Psalms 67

Psalms 67:1-7

“ Let All the Peoples Praise Thee” Psalms 66:16-20; Psalms 67:1-7 Come and hear, Psalms 66:16-20 The psalm began with Come and see, Psalms 66:5. Compare Mark 5:19-20; John 4:29. It will be one of the employments of heaven to go from group to group to tell what God has done for us. But each hearer will have a tale as wonderful as ours. We must praise without stint, and pray with pure and unselfish motives. From such prayers God will not turn away. Psalms 67:1-7, like Psalms 65:1-13, was composed for use at an annual festival. “ Bless us,” say the saints in yearning prayer. “ God shall bless us,” is the certain answer of faith, Psalms 67:1; Psalms 67:7. We desire blessing, not to hoard for ourselves, but that all mankind may share with us. Ask for God’ s smile on yourself alone, and you will miss it; ask for it that you may reflect and pass it on, and the Lord will become your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning will be ended. Four times the psalmist cries, Let the peoples praise thee, R.V. In answer to his appeal, it seemed as if the whole world had broken out into fresh fertility. Our own God, Psalms 67:6. He has given Himself to us, and each may have the whole of the fullness as an estate of boundless extent and wealth, Numbers 18:20; Psalms 16:5.

Let the people praise Thee! This Psalm was probably composed, like Psalms 65:1-13, to be used at one of the great annual festivals, probably the Feast of Tabernacles. The singer goes beyond the occasion which called forth his song and seems to include in the range of his thought those spiritual blessings which accrue to all the world through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Psalms 67:1-2. Cause His face to shine! There is an allusion here to the threefold blessing of Num 6:24-26. When Abraham and his seed are blessed; the world is blessed through them. Similarly We may plead that God Would bless his Church and people as the condition of blessing of the world. Oh for the shinning of that dear face, undimmed by any cloud born of our sin and neglect!

Psalms 67:3. Let the people praise Thee! We want crowns for the brow of Christ. Each loyal heart yearns for the exaltation of its King.

Psalms 67:4. Thou shalt judge and govern To govern is to lead or tend (see marg.). Christ shall yet be the Shepherd of mankind.

Psalms 67:6.The earth hath yielded her increase (R.V.) as if already the Millennial age had broken on the rapt gaze of the poet-prophet and all the harmonies of nature were restored. Praise ever accompanies the fertility of the Church. Our own God. What rapture there is here! Faith lays its hand on God and appropriates Him for itself. There is a wide difference between speaking of things and people as fair and useful and saying to them, “These are my own.” He is our own, because He has made himself so and has taken us to be his forever. “His every act pure blessing is.”