as God is holy,”

and “perfect, even as their Father which is in heaven is perfect.”]

Such are the objects of God’s love: but how shall we express,

II. The extent of his mercy towards them—

The mercy of God is the great subject of this psalm. In the foregoing verses it is set

forth in a way of comparison; (equalling the boundless extent of heaven;) but in the

words before us it is declared in a way of contrast with the transitoriness of man’s

existence upon earth.

Man’s existence here is only as the flower of the field—

[It was “but yesterday” that we grew up and to-morrow “our place will no more be

found.” If suffered to continue for a while, we are only ripening for the scythe; but a

burning sun, or blasting wind, may cut short our existence in an hour [ ote: James

1:10-11.]. And when once the flower of the grass is withered, all remembrance of it

is gone: and so it is with us: we look gay and flourish for a little moment: and then

pass away, and give place to other generations.]

But “the mercy of God towards his people is from everlasting to everlasting”—

[As to its origin, it existed from all eternity. It is not excited in the bosom of our God

by any thing that he sees in man: neither the misery of our fallen state, nor any

goodness which we may be supposed to manifest, move him to exercise a disposition

that was not antecedently conceived in his own mind. Both his determination to

exercise mercy, and the objects towards whom it should be exercised, were from all

eternity fixed in his own bosom [ ote: Ephesians 3:11. 2 Timothy 1:9.]. His people

are chosen by him, not because they are holy, or will be holy, but that they “may be

holy, and without blame before him in love [ ote: Ephesians 1:4-6.].” “He loved

them with an everlasting love, and therefore with loving-kindness hath he drawn

them [ ote: Jeremiah 31:3.].”

In its duration also it is everlasting. “If he have begun a good work in them, we may

be confident that he will carry it on [ ote: Philippians 1:6.]. As, on the one hand, he

will not depart from them, so, on the other hand, “he will put his fear in their

hearts, that they may not depart from him [ ote: Jeremiah 32:40.].” If at any time

they transgress against him, he will chastise them with the rod, till he has brought

them back to himself: but “his loving-kindness will he not utterly take from them

[ ote: Psalms 89:30-36.]:” for “his gifts and callings are without repentance [ ote:

Romans 11:29.].” In every age will he prove faithful to his promises, even “to all

posterities for evermore.”

This doctrine is thought by many to encourage a presumptuous confidence, and a

consequent neglect of holiness. But, if we only bear in mind the statement before

given of the character of God’s people, and our unequivocal declaration, that no

person who does not answer to that character can have any scriptural hope of

mercy, we shall see, that there is no occasion for jealousy on that head. The holiness

of man is secured by the irreversible decree of Heaven, That the end shall be

combined with the means; and that every one whom God has ordained unto life,

shall be “made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light.” We need not be afraid

to give unto God all the glory of our salvation, and to ascribe all to the operation of

his sovereign grace, since, whatever may be said of God’s decrees, it is an infallible

truth, that “without holiness no man shall see the Lord.”]

Let us learn from hence,

1. In what light we should view our present state of existence—

[We should learn from nature, and from every thing we see around us. Let all, and

the young especially, look, not at the grass merely, but at the flower of the grass, and

learn from that, how transient their life is [ ote: Isaiah 40:6-8. This would be

proper to insist on, if it were the funeral of a young person.] — — — And let none,

like the fool in the Gospel, promise themselves years, when, for ought they know,

this very night their souls may be required of them.]

2. In what way we should improve it—

[What have we to do, but to attain the character of God’s people, and to secure the

mercy which he will exercise towards them? — — — In comparison of this, all

earthly pursuits are vanity; since, transient as our life is, we may yet find the objects

of our fondest regard still more transient [ ote: If this were a Funeral Sermon for

an eminently pious person, his views and conduct might with propriety be stated

here.].”]

16 the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.

BAR ES, "For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone -Margin, as in Hebrew, “it is not.” The reference is either to a hot and burning wind, that dries up the flower; or to a furious wind that tears it from its stem; or to a gentle breeze that takes off its petals as they loosen their hold, and are ready to fall. So man falls - as if a breath - a breeze -came over him, and he is gone. How easily is man swept off! How little force, apparently, does it require to remove the most beautiful and blooming youth of either sex from the earth! How speedily does beauty vanish; how soon, like a fading flower, does such a one pass away!

And the place thereof shall know it no more - That is, It shall no more appear in the place where it was seen and known. The “place” is here personified as if capable of recognizing the objects which are present, and as if it missed the things which were once there. They are gone. So it will soon be in all the places where we have been; where we have been seen; where we have been known. In our dwellings; at our tables; in our places of business; in our offices, counting-rooms, studies, laboratories; in the streets where we have walked from day to day; in the pulpit, the court-room, the legislation-hall; in the place of revelry or festivity; in the prayer-room, the Sabbath-school, the sanctuary - we shall be seen no longer. We shall be gone: and the impression on those who are there, and with whom we have been associated, will be best expressed by the language, “he is gone!” Gone; - where? No one that survives can tell. All that they whom we leave will know will be that we are absent - that we are “gone.” But to us now, how momentous the inquiry, “Where shall we be, when we are gone from among the living?” Other places will “know” us; will it be in heaven, or hell?

CLARKE, "The wind passeth over it - Referring perhaps to some blasting pestilential wind.

GILL, "For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone,.... A stormy wind, as the Targum, which tears it up by its roots, or blows off the flower, and it is seen no more; or a blighting easterly wind, which, blowing on it, shrivels it up, and it dies at once; such an one as blasted the seven ears of corn in Pharaoh's dream, Gen_41:23 or any impetuous, drying, and noxious wind: and so when the east wind of adversity passes over a man, his riches, and honour, and estate, are presently gone; or some bodily distemper, which takes away health, strength, and beauty, and impairs the mind; and especially death, which removes at once into another world.

And the place thereof shall know it no more; the place where the flower grew shall know it no more; or it shall be seen no more in it: so man, when he dies, though he is not annihilated, he is somewhere; he is in another world, either of happiness or woe;

yet he is not in this world, in the house and family, in the station and business he was; he is no longer known nor seen among men on earth; see Job_7:10.

SPURGEO , "Ver. 16. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone. Only a little

wind is needed, not even a scythe is demanded, a breath can do it, for the flower is

so frail.

"If one sharp wind sweep over the field,

It withers in an hour."

How small a portion of deleterious gas suffices to create a deadly fever, which no art

of man can stay. o need of sword or bullet, a puff of foul air is deadlier far, and

fails not to lay low the healthiest and most stalwart son of man.

And the place thereof shall know it no more. The flower blooms no more. It may

have a successor, but as for itself its leaves are scattered, and its perfume will never

again sweeten the evening air. Man also dies and is gone, gone from his old haunts,

his dear home, and his daily labours, never to return. As far as this world is

concerned, he is as though he never had been; the sun rises, the moon increases or

wanes, summer and winter run their round, the rivers flow, and all things continue

in their courses as though they missed him not, so little a figure does he make in the

affairs of nature. Perhaps a friend will note that he is gone, and say,

"One morn. I missed him on the accustomed hill,

Along the heath, and near his favourite tree;

Another came, nor yet beside the rill,

or up the lawn, nor at the wood was he."

But when the "dirges due" are silent, beyond a mound of earth, and perhaps a

crumbling stone, how small will be the memorial of our existence upon this busy

scene! True there are more enduring memories, and an existence of another kind

coeval with eternity, but these belong, not to our flesh, which is but grass, but to a

higher life, in which we rise to close fellowship with the Eternal.

EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.

Ver. 16. The wind passeth over it, and it is gone, etc. A breath of air, a gentle wind

(xwr) passes over him and he is gone. It would not be so strange if a tempest, a

whirlwind, passing over should sweep him away. The Psalmist means much more

than this. The gentlest touch, the whispering breeze, bears him off. He soon becomes

a stranger, no more known in the little space he once filled, going out and coming in.

Henry Cowles.

Ver. 16. The wind passeth over it, and it is gone. It is well known that a hot wind in

the east destroys at once every green thing. or is this to be wondered at, if, as Dr.

Russell says, the winds sometimes "bring with them a degree and kind of heat,

which one would imagine came out of an oven, and which, when it blows hard, will

affect metals within the houses, such as locks of room doors, nearly as much as if

they had been exposed to the rays of the sun." The blasting effect which seems to be

here alluded to, of certain pestilential winds upon the animal frame, is by no means

exaggerated by the comparison to the sudden fading of a flower. Maillet describes

hundreds of persons in a caravan as stifled on the spot by the fire and dust, of which

the deadly wind, that sometimes prevails in the eastern deserts, seems to be

composed. And Sir John Chardin describes this wind "as making a great hissing

noise, "and says that "it appears red and fiery, and kills those whom it strikes by a

kind of stifling them, especially when it happens in the day time." Richard Mant.

Ver. 16. The place thereof shall know him no more, &c. Man, once turned to dust, is

blown about by every wind, from place to place; and what knows the place, when

dust falls upon it; whether it be the dust of a prince, or of a peasant; whether of a

man, or of a beast? And must not man then needs be very miserable, when time and

place, the two best helps of life, do both forsake him? for what help can he have of

time, when his days are but as grass? What help of place, when his place denies him,

and will not know him? Sir R. Baker.

WHEDO , "16. The wind passeth over it—The allusion is to the east and southeast

winds, which, coming from the hot desert of Arabia, pass over Palestine with

vehemence, destroying life, withering grass and herbage, and exhausting the

strength of men and animals. See Ezekiel 17:10; Ezekiel 19:12; Hosea 13:15.

It is gone—Hebrew, It is not. Such is our transient, mortal life. But the language

applies specially to wicked and worldly men who have their portion in this life and

forget God. See Job 20:9; Psalms 37:10; Psalms 73:19-20.

The place thereof shall know it no more— Taken almost literally from Job 7:8

ELLICOTT, "(16) The wind—i.e., the hot, scorching blast, as in Isaiah 40:7. Even

in our humid climate, it may be said of a flower—

“If one sharp wind sweep o’er the field,

It withers in an hour.”

But the pestilential winds of the East are described as bringing a heat like that of an

oven, which immediately blasts every green thing.

Know it no more.—Comp. Job 7:10. Man vanishes away without leaving a trace

behind. The pathos of the verse has been well caught in the well-known lines of

Gray:—

“One morn I missed him on the accustomed hill,

Along the heath, and near his favourite tree:

Another came, nor yet beside the rill,

or up the lawn, nor at the wood was he.”

17 But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children—

BAR ES, "But the mercy of the Lord - The favor of the Lord; or, his loving-kindness.

Is from everlasting to everlasting - Is from the eternity past to the eternity to come. It had its foundation in the eternal decrees of God; it has its security in his purpose that where it is conferred, it shall not be withdrawn. It had no beginning; it will have no end. There never was a period in the past when it was not the purpose of God to save his people; there never will be a period in the future when it will be said that his saving mercy has ceased. It would be difficult to think of a statement which would at the same time, in so few words, confirm at once the doctrine of the divine decrees, and the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. If either of these doctrines is denied, then what is here stated by the psalmist is not true: if the doctrine of the divine decrees is denied, then his purpose of mercy had a beginning, and is not “from everlasting;” if the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints is denied, then his mercy has an end, and is not “to everlasting.”

Upon them that fear him - In respect to those who are his true worshippers, or his true people.

And his righteousness - His righteous purpose; or, his purpose in regard to their “becoming” righteous.

Unto children’s children - literally, “sons of sons.” That is, his purposes embrace the children and children’s children of the righteous; or, they are included in the covenant of mercy. See the notes at Act_2:39. Compare Exo_20:6.

CLARKE, "The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting - חסד

chesed signifies more particularly the exuberant goodness of God. This is an attribute of his nature, and must be from everlasting to everlasting; and hence, his righteousness

his merciful mode of justifying the ungodly, is extended from one - (tsidketh צדקת)generation to another.

Unto children’s children - It is still in force, and the doctrine of reconciliation through Christ shall continue to be preached till the conclusion of time.

GILL, "But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him,.... In opposition to the frailty of man, the stability and duration of

the mercy of God is observed. This reaches from one eternity to another; it is from everlasting in the heart of God: it appeared in the choice of the vessels of mercy; in the covenant of grace, which is founded upon it, and filled with it; every blessing of which flows from it, and therefore are called the "sure mercies of David". And it appears in time in the regeneration of God's elect, which is according to his abundant mercy; in the forgiveness of their sins, which is according to the multitude of his tender mercies; and in their whole salvation, which is by that, and not by works of righteousness; and will endure for ever, for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ is unto eternal life. It reaches from the world past to the world to come, as the Targum; and it is so "upon them that fear" the Lord; not with a servile, but a filial fear; a fear of the Lord and his goodness; which only is consistent with the grace and mercy of God, and a sense of it: not that the fear of God is the cause of mercy or grace; but, on the contrary, grace and mercy are the cause of the fear of God; which is a blessing of the covenant of grace, and one of the first things which appear in conversion; but this properly describes the persons who openly and manifestly share in the grace or mercy of God, and to whom he manifests it yet more and more; nor have any reason to believe they are the objects of it, until the true fear of God is wrought in their hearts; and, besides, this character may be given to show that the mercy and grace of God are not limited to the Israelites only, but belong to such of all nations that fear the Lord.

And his righteousness unto children's children; not the essential righteousness of God, but rather his faithfulness in the performance of his promises, which he will not suffer to fail: the justifying righteousness of Christ is here meant; which is an everlasting one, and is unto and upon all them that believe, in all successive generations; which is meant by the phrase of "children's children", even the spiritual seed of Christ, the seed of the church, the seed of Israel; to all and each of which, in every age, the word of God comes, and his promises are fulfilled; and who are justified by and glory in Christ, their righteousness; and who are further described in the next verse, which shows that not the carnal seed of them that fear the Lord are meant.

HE RY 17-18, "How long and lasting God's mercy is to his people (Psa_103:17, Psa_103:18): it will continue longer than their lives, and will survive their present state. Observe, [1.] The description of those to whom this mercy belongs. They are such as fear God, such as are truly religious, from principle. First, They live a life of faith; for they keep God's covenant; having taken hold of it, they keep hold of it, fast hold, and will not let it go. They keep it as a treasure, keep it as their portion, and would not for all the world part with it, for it is their life. Secondly, They live a life of obedience; they remember his commandments to do them, else they do not keep his covenant. Those only shall have the benefit of God's promises that make conscience of his precepts. See who those are that have a good memory, as well as a good understanding (Psa_111:10), those that remember God's commandments, not to talk of them, but to do them, and to be ruled by them. [2.] The continuance of the mercy which belongs to such as these; it will last them longer than their lives on earth, and therefore they need not be troubled though their lives be short, since death itself will be no abridgment, no infringement, of their bliss. God's mercy is better than life, for it will out-live it. First, To their souls, which are immortal; to them the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting;from everlasting in the councils of it to everlasting in the consequences of it, in their election before the world was and their glorification when this world shall be no more; for they are predestinated to the inheritance (Eph_1:11) and look for the mercy of the Lord, the Lord Jesus, unto eternal life. Secondly, To their seed, which shall be kept up to the end of time (Psa_102:28): His righteousness, the truth of his promise, shall be unto

children's children; provided they tread in the steps of their predecessors' piety, and keep his covenant, as they did, then shall mercy be preserved to them, even to a thousand generations.

JAMISO , "For similar contrast compare Psa_90:2-6; Psa_102:27, Psa_102:28.

CALVI , "17.But the goodness of Jehovah, etc The Psalmist leaves nothing to men

to rely upon but the mercy of God; for it would be egregious folly to seek a ground

of confidence in themselves. After having shown the utter emptiness of men, he adds

the seasonable consolation, that, although they have no intrinsic excellence, which

does not vanish into smoke, yet God is an inexhaustible fountain of life, to supply

their wants. This contrast is to be particularly observed; for whom does he thus

divest of all excellence? The faithful who are regenerated by the Spirit of God, and

who worship him with true devotion, these are the persons whom he leaves nothing

on which their hope may rest but the mere goodness of God. As the Divine goodness

is everlasting, the weakness and frailty of the faithful does not prevent them from

boasting of eternal salvation to the close of life, and even in death itself. David does

not confine their hope within the limits of time — he views it as commensurate in

duration with the grace on which it is founded. To goodness is subjoined

righteousness, a word, as we have had occasion frequently to observe before,

denoting the protection by which God defends and preserves his own people. He is

then called righteous, not because he rewards every man according to his desert, but

because he deals faithfully with his saints, in spreading the hand of his protection

over them. The Prophet has properly placed this righteousness after goodness, as

being the effect of goodness. He also asserts that it extends to the children and

children’s children, according to these words in Deuteronomy 7:9, “God keepeth

mercy to a thousand generations.” It is a singular proof of his love that he not only

receives each of us individually into his favor, but also herein associates with us our

offspring, as it were by hereditary right, that they may be partakers of the same

adoption. How shall He cast us off, who, in receiving our children and children’s

children into his protection, shows to us in their persons how precious our salvation

is in his sight?

SPURGEO , "Ver. 17. But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to

everlasting upon them that fear him. Blessed but! How vast the contrast between the

fading flower and the everlasting God! How wonderful that his mercy should link

our frailty with his eternity, and make us everlasting too! From old eternity the

Lord viewed his people as objects of mercy, and as such chose them to become

partakers of his grace; the doctrine of eternal election is most delightful to those

who have light to see it and love wherewith to accept it. It is a theme for deepest

thought and highest joy. The "to everlasting" is equally precious. Jehovah changes

not, he has mercy without end as well as without beginning. ever will those who

fear him find that either their sins or their needs have exhausted the great deep of

his grace. The main question is, "Do we fear him?" If we are lifting up to heaven the

eye of filial fear, the gaze of paternal love is never removed from us, and it never

will be, world without end.

And his righteousness unto children's children. Mercy to those with whom the Lord

makes a covenant is guaranteed by righteousness;it is because he is just that he

never revokes a promise, or fails to fulfil it. Our believing sons and their seed for

ever will find the word of the Lord the same: to them will he display his grace and

bless them even as he has blessed us. Let us sing, then, for posterity. The past

commands our praise and the future invites it. For our descendants let us sing as

well as pray. If Abraham rejoiced concerning his seed, so also may the godly, for

"instead of the fathers shall be the children, "and as the last Psalm told us in its

concluding verse, "the children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall

be established before thee."

EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.

Ver. 17. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting. o human

benevolence is perpetually the same; but by expelfence we see that those who are

kind today, may be changed into tyrants tomorrow. Examples of this we have in the

life of ero, and many other rulers. Therefore lest we should suspect the goodness of

God to bear any similar character, it is said with inconceivable consolation, that it

shall never cease, but is prepared for ever for all those who fear and serve God.

Musculus.

Ver. 17. From everlasting to everlasting. From everlasting, by predestination; to

everlasting, by glorification: the one without beginning, the other without end.

Bernard.

WHEDO , "17. But the mercy of the Lord—The adversative sense of the

conjunction marks the contrast between the perishable and frail in man, (vers. 15,

16,) and the everlasting “mercy” and faithfulness of God to “such as keep his

covenant.” Psalms 103:17-18.

Everlasting to everlasting—From eternity to eternity. By a law of interpretation the

words are limited only by the nature of the subject.

Unto children’s children—A quotation from Exodus 20:6; Exodus 34:7;

Deuteronomy 7:9

BE SO , "Verse 17-18

Psalms 103:17-18. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting, &c. — But though

we quickly decay and perish, yet God’s mercy to us doth not die with us, but, as it

was from eternity exercised in gracious purposes, so it will be continued unto

eternity in that future and endless life which is before us; upon them that fear him

— That is, upon them that are truly religious: see above on Psalms 103:11. And his

righteousness unto children’s children — Either his faithfulness, or his benignity,

the word being frequently used in both these senses, as has been shown before. But

it is here called righteousness, to intimate that God’s kindness to the posterity of his

people is not only an act of his goodness, but also a discharge of the obligation under

which he had laid himself to them, as elsewhere, so especially Exodus 20:6, to which

this place seems to relate. To such as keep his covenant — To them that, through his

grace, perform the condition of God’s covenant, that sincerely love and obey him.

Such restrictions are often added, as, in the general, to overthrow the presumptuous

hopes of ungodly men, so particularly to admonish the Israelites not to rest too

much on the privileges of their parents, or the covenant made with them, nor to

expect any benefit by it but upon condition of their continuance in God’s covenant.

And to those that remember his commandments — That have them much in their

thoughts, and practise them in the course of their lives.

18 with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.

BAR ES, "To such as keep his covenant - To such as adhere to the arrangements of his covenant, or who are faithful on their part. God will be faithful to his part of the covenant; and where there is fidelity on the part of his people, the blessings implied in the covenant will be conferred on them and on their children. The promise is ample, and the fidelity of God is certain, but still it is true that in those promises, and in that fidelity, it is implied that his people on their part must be faithful also, or the blessings will not be bestowed. There are no promises of blessings to the unfaithful, nor have those who are unfaithful any reason to hope that they or theirs will be partakers of the blessings of the covenant of mercy. Our only hope that we or our children will be partakers of the blessings of the covenant is to be found in the fact that we ourselves are faithful to God.

And to those that remember his commandments to do them -Who do not “forget” his law. If they do forget it, they have no right to expect the blessing. Obedience and fidelity are our only reasonable grounds of expectation of the blessing of God.

CLARKE, "To such as keep his convenant - The spirit of which was, I will be your God; We will be thy People. From the covenant came the commandments, and their obligation to remember and do them; and on such keepers of the covenant, and doers of the commandments, God promises to pour out his mercy through all generations.

GILL, "To such as keep his covenant,.... The covenant of grace, which is peculiarly the Lord's covenant, as distinct from man's; and which he keeps himself, and is ever mindful of it. This he makes known to his people at conversion; his secret is with them, and he shows them his covenant; the blessings and promises of it; their interest in them, and in himself, as their covenant God: which they "observe" (c), as the word here used signifies; and observing it, they lay hold upon it by faith, as belonging to them; and laying hold upon it, they "keep" it as their own, and keep it fast, and will not part with their interest in it for all the world.

And to those that remember his commandments to do them; some read them and hear them, but forget them, at least to do them: these are like a man that beholds his face in a glass, and forgets what manner of man he is; so James compares one that is a forgetful hearer, and not a doer of the word, Jam_1:23. The commandments of God are best remembered, so as to be done, when he puts his laws into the minds of men, and writes them in their hearts, and puts his Spirit within them, to cause them to walk in his statutes, and do them, Jer_31:34.

JAMISO , "such ... covenant— limits the general terms preceding.

righteousness— as usual (Psa_7:17; Psa_31:1).

CALVI , "Farther, as nothing is more easy than for hypocrites to flatter themselves

under a false pretext, that they are in favor with God, or for degenerate children

groundlessly to apply to themselves the promises made to their fathers, it is again

stated, by way of exception, in the 18th verse, that God is merciful only to those who,

on their part, keep his covenant, which the unbelieving make of none effect by their

wickedness. The keeping, or observing of the covenant, which is here put instead of

the fear of God, mentioned in the preceding verse, is worthy of notice; for thus

David intimates that none are the true worshippers of God but those who reverently

obey his Word. Very far from this are the Papists, who, thinking themselves equal to

the angels in holiness, nevertheless shake off the yoke of God, like wild beasts, by

trampling under foot his Holy Word. David, therefore, rightly judges of men’s

godliness, by their submitting themselves to the Word of God, and following the rule

which he has prescribed to them. As the covenant begins with a solemn article

containing the promise of grace, faith and prayer are required, above all things, to

the proper keeping of it. or is the additional clause superfluous — who remember

his statutes; for, although God is continually putting us in mind of them, yet we soon

slide away to worldly cares — are confused by a multiplicity of avocations, and are

lulled asleep by many allurements. Thus forgetfulness extinguishes the light of truth,

unless the faithful stir up themselves from time to time. David tells us that this

remembrance of God’s statutes has an invigorating effect when men employ

themselves in doing them. Many are sufficiently forward to discourse upon them

with their tongues whose feet are very slow, and whose hands are well nigh dead, in

regard to active service.

SPURGEO , "Ver. 18. Children of the righteous are not, however, promised the

Lord's mercy without stipulation, and this verse completes the statement of the last

by adding: To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his

commandments to do them. The parents must be obedient and the children too. We

are here bidden to abide by the covenant, and those who run off to any other

confidence than the finished work of Jesus are not among those who obey this

precept; those with whom the covenant is really made stand firm to it, and having

begun in the Spirit, they do not seek to be made perfect in the flesh. The truly godly

keep the Lord's commands carefully—they "remember"; they observe them

practically—"to do them": moreover they do not pick and choose, but remember

"his commandments" as such, without exalting one above another as their own

pleasure or convenience may dictate. May our offspring be a thoughtful, careful,

observant race, eager to know the will of the Lord, and prompt to follow it fully,

then will his mercy enrich and honour them from generation to generation.

This verse also suggests praise, for who would wish the Lord to smile on those who

will not regard his ways? That were to encourage vice. From the manner in which

some men unguardedly preach the covenant, one might infer that God would bless a

certain set of men however they might live, and however they might neglect his laws.

But the word teaches not so. The covenant is not legal, but it is holy. It is all of grace

from first to last, yet it is no panderer to sin; on the contrary, one of its greatest

promises is, "I will put my laws in their hearts and in their minds will I write

them"; its general aim is the sanctifying of a people unto God, zealous for good

works, and all its gifts and operations work in that direction. Faith keeps the

covenant by looking alone to Jesus, while at the same time by earnest obedience it

remembers the Lord's commandments to do them.

EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.

Ver. 18. To do them. Commands are to be remembered in order to practice; a vain

speculation is not the intent of the publication of them. Stephen Charnock.

19 The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.

BAR ES, "The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens - He has “fixed” his throne there. This is the ground of the security that his blessing will be imparted to those who fear him, and to their children’s children, or that it will be transmitted to coming generations. God is a Sovereign. His throne is fixed and firm. His dominion is not vacillating and changing. His reign is not, like the reign of earthly monarchs, dependent on the capriciousness of a changeable will, or on passion; nor is it liable to be altered by death, by revolution, or a new dynasty. The throne of God is ever

the same, and nothing can shake or overthrow it. Compare the notes at Psa_11:4.

And his kingdom ruleth over all - He reigns over all the universe - the heavens and the earth; and he can, therefore, execute all his purposes. Compare Psa_47:2.

CLARKE, "The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens - There he is Sovereign, but his dominion extends equally over all the earth; for his kingdom - regal government, influence, and sway, ruleth over all.

GILL, "The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens,.... The heaven is his throne; here he sits enthroned in all the glory of his majesty, with all his attendants upon him, and courtiers about him. The Lord Christ is now in heaven; and where he will continue to the restitution of all things, and from whence his people expect him at the last day. Here he is on the same throne with his divine Father; which throne he has "prepared" or "established" (d), so as it cannot be moved: when others are cast down, this shall stand; his throne is for ever and ever. The Targum in the king's Bible is,

"the Word of the Lord hath prepared, &c.''

And his kingdom ruleth over all; over all created beings; over angels, good and bad; over men, righteous and wicked; over the greatest of men, the kings and princes of the earth. Good angels are subject to him devils tremble at him; saints acknowledge him as their King; the wicked he rules with a rod of iron; and kings reign by him, and are accountable to him; see Psa_22:28.

HE RY, "Here is, I. The doctrine of universal providence laid down, Psa_103:19. He has secured the happiness of his peculiar people by promise and covenant, but the order of mankind, and the world in general, he secures by common providence. The Lord has a throne of his own, a throne of glory, a throne of government. He that made all rules all, and both by a word of power: He has prepared his throne, has fixed and established it that it cannot be shaken; he has afore-ordained all the measures of his government and does all according to the counsel of his own will. He has prepared it in the heavens,above us, and out of sight; for he holds back the face of his throne, and spreads a cloud upon it (Job_26:9); yet he can himself judge through the dark cloud, Job_22:13. Hence the heavens are said to rule (Dan_4:26), and we are led to consider this by the influence which even the visible heavens have upon this earth, their dominion, Job_38:33; Gen_1:16. But though God's throne is in heaven, and there he keeps his court, and thither we are to direct to him (Our Father who art in heaven), yet his kingdom rules over all. He takes cognizance of all the inhabitants, and all the affairs, of this lower world, and disposes all persons and things according to the counsel of his will, to his own glory (Dan_4:35): His kingdom rules over all kings and all kingdoms, and from it there is no exempt jurisdiction.

JAMISO , "God’s firm and universal dominion is a pledge that He will keep His promises (Psa_11:4; Psa_47:8).

K&D 19-22, "He is able to show Himself thus gracious to His own, for He is the

supra-mundane, all-ruling King. With this thought the poet draws on to the close of his song of praise. The heavens in opposition to the earth, as in Psa_115:3; Ecc_5:12, is the unchangeable realm above the rise and fall of things here below. On Psa_103:19 cf. 1Ch_

�Rל .29:12 refers to everything created without exception, the universe of created things. In connection with the heavens of glory the poet cannot but call to mind the angels. Hiscall to these to join in the praise of Jahve has its parallel only in Psa_29:1-11 and Psa_148:1-14. It arises from the consciousness of the church on earth that it stands in living like-minded fellowship with the angels of God, and that it possesses a dignity which rises above all created things, even the angels which are appointed to serve it (Psa_91:11).

They are called רים�� as in Joe_3:11, and in fact ח�Rרי���, as the strong to whom belongs strength unequalled. Their life endowed with heroic strength is spent entirely - an

example for mortals - in an obedient execution of the word of God. לשמע� is a definition not of the purpose, but of the manner: obediendo (as in Gen_2:3 perficiendo). Hearing

the call of His word, they also forthwith put it into execution. the hosts (יוgצב), as משרתיוshows, are the celestial spirits gathered around the angels of a higher rank (cf. Luk_

2:13), the innumerable λειτουργικn�πνεoµατα (Psa_104:4, Dan_7:10; Heb_1:14), for there is a hierarchia caelestis. From the archangels the poet comes to the myriads of the heavenly hosts, and from these to all creatures, that they, wheresoever they may be throughout Jahve's wide domain, may join in the song of praise that is to be struck up; and from this point he comes back to his own soul, which he modestly includes among

the creatures mentioned in the third passage. A threefold רכי�נפשי� now corresponds to

the threefold רכו�; and inasmuch as the poet thus comes back to his own soul, his Psalm also turns back into itself and assumes the form of a converging circle.

CALVI , "19.Jehovah hath established his throne in the heavens David having

recounted the benefits by which God lays each of us in particular, and also the

whole Church, under obligation to him, now extols in general his infinite glory. The

amount is, that whenever God is mentioned, men should learn to ascend in their

contemplations above the whole world, because his majesty transcends the heavens;

and they should farther learn not to measure his power by that of man, since it has

under its control all kingdoms and dominions. That none may think that earthly

creatures only are here put in subjection to God, the Psalmist chiefly addresses the

angels. In calling upon them to join in praising God, he teaches both himself and all

the godly, that there is not a better nor a more desirable exercise than to praise God,

since there is not a more excellent service in which even the angels are employed.

The angels are doubtless too willing and prompt in the discharge of this duty, to

stand in need of incitement from us. With what face then, it may be said, can we,

whose slothfulness is so great, take it upon us to exhort them? But although these

exalted beings run swiftly before us, and we with difficulty come lagging after them,

yet David enjoins them to sing God’s praises for our sake, that by their example he

may awaken us from our drowsiness. The object he has in view, as I have adverted

to before, is to be noted, which is, by addressing his discourse to the angels to teach

us, that the highest end which they propose to themselves is to advance the divine

glory. Accordingly, while in one sentence he clothes them with strength, in the

immediately following, he describes them as hanging on God’s word, waiting for his

orders, — Ye who do his commandment However great the power, as if he had said,

with which you are endued, you reckon nothing more honorable than to obey God.

And it is not only said that they execute God’s commandments, but to express more

distinctly the promptitude of their obedience, it is asserted, that they are always

ready to perform whatever he commands them.

SPURGEO , "Ver. 19. The LORD has prepared his throne in the heavens. Here is

a grand burst of song produced by a view of the boundless power, and glorious

sovereignty of Jehovah. His throne is fixed, for that is the word; it is estabhshed,

settled, immovable.

"He sits on no precarious throne,

or borrows leave to be."

About his government there is no alarm, no disorder, no perturbation, no hurrying

to and fro in expedients, no surprises to be met or unexpected catastrophes to be

warded off; —all is prepared and fixed, and he himself has prepared and fixed it.

He is no delegated sovereign for whom a throne is set up by another; he is an

autocrat, and his dominion arises from himself and is sustained by his own innate

power. This matchless sovereignty is the pledge of our security, the pillar upon

which our confidence may safely lean.

And his kingdom ruleth over all. Over the whole universe he stretches his sceptre.

He now reigns universally, he always has done so, and he always will. To us the

world may seem rent with anarchy, but he brings order out of confusion. The

warring elements are marching beneath his banner when they most wildly rush

onward in furious tempest. Great and small, intelligent and material, willing and

unwilling, fierce or gentle, —all, all are under his sway. His is the only universal

monarchy, he is the blessed and only Potentate, King of kings and Lord of lords. A

clear view of his ever active, and everywhere supreme providence, is one of the most

delightful of spiritual gifts; he who has it cannot do otherwise than bless the Lord

with all his soul.

Thus has the sweet singer hymned the varied attributes of the Lord as seen in

nature, grace, and providence, and now he gathers up all his energies for one final

outburst of adoration, in which he would have all unite, since all are subjects of the

Great King.

EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.

Ver. 19. The Lord hath prepared his Throne. The word signifies establisthed as well

as prepared, and might be so rendered. Due preparation is the natural way to the

establishment of a thing; hasty resolves break and moulder. This notes,

1. The peculiarity of his authority. He prepares it, and none else for him. It is a

dominion that originally resides in his nature, not derived from any by birth or

commission; he alone prepared it. He is the sole cause of his own kingdom; his

authority therefore is unbounded, as infinite as his nature. one can set laws to him,

because none but himself prepared his throne for him. As he will not impair his own

happiness, so he will not abridge himself of his own authority.

2. Readiness to exercise it upon due occasions. He hath prepared his throne, he is

not at a loss, he needs not stay for a commission or instructions from any how to act.

He hath all things ready for the assistance of his people, he hath rewards and

punishments; his treasures trod axes, the great mark of authority lying by him, the

one for the good, the other for the wicked. His mercy he keeps by him for thousands,

Exodus 34:7; his arrows he hath prepared by him for rebels, Psalms 7:13.

3. Wise management of it. It is prepared: preparations imply prudence; the

government of God is not a rash and heady authority. A prince upon his throne, a

judge upon the bench, manages things with the greatest discretion, or should be

supposed so to do.

4. Successfulness and duration of it. He hath prepared or established it. It is fixed,

not tottering; it is an unmovable dominion; all the strugglings of men and devils

cannot overturn it, nor so much as shake it. It is established above the reach of

obstinate rebels; he cannot be deposed from it, he cannot be mated in it. His

dominion, as himself abides for ever. And as his counsel, so his authority, shall

stand; and "he will do all his pleasure, " Isaiah 46:10. Stephen Charnock.

Ver. 19. His throne in the heavens, denotes:

1. The glory of his dominion. The heavens are the most stately and comely pieces of

the creation; his majesty is there most visible, his glory most splendid, Psalms 19:1.

In heaven his dominion is more acknowledged by the angels: his dominion is not

disputed there by the angels that attend him, as it is on earth by the rebels that arm

themselves against him.

2. The supremacy of his empire. The heavens are the loftiest part of the creation,

and the only fit palace for him.

3. Peculiarity of this dominion. He rules in the heavens alone. His authority is not

delegated to any creature, he rules the blessed spirits by himself; but he rules men

that are on his footstool by others of the same kind, men of their own nature.

4. The vastness of his empire. The earth is but a spot to the heavens. What is

England in a map to the whole earth, but a spot you may cover with your finger;

much less must the whole earth be to the extended heavens. You cannot conceive the

many millions of little particles that are in the earth; and if all put together be but

one point: to that place where the throne of God is seated, how vast must his empire

be! He rules there ovcr the angels, which excel in strength, those hosts of his which

do his pleasure, in comparison of whom all the men in the world, and the power of

the greatest potentates, is no more than the strength of an ant or fly. And since his

throne is in the heavens, it will follow that all things under the heaven are part of his

dominion; the inferior things of earth cannot but be subject to him; and it

necessarily includes his influence on all things below, because the heavens arc the

cause of all the motion in the world. See Hosea 2:21-22.

5. The easiness of managing this government. His throne being placed on high, he

cannot but behold all things that are done below; the height of a place gives

advantage to a clear eye to behold things below it. "The LORD looked down from

heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand,

"Psalms 14:2. He looks not down from heaven as if his presence were confined

there, but he looks down majestically, and by way of authority.

6. Duration of it. The heavens are incorruptible, his throne is placed there in an

incorruptible state. The throne of God outlives the dissolution of the world.

Condensed from Charnock.

Ver. 19. His kingdom ruleth over all. His Lordship is universal. First, over all

time:other lords die, but he is eternal. Eternity is properly the duration of an

uncreated Ens. It is improperly taken, either for things that have both beginning

and end, as everlasting mountains; divers such phrases in Scripture; or for things

that have a beginning but shall have no end; so are angels and men's souls eternal;

so, eternal life, eternal fire. But God calls himself, "I AM, "Exodus 3:14 : I am what

I have been, I have been what I am, what I am and have been I shall be. This

attribute is incommunicable: all other things had a non esse preceding their

esse;and they have a mutation tending to nothing. "They that war against thee shall

be as nothing, "Isaiah 41:12 : all come to nothing unless they be upheld by the

manutency of God: but "Thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end,

"Psalms 102:27. Thou turnest man to destruction, and again sayest, Return: "even

from everlasting to everlasting thou art God, "Psalms 90:2; the sole umpire and

measurer of beginning and ending.

Secondly, over all places, heaven, earth, hell, Psalms 135:6. Kings are limited, and

cannot do many things they desire: they cannot command the sun to stand still, nor

the wind to blow which way they would: in the lofty air, in the depths of the sea no

king reigns. They fondly flatter the pope with his long arms that they reach to

purgatory; (but indeed both power and place are alike imaginary;)it is Christ alone

that hath the keys of all places.

Thirdly, over all creatures;binding the influences of Pleiades, and loosing the bands

of Orion, Job 38:31; commanding the fire against the nature of it, to descend, 2

Kings 1:12; creating and ruling the stars, Amos 5:8; overruling the lions, Daniel

6:22, sending the meteors, Psalms 148:8, hedging in the sea, lapping it up like a child

in swaddling-clothes, Job 38:8, dividing, diverting, filling it. In both fire and water,

those two raging elements that have no mercy, he shows mercy; delivers us from

both in both. He calls the fowls, and they come; the beasts, and they hear: the trees,

and they spring to obey him. He hath a raven for Elijah, a gourd for Jonah, a dog

for Lazarus. Makes the leviathan, the hugest living creature, preserve his prophet.

That a terrible lion should be killed, as was by Samson; or not kill, as they forbore

Daniel; or kill and not eat, as that prophet, 1 Kings 13:1-29 : here was the Lord.

Over metals; he makes iron to swim, stones to cleave asunder. Over the devils; they

must obey him though unwillingly. But they continually rebel against him, and

break his will? They do indeed against his complacency, not against his permission.

There is then no time, not the hour of death; no place, not the sorest torment; no

creature, not the devil; but the Lord can deliver us from them. Therefore at all

times, in all places, and against all creatures, let us trust in him for deliverance.

Thomas Adams.

Ver. 19. His kingdom ruleth over all. When Melancthon was extremely solicitous

about the affairs of the church in his days, Luther would have him admonished in

these terms, Monendus est Philippus ut desinat esse rector mundi:Let not Philip

make himself any longer governor of the world. David Clarkson.

WHEDO , "19. The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens—In contrast

with “man,” who is “dust.” Psalms 103:14. From this majesty of God, his ability to

perpetuate mercy through all generations to his faithful children is inferred, and the

doxology of Psalms 103:20-22 is due. Comp. 1 Chronicles 29:11-12.

Over all—Over the universe of created beings, as Psalms 103:22

BE SO , "Psalms 103:19. The Lord hath prepared, &c. — Having celebrated

God’s mercy to his people, he now praises him for his excellent majesty and

universal dominion; his throne in the heavens — Which expression denotes the

eminence, glory, power, stability, and unchangeableness of God’s kingdom; and his

kingdom ruleth over all — Over all creatures, both in heaven and earth.

COFFMA , "Verse 19

U IVERSAL ADORATIO OF GOD IS COMMA DED

"Jehovah hath established his throne in the heavens;

And his kingdom ruleth over all.

Bless Jehovah, ye his angels,

That are mighty in strength, that fulfill his word,

Hearkening unto the voice of his word.

Bless Jehovah, all ye his hosts,

Ye ministers of his that do his pleasure.

Bless Jehovah, all ye his works,

In all places of his dominion: Bless Jehovah, O my soul."

This portion of the psalm is an exhortation for the universal adoration and worship

of God. one are excepted. The mighty angels of heaven, all the "hosts" of whatever

nature, over whom God reigns - let them all bless Jehovah and praise his holy name.

"His kingdom ruleth over all" (Psalms 103:19). The conception that God the creator

of all things merely wound things up, set them on their way and then abandoned

them is totally in error. ebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon was humiliated by

God Himself and compelled to eat grass for seven years in order to teach that

vainglorious ruler that, "The Most High rules in the kingdom of men and giveth it

to whomsoever he will" (Daniel 4:25).

"Bless Jehovah, ye his angels" (Psalms 103:20). The angels of heaven are

represented as worshipping God; and in Hebrews 1:6 this verse is quoted and

applied to Jesus Christ, indicating the Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

"All ye his hosts ... ye ministers of his" (Psalms 103:21). The psalmist is here still

speaking of angels, as Briggs observed. "In the expression `hosts,' the angels are

conceived as an organized army; and as `ministers' they are conceived of as faithful

ministerial servants doing the Father's will."[8] This view is confirmed in Hebrews:

"Are they not all ministering servants (spirits) sent forth to do service for them that

shall be the heirs of salvation?" (Hebrews 1:14).

It is impossible to think of an occasion of either public or private worship when this

psalm would be inappropriate. It is one of the most priceless jewels of the whole

Psalter.

20 Praise the Lord, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word.

BAR ES, "Bless the Lord - The psalm began Psa_103:1-2 with an exhortation to “bless the Lord.” That exhortation was, however, then addressed by the psalmist to his own soul, and was especially founded on the benefits which he had himself received. The psalm closes also with an exhortation to “bless the Lord,” yet on a much wider scale. The psalmist feels that there is not only occasion for him to do it, but that the reason for it extends to the whole universe. The meaning is, that God is worthy of universal praise; and all ranks of beings - all worlds - should join in that praise. Man, feeble, frail, dying, could not come up to the fullness of the praise required. Praise such as was appropriate to God - such as his perfections and works deserved - demanded loftier powers than those of man; the loftiest powers in the universe.

Ye his angels - All beings higher than man; beings around and before his throne.

That excel in strength -Margin, as in Hebrew, “mighty in strength,” and therefore more “able” to offer adequate praise.

That do his commandments -Who perfectly obey his law, and who, therefore, can render more acceptable praise than can ever come from human lips.

Hearkening unto the voice of his word -Who always listen to his voice; who never are disobedient; and who can, therefore, approach him as holy beings, and more appropriately worship him.

CLARKE, "Bless the Lord, ye his angels - Every person who has a sense of God’s goodness to his soul feels his own powers inadequate to the praise which he ought to offer; and therefore naturally calls upon the holiest of men, and the supreme angels, to assist him in this work.

That excel in strength - Some take גברי�כה gibborey�coach the mighty in strength, for

another class of the hierarchy, - they that do his commandments, hearkening to his words; and consider them to be that order of beings who are particularly employed in operations among and for the children of men; probably such as are called powers in the New Testament.

GILL, "Bless the Lord, ye his angels,.... For their creation, being made by him; for their preservation, living, moving, and having their being in him; and for their happiness, in which they are continued, owing to their being chosen of God in Christ, and to their confirmation by Christ. These are always employed in the work of blessing and praising the Lord nor are they in the least backward to it, nor remiss it; nor does this address unto them suppose anything of this kind. The design of the psalmist is only to show how great and good the Lord is; that angels, the more excellent order of creatures, are under obligation to him, and are bound to praise him: and his further view is, to stir up himself and others to this work, from such a consideration, that such noble creatures are employed in the same, and who are further described:

that excel in strength; or, "are mighty in strength" (e); they are called mighty angels, 2Th_1:7 an instance of the might and power of an angel see in 2Ki_19:35. These, not having sinned, have lost nothing of their original strength and power, and therefore must greatly excel fallen man; who is become a very weak creature, and unable to do the will and work of God, which angels are, as follows:

that do his commandments; or "his word" (f); what he orders to be done: this they do readily and willingly, constantly, perfectly, and completely; see Mat_6:10.

Hearkening to the voice of his word; they stand before the Lord, waiting his orders; listening with great attention to what he says, and then readily execute it. Or, "at hearing the voice of his word"; that is, as soon as they hear the voice of his word, or hear him speaking (g), immediately they apply themselves to the performance of it.

HE RY, ". The duty of universal praise inferred from it: if all are under God's dominion, all must do him homage.

1. Let the holy angels praise him (Psa_103:20, Psa_103:21): Bless the Lord, you his angels; and again, Bless the Lord, all you his hosts, you ministers of his. David had been stirring up himself and others to praise God, and here, in the close, he calls upon the angels to do it; not as if they needed any excitement of ours to praise God, they do it continually; but thus he expresses his high thoughts of God as worthy of the adorations of the holy angels, thus he quickens himself and others to the duty with this consideration, That it is the work of angels, and comforts himself in reference to his own weakness and defect in the performance of this duty with this consideration, That there is a world of holy angels who dwell in God's house and are still praising him. In short, the blessed angels are glorious attendants upon the blessed God. Observe, (1.) How well qualified they are for the post they are in. They are able; for they excel in strength; they are mighty in strength (so the word is); they are able to bring great things to pass, and to abide in their work without weariness. And they are as willing as they are able; they are willing to know their work; for they hearken to the voice of his word; they stand expecting commission and instructions from their great Lord, and always behold his face (Mat_18:10), that they may take the first intimation of his mind. They are willing to

do their work: They do his commandments (Psa_103:20); they do his pleasure (Psa_103:21); they dispute not any divine commands, but readily address themselves to the execution of them. Nor do they delay, but fly swiftly: They do his commandments at hearing, or as soon as they hear the voice of his word; so Dr. Hammond. To obey is better than sacrifice; for angels obey, but do not sacrifice. (2.) What their service is. They are his angels, and ministers of his - his, for he made them, and made them for himself - his, for he employs them, though he does not need them - his, for he is their owner and Lord; they belong to him and he has them at his beck. All the creatures are his servants, but not as the angels that attend the presence of his glory. Soldiers, and seamen, and all good subjects, serve the king, but not as the courtiers do, the ministers of state and those of the household. [1.] The angels occasionally serve God in this lower world; they do his commandments, go on his errands (Dan_9:21), fight his battles (2Ki_6:17), and minister for the good of his people, Heb_1:14. [2.] They continually praise him in the upper world; they began betimes to do it (Job_38:7), and it is still their business, from which they rest not day nor night, Rev_4:8. It is God's glory that he has such attendants, but more his glory that he neither needs them nor is benefited by them.

JAMISO , "do his commandments ... word— or, literally, “so as to hearken,” etc., that is, their acts of obedience are prompt, so that they are ever ready to hear, and know, and follow implicitly His declared will (compare Deu_26:17; Luk_1:19).

SPURGEO , "Ver. 20. Bess the Lord, ye his angels, that excel in strength. Finding

his work of praise growing upon his hands, he calls upon "the firstborn sons of

light" to speak the praises of the Lord, as well they may, for as Milton says, they

best can tell. Dwelling nearer to that prepared throne than we as yet have leave to

climb, they see in nearer vision the glory which we would adore. To them is given an

exceeding might of intellect, and voice, and force which they delight to use in sacred

services for him; let them now turn all their strength into that solemn song which we

would send up to the third heaven. To him who gave angelic strength let all angelic

strength be given. They are his angels, and therefore they are not loath to ring out

his praises.

That do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word. We are bidden

to do these commandntents, and alas we fail; let those unfallen spirits, whose bliss it

is never to have transgressed, give to the Lord the glory of their holiness. They

hearken for yet more commands, obeying as much by reverent listening as by

energetic action, and in this they teach us how the heavenly will should evermore be

done; yet even for this surpassing excellence let them take no praise, but render all

to him who has made and kept them what they are. O that we could hear them

chant the high praises of God, as did the shepherds on that greatest of all birth

nights—

"When such music sweet

Their hearts and ears did greet

As never was by mortal finger struck;

Divinely-warbled voice

Answering the stringed noise,

As well their souls in blissful rapture took:

The air, such pleasure loth to lose,

With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close."

Our glad heart anticipates the hour when we shall hear them "harping in loud and

solemn guise, "and all to the sole praise of God.

EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.

Ver. 20. Bless the Lord, ye his angels, etc. The weight of offering praise unto God is

too heavy for men to lift; and as for angels, it will take up all their strength and their

best abilities to go about it. David Dickson.

Ver. 20. Angels, that excel it, strength, that do his commandments. The chief

excellence of the angels, the main cause of their strength and power, and of their

immense superiority to mankind, is that which is set forth in the following words of

the text. After the Psalmist has described the angels as excelling in strength, he adds

that they do God's commandments, hearkening to the voice of his word. For this is

the only living source of lasting strength and power. They who do the will of God

faithfully and obediently, have God for them; and then what can be against them?

Then work itself strengthens them, and is like a tide bearing them onward; because

it is his work. They on the other hand who run counter to the will of God, have God

against them; and then what can be for them? Can a man push back the sea? can he

lay hold on the sun, and drag him out of his course? Then may he hope to be strong,

when he is fighting against the will of God...

Hence we see the falsehood of that maxim, so common on the lips of those who

plume themselves upon their mastery in the wisdom of this world—that Might is

Right, —a maxim which exactly inverts the truth, and whereby the Prince of

darkness is ever setting himself up against the Lord of heaven. The true principle,

which is inverted and perverted in this falsehood, —the principle which ought to

be written up in the councilchambers of princes and on the walls of senate-houses, â

€”the principle which explains the secret of the strength of the angels, and indeed of

all true strength, that is in accordance with the will of God, —may be stated in the

selfsame words, if we only invert their order, Right is Might. Julius Charles Hare,

1849.

Ver. 20. His angels that do his commandments, etc. They hearken to the voice of his

word, they look upon God as the great General, and if he give out the word, they

give out their strength, and go about the work willingly. They are very attentive to

his commands; if he says, Go smite Herod for his pride, Balaam for his

covetousness, David for his vainglory, Sennacherib for his blasphemy, and Sodom

for its uncleanness, presently they go. William Greenhill.

Ver. 20. Commandments. Davar (rkd), to speak, is rendered, "command" twenty

times... direct personal communion between the Lord and his messengers seems to

be implied. R. B. Girdlestone.

Ver. 20. Hearkenling into the voice of his word. ot only, mightily executing the

word when heard; but, ever intently listening, ready to catch the intimation of his

will. William Kay.

Ver. 20. Hearkening unto the voice of his word. Angels are vigilant creatures, and

wait for opportunities, and when they come they will not lose them. They neither

slumber nor sleep, but hearken constantly what the Lord will say, what opportunity

there will be for action; so, in Ezekiel 1:11, they are described with their wings

stretched upward, manifesting their watchfulness and readiness for service. When

Christ was born, a multitude of them appeared and celebrated his nativity, Lu 2:13:

when Christ was taken by Judas and his train, Peter drew his sword in his Master's

defence; but what saith Christ? "Put up thy sword, it is not a time now to fight, but

to suffer: thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently

give me more than twelve legions of angels? It is not a time now to pray for help, I

must die, and the Scripture must be fulfilled; but if I would, my Father would bid

the angels to aid me, and they presently would come, whole legions of them, yea, all

the angels in heaven." Let us learn of angels to watch for opportunities, and take

them. There are nicks of time wherein to do the work of Christ. William Greenhill.

WHEDO , "20. Angels—A designation of an order of beings, not an office, as

messengers. Compare the call upon angels, Psalms 29:1-2; Psalms 148:2. The call is

grounded in our fellowship with them. Hebrews 12:22-23. If the doctrine of

archangels was thus early understood, as in later times, (see Daniel 8:16; Daniel

9:21; Daniel 10:13; Daniel 10:21; comp. Luke 1:19; Revelation 8:2; Revelation 12:7;

Tobit 12:15,) the following descriptions might well apply to them.

Excel in strength—Hebrew, Mighty of strength. The word mighty, (English version,

“excel,”) denotes the highest reach of finite “strength,” skill, and endurance, such

as, when applied to man, distinguishes the hero-warrior.

That do his commandments—That execute his word. They are the executive

messengers of God.

Hearkening unto the voice— Denoting both attentiveness to learn, and promptness

to execute. “As soon as they hear the voice of God they promptly obey.”—

Hammond. An example to us.

BE SO , "Verses 20-22

Psalms 103:20-22. Bless the Lord, ye his angels — Who, though glorious creatures,

are but his ministers and messengers, as the word signifies. And by inviting the

angels to bless God he excites men to the same duty, as having more dependance

upon God, and obligation to him. That excel in strength — Of which see one

evidence, 2 Kings 19:35. You are freed from the inabilities and infirmities of

mankind; that do his commandments — That live in a universal, constant, and

perfect obedience to all God’s commands; hearkening unto the voice of his word —

Who diligently wait for his commands, and execute them with all cheerfulness and

readiness. Bless the Lord, all ye his hosts — The angels again, to whom he still

continues his address, and whom he more particularly describes by the name of

hosts, a title often given to them on account of their vast numbers, mighty power,

unanimous concurrence, and exquisite order. Ye ministers of his — The Hebrew

word משרתיו, mesharethaiv, thus rendered, is commonly used of the highest and

most honourable sort of servants; that do his pleasure — Whose constant business

and delight it is to execute his orders and fulfil his will. Bless the Lord, all his works,

in all places of his dominion — All creatures, both in heaven and earth, according to

your several capacities. Bless the Lord, O my soul — Which thou hast especial and

abundant reason to do. Thus he ends the Psalm with the same words wherewith he

began it.

21 Praise the Lord, all his heavenly hosts, you his servants who do his will.

BAR ES, "Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts - His armies; the vast multitudes of holy beings, arranged and marshalled as hosts for battle, in all parts of the universe. Compare the notes at Isa_1:9; notes at Eph_1:21.

Ye ministers of his - The same beings referred to by the word “hosts,” and all others who may be employed in executing his will. The “hosts” or armies of the Lord are thus marshalled that they may “do his pleasure,” or that they may execute his purposes.

That do his pleasure -What is agreeable to him; that is, who perform his will. Employed in his service, and appointed to execute his will, they are called on to bless his name. The fact of being employed in his service is a sufficient reason for praise. It is implied here that those “ministers of his” actually do his will. They are obedient to his commands; they regard themselves as employed for him.

CLARKE, "All ye his hosts; ye ministers of his -We know almost nothing of the economy of the heavenly host; and, therefore, cannot tell what is the difference between angels, mighty powers, hosts, and ministers who do his pleasure. All owe their being and all its blessings to God; all depend upon his bounty; and without him they can do nothing; therefore, all should praise him.

GILL, "Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts,.... Which some understand of the sun, moon, and stars, sometimes called the hosts of heaven; and who in their way bless and praise the Lord; see Psa_148:2. Others, of the angels, as before; who are sometimes styled the heavenly host, Luk_2:13, and may be so called from their numbers, there being legions of them; and for their military employment, in guarding and protecting the saints, in encamping about them, and fighting for them. Or rather, since these seem to be distinguished from the angels before addressed, by them may be meant the church militant and her members; who are like an army with banners, consisting of volunteer soldiers under Christ, the Captain of their salvation; whose battles they fight against sin, Satan, and the world; and have a great deal of reason to bless and praise the Lord, for all the great and good things he has done to them, and for them.

Ye ministers of his that do his pleasure; so the angels are called, and they do the will of God; what is acceptable to him, and well pleasing in his sight, Heb_1:7. But rather, as distinct from them, the ministers of the Gospel are intended; a name which the preachers of it bear, both in the Old and in the New Testament, Isa_61:4, They are

ministers of Christ's appointing, calling, qualifying, and sending; and who are employed in his service, in preaching him, his Gospel, and the truths of it; and who do his pleasure, that which is grateful to him, when they speak his word faithfully, declare his whole counsel, and keep back nothing that is profitable: and these have reason to bless the Lord for the gifts bestowed upon them, and for their success and usefulness; and indeed they bear a leading part in giving praise a

JAMISO , "ye his hosts— myriads, or armies, as corresponding to angels of great power [Psa_103:20], denoting multitudes also.

CALVI , "21Bless Jehovah, all ye his hosts. By hosts is not to be understood the

stars, as some explain it. The subject of the preceding verse is still continued. or is

the repetition superfluous; for the word hosts teaches us that there are myriads of

myriads who stand before the throne of God, ready to receive every intimation of his

will. Again, they are called his ministers who do his pleasure, to intimate to us, that

they are not there intent in idly beholding God’s glory, but that having been

appointed as our ministers and guardians, they are always ready for their work.

Instead of word, the term pleasure is here used, and both are employed with much

propriety; for although the sun, the moon, and the stars, observe the laws which

God has ordained for them, yet being without understanding, they cannot properly

be said to obey his word and his voice. The term obey is indeed sometimes

transferred to the mute and insensible parts of creation. (175) It is, however, only in

a metaphorical sense that they can be said to hearken to God’s voice, when by a

secret instinct of nature they fulfill his purposes. But this in the proper sense is true

of angels, who actively obey him upon their understanding from his sacred mouth

what he would have them to do. The word pleasure expresses more plainly a joyful

and cheerful obedience, implying that the angels not only obey God’s

commandments, but also willingly and with the greatest delight receive the

intimations of his will, that they may perform what he would have them to do. Such

is the import of the Hebrew noun, as has been stated elsewhere.

SPURGEO , "Ver. 21. Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts; to whatever race of

creatures ye may belong, for ye are all his troops, and he is the Generallissimo of all

your armies. The fowl of the air and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth

through the paths of the sea, should all unite in praising their Creator, after the best

of their ability.

Ye ministers of his that do his pleasure; in whatever way ye serve him, bless him as

ye serve. The Psalmist would have every servant in the Lord's palace unite with him,

and all at once sing out the praises of the Lord. We have attached a new sense to the

word "ministers" in these latter days, and so narrowed it down to those who serve

in word and doctrine. Yet no true minister would wish to alter it, for we are above

all men bound to be the Lord's servants, and we would, beyond all other ministering

intelligences or forces, desire to bless the glorious Lord.

EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.

Ver. 21. Bless ye the LORD, all ye his hosts... that do his pleasure. The sun, moon,

stars, and planets do "his pleasure" (Psalms 19:1) unconsciously; the "angels"

consciously and with instinctive love, "hearken unto the voice of his word" (Psalms

103:20). Both together constitute the Lord's hosts. A. R. Fausset.

HI TS TO THE VILLAGE PREACHER.

Ver. 21. Who are God's ministers? What is their business? To do his pleasure. What

is their delight? To bless the Lord.

Ver. 21-22. Henry Melvill has a notable sermon upon "The Peril of the Spiritual

Guide." The drift of it may be gathered from the extract which wc have placed as a

note upon the passage.

ELLICOTT, "(21) Hosts.—There are apparently in the psalmist’s thought three

grades of beings in the hierarchy of praise:—

1. High angels around the throne.

2. Angelic powers, such as winds, lightnings, &c, specially commissioned to do

God’s behests, as in Psalms 104:4.

3. Creation generally. (Comp. Psalms 148)

WHEDO , "21. Hosts— ot the heavenly bodies, (as in Deuteronomy 4:19;

Deuteronomy 17:3; Psalms 33:6,) but the collective whole of all orders of celestial

beings, as 1 Kings 22:19 and Psalms 148:2. Compare Daniel 7:10.

Ye ministers—Same as “hosts” in previous clause. Angels are called ministers, in

Hebrews 1:14; Psalms 104:4; Daniel 7:10

22 Praise the Lord, all his works everywhere in his dominion.Praise the Lord, my soul.

BAR ES, "Bless the Lord, all his works - All that he has made, animate and inanimate, intelligent and brute. It is not uncommon to call on the inanimate creation to join with intelligent beings in praising God. Compare Psa_148:1-14. The same thing is often found in the “Paradise Lost,” and in fact occurs in all poetry.

In all places of his dominion -Wherever he reigns, on earth, or in heaven; here or

in distant worlds.

Bless the Lord, O my soul - Ending the psalm as it began, and with the additional reason derived from the fact that the “universe” is called on to do it. As one of the creatures of God; as a part of that vast universe, the psalmist now calls on his own soul to unite with all others - to be one of them - in praising and blessing the Creator. He “desired” thus to unite with all others. His heart was full; and in a universe thus joyous -thus vocal with praise - he wished to be one among the immense multitudes that lifted their voices in adoration of the great Yahweh.

CLARKE, "Bless the Lord, all his works - Let every thing he has done be so considered as to show forth his praise.

Bless the Lord, O my soul - Let me never forget my obligation to his mercy; for with tender mercies and loving-kindness has he crowned me. I will therefore be thankful unto him, and speak good of his name.

GILL, "Bless the Lord, all his works, in all places of his dominion,.... Which some interpret of all his creatures, animate or inanimate, rational or irrational, throughout the whole world, which is all under his government; and who all of them, objectively, bless and praise the Lord, Psa_148:7. Or rather regenerate persons, his sons and daughters, the work of his hand, in each of the parts of the world where they live, are here called upon to bless the Lord; who, of his abundant mercy, hath begotten them again to a glorious inheritance: these are his workmanship in Christ; formed for himself, his service, and glory; and are under the highest obligations to show forth his praise.

Bless the Lord, O my soul: thus the psalmist ends the psalm as he begun it; not excusing himself by what he had done, nor by calling upon others to this service; knowing that this is constant employment for time and eternity; a work in which he delighted, and was desirous of being concerned in, now and for ever.

HE RY, "Let all his works praise him (Psa_103:22), all in all places of his dominion; for, because they are his works, they are under his dominion, and they were made and are ruled that they may be unto him for a name and a praise. All his works,that is, all the children of men, in all parts of the world, let them all praise God; yea, and the inferior creatures too, which are God's works also; let them praise him objectively, though they cannot praise him actually, Psa_145:10. Yet all this shall not excuse David from praising God, but rather excite him to do it the more cheerfully, that he may bear a part in this concert; for he concludes, Bless the Lord, O my soul! as he began, Psa_103:1. Blessing God and giving him glory must be the alpha and the omega of all our services. He began with Bless the Lord, O my soul! and, when he had penned and sung this excellent hymn to his honour, he does not say, Now, O my soul! thou hast blessed the Lord, sit down, and rest thee, but, Bless the Lord, O my soul! yet more and more. When we have done ever so much in the service of God, yet still we must stir up ourselves to do more. God's praise is a subject that will never be exhausted, and therefore we must never think this work done till we come to heaven, where it will be for ever in the doing.

JAMISO , "all his works— creatures of every sort, everywhere.

SBC, "I. The text consists of two sentences: the first, the Psalmist’s exhortation to others; the second, a precisely similar exhortation to himself: "Bless ye the Lord." His hand is upon his harp; he is weaving a spirit-stirring anthem, and he summons every creature within sound of his voice to join in the song of rapture and thankful adoration. But why does he not proceed with the lofty chant? Why die the notes away as though there were a sudden check in the poetic fervour? Was it not that David felt how paralysing it was to summon others to praise God, how easily such a summons might be taken in proof that the heart of the speaker was beating with thankfulness though all the while it might be cold and indifferent, with little sense of the Divine goodness and little endeavour to magnify the Lord? Therefore, probably, it was that the Psalmist paused to examine and exhort himself. The necessity for self-examination increases at precisely the same rate with activity in disseminating spiritual good, for at precisely the same rate does the probability increase that we shall take for granted our share in that good, and yet all the while be suffering it to slip from our grasp.

II. Consider how this danger may be guarded against. How shall the guide who feels his mind deadening to the influence of the natural landscape, through the frequency of inspection and the routine of describing it to strangers—how shall he prevail keeping his mind alive to the beauties of the scene, the wonders and splendours which crowd the panorama? Let him not be satisfied with showing that panorama to others; let him not look at it merely in his professional capacity; but let him take frequent opportunities of going by himself to the various points of view, that he may study it under all possible aspects. No other advice need be given to the spiritual guide, whose office is that of teaching others the Gospel, and whose danger therefore is that of growing cold to the Gospel itself. The more we engage in teaching others, the more tenacious should we be of seasons of private meditation and self-examination.

H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2156.

CALVI , "22Bless Jehovah, all ye his works The Psalmist in conclusion addresses

all creatures; for although they may be without speech and understanding, yet they

ought in a manner to re-echo the praises of their Creator. This he does on our

account, that we may learn that there is not a corner in heaven or on earth where

God is not praised. We have less excuse, if, when all the works of God by praising

their Maker reproach us for our sloth we do not at least follow their example. The

express mention of all places of his dominion, seems to be intended to stir up the

faithful to greater ardor in this exercise; for if even those countries where his voice

is unheard ought not to be mute in his praise, how can we lawfully remain silent to

whom he opens his mouth, anticipating us by his own sacred voice? In short, David

shows that his design in recounting God’s benefits, and magnifying the extent of his

empire, was to animate himself the more to the exercise of praising him.

SPURGEO , "Ver. 22. Bless the Lord, all his works in all places of his dominion.

Here is a trinity of blessing for the thrice blessed God, and each one of the three

blessings is an enlargement upon that which went before. This is the most

comprehensive of all, for what can be a wider call than to all in all places? See how

finite man can awaken unbounded praise! Man is but little, yet, placing his hands

upon the keys of the great organ of the universe, he wakes it to thunders of

adoration! Redeemed man is the voice of nature, the priest in the temple of creation,

the precentor in the worship of the universe. O that all the Lord's works on earth

were delivered from the vanity to which they were made subject, and brought into

the glorious liberty of the children of God: the time is hastening on and will most

surely come; then will all the Lord's works bless him indeed. The immutable

promise is ripening, the sure mercy is on its way. Hasten, ye winged hours!

Bless the Lord, O my soul. He closes on his key-note. He cannot be content to call on

others without taking his own part; nor because others sing more loudly and

perfectly, will he be content to be set aside. O my soul, come home to thyself and to

thy God, and let the little world within thee keep time and tune to the spheres which

are ringing out Jehovah's praise. O infinitely blessed Lord, favour us with this

highest blessing of being for ever and ever wholly engrossed in blessing Thee.

EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.

Ver. 22. Bless the LORD, O my soul. That is to say, "Let thy vocation be that of the

seraphim, O my soul, and enter on the life of heaven!" Why should I praise him?

Can my praise be of any advantage to him? o; nor that of all the heavenly hosts. It

is infinite condescension in him to bearken unto the praises of his most exalted

creatures.

Let me bless the Lord, because no function will be more rich in blessings to my soul

than this. The admiring contemplation of his excellence is in reality the

appropriation thereof: the heart cannot delight in God, without becoming like God.

Let me do it, because it is the peculiar privilege of man on this earth to bless the

Lord. When he would find any to join him in this, he has to ascend the skies. Let me

do it, because the earth is fully furnished with the materials of praise. The sands, the

seas, the flowers, the insects; animals, birds, fields, mountains, rivers, trees, clouds,

sun, moon, stars, —all wait for me to translate their attribues and distinctions into

praise. But, above all, the new creation.

Let me do it, because of him, through him, and to him, are all the things that pertain

to my existence, health, comfort, knowledge, dignity, safety, progress, power, and

usefulness. A thousand of his ministers in earth, sea, and sky, are concerned in the

production and preparation of every mouthful that I eat. The breath that I am

commanded and enabled to modulate in praise, neither comes nor goes without a

most surprising exhibition of the condescension, kindness, wisdom, power, and

presence of him whom I am to praise. Is it not dastardly to be receiving benefits,

without even mentioning the name, or describing the goodness of the giver? Let

candidates for heaven bless the Lord. There is no place there for such as have not

learned this art. How shall I praise him? ot with fine words. o poetic talent is

here necessary: Any language that expresses heart-felt admiration will be accepted.

Praise him so far as you know him; and he will make known to you more of his

glory. George Bowen, 1873.

Ver. 22. The last specification is completely comprehensive; all his works in all

places of his wide dominions —all that he has made, whether intelligent or not

intelligent; "in all places" —above, beneath, around: in heaven, earth, or hell: let

them all fall into this universal chorus of praise and blessing, extolling Jehovah, the

One supremely great, supremely good! or will he exempt himself; for his personal

responsibilities as to his own heart, are his highest. Therefore he closes as he began,

"Bless the LORD, O my soul." Henry Cowles.

Ver. 22. Bless the LORD, O my soul. Inasmuch as the poet thus comes back to his

own soul, his Psalm also turns back into itself and assumes the form of a converging

circle. Franz Delitzsch.

Ver. 22. Bless the LORD, all his works in all places of his dominion: bless the

LORD, O my soul. We are very much struck by this sudden transition from "all

God's works, in all places of his dominion, "to himself, a solitary individual. Of

course he had already included himself; himself had been summoned when he

summoned all God's works in all places of his dominion; but it seems as if a sudden

fear had seized the Psalmist, the fear of by any possibility omitting himself; or, if not

a fear, yet a consciousness that his very activity in summoning others to praise,

might make him forgetful that he was bound to praise God himself, or sluggish in

the duty, or ready to take for granted that he could not himself be neglecting what

he was so strenuous in pressing on all orders of being. We have a great subject of

discourse here. Solomon has said, "They made me keeper of the vineyards, but mine

own vineyard have I not kept." Alas! how possible, how easy, to take pains for

others, and to be neglectful of one's self: nay, to make the pains we take for others

the reason by which we persuade ourselves that we cannot be neglecting ourselves.

How important, then, that, if with the Psalmist we call on all God's works in all

places of his dominions to bless the Lord; how important, I say, that we add, like

persons bent on self-examination, and fearful of self-deceit, "Bless the LORD, O my

soul." Henry Melvill.

Ver. 1-2, 22. Bless the Lord, O my soul... Bless the Lord, O my soul, with the Bless

the Lord all his works in all places of his dominion: bless the Lord, O my soul,

Psalms 103:22; these two form the thrice-repeated blessing from the Lord to the soul

in the Mosaic formula, umbers 6:24-26. A. R. Fausset.

WHEDO , "22. All his works—All animate and inanimate creatures, the universe,

as Psalms 103:19. Bless the Lord, O my soul. The thrice “Bless the Lord, O my

soul,” (see Psalms 103:1-2,) answers to the thrice “Bless ye the Lord;” and, as if to

place his own obligation above that of all other beings, he fitly begins and ends the

psalm alike, with the same personal call, “Bless the Lord, O my soul.” The psalmist

herein furnishes an instructive example to all believers who have sought and found

forgiving and accepting grace.

ELLICOTT, "(22) All his works.— ot only the heavens and their hosts, but

“Earth with her thousand voices praises God.”

or can the psalmist himself remain silent, but must repeat the self-dedication with

winch he began his song.