Psalms 33

He exhorteth them three times—be glad, rejoice, and be joyful; and as he made mention of a threefold blessing, so doth he of a threefold joy. This same prophet in the next Psalm redoubleth his exhortations for the same effect. And the apostle to the Philippians saith: “Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, rejoice.” Next perceive that this exhortation grows, for the word be glad properly in the original signifieth an inward and hearty joy, by the presence or hope at least of a thing desirable or good. The word rejoice, to express our joy by some outward gesture, sometimes used for dancing, as, “The hills skip for gladness.” The word be joyful, to cry for gladness, as the dumb man’s tongue shall sing. This gradation teacheth us that spiritual joy still increaseth in us by certain degrees until it come to the perfection of all joy, which is signified by the last word, importing a triumph and shouting after victory. Symson.—There’s never a joyful man alive but a believer. Will you say that men take pleasure in their sins? Why, that is the Devil’s joy; or that they rejoice in full barns and bags? That is the fool’s joy; or that they rejoice in wine—that is, all dainties that gratify the palate? That is a Bedlam joy. Read and believe Eccl. 2: 3. The whole book, but especially that chapter, is the divinest philosophy that ever was or will be. Christopher Fowler.

Why not make it the plan of our life to live in this exulting joy of experience which the Psalmist felt and uttered, which the apostle felt and uttered, which he recognized as possible, and as gained already in those to whom he was writing? Why not make it the purpose of our life and the constant burden of our prayer to God, that we may be brought into this state of royal experience of gladness and strength and peace and victory in God, as He has declared to us in His Son, as He has revealed to us in His promises; so that others may be swept by the contagion of our joy into the kingdom of light, in which alone that joy can be realized; so that we may feel all the time that our heavenly life is not far off, but here; that we have the germ already, and the full flower only awaits the transplantation of the spirit to the celestial garden? We have the ray of light, and the meridian of glory is before us that our joy may be full; and it never will be full except as we meditate upon the Word, and do the work which God assigns to us, and come to Him in the intimacy and freedom of filial prayer for the constant indwelling of His Spirit. R. S. S.

1. REJOICE in the LORD, O ye righteous: Praise is comely for the upright. 2 Give thanks unto the LORD with harp: Sing praises unto him with the psaltery of ten strings. 3 Sing unto him a new song; Play skilfully with a loud noise. 4 For the word of the LORD is right; And all his work is done in faithfulness. 5 He loveth righteousness and judgment [or, justice]: The earth is full of the lovingkindness of the LORD. 6 By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; And all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. 7 He gathereth the waters of the sea together as an heap He layeth up the deeps in storehouses. 8 Let all the earth fear the LORD: Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. 9 For he spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast. 10 The LORD bringeth the counsel of the nations to nought: He maketh the thoughts of the peoples to be of none effect. 11 The counsel of the LORD standeth fast forever,

The thoughts of his heart to all generations. 12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; The people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance. 13 The LORD looketh from heaven; He beholdeth all the sons of men; 14 From the place of his habitation he looketh forth Upon all the inhabitants of the earth; 15 He that fashioneth the hearts of them all, That considereth all their works. 16 There is no king saved by the multitude of an host: A mighty man is not delivered by great strength.

God is the God of creation, of providence, of grace. This is, in a few words, the Psalmist’s theme. Jehovah created the world. Jehovah governs the world; and all nations and kings, whether they acknowledge Him or not, are but instruments in His hand. Jehovah especially reveals Himself in mercy and love to His own chosen people. This is one of the few Psalms in the first book which in the Hebrew is without an inscription. P.

1. Rejoice in the Lord, ye righteous, so the foregoing Psalm concluded, and so this begins; for all our religious exercises should both begin and end with a holy complacency and triumph in God as the best of beings and best of friends. H.—The Christian has his sorrows; but these are not unsweetened. The Christian life has its shadows and its showers; but these are not unmingled with bright beams of heavenly light; and the saddest aspects of a Christian’s daily life are but the April showers of spring that usher in the approaching bright and beautiful summer—the everlasting and the heavenly sunshine. Christian life is not a reluctant sacrifice wrung from us, but a joyous and free-will offering gladly and gratefully rendered by us. Cumming.—Therefore Psalmist, prophet, apostle, utter and repeat the call, Rejoice in the Lord. B.

Praise. The Hebrew word for praise is beautifully emphatic. It means, literally, acknowledgment or confession. In praising a fellow-creature, we may easily surpass the truth; but in praising God, we have only to go on confessing what He really is to us. Here it is impossible to exceed the truth, and here is genuine praise. Bengel.—Praise is better than prayer. Praise is comely for the upright. It suits their character and destiny. It fits them for their lifework. It makes them acceptable to God, and prepares them for heaven. H. J. V.

17. An horse is a vain thing for safety: Neither shall he deliver any by his great power. 18 Behold, the eye of the LORD is upon them that fear him, Upon them that hope in [or, wait for] his mercy; 19 To deliver their soul from death, And to keep them alive in famine. 20 Our soul hath waited for the LORD: He is our help and our shield. 21 For our heart shall rejoice in him, Because we have trusted in his holy name. 22 Let thy mercy, O LORD, be upon us, According as we have hoped in thee.

2. Here musical instruments are first introduced in the Psalms. The precise construction of these various instruments is lost irrecoverably. We know that they were used as an accompaniment to the voice, and may safely presume that they were adapted for sacred music—well adapted, considering the genius and culture of the age. C.

3. Sing unto Him a new song; play well with joyful noise! A new song implies the continual recurrence of fresh reasons and occasions for the praise of God, and also the spontaneous outflow of devout and thankful feelings in the hearts of the singers. A.

4,5. The call to praise God is first based on a representation of His praiseworthiness as the God of revelation in the kingdom of grace. His word is uprightly meant, and without becoming untrue to itself in any respect, straightway fulfilling itself; His every act is an act which fulfils itself in faithfulness, which proves the truth of His word and the kindness of His will. D.

4. For right is the word of Jehovah, and all His work is (done) in faithfulness. The word here meant is the word of promise, and the work is its performance or fulfilment. The word is right or upright, i.e., uttered in sincerity and with a full determination to redeem it. In faithfulness, executed faithfully. A.

5. God has made it to appear in His works that He is a God of inflexible justice. He loveth righteousness and judgment. There is nothing but righteousness in the sentence He passes, and justice in the execution of it. He never did or can do wrong to His creatures, but is always ready to right those that are wronged, and does it with delight. He takes pleasure in those that are righteous. He is Himself the righteous Lord, and therefore loveth righteousness.

And He is a God of inexhaustible bounty. The benign influences which the earth receives from above and the fruits it is thereby enabled to produce; the provision that is made for man and beast and the common blessings with which all the nations of the earth are blessed plainly speak that the earth is full of His goodness. What pity is it that this earth, which is so full of God’s goodness, should be so empty of His praises; and that of the multitudes that live upon His bounty, there are so few that live to His glory! H.

6-9. From the present proofs of God’s love in the earth, the thoughts of the sacred poet naturally go back to the creation of all things. And as he had before declared what the “word” and “work” of Jehovah are, in their essential characters (v. 4), so now he describes further the operation of that word, and the work which results therefrom. The heaven and the sea are mentioned as the theatre of God’s almighty power, as the earth before of His lovingkindness; and thus the universe is summed up. P.

—All these manifest and wonderful proofs of goodness in the heavens above and in the earth beneath are to be ascribed to God, for He is their Supreme Creator. This is the logical connection between these verses and the preceding. All you see of goodness in earth or sky; all these marvellous revelations of wisdom and beauty, of adaptation to the happiness of man and of myriads of other sentient beings, are to be ascribed directly and wholly to God their Creator; “for by the word of the Lord were the heavens made.” C.

6. The Word of the Lord is the command which called the universe into existence; the Breath is the quickening spirit which brooded on the abyss, and gave life and form to all things. Cook.

7. Putting, literally, giving, storing, depositing. Depths, masses of water. The main point of the description is God’s handling these vast liquid masses, as men handle solid substances of moderate dimensions, heaping the waves up and storing them away, as men might do with stones or wheat. A.—The vast masses of waters which had hitherto covered the entire surface of the globe were on the third day of creation brought within narrower compass, and large tracts of the submerged earth reclaimed and rendered habitable ground. The waters were for the most part congregated together in one vast body, instead of being universally diffused over the face of the earth. This is the state of things which we now contemplate; the various great seas and oceans constituting in fact but one body of water called in different regions by different names, as the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Southern oceans. Bush.

8. Stand in awe.** Reverence is the supreme and eternal duty and grace of the created spirit. It is both the source and the issue of all godliness. As the spirit formed by religion, it is universal in its influence. It extends to all Divine things as well as to God himself: to His word, His ordinances, to His created temple of the world, and to all that is His; in His presence more particularly it is awe. W. B. Pope.—True reverence for God includes both fear and love: fear, to keep Him in our eye; love, to enthrone Him in the heart: fear, to avoid what may offend; love, to yield a prompt and willing service: fear, to regard God as a witness and judge; love, to cleave to Him as to a friend and father: fear, to render us watchful and circumspect; love, to make us active and resolute: love, to keep fear from being servile or distrustful; fear, to keep love from being forward or secure; and both springing from one root, a living faith in the infinite and ever-living God. D. Moore.

9. For (it was) He (that) said (Be), and it was; (it was) He (that) commanded, and it stood. The whole form of the sentence here is modelled upon that of the cosmogony in Genesis, where these two verbs repeatedly alternate. The common version, He spoke and it was done, is liable to three exceptions: First, the emphatic pronoun of the Hebrew is not fairly represented; second, the phrase it was done is much less striking than it was; third, the Hebrew verb does not mean to speak, but to say. What was said every reader, could supply from recollection of the narrative in Genesis. A.—The works of His hands are the material embodiment of His creative word. That word was the vocal expression of a Divine idea; and thought and word are made visible, and are presented to the eye, in the forms and the phenomena of external nature. The earth is an open and pictured page of a great volume; the starry heavens are an illuminated manuscript; above, beneath, within, around us, everywhere, we see the letters and words of a Divine writing—God’s thoughts set forth by His own hand, inscribed in a manner at once luminous and significant, by His ideas and utterances becoming facts. T. Binney.

10,11. From God’s works in creation the Psalmist passes to His manifestations of Himself in history. On the one hand He frustrates all undertakings which are not in accordance with His will; on the other (v. 11), He gives eternal effect to His own purposes. The world’s history is but a development of the principles which have their abode and origin in God. Cook.—The whole history of the world is the uninterrupted carrying through of a Divine plan of salvation, the primary object of which is His people, in and with them also the whole of humanity. D.

David puts the “counsel” and the “thoughts” of the people over against the “counsel” and the “thoughts” of God. The former God will bring to nought; the latter shall stand forever. C.—The counsel of the Lord standeth forever. It is immutable in itself, for He is in one mind, and who can turn Him? The execution of it may be opposed, but cannot in the least be obstructed by any created power. Through all the revolutions of time God never changed His measures, but in every event the eternal counsel of God is fulfilled; nor can anything prevent its being accomplished in its times. How easy may this thought make us at all times, that God governs the world, that He did it in infinite wisdom before we were born, and will do it when we are silent in the dust. H.

The Scripture shows us by numberless instances that God has not only upon special occasions made use of the power of miracles for the preservation of the righteous or the destruction of the wicked, but that generally He governs the moral world by providentially directing natural causes and influences to effect what He determines should be done; that He rewards or punishes men by wholesome or pestilential air, by fruitful or barren seasons; that He promotes or disappoints their designs by the uncertain changes of winds or weather; that He employs and directs influences of nature to overthrow the most powerful armies, to defeat the wisest counsels, to determine the fates of men and kingdoms; that the unsearchable wisdom of Providence directs and steers the most casual and accidental events, to change the fortunes of men and disappoint the most proper and natural means of success; so that “the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favor to men of skill;” but that time and chance, directed by the providence of God, happens to them all. Nay, further, the Scripture teaches us that God not only directs natural causes and overrules the actions of men to fulfil His own good pleasure, but influences men’s minds by strange concurrences of external causes, or by other more secret and unknown ways, to bring about just events; that He comforts good men and supports them in their designs; that He terrifies bad men with strange amazements, to discover their own conspiracies and to fall into the snares which they had secretly laid for others; that “He frustrateth the tokens of liars, and maketh diviners mad; turneth wise men backward, and maketh their knowledge foolish; that a man’s heart deviseth his ways, but the Lord directeth his steps; that there are many devices in the heart of man, but the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand; and that the heart of the prince is in the hand of the Lord; as the rivers of waters, He turneth it whithersoever He willetth.” S. Clarke.

No knowledge is so important and so practical as that of God’s plan. None so personally, universally and eternally affects us. That we can apprehend this knowledge in its simplicity is proof of the divinity of the human spirit. In this plan happiness is made to correspond with piety, sorrow with sin, and the plan works with certainty; inexorable, yet simple. The force that binds the moon to the earth and the earth to Sirius is simple but sure. So in the sweep of the ages, God’s truth standeth forever and the thoughts of His heart to all generations. Eternity itself shall emphasize and illustrate it. R. S. S.

12. Here we have the doctrine of God’s universal providence looked at in its special application to the chosen people, as often. It is, however, immediately connected with the preceding verse; for the fact that Jehovah’s counsels stand fast forever is a matter of consolation for the people whose God He is (147: 19, 20), and whom He hath chosen for His own inheritance. P.—The Jehovah who built the heavens and the earth is also in covenant relation with men, adopting them as His chosen people, His special inheritance. Plainly David brings together here those two grand ideas—that the God of Israel was at once the Creator of all worlds, and their own accepted Lord and King by special covenant. C.

13,14. The children of men are all under His eye, even their hearts are so; and all the motions and operations of their souls which none know but they themselves, He knows better than they themselves. Though the residence of God’s glory is in the highest heavens, yet thence He not only has a prospect of all the earth, but a particular inspection of all the inhabitants of the earth. He not only beholds them, but He looks upon them, He looks narrowly upon them, so narrowly that not the least thought can escape His observation. H.