Psalms 103

1. BLESS the LORD, O my soul; And all that is within me, bless his holy name. 2 Bless the LORD, O my soul, And forget not all his benefits: 3 Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; Who healeth all thy diseases; 4 Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; Who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies: 5 Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; So that thy youth is renewed like the eagle. 6 The LORD executeth righteous acts, And judgments for all that are oppressed. 7 He made known his ways unto Moses, His doings unto the children of Israel. 8 The LORD is full of compassion and gracious, Slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. 9 He will not always chide; Neither will he keep his anger for ever. 10 He hath not dealt with us after our sins, Nor rewarded us after our iniquities. 11 For as the heaven is high above the earth, So great is his mercy toward them that fear him. 12 As far as the east is from the west, So far hath he removed our transgressions from us.

13. Like as a father pitieth his children, So the LORD pitieth them that fear him. 14 For he knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust. 15 As for man, his days are as grass; As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. 16 For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; And the place thereof shall know it no more. 17 But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, And his righteousness unto children’s children; 18 To such as keep his covenant, And to those that remember his precepts to do them. 19 The LORD hath established his throne in the heavens; And his kingdom ruleth over all. 20 Bless the LORD, ye angels of his: Ye mighty in strength, that fulfil his word, Hearkening unto the voice of his word. 21 Bless the LORD, all ye his hosts; Ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure. 22 Bless the LORD, all ye his works, In all places of his dominion: Bless the LORD, O my soul.

THIS beautiful Psalm is the outpouring of a full heart in thanksgiving to Jehovah for His grace and compassion, both as experienced by the Psalmist in his own life, and also as manifested to his nation in their history. It celebrates especially God’s mercy in the forgiveness of sin, and that tender pity, as of a human father, wherewith He remembers the frailty, and stoops to the weakness of His children. It is a hymn of which the text and motto are to be found in that revelation of Himself which God gave to Moses when He proclaimed Himself as “Jehovah,” tenderly compassionate and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth" (Ex. 34 : 6).

Nothing certain can be said as to the author and date of the Psalm. P.—Although the title ascribes it to David, nearly all authorities regard the authorship of this song as doubtful. There is an accumulation of Aramaic forms, such as are found only in the latest Hebrew songs. But there can be no difference of opinion about its beauty and preciousness. De Witt.

The Psalm consists of three parts : 1. A prelude, in a strain of trustful gladness, in which the Psalmist seeks to stir up gratitude within him, by the review of God’s mercies to him as an individual (vs. 1-5). 2. The body of the poem, in a more reflective tone, full of a quiet, tender, pathetic, even melancholy beauty, in which, after a brief allusion to the facts of the national history, the great covenant relationship of God to His people forms the prominent ground of hope amid human sins and transitoriness (vs. 6-18). 3. A triumphant conclusion. Joy in the remembrance of God’s goodness to himself and his people predominates over every other feeling. Such a joy must utter itself in praise. Praise seems its natural employment, and therefore the natural employment of all other creatures, which it summons to a holy sympathy and fellowship with itself (vs. 19-22). P.

It is observable that no petition occurs throughout the entire compass of these twenty-two verses. Not a single word of supplication is in the whole Psalm addressed to the Most High. Innumerable blessings had been showered down from above; 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.

1. All that is within me;** not as opposed to outward or mere lip service, but expressing the desire to enlist every thought, faculty, power, the heart with all its affections, the will, the conscience, the reason, in a word, the whole spiritual being, all in man that is best and highest, in the same heavenly service. P.—The literal translation of the form here used is my 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. A.

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. Stevenson.

His holy name. The purity of God is that which beautifies all His perfections, and renders them worthy to be praised. His eternity, knowledge, and power, without justice, goodness, and truth, might indeed alarm and confound us; but could not inflame our love or engage us to hearty blessing. But when infinite mightiness and unerring wisdom and eternal nal dominion are mixed with unchangeable love and inviolable veracity and goodness, when thus it becomes a holy name, then the Divine perfections are rendered suitable objects of our hope and confidence and loudest songs; hence the Psalmist mentions the purity of God: “Bless His holy name.” W. Dunlap.

2. Forget not.** This touches the secret spring of so much ingratitude—forgetfulness, the want of recollection, or gathering together again of all the varied threads of mercy. P.—‘Tis a general fault that the most common and frequent, the most obvious and conspicuous favors of God we commonly little mind or regard; and consequently seldom return due thanks for them. Barrow.

If one should give me a dish of sand, and tell me there were particles of iron in it, I might feel for them with the finger in vain. But let me take a magnet and sweep through it, and how would that draw to itself the most invisible particles by the mere power of attraction! The unthankful heart, like my finger in the sand, discovers no mercies. But let the thankful heart sweep through the day, and as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find in every hour some heavenly blessings—only the iron in God’s sand is gold. Holmes.—The grateful spirit alone believes, because it alone acknowledges the source of its life and being, the Author and Fountain-head. The grateful spirit alone finds out God; to it alone He reveals Himself. It alone discovers its glorious Maker in its own faculties, its own perceptions, its own capacities of happiness; and with the grateful one out of the ten, it falls down before Him, giving Him thanks. Morley.

3. Forgiveth,** the first and greatest of all the Divine benefits to the soul burdened with a sense of guilt and defilement; therefore also that which calls first for acknowledgment. “God’s benefits will not be before our eyes, unless our sins be also before our eyes.” (Augustine.) P.—Pardon shines first of the stars of mercy. A main reason for this is the fact that we never enjoy a mercy as a mercy from God till we receive the forgiveness of sins. And well may the Lord place this mercy first, because, when it comes, it insures all the rest Anon.

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-equi- ties; and it is most effectual, for it is as real as the healing and the rest of the mercies with which it is placed. S.

Reflect on this, that the first word which the love of God speaks to sinful men is pardon; and unless that is your notion of God’s love, unless you look to that as the first thing of all, you may have before you a very fair picture of a beautiful, tender, good-natured benevolence, but you have not nearly reached the height of the vigor and yet the tenderness of the Scripture notion of the love of God. It is not a love which says: “Put sin on one side, and give the man the blessings all the same,” not a love which has nothing to say about the great fact of transgression, which gives it the go-by and leaves it standing; but a love which passes into the heart through the portal of pardon, a love which grapples with the fact of sin first, and has nothing to say to a man until it has said that message to him. A. M.

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. Christ bore them “all,” and, therefore, God forgives “all.” “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” Anon.

Three things the true Christian desires with respect to sin: Justification, that it may not condemn; sanctification, that it may not reign; and glorification, that it may not be. Cecil.

Healeth thy diseases. Diseases or “sicknesses,” primarily of body, as in Deut. 29: 21; 2 Chron. 21: 19; and this agrees with what follows. P.—The body experienceth the 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 palsy? Horne.

4. Crowneth.** The love of God not only delivers from sin, disease, and death. He makes His children kings, and weaves their crown out of His own glorious attributes of lovingkindness and tender mercies. P.

There are essential moral intentions in us, weakened, it is true, and perverted by sin, but ready to be awakened and to give their response to the Divine Spirit when He breathes upon them. Deepest among these is the conviction that the pure, and merciful, and tender are beautiful, not only in the human, but in the

Divine; and it is because the Gospel meets this feeling that we are borne to it on the tide of all our spiritual sympathies. The more profoundly and reverently we study our inner nature and the standard of moral judgment which has been there set up, the more we shall feel the need of the revelation of Jesus Christ to give us this full-orbed view of God. It alone discloses depths of compassion transcending even those heights of power, and points us to a Being who crowns His own nature, as He crowns ours, “with lovingkindness and tender mercy.” Ker.

Every place I have lived in has its monuments of Divine love. Every year and hour of my life has been a time of love. Every friend, neighbor, and even enemy have been the messengers and instruments of love. Every state and change of my life, notwithstanding my sin, have opened to me the treasures and mysteries of love. And shall I doubt whether the same God loves me? Baxter.

5. The translation “mouth” has no support from Hebrew usage. The word used means elsewhere ornament, adornment. Here, apparently, our highest glory as beings—that which gives us our distinguished pre-eminence among the lower orders of creatures, and well translated soul, in the same way in which the usual Hebrew word for glory sometimes means soul (Psalm 16: 9). Satisfying the soul with good, renews one’s youth like the eagle’s. A happy heart doeth good like a medicine. It becomes a good, not to the soul only, but through sympathy, to the body as well. C.

Who satisfeth thy mouth with good things, rather “filling with good thy soul.” No 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. Thus is the chain of grace complete. Sin is forgiven, its power subdued, and its penalty averted, then we are honored, supplied, and our very nature renovated, till we are as new-born children in the household of God. S.

Renewed like the eagle. The only point of comparison with the eagle is its strength and vigor, as in 2 Sam. 1: 23, and the whole verse may be paraphrased as follows: “So completely does His bounty feed thy strength, that even in old age thou growest young again, and soarest like an eagle.” A.—Not meaning a sudden restoration from extreme weakness, but a continued impartation of new life; and the comparison with the eagle is an allusion to the long life through which the early fire and force of the royal bird continue undiminished. De Witt.

Thy activity will renew itself like the eagle. That is to say, From day to day he will receive and increase his strength and vigor, 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 vigor and activity continually renewing itself; as Isa. 40 : 31, says, “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles. Venema.”

6. 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 case. Who will not praise Him that He careth so kindly and so gloriously for those who suffer cruel wrongs from wicked oppressors? C.—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. No 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. S.

7. His “ways” He made known to Moses; to the children of Israel, only “His acts.” He showed them His wonderful favors 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. R. Baker.

8. God is “slow to anger.” When mercy cometh into the world, she driveth winged steeds; but when wrath cometh, it walketh with tardy footsteps; it is not in haste to slay, it is not swift to condemn. God’s rod of mercy is ever in His hands outstretched; God’s sword of justice is in its scabbard, not rusted in it—it can be easily withdrawn—but held there by the hand that presses it back into its sheath, crying, “Sleep, oh sword, sleep; for I will have mercy upon sinners, and will forgive their transgressions.” Plenteous in mercy. 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. S.

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 He can; He is not so slow in coming to it 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 mercy, or that His compassion should have any cause of restraint. R. Baker.—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, 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 forever against His own people, but will gather them with everlasting mercies (Isa. 54 : 8 ; 57 : 16). H.

10. God is never hard—never afflicts willingly or grieves the children of men, never deals with us after our sins, nor rewards us according to our iniquities. “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” When it is “sorrow upon sorrow,” it is “strength upon strength;” and those who know most about affliction will be the readiest to confess what lessons it has taught them of the tenderness and faithfulness of God. Thorold.

11. It is proof that the natural man did not invent the Gospel, since he cannot comprehend it. The mercies, like the judgments of God are “far above out of his sight.” “As the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward them that fear Him.” Ker.—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 forever as their dwelling-place. 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 insures to its possessor all the benefits of Divine mercy, and is, indeed, here and elsewhere, employed to set forth the whole of true religion. S.

12. Removed our transgressions.** The forgiveness of sin (as in v. 3) is the great proof of God’s love. “The expression describes, in language which might be that of the New Testament, the effects of justifying grace.” (Delitzsch.) Compare Micah 7:19: “Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea;” Isa. 38:17: “Thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.” P.—“As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us.” No word even upon the inspired page can excel this! Sin is removed from us by a miracle of love, removed so far that the distance is incalculable. Then we may be sure that the trace, the very memory of it must be entirely gone. S.

13. As a father.** God is our Father because He created and preserves us; He is our Father because He rules us by the 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. 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.

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.” H.

The religion of the Psalms and of the Old Testament is no less remarkable for its tenderness than for its severe purity. Heathen poets have sounded the depths of human sorrow, passion, and pity; but nowhere in pagan literature, least of all in the religious books of heathendom, can we catch even the echo of that full-toned tenderness and gracious comfort which rings through the Hebrew Scriptures, assuring us that the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. E. R. Conder.

The Christian has the double armor against anxiety—the name of the Father, and the conviction that the Father’s knowledge is co-extensive with the Father’s love. He who calls us His children thoroughly understands what His children want. And so, anxiety is contrary to the very name by which we have learned to call God, and to the pledge of pitying care and perfect knowledge of our frame which lies in the words “our Father.” Our Father is the name of God, and our Father intensely cares for us, and lovingly does all things for us. A. M.

“Beloved, now are we children of God.” Before Him, we are before our Father. Would not an accused child rather appear before his father than before any other judge? Would not his filial instinct tell him that there he could be sure of all patience, tenderness, and tolerance? Would he not draw comfort and confidence from his knowledge that the father knew him, knew all about his dispositions, his training, his circumstances? That is just the assurance which is given us in the fact of God’s Fatherhood. We carry our self-accusing hearts to our Father. We go as children of God. Such we are; and “like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. He knoweth our frame”—how you and I are made up; all our heritages of temper and disposition; all our natural infirmity; all the points where we are weakest against temptation; all our easily-besetting sins. V.

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. W. H. Murray.

When God calls Himself our Father, the clouds which conceal Him from our sight seem to break and vanish, and we feel that we can love and honor Him. Above all, we can recognize Him as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in Him, and through His incarnation, has adopted us into the highest condition of sonship, and made us heirs with Him of eternal life. Bishop Goodwin.

Christ puts that great word “Father” into all our thoughts. He lifts the light of it over the whole universe. And the knowledge and glory of a living, loving, personal Father stream in upon us from every side. When the soul awakens to spiritual consciousness and finds itself in the presence of this great truth of the Fatherhood of God, the first fact which confronts it is a sense of farness from the Father. It is God’s mercy that He has not left us to rest in this depth of strangeness. He has made a way for us in Christ—the new and living way by the blood. God’s own Son has died to put our estrangement away. “We are no more strangers and foreigners.” The blood has brought us near. A. Macleod.

Essentially God is the Father of all men; but practically, subjectively, He is not the Father of the man who forgets His existence, overlooks His providence, disregards His requirements, and, in fact, lives “without God in the world.” For there are no filial aspirations in the heart of such a man. He has no child-like trust or communion. To him there is no spiritual life in the motions of the universe, no expression of infinite tenderness upon its face. Worshipping the objects of sense, he does not notice the intense longings of his own soul. Swept in the sounding tide of passion, he hears not “the still, small voice,” inviting to a holier and serener course. God’s love is over him, and God’s mercy waits on him; but, in his sensualism and sin, he does not see the Father. He does not realize his relationship to God, and therefore, so far as it depends upon his action, that relationship is as though it were not. Chapin.—How is it that a father pitieth his children? For long there has been only one son at home, and you might suppose there never had been more than one; all is so complete and orderly, and the new-come servants and the neighbors never speak of any other. But along the high-road there is this instant travelling a haggard figure in tattered clothing, in his looks not much to betoken gentle breeding. But one heart awaits him, and keeps for him the original compartment, warm, ample, and unfilled. Yonder, as he has surmounted the summit of the hill and is gazing down on the long forsaken homestead and hesitating whether he may venture nearer, which quick eye is that which has recognized him a great way off, and what eager step is this which runs so fast to meet him, and who is this that in the folds of his kingly mantle hides the ragged wanderer, and clasps him to his bosom, and weeps upon his neck the tears of enraptured affection, and cuts short his confession with a call for the best robe and a command for instant festival? Oh, what a love is this which the heavenly Father hath unto His children? Hamilton.

That one word, Father, spoken in faith is better than a thousand prayers in a formal, lukewarm way. I myself have often found that when I can say but this word Father, it doth me more good than when I call Him by any other Christian name. Bunyan.

14. God “knoweth our frame,” for He made it. “He understandeth our thoughts,” for the mind from whence they rise is His workmanship. And there is nothing which is a source of pain or uneasiness, of doubt or difficulty, of grief or anguish to His children, which He is not only willing to hear of but desirous that they should tell Him. Champneys.

Though God’s holiness shames our sinfulness, though God’s perfect wisdom dwarfs our folly, nevertheless the safest refuge for the most sinful is perfect holiness; and perfect knowledge joined to perfect love furnishes the strongest assurance to trembling and penitent souls. If that knowledge sees deeper into our sin than we do, it also sees deeper into our weakness. If it weighs the act in more nicely-adjusted scales, it knows what circumstances to throw into the scales. If it knows our most secret faults, it also knows our frame and our frailty. If it discerns aggravations, it equally discerns extenuations. Self-accusing hearts are nowhere so safe as in God’s hands; nowhere so sure of justice, but nowhere so sure of tender mercy. V.

Maybe when the sincere soul is about a duty he doth it weakly, yet this very willingness of the heart is wonderfully pleasing to God. How doth it affect and take the father, when he bids his little child go and bring him such a thing, to see him not stand at the command as hard, but run to it and put forth his whole strength about it! Though at last maybe he cannot do it, yet the willingness of the child pleaseth him so that his weakness rather stirs up the father to pity and help him, than to provoke him to chide him. Christ throws this covering over His disciples’ infirmities, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Oh! this obedience, that like the dropping honey, comes without squeezing, though but little of it, tastes sweetly on God’s palate; and such is sincere obedience. Gurnall.

15, 16. “As for man,” very frail is he, as the word chosen here for man implies. He is compared to the grass whose natural life is only a few months at longest. As the blossom flowers, so he blossoms for his brief day, the Hebrew beautifully using the same word for the field-blossom and for the man, blossoming. For a breath of air, a gentle wind 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. C.

Worldly men take one view of this, and say that a looking forward and a prophetic tone of mind with respect to death is not natural. And as a counterbalance to and remedy for such presages they take refuge in the matter-of-fact sensation of life which belongs to us. They throw themselves deliberately and systematically upon this world instinct, in order to counterbalance the true prophetic nature of the soul and prevent it from acting, in order to deaden the sense of futurity and annihilate the other world to their minds. Now what is the Scripture way of dealing with the subject of death? It does not allow it to be thus put aside. It makes us view it with steady, calm eye and keep it before us. It tells the soul to reckon beforehand, to see, to prepare; it lengthens its sight; it fixes its aim. Foresight was given us that we might be, not paralyzed and rendered motionless, but sobered and chastened in the exercise of our active faculties, that we should feel that very check of which worldly men are impatient, for they would fain while they do live be going to live forever in their imagination. Mozley.

One who has looked upon a Western prairie in June can appreciate the allusions of the Bible to the grass and the flower of the field. Yet the brightest gardens of California hardly rival the grassy plains of Syria in the abundance, variety, and brilliancy of flowers. But when there sweeps over the plains of Syria the “east wind” of the Arabian desert, this sirocco scorches as it goes; it fades the grass, withers the flowers, and turns the fresh field into hay and stubble. So does man fade away in the midst of his pride and luxuries, of his plans and hopes.

17. In contrast with man’s weak and perishable frame appears the mercy of the Lord—a mercy that has provided comfort for man’s feebleness, solace for his troubles, pardon for his sins; and for all who will commit themselves in humble, holy fear, everlasting peace and joy. Oh that our souls might rise to more worthy praise of this constant, this tender, this unfailing love! J. P. T.

The mercy of God is eternal; the eternity of mercy is expressed in the same language as the eternity of God Himself; and, indeed, since it is His nature, it must be as eternal as He Himself is; it is from everlasting, as His love is; which is to be proved by the instances of it, called His tender mercies, which have been ever of old, or from everlasting. And the mercy of God is to everlasting in its fruits and effects; it is kept with Christ and for Him, the Mediator of the covenant; into whose hands are put all the promises and blessings of mercy; called, therefore, “the sure mercies of David.” Even temporal blessings which flow from the mercy of God, are new every morning and are daily continued; and spiritual ones always remain; the mercy of God never departs from His people notwithstanding their backslidings; and though He chides them for them and hides His face from them, yet still He has mercy on them. Gill.

For the third time God’s mercy and loving-kindness is said to be upon “them that fear Him,” compare vs. 11, 13, as if to remind us that there is a love within a love, a love which they only know who have tasted that the Lord is gracious, who fear Him and walk in His ways, as well as a love which “maketh the sun to shine, and sendeth rain upon the just and the unjust.” In the next verse there is the same limitation, “To such as keep His covenant,” and to those who not only know, but “do” His will. The blessings of the covenant are no inalienable right; children’s children can only inherit its blessings by cleaving to it. P.

Child of God, thou that fearest God, here is mercy nigh thee, mercy enough, everlasting mercy upon thee. This is long-lived mercy. It will live longer than thy sin, longer than temptation, longer than thy sorrows. It is mercy from everlasting to contrive thy salvation, and mercy to everlasting to resist all thy adversaries. And this hath the man that feareth the Lord. Take that other blessed word (v. 11), and thou man that fearest the Lord, hang it like a chain of gold about thy neck: “As the heaven is high above the earth, so great is His mercy to them that fear Him.” If mercy as high and as good as heaven itself will be a privilege, the man that feareth God shall have the privilege. Bunyan.

18. Sin sometimes overpowers us for want of remembering. Forgetful hearers are often negligent livers. A godly man has an effective memory; he “remembers” the commandments of God “to do them.” It is to be feared that the sins of God’s people are usually sins of forgetfulness and inconsideration. Manton.—Most Christians content themselves with a small measure of grace, and do not follow on to spiritual strength and manhood. They believe so weakly, and love God so little, that they can scarce find whether they believe and love at all; like a man in a swoon, whose pulse and breathing is so weak and obscure that it can hardly be perceived whether they move at all, and, consequently, whether the man be alive or dead. The chief remedy for such would be to follow on their duty, till their graces be increased. Ply your work; wait upon God in the use of His prescribed means, and He will undoubtedly bless you with increase and strength. Baxter.

19. The concluding portion of the Psalm extols the greatness and majesty of Him who has thus stooped in pity to His children. The Psalmist had begun by calling upon his own soul to bless Jehovah for His goodness; he had associated with himself, as partakers in that goodness, all who feared the Lord. Now he concludes by calling on the angels and all creation to ascribe blessing, honor, and power to Him who sitteth upon the throne. Lastly, from all that vast congregation of worshippers praising God, he turns to himself, that his voice may not be wanting in the mighty anthem, “Bless thou Jehovah, O my soul.” P.

19. The Lord hath prepared His throne.** The word signifies established as well as prepared, and might be so rendered. He hath prepared or established it. It is fixed, not tottering; it is an unmovable dominion; all the struggling of men and devils cannot overturn it, nor so much as shake it. He cannot be deposed from it, he cannot be mated in it. His dominion, as Himself, abides forever. And as His counsel, so His authority, shall stand; and “He will do all His pleasure” (Isa. 46: 10). Charnock.

20,21. These few words descriptive of the angels are by no means exhaustive. Yet the points given are of the first importance; “mighty in strength,” i.e., of most exalted powers and capabilities. And evermore obedient to the mandates of the Most High, diligently hearkening to catch every word from His lips and evermore swift to execute it. Upon all these noblest of created beings the

Psalmist calls to bless the Lord Jehovah. C.—As in number and order they are huge, mighty, and royal armies, so likewise in perfection of obedience unto that law which the Highest, whom they adore, love, and imitate, hath imposed upon them, such observants they are thereof, that our Saviour, being to set down the perfect idea of that we are to pray and wish for on earth, did not teach to pray or wish for more, than only that here it might be with us, as with them it is in heaven. Hooker.—The chief excellence of the angels, the main cause of their strength and power, and of their immense superiority to mankind, is 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? J. C. Hare.

The blessedness of angels doth not consist in the endowments of their nature—that they are great in power, light, knowledge, and wisdom; for notwithstanding these things, many of them became devils. But the excellency and blessedness of the angelical state consists in these two things: First, that they are disposed, and able constantly, inseparably, universally, uninterruptedly, to cleave unto God in love. And as they do so unto God, so they do unto the person of Christ; and through Him, as their Head, unto God, even the Father. Second, add hereunto that gracious reflex sense which they have of the glory, dignity, eternal sweetness, and satisfaction, which arise from hence, and we have the sum of angelical blessedness. J. Owen.

I stood at the bedside of a most intelligent Christian, waiting for her great change to come. She was full of joyful anticipation. “Oh,” said she, “to ‘run with willing feet in the way of God’s commandments,’ what a glad-some promise is that!” It was a most discriminating perception of this very element of future blessedness—His servants shall serve Him—with no drawing back, no urgency, no idea of necessity—moving and obeying because we must, but with cheerful alacrity, and with all the powers of the ransomed soul flaming in one direction of unmixed, uncoerced and unimpeded choice. The angels who do God’s commandments are as flames of fire, alert and resplendent in their promptitude. Our daily prayer at last will be accomplished; we shall do the will of God, as it is now done in heaven. The spiritual body shall know no fatigue, and no necessity for recruiting its exhausted strength by sleep. W. Adams.

The Bible represents angels as speaking and listening to each other, and God as speaking and listening to them; while they, in their turn, speak and listen to Him. This is not mere empty imagery. It carries silent proof that fleshless spirits, like God and angels, or our own unbodied souls, have an inward, spiritual sense, in the use of which they communicate and receive knowledge or truth. This knowledge and that inward sense, truth known and made known, are grand media of happy and beneficial intercourse between all pure spirits. J. S. Stone.

Those glimpses of the supernal world which we catch from the Scriptures have in them, certainly, quite as much of the character of history as of poetry, and impart the idea, not that there is less of business in heaven than on hearth; but more. Unquestionably the felicity of those beings of a higher order, to whose agency frequent allusions are made by the inspired writers, is not incompatible with the assiduities of a strenuous ministry, to be discharged according to the best ability of each.

But if there be a real and necessary, not merely a shadowy agency in heaven, as well as on earth; and if human nature is destined to act its part in such an economy, then its constitution, and the severe training it undergoes, are at once explained; and then also, the removal of individuals in the very prime of their fitness for useful labor ceases to be impenetrably mysterious. The mind of man, formed as it is to be more tenacious of its active habits than even of its moral dispositions, is, in the present state, trained, often at an immense cost of suffering, to the exercise of skill, of forethought, of courage, of patience; and ought it not to be inferred, unless positive evidence contradicts the supposition, that this system of education bears some relation of fitness to the state for which it is an initiation? Shall not the very same qualities which here are so sedulously fashioned and finished, be actually needed and used in that future world of perfection? When once with open eye that “excellent glory” has been contemplated, then shall it be understood that the Divine wisdom is incomparably more honored by the skilful and faithful performances, and by the cheerful toils of agents who have been fashioned and fitted for service, than it could be by the bare exertions of irresistible power; and then, when the absolute dependence of creatures is thoroughly felt, may the beautiful orders of the heavenly hierarchy rising and still rising toward perfection, be seen and admired without hazard of forgetting Him who alone is absolutely perfect, and who is the only fountain and first cause of whatever is excellent. I. T.

21. “Bless ye the Lord, all ye His hosts that do His pleasure.” The sun, moon, stars, and planets do “His pleasure” unconsciously; the “angels” consciously, and with instinctive love, “hearken unto the voice His Word.” Both together constitute the Lord’s hosts. Fausset.

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! Nor 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.” C

Oh my soul, bless God my Saviour, and magnify His name; for it is holy, and full of holiest delights. Oh how good, how sweet Thou art, Lord Jesus, to the soul that seeks Thee! Jesus, Redeemer of the lost, Saviour of the redeemed, hope of exiles, strength of the weary, relief of the anxious spirit, crown of those that triumph, Thyself God most high, let all things in heaven above and in earth beneath bless Thee! Bernard.

The Psalm ends as it began, without a single word of supplication. All is praise, humble, grateful, rapturous praise. Sincere and earnest praise is a higher spiritual exercise than prayer, however intense and believing, for the latter springs from the sense of personal need, while the former looks away from self and seeks only to have the Lord duly honored. As such it meets the strongest instincts of the godly man’s soul, and hence is represented as the chief employment of the just made perfect, who rest not day or night, setting forth the glories of Him who was and who is and who is to come. It is not strange, therefore, that saints on earth have always taken a special pleasure in this Psalm, which is such an exuberant burst of grateful praise. Chambers.

How personal is this Psalm! It is personal

in its references to God. It is the personal God of the Hebrews, who sees, hears, and feels. It is He that forgiveth, healeth, redeemeth, crowneth. It is He that executeth righteousness, that pitieth, and remembereth. So the mercies in this Psalm are personal. It is “my soul” that is addressed in the first verse, and then it is declared to the soul that He forgiveth all “thine” iniquities, healeth all “thy” diseases, redeemeth “thy” life from destruction, crowneth “thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies.” And when we near the end of our pilgrimage, we can say that He knoweth “our” frame, He remembereth that “we” are dust. It is this personality of the Hebrew songs that makes them so valuable. They are songs for our night, lights for our darkness, staves for our weariness, hills of promise for our longing sight. The penitential Psalms are our closets of confession, where we breathe out the story that only God hears. The Psalms of Providence are the windows where we sit and look away upon the green fields of life and still waters of peace to be found near our doors and for our comforting. E. A. Rand.