Psalms 92

1. It is a good thing to give thanks unto the LORD, And to sing praises unto thy name, O Most High; 2 To shew forth thy lovingkindness in the morning, And thy faithfulness every night, 3 With an instrument of ten strings, and with the psaltery; With a solemn sound upon the harp, 4 For thou, LORD, hast made me glad through thy work: I will triumph in the works of thy hands. 5 How great are thy works, O LORD! Thy thoughts are very deep. 6 A brutish man knoweth not; Neither doth a fool understand this: 7 When the wicked spring as the grass, And when all the workers of iniquity do flourish; It is that they shall be destroyed for ever: 8 But thou, O LORD, art on high for evermore.

9. For, lo, thine enemies, O LORD, For, lo, thine enemies shall perish; All the workers of iniquity shall be scattered. 10 But my horn hast thou exalted like the horn of the wild-ox: I am anointed with fresh oil. 11 Mine eye also hath seen my desire on mine enemies, Mine ears have heard my desire of the evildoers that rise up against me. 12 The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. 13 They that are planted in the house of the LORD Shall flourish in the courts of our God. 14 They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; They shall be full of sap and green: 15 To shew that the LORD is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

THIS Psalm is called a Psalm for the Sabbath-day, and, as we learn from the Talmud, was appointed to be used in the temple service on that day. It was sung in the morning, when, on the offering of the first lamb, the wine was poured out as a drink-offering unto the Lord. It celebrates in joyful strain the greatness of God’s works, and especially His righteous government of the world, as manifested in the overthrow of the wicked, and the prosperity and final triumph of the righteous. The apparent success of the ungodly for a time is admitted, but this is a mystery which worldly men, whose understanding has become darkened, cannot penetrate (v. 6). The Psalm therefore touches upon the same great principles of the Divine government which are laid down in such Psalms as the first, the thirty-seventh, the forty-ninth, and the seventy-third. But here there is no struggle with doubt and perplexity, as in the seventy-third; the poet is beyond all doubt, above all perplexity; he has not fallen down to the low level of the brutish man (compare 73 : 22 with v. 6 of this Psalm); he is rejoicing in the full and perfect conviction of the righteousness of God. P.

As one main design of the Sabbath was to afford an opportunity for the admiring contemplation of God’s works or doings, the Psalm before us was peculiarly appropriate at such a time, and the third clause of the inscription is evidently correct. A.

1. It is good.** The Sabbath is the day which God has consecrated, and which we should consecrate to God by turning away from our every-day occupations (Isa. 58 : 13) and attending to the praise and worship of God, the blessed occupation of the Sabbath. It is good, i.e., not only good in the eyes of God, but also good for man, of benefit to his inmost being, precious and blessed. D.

When saints assemble together for devotion, they call into action all the graces of the Spirit; faith rests upon His promises—love grows in the contemplation of perfection—gratitude is felt warm and vivid in the heart—adherence to Divine truth is experienced so as to produce a resolution to buy the truth, and sell it not—reverence for the service of God and for His majesty, deference to His authority, a desire of being acquainted with His will, and entire resignation of ourselves to His discipline, are the sentiments expressed in praise and prayer. These actuate the breasts of Christians, and they produce a great mass of devotional feeling experienced nowhere else. They cannot but be acceptable to God in their insulated state; but when combined together, when there are thousands engaged in the same worship, and actuated by the same graces of the Spirit of God, called into exercise on these occasions—who can fail to perceive how acceptable such a spectacle must be to the great object of worship! R. Hall.

To sing praises, to give thanks. Thankful praise is a just and due tribute for all

God’s blessings. It is a debt always owing and always paying; upon the due discharge of this debt the soul will find peace. And a thankful heart to God for His blessings is the greatest blessing of all. Sibs.—Singing is the music of nature. The Scriptures tell us the mountains sing, the valleys sing, the trees of the wood sing. Nay, the air is the birds’ music-room, where they chant their musical notes. Singing is the music of saints. They have performed this duty in their greatest straits, in their greatest deliverances, and in their greatest plenties. In all these changes singing hath been their stated duty and delight. Singing is the music of angels. Job tells us, “The morning stars sang together.” When the heavenly host was sent to proclaim the birth of our dearest Jesus, they delivered their message in a “laudatory singing,” the whole company of angels making a musical choir. Singing is the music of heaven. Saints and angels accent their praises this way, and make one harmony in their state of blessedness; and this is the music of the bride-chamber (Rev. 15 : 3). J. Wells.

2. In the morning, every night.** Grace is purposely connected with the morning-dawn, for it itself is morning-light, which breaks through the night every morning; so faithfulness is also combined with the night-seasons, for amid the perils of the loneliness of the night it is the best companion, and nights of affliction are the foil of its verification. D.—God is Alpha and Omega. It is fit we should begin and end the day with His praise, who begins and ends it for us with mercy. As thou wouldst have God prosper thy labor in the day, and sweeten thy rest in the night, clasp them both together with thy morning and evening devotions. Gurnall.

We are ever in want, and God is ever giving; prayers, therefore, and praises are ever suitable and becoming. Let no day go without observation and review of God’s carriage toward you, and yours toward Him: of mercies and afflictions; of your duties and the frame of heart in them; of your sins or inclinations to sin; and so likewise of any remarkable providence of God related to you by others, or seen or heard by yourself; and let God have the glory of what is good. J. Mason.

Wherever there is material for prayer, there is material for thanksgiving. If we need to pray to God even for our bread, then even for our bread let us give thanks to Him. If today’s supply does not come by chance, nor because we were similarly supplied yesterday and the day before, but because God regards our wants of to-day and for this day also grants us life; then this day ought we to thank Him for this day’s mercies, though they be but the same as yesterday’s, and what all other men are enjoying. As each rising sun, touching the wing of the sleeping birds, wakes through the woods a fresh burst of glad melody, as if sun had never risen before; so let each day’s mercies awake our hearts afresh to the sense of God our Father’s smile, and turn our lives toward His light. “Where nothing is deserved, everything should be received with thanksgiving;” how then shall we ever discharge our debt of thanks, who deserve to know the power of God’s anger, but experience the power of His mercy? Dods.

Thy faithfulness. In every perfect union there must be mutual confidence, and a strict fulfilment of engagements on both sides. If man be trustful, God must be “faithful.” In this great contract there must be in God a something that will answer to the faith that is in His humble follower. Thus faith in man and faithfulness in God are the two members of one spiritual harmony. Neither is to be conceived without the other. Man without God would be fatherless; and God has almost permitted us to say that, without His people (the “little children” whom He wills not “to perish”), He would Himself be, as it were, childless in His own celestial family! The highest object of man’s existence is undoubtedly to hold communion with his God. For this his nature was originally framed, and in this alone will his nature ever find contentment or repose. God is, as it were, the counterpart to his being; the Divine and human elements are fitted to each other; and humanity, without the corresponding principle of Deity, is a thing imperfect, insufficient, incomplete. W. A. B.

5. How great are Thy doings, Jehovah, (how) exceedingly deep Thy thoughts!** Thoughts and doings are correlative expressions, signifying plan and execution. Deep, not mysterious, but vast, immense, and inexhaustible, corresponding to great in the other clause. A.—The works of God are exceeding great; very deep are His thoughts, which give shape to human history, in which they themselves gain form. Man can neither measure the greatness of the Divine works, nor fathom the depths of the Divine thoughts; the man that is enlightened, however, discerns the immeasurableness of the former and the unfathomableness of the latter. D.

The context shows sufficiently that the “works” thought of here are not primarily those of creation, but those of Providence—the Divine agencies in controlling human life—rewarding and punishing the well or ill-doing of men. It is of these that the Psalmist exclaims: “How great are Thy works; how very deep are Thy thoughts”—thoughts in the sense of counsels, plans, principles of moral government. The Psalmist is in most profound sympathy with God in these works of His, for he cries out, “Thou, Lord, hast gladdened me by these works of Thine.” C.

And Thy thoughts are very deep. The Lord’s plans are as marvellous as His acts; His designs are as profound as His doings are vast. Creation is immeasurable, and the wisdom displayed in it unsearchable. Providence is inexhaustible, and the Divine decrees which originate it are inscrutable. Redemption is grand beyond conception, and the thoughts of love which planned it are infinite. S.

6,7. Expressively he wrote: “The man-brute will not know; the fool will not understand this”—viz., that when the wicked spring up with rapid and apparently vigorous growth as the summer flowers in Palestine, it is that they may ripen soon for a swift destruction. The man-brute precisely translates the Hebrew words; one whom God has endowed with manhood, but who has debased himself to brutehood; a man as being of God’s creation in His own image, but a brute as being self-moulded into the image of the baser animals! C.

8. And Thou (art) Most High to eternity, Jehovah!** This brief but pregnant proposition is the centre of the Psalm, and at the same time a summary of its contents. The superlative expression Most High is here used to translate a single Hebrew word which strictly means a height or high place, but here denotes that which holds the highest place in the scale of being. A.—All the joy of the Psalmist culminates in this great central fact on which all the doctrine of the Psalm rests, that Jehovah is throned on high forevermore; from that flows the overthrow of the wicked and the triumph of the righteous. P.

Most high forevermore; literally, “art height,” the abstract used for the concrete, to imply that the essence of all that is high is concentrated in Jehovah. When God and the cause of holiness seem low, God is really never higher than then; for out of seeming weakness He perfects the greatest strength. When the wicked seem high, they are then on the verge of being cast down forever. The believer who can realize this will not despair at the time of his own depression, and of the seeming exaltation of the wicked. If we can feel “Jehovah Most High forevermore,” we can well be unruffled, however low we lie. Fausse.

10. Anointed with fresh oil.** Every kind of benediction and refreshment I have received, do receive, and shall receive, like one at a feast, who is welcomed as a friend, and whose head is copiously anointed with oil or fragrant balm. Geier.

11. And my eye has looked upon my enemies; of those rising up against me, evil-doers, my ears shall hear. The sense is that he sees and hears what is become of them. Their destruction is implied, though not expressed. The word translated enemies occurs only here. According to the most probable etymology it means watchers, liers in wait or ambush. A.

12-15. What is true of the Psalmist is true of all who are partakers of the same faith. The date-palm and the cedar are selected as the loveliest images of verdure, fruitfulness, undecaying vigor and perpetuity. “Throughout the year, in the winter’s cold as in the summer’s heat, the palm continues green. Not by years, but by centuries is the cedar’s age reckoned.” (Tholuck.) There is also a contrast: “The wicked spring as the green herb, or grass” (v. 7), which soon withers away, “The righteous spring as the palm,” which is ever green and ever fruitful. Besides this, there are only two passages in the Old Testament where the palm is used in comparison—Cant. 7: 7, where it is said of the bride, “Thy stature is like to a palm-tree;” Jer. 10: 5, where the idols are said to be “upright as a palm-tree;” and one in the Apocrypha (Eccl. 24: 14), “I was exalted like a palm-tree in Engaddi.” This, as Dr. Howson has noticed, is remarkable, considering the beauty of the tree and its frequent recurrence in the scenery of Palestine. P.

12. Like the palm-tree.** The large tuft of broad leaves which crowns the palm-tree, always retains its verdure; these leaves rise erect in the centre, and widely expand on each side of the stem, from which they immediately proceed, measuring from six to eight feet in length; the small white flowers (shielded by a spathe or sheath) comes out in long bunches from beneath them, being attached to the trunk by small stalks. It grows in a stately column, from thirty to fifty feet in height, crowned with a verdant capital of waving branches covered with long spiral leaves. Though the tree arrives at maturity thirty years after planting, it continues in full strength seventy years longer, producing annually fifteen or twenty clusters of dates, each weighing fifteen or twenty pounds. It is one of the most beautiful trees in the vegetable kingdom—upright, lofty, and verdant. The utility of this tree is not less remarkable than its beauty. Its clusters of fruit, which are frequently very large, furnish a great part of the diet of the inhabitants of Arabia and Persia: whole families in Upper Egypt, we are told, subsist entirely upon it. Gibbon says, that the Asiatics celebrated three hundred and sixty uses to which the trunk, branches, leaves, juice, and fruit were applied. Anon.

There is no more charming and majestic sight than the palm-tree of the oasis, this king among the trees of the plain, with its proudly raised diadem of leaves, its attitude as it looks far away into the distance and gazes into the face of the sun, its perennial verdure and its vegetative power, which is continually renewing itself from the root—a symbol of life in the midst of a world of death. From the earliest times the palm-tree has been an emblem of longevity, of fruitfulness and victory, of unity and peace. D.

Like a cedar in Lebanon. Along with the palm-tree there stands here the cedar, the prince of the trees of the mountain, and more especially of Mount Lebanon. The most obvious point of comparison is its stately, lofty growth; then in general the intensity of its power of growing, but also the perennial verdure of its foliage and the fragrance which it breathes out. D.—As the palm among the trees in the plain, so is the cedar in the mountain. The palm is distinguished by its tallness and fruitfulness; the cedar, by its strength and longevity. The palm rises in a single stem to sixty or one hundred feet, and bears fifteen or twenty clusters of dates, weighing each as many pounds; the cedar rises to ninety feet, with wide-spreading, umbrageous boughs, and lives about three thousand years. Each of these trees is in its own respects a striking emblem of the righteous man, who enjoys the protection and blessing of God. M.

In the excavations of the palace of one of the Assyrian kings, some fragments of cedar beams were found by Mr. Layard, which have since been transported to England, and are now preserved in the British Museum. Mr. Carruthers, keeper of the Botanical Department of the Museum, has made a careful microscopic examination of the wood-cells of these beams, and confirms Mr. Layard’s opinion that they were cedars from Lebanon. Thus these fragments have withstood the wear of time and the destroying chemical influences for perhaps thirty centuries, and are still the fragrant, incorruptible wood of the temple. Other woods may be riddled with worm-holes; no worm will touch the cedar. Giant eucalypti and sequoias may be “rotten to the core a thousand years before their falls;” there is not, and never has been, a false hearted cedar. Woodruff.

“The righteous,” says the Psalmist, “shall flourish like a palm-tree.” That is one part of our life; to be upright, graceful, gentle, like that most beautiful of Oriental trees. But there is another quality added, “He shall spread abroad like a cedar in Libanus.” That is, his character shall be sturdy, solid, broad; he shall protect others as well as himself; he shall support the branches of the weaker trees around him; he shall cover a vast surface of the earth with his shadow; he shall grow and spread and endure; he and his works shall make the place where he was planted memorable for future times. A. P. Stanley.

The palm-tree and cedar grow because they are fed by hidden resources. The palm in the desert is fed by hidden springs that flow beneath the surface of the dry sand; its roots drink deep and are sustained, and they send up the moisture into the leaves and branches, and they are refreshed and invigorated. The roots of the cedar are fed by the streams that come down from the snow-crowned tops of Lebanon; they go far and wide into the fissures of the rocks, securing stability by their sturdy grasp, and continuing strong by drinking of the perpetual supply that comes down from the melting snows. So the righteous in this world grow and flourish. Like the palm, they are fed by hidden resources; with joy they draw water out of the wells of salvation, and Jesus declared that men thirsting for salvation were to come unto Him and drink, and that the water He would give them should be in them a well of water springing up unto everlasting life. Like the cedar, the righteous grow, for they are fed by hidden resources which come from above; the water of life flows down from the river of life that flows by the throne of God. D. Thoms.

13. The figure need not be so far pressed as to imply that such trees actually grew in the temple-court. Still it is by no means improbable that the precincts of the temple, like the Haram es-Sherif, contained trees. P.—The allusion to being planted in the house of the Lord is probably drawn from the custom of planting beautiful and long-lived trees in the courts of temples and palaces, and in all “high places” used for worship. This is still common; nearly every palace, and mosque, and convent in the country has such trees in the courts, and, being well protected there, they flourish exceedingly. Solomon covered all the walls of the “Holy of Holies” round about with palm-trees. They were thus planted, as it were, within the very house of the Lord; and their presence there was not only ornamental, but appropriate and highly suggestive. The very best emblem, not only of patience in well-doing, but of the rewards of the righteous—a flourishing old age, a peaceful end, a glorious immortality. W. M. Thomson.

14. They shall be fruitful; were there nothing but leaves upon them, they would not be trees of any value; but they shall still bring forth fruit, the products of sanctification, all the instances of a lively devotion and a useful conversation, good works, by which God is glorified and others are edified. These are the fruits of righteousness, in which it is the privilege as well as the duty of the righteous to abound; and it is the matter of a promise as well as the matter of a command. It is promised that they shall bring forth fruit in old age. Other trees, when they are old, leave off bearing, but in God’s trees the strength of grace does not fall with the strength of nature. The last days of the saints are sometimes their best days, and their last work their best work. This indeed shows that they are upright; perseverance is the surest evidence of sincerity. H.

God promises to His people that they shall still bring forth fruit in their age, and sometimes it is so verified that their last days are their best days of usefulness. They have to forego some kinds of labor, such as require enterprise or bodily strength; but there are others in which, by their experience, though with feeble hands, they may make themselves greatly useful. It will be the prayer of an old disciple that he may not fall into utter helplessness, nor outlive his usefulness, and the effort to keep up will tend to fulfil the prayer, and enable him to keep on. W. H. Lewis.—Aged believers possess a ripe experience, and by their mellow tempers and sweet testimonies they may feed many. Even if bedridden, they may bear the fruit of patience; if poor and obscure, their lowly and contented spirit may become the admiration of those who know how to appreciate modest worth. Grace does not leave the saint when the keepers of the house tremble; the promise is still sure though the eyes can no longer read it; and the voice of the Spirit in the soul is still melodious when the daughters of music are brought low. Blessed be the Lord for this! Because even to hoar hairs He is the I AM, who made His people, He therefore bears and carries them. S.

How beautiful is the old age of piety—the faith and devotion that through a long life have waited upon God, merging into the peace of Christ’s coming, and the joy of the heavenly rest!—no fears, no anxieties, no cares, no doubts, but a trust in God so calm and full, that even death is waited for in holy expectation, as the consolation promised to Israel, as the longed-for vision of Christ. This rich peace in prospect of death comes of a life of faith, “just and devout, according to the Word of God.” A holy life is the prelude of a happy death. But the aged saint is not simply waiting for his departure; he is not severed from the present and translated beforehand into the future. Sometimes such a one fancies that, because his days of activity are over, he has outlived his usefulness; but his life of patience and hope, his mature and serene piety, his devout waiting upon God are a continual argument for the Gospel. He still brings forth fruit in old age. The cedar, with the growth of centuries upon it, still flourishes in majestic beauty. “The palm-tree remains green all the year round, in the cold of winter no less than in the heat of summer. It grows slowly, but steadily, uninfluenced by those alternations of the seasons which affect other trees. Drawing its moisture from hidden springs, when the green of the meadows is withered and the earth is parched to powder,” the palm-tree still lifts aloft its verdant roof of leaves. J. P. T.

12-15. The palm-tree is the glory of Palestine, magnificently tall and beautiful, and all its parts made useful to meet human wants. So the cedars of Lebanon are unsurpassed in grandeur. The figure which compares the righteous to the palm and the cedar is still heightened by supposing them to be planted in the house of the Lord and to flourish in the courts of His temple. Their character—all that which makes them righteous men and not wicked; good men and wise rather than sensual, brutish, foolish; finds its root and life-power in the household of the Lord where God reveals His love and makes known His name and breathes His own purity into the souls of His sincere and humble worshippers. These are the great truths so beautifully clothed with Oriental imagery in our passage. Such men survive to a ripe old age, fruitful all the way, living witnesses that the Lord, the Jehovah who keeps covenant with His people, is upright, the rock of support to His trustful children, in whom, moreover, there never can be the least iniquity—never a shade of unrighteousness. C.

A great many old people do enter very largely upon the higher life before they have done with this. There is no pull upon them but love and duty, and these pull both ways, toward God and toward man—and strongly toward righteousness in its relations to both worlds. Let the old man stand like a marble pillar under the good and true. He ought to realize that the breeze which fans his cheek is the breeze of the morning. The finest fire we have seen was the sparkle of old eyes, lit up by the courage and hope of the rising sun. Die? The old man is not going to die. He has no thought of dying. He is only getting ready to live. Interior.

15. Thus in the end God’s righteous government of the world will be manifested. The flourishing of the workers of iniquity has been but for a moment (vs. 7, 9, 11); the joy and prosperity of the righteous is forever. This is the signal proof of God’s righteousness; this is the justification of the Psalmist’s confidence resting ever on that unshaken “Rock.” P.—For shelter, for defence, for indwelling, for foundation, God is our rock. He is true and righteous altogether, and so we weave the end of the Psalm with its beginning, and make a coronet of it for the head of our Beloved. “It is a good thing to sing praises unto the Lord,” for “He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.” S.