Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 66:5
Come and see the works of God: [he is] terrible [in his] doing toward the children of men.
5. Come and see the works of God ] Cp. Psa 46:8, the only other place where the word for works is found.
he is terrible in his doing toward the children of men ] The preposition toward implies supremacy over mankind. All men must fear Him (Psa 64:9); but it depends on themselves whether they will reverence Him as their God, or must dread Him as an enemy.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
5 7. The nations are invited to contemplate God’s mighty works for His people in the past, and to learn that the sovereignty to which they bear witness is eternal and universal.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Come and see the works of God – See the notes at Psa 46:8, where substantially the same expression occurs. The idea is, Come and see what God has done and is doing; come and learn from this what he is; and let your hearts in view of all this, be excited to gratitude and praise. The particular reference here is to what God had done in delivering his people from their former bondage in Egypt Psa 66:6; but there is, connected with this, the idea that he actually rules among the nations, and that in his providence he has shown his power to govern and sbdue them.
He is terrible in his doing – That is, His acts are suited to inspire awe and veneration. See the notes at Psa 66:3.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 66:5-12
Come and see the works of God.
The Eternal Ruler of the universe
I. As an object for human study. Come and see the works of God.
1. The highest study of man is God. All other studies, unless they lead up to Him, are worse than useless.
(1) The study of God is the most quickening. It stirs the profoundest fountains of sympathy, and sets all the wheels of the mental machine to work.
(2) It is the most humbling study. As the mind directs its attention to God, all egotism vanishes–the particular is lost in the universal, the temporary in the eternal.
(3) It is the most elevating study. That on which a man centres his mind has a mystic power to draw him to it, either up or down, according to its nature. The study of God alone has the power to draw man up into the higher grades of being.
2. The writer here directs attention to two things in relation to God.
(1) His special interpositions (Psa 66:5).
(2) His transcendent rulership (Psa 66:7).
II. As an object for human praise (Psa 66:8-12). He suggests three reasons for praising God.
1. Preservation (Psa 66:9).
2. Chastisement (Psa 66:10-12). Afflictions, says Lord Bacon, plough the heart and make it fit for Wisdom to sow her seed in, and for Grace to bring forth her increase. Could we see things as they really are, we should often see greater reason for praising God in our afflictions rather than for our health and prosperity.
3. Success. Thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place. A place of refreshment. This was compensation for all the trials. What if our scorching and exhausting journey lead us to a delicious resting-place? What if our frail bark is beaten by the tempest to a golden shore? What if the loathsome medicine work off the disease, and establish health? In all such cases there should be praise for all the trials. (Homilist.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 5. Come and see the works of God] Let every man lay God’s wonderful dealings with us to heart; and compare our deliverance from Babylon to that of our fathers from Egypt.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
See the works of God; consider them wisely and seriously, for Gods glory, and for your own good.
Toward the children of men; to all his enemies; whom he calls the children of men, partly in way of contempt, to show how unable they are either to avoid or resist the great God; and partly in opposition to his own people, who are frequently called the children of God.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
5, 6. The terrible worksillustrated in Israel’s history (Ex14:21). By this example let rebels be admonished.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Come and see the works of God,…. Of the Messiah, God manifest in the flesh; those divine works which he did when here on earth; his miraculous works, which were proofs of his deity and Messiahship; his preaching the Gospel, in so divine a manner as never man did; his works of obedience to the law, which were pure and perfect; the everlasting righteousness he wrought out for the justification of his people; and the great work of redemption and salvation finished by him, which none but God could ever have effected. This is an invitation to the inhabitants of all lands, where the Gospel should come with power, to take notice of and consider these works of Christ, and the glory of his might, wisdom, and grace in them, in order to engage them to sing his praise;
[he is] terrible [in his] doing toward the children of men; in his vengeance on the Jews, for disbelieving and rejecting him; in destroying antichrist, and pouring out the vials of his wrath on the antichristian states; and in the everlasting damnation of the wicked. So that as his other works in the former clause design these of grace, this doing of his respects his work, his strange work of judgment on his enemies; on account of which he is terrible to them, and reverenced by his people.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Although the summons: Come and see… (borrowed apparently from Psa 46:9), is called forth by contemporary manifestations of God’s power, the consequences of which now lie open to view, the rendering of Psa 66:6, “then will we rejoice in Him,” is nevertheless unnatural, and, rightly looked at, neither grammar nor the matter requires it. For since in this passage is equivalent to , and the future after takes the signification of an aorist; and since the cohortative form of the future can also (e.g., after , Psa 73:7, and in clauses having a hypothetical sense) be referred to the past, and does sometimes at least occur where the writer throws himself back into the past (2Sa 22:38), the rendering: Then did we rejoice in Him, cannot be assailed on syntactical grounds. On the “we,” cf. Jos 5:1, Chethb, Hos 12:1-14:54. The church of all ages is a unity, the separate parts being jointly involved in the whole. The church here directs the attention of all the world to the mighty deeds of God at the time of the deliverance from Egypt, viz., the laying of the Red Sea and of Jordan dry, inasmuch as it can say in Psa 66:7, by reason of that which it has experienced ibn the present, that the sovereign power of God is ever the same: its God rules in His victorious might , i.e., not “over the world,” because that ought to be , but “in eternity” (accusative of duration, as in Psa 89:2., Psa 45:7), and therefore, as in the former days, so also in all time to come. His eyes keep searching watch among the peoples; the rebellious, who struggle agaisnt His yoke and persecute His people, had better not rise, it may go ill with them. The Chethb runs , for which the Ker is . The meaning remains the same; can (even without , , , Psa 65:5) mean “to practise exaltation,” superbire. By means of this proud bearing is designated as being egotistical, and as unrestrainedly boastful. Only let them not imagine themselves secure in their arrogance! There is One more exalted, whose eye nothing escapes, and to whose irresistible might whatever is not conformed to His gracious will succumbs.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
5. Come and see the works of God An indirect censure is here passed upon that almost universal thoughtlessness which leads men to neglect the praises of God. Why is it that they so blindly overlook the operations of his hand, but just because they never direct their attention seriously to them? We need to be aroused upon this subject. The words before us may receive some explanation by referring to a parallel passage, Psa 46:8. But the great scope of them is this, that the Psalmist would withdraw men from the vain or positively sinful and pernicious pursuits in which they are engaged, and direct their thoughts to the works of God. To this he exhorts them, chiding their backwardness and negligence. The expression, Come and see, intimates that what they blindly overlooked was open to observation; for were it otherwise with the works of God, this language would be inappropriate. He next points out what those works of God are to which he would have our attention directed; in general he would have us look to the method in which God governs the human family. This experimental or practical kind of knowledge, if I might so call it, is that which makes the deepest impression. (473) We find, accordingly, that Paul, (Act 17:27) after speaking of the power of God in general, brings his subject to bear upon this one particular point, and calls upon us to descend into ourselves if we would discover the proofs of a present God. The last clause of the fifth verse I would not interpret with some as meaning that God was terrible above the children of men — superior to them in majesty — but rather that he is terrible towards them, evincing an extraordinary providence in their defense and preservation, as we have seen noticed, Psa 40:5. Men need look no further, therefore, than themselves, in order to discover the best grounds for reverencing and fearing God. The Psalmist passes next from the more general point of his providence towards mankind at large, to his special care over his own Church, adverting to what he had done for the redemption of his chosen people. What he states here must be considered as only one illustration of many which he might have touched upon, and as intended to remind God’s people of the infinite variety of benefits with which their first and great deliverance had been followed up and confirmed. This appears obvious from what he adds, there we rejoiced in him It is impossible that the joy of that deliverance could have extended to him or any of the descendants of the ancient Israelites, unless it had partaken the nature of a pledge and illustration of the love of God to the Church generally. Upon that event he showed himself to be the everlasting Savior of his people; so that it proved a common source of joy to all the righteous.
(473) “ Haec enim experimentalis (ut ita loquar) notitia magis afficit.” — Lat. “ Car ceste cognoissance d’experience et de prattique esmeut d’avantage.” — Fr.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
5. Come and see the works of God The address is still, as in Psa 66:1-3, to the nations of the earth. The “works of God” here referred to particularly relate to the great political revolutions of the kingdoms attending the downfall of the Babylonian monarchy, and the uprising of that of the Medo-Persian, eventuating in the fulfilment of the divine purpose and promise toward his Church in its liberation and re-establishment. Compare Dan 5:30-31; Dan 6:28 with chap. 9 and Ezra 1.
Terrible in his doing See Psa 66:3.
Children of men Poetically for men, mankind, especially the world as opposed to Israel.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
b). A Call For Them To Remember And Take Note Of What God Has Done For His People In The Past ( Psa 66:5-6 ).
The nations are now called on to consider what God has done in the past (the crossing of the Red Sea and the crossing of the Jordan are to some extent combined in the description), in revealing His divine activity in the opening up of the sea and in the destruction of the pursuing Egyptian army, demonstrating through it that He is awesome, all-powerful and fierce in His activity.
Psa 66:5
‘Come, and see the works of God,
He is terrible in his doing toward the children of men.’
The nations are called on to consider what God has done in the past, His great ‘works’. For these reveal that He is mighty and awesome in His dealings with men; towards His people He is great and powerful on their behalf, amazing them by His activity (Psa 66:6), towards those who would harm them He is fierce and terrible, Someone to be feared. Men do well not to cross Him (Psa 66:7).
Psa 66:6
‘He turned the sea into dry land,
They went through the river (flood) on foot,
There did we rejoice in him.’
The emphasis here is on His greatness and might exercised on behalf of His people. He made a way for them over the Sea of Reeds (Rede Sea), turning it into dry land (see Exo 14:21-22; Exo 14:29; compare Jos 3:17), so that they could go through the waters on foot. The main emphasis is on the Red Sea deliverance, but the language of the second line may possibly echo the crossing of the Jordan. The word for ‘river, flood’ (nahar) is found in Jos 24:2-3; Jos 24:14-15, speaking there of the Euphrates. It elsewhere regularly refers to the Euphrates. It also often refers to rivers, (even the Nile), but not to the Red Sea. On the other hand its use here might be loose, as a parallel to ‘sea’.
‘There did we rejoice in Him.’ The Psalmist sees himself and his people as ‘one’ with the people of the Exodus. At the Red Sea deliverance they had rejoiced, and they continued to rejoice in that event for they felt that in some way they had been a part of it. We too, as Christians, can rejoice at God’s deliverance of His people through the centuries, for we are truly a part of that too.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Psalmist is here inviting the people to peruse the account of the deliverance of Israel from Egypt. And evidently the Holy Ghost intends this ministry of his servant to be directed as a means, in his almighty hand, to consider in that history the spiritual deliverance of God’s Israel from the Egypt of sin, and death, and hell, by the glorious victory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here, Reader, let us come and see the works of our covenant God. Here let us behold how the sea and floods of sin are dried up, and a passage opened for poor, redeemed, ransomed believers in the blood of Christ. Heb 10:19-21 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 66:5 Come and see the works of God: [he is] terrible [in his] doing toward the children of men.
Ver. 5. Come and see ] Venite, videte; he taketh good people by the hand, as it were, leading them to the sight of God’s stupendous proceedings, which may not be slighted, Isa 5:12 .
Toward the children of men
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Psa 66:5-7
5Come and see the works of God,
Who is awesome in His deeds toward the sons of men.
6He turned the sea into dry land;
They passed through the river on foot;
There let us rejoice in Him!
7He rules by His might forever;
His eyes keep watch on the nations;
Let not the rebellious exalt themselves. Selah.
Psa 66:5 Come and see These two Qal imperatives match with the two Qal imperatives, come and hear of Psa 66:16. God is a God who acts in history, who has chosen humans to record and explain His acts. We can know God by what He has done, as well as by what He has said. See SPECIAL TOPIC: INSPIRATION .
Who is awesome in His deeds Because a related term to awesome (BDB 431) is used in Deu 4:34 (BDB 432) to describe the plagues of Egypt, and because there seem to be many allusions to the wilderness wandering in this Psalm, most would refer these deeds to the Exodus period.
towards the sons of men This literal phrase, sons of Adam, reflects God’s concern with all humans. Gen 3:15 is not a promise to Israel (which does not come into being until the call of Abram in Genesis 12), but to all humanity. Psalms 65-67 reflects this great truth, as do Isaiah and Jonah.
Psa 66:6 He turned the sea into dry land This could refer to the Exodus, Exodus 14 (cf. Psa 106:9), or to the splitting of the Jordan River in Joshua 3 (cf. Jos 4:23).
Psa 66:7 He rules by His might forever This is a concept that God is ruling and reigning over all of His world, not just Israel (i.e., Deu 32:8; Psa 47:7-8; Act 17:26; and the sections in the Major Prophets of God’s judgment on the nations).
forever See Special Topic: Forever .
His eyes keep watch on the nations Because this seems to personify the nations, many have thought this referred to the concept of national angels (cf. the Septuagint’s translation of Deu 32:8). This also may be affirmed by the idea of them rebelling, as in Psa 66:7 c, and also that possibly keeps us alive in Psa 66:9 is a corporate reference to Israel. In the interbiblical period, the heavenly council was made up of the angels of the nations. In Jewish literature they seem to be hostile to Israel and it is only God’s love for Israel that keeps her from being destroyed. See Appendix XIII and XIV in Alfred Edersheim’s The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah.
Let not the rebellious exalt themselves The MT has the Hiphil imperfect used in a jussive sense, but the Masoretic scholars suggested in the margin it be read (Qere) as a Qal imperfect used in a jussive sense. The Anchor Bible translates this phrase as, lest the rebels rise up against Him. The Revised Standard Version translates this phrase as, the rebellious cannot rise against Him. This is very similar to Psalms 2.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Come and see. Note the correspondence of Psa 66:16, “Come and hear”.
children = sons.
men. Hebrew. ‘adam. App-14.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Psa 66:5-7
Psa 66:5-7
GOD’S MIGHTY DEEDS OF THE PAST RECALLED
“Come and see the works of God;
He is terrible in his doing toward the children of men.
He turned the sea into dry land;
They went through the river on foot:
There did we rejoice in him,
He ruleth by his might forever;
His eyes observe the nations:
Let not the rebellious exalt themselves.
(Selah)”
“He turned the sea into dry land” (Psa 66:6). This is a reference to the passage of Israel though the Red Sea on dry land and the subsequent drowning of the army of Pharaoh in the same sea.
“They went through the river on foot” (Psa 66:6). They not only did that, the children of Israel went over the Jordan on foot when the river was at flood stage! “It is noteworthy that throughout the Psalms no other historical event is viewed with as much awe and wonder as the Exodus crossing of the Red Sea. There are no less that eight of the Psalms that speak of it, Psalms 18; Psalms 66; Psalms 74; Psalms 77; Psalms 78; Psalms 89; Psalms 106, and Psalms 136.
“Come, and see the works of God” (Psa 66:5). Now the people who received this psalm could by no stretch of imagination “come and see” the mighty works of God mentioned in the same breath, namely, the crossing of the Red Sea and the crossing of Jordan. Then, what was it that the psalmist here invited the people to “Come, and see?” One possibility is that the nations were to come and look at the dead army of Sennacherib. There may have been some other mighty work of God just as wonderful as that; but it could have been that very thing.
“His eyes observe the nations … let not the rebellious exalt themselves” (Psa 66:7). Delitzsch gave the meaning here as follows: “God’s eyes keep searching watch among the peoples; the rebellious who struggle against God’s yoke and persecute God’s people, had better not rise against Him. It will go with them if they do.
E.M. Zerr:
Psa 66:5. Come and see is a phrase used to call attention. It is not necessary to come to any particular place, literally, in order to see evidences of God’s works.
Psa 66:6. The subject matter of this verse confirms my comments in the preceding one. The miraculous crossing of the Red Sea had taken place hundreds of years before, yet the people were told to come and see it. The meaning is they were to consider it.
Psa 66:7. The rule of God over the nations is one of power in the sense of strength. The majority of mankind do not permit God to rule their lives in the matter of their moral conduct. But the time will come when all rebellious ones will be brought to judgment. In view of the final judgment of God the disobedient ones are warned not to exalt themselves. See comments at Psa 3:2 for explanation of Selah.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Come: Psa 66:16, Psa 46:8, Psa 111:2, Psa 126:1-3, Num 23:23
terrible: Psa 66:3, Psa 99:3, Eze 1:18
Reciprocal: Exo 15:11 – fearful Exo 34:10 – a terrible Jos 4:22 – General Neh 4:14 – great Neh 9:32 – our God Job 37:22 – with Psa 9:11 – declare Psa 68:35 – terrible Psa 89:9 – General Psa 96:4 – he is Psa 107:21 – General Psa 126:3 – General Psa 136:13 – General Isa 64:3 – thou didst Jer 20:11 – a mighty
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Psa 66:5-6. Come and see the works of God, &c. Inquire after and consider seriously what works of stupendous power God has shown in the earth, in regard to the human race, and on their account. He turned the sea, &c. He opened a passage for our fathers through the sea, so that they walked as on dry land, Exo 14:16; and also led them dry-shod through the river Jordan, when it was so full of water that it overflowed its banks. There did we rejoice in him That is, our nation, or our ancestors, in whose loins we then were, and the benefit of which ancient deliverance we at this day enjoy. The whole people of Israel are here, and in many other parts of Scripture, considered as one body, continued through all succeeding generations, united in the bonds of the same covenant and worship, and in the possession of the same promises, privileges, and blessings, and influenced by one and the same spirit. Hence several and contrary things may reasonably be ascribed to them, in regard of their several ages; and what was done in one age may be imputed to another, by virtue of their close conjunction with the same body.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
66:5 {c} Come and see the works of God: [he is] terrible [in his] doing toward the {d} children of men.
(c) He refers to the slothful dullness of man, who is cold in the consideration of God’s works.
(d) His providence is wonderful in maintaining their estate.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
God’s great acts in nature and history demonstrate His sovereign authority over all the earth. The Red Sea and Jordan River crossings demonstrated this authority to all the nations (cf. Jos 2:9-11). Nations should therefore pause before rebelling against the Lord.