Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 145:15
The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season.
15. The picture of God as the great householder distributing their portions to all His household is repeated from Psa 104:27. Cp. Mat 6:26. The next verse also is based upon Psa 104:28.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The eyes of all wait upon thee – Margin, Look unto thee. All creatures, on the land, in the air, in the waters; all in heaven; all throughout the universe. That is, It is as if all directed their eyes to thee imploringly for the supply of their needs. To no one else can they look for those things which are needful for them. A universe thus looks every day, every hour, every moment, to its God! How sublime the scene!
And thou givest them their meat in due season – See the notes at Psa 104:27, where the same words occur.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 145:15-17
The eyes of all wait upon Thee.
The Divine dealings and attributes
We lose a great deal by taking verses by themselves, considering them as detached and isolated passages in place of noticing how closely they may be connected with the context. For instance, if we take as our text the last of these three verses, The Lord is righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works, no doubt we should find abundant material of important discourse, for when the psalmist throws in the word all His ways, all His works, there is a largeness of assertion, in reference to the Divine dealings, which displays strong faith and close examination. But when you read the two preceding verses, The eyes of all wait upon Thee, etc., you naturally ask, how came the psalmist to pass so directly from contemplating the goodness of God, as displayed in the arrangements of providence, to the expressing in such unqualified terms his conviction as to the righteousness of all Gods ways, and the holiness of all Gods works? What connection is there? How does the one thought or belief originate in the other? The word righteousness, as used of God, most frequently denotes that perfection whereby God is most just and holy in Himself, and observes the strictest rules of equity in every proceeding of His creatures; and when the psalmist asserts God to be righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works, he evidently means that every dispensation is marked both by justice and goodness, that, however unable we may be to discern or apprehend the reasons for each separate dealing, we are bound to infer, from the very nature of God, that there must be reasons worthy alike of infinite wisdom and infinite lovingkindness. Now the psalmist must be considered as using the language of faith when he speaks of God as righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works; for every one who observes and studies the actings and dealings of God, whether with our race generally or with individuals in particular, must know that there is much which cannot now be explained, whose fitness is matter of faith, but; certainly not of demonstration, the Divine judgments being, as they are elsewhere described by David, a great deep. In the course of His providence God frequently acts upon grounds, and orders things in methods, which we have no ability to discover and to trace; and we can exclaim with St. Paul, How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out. But whilst we allow that the language is the language of faith, let us consider a little more closely whether there is any reason for surprise that Gods dealings should be inscrutable, and utterly past our comprehension. You are to remember that even amongst men the dealings of the wise are often founded on maxims which are not understood or appreciated by the great mass of their fellows, so that conduct appears unaccountable which nevertheless proceeds from the very highest sagacity. Is it, then to be wondered at if God, whose wisdom is as far above the wisest upon earth as the heaven is above this lower creation, should be incomprehensible in His actions, often doing very differently from what ourselves would have done, and proceeding in a way which appears to us the least likely to produce the desired result? Besides, what place, comparatively, would there be for faith if there were no depths in the Divine judgments, if every reason were so plain, every design so palpable that no one could do otherwise than acquiesce in the fitness and goodness of all Gods appointments. In any case of affliction, when trouble is now laid upon a man, the difficult, but, at the same time, profitable, duty is that of submitting meekly to the chastisement in the assurance that God doeth all things well, though to our apprehensions His proceedings may be dark. Let God remove the darkness of His proceedings, and let everything be as luminous to us as it is to Himself, and this duty, instead of being difficult, would cease to demand any effort; we should then walk by sight, and not by faith, and there would be nothing in bearing sorrow patiently when we saw the precise end which it was accomplishing, or the precise benefit which it was securing. There is something very beautiful in the imagery of the psalmist, Thy righteousness is like great mountains; Thy judgments are a great deep. The judgments are a great deep, the immense ocean, unfathomable by any human line; but the righteousness is like the great mountains, giants of the earth, whose foundations are washed by unfathomable waters, whilst their summits lose themselves in the clouds. The mountains are to be considered as rising out of the waters and girding them around on every side. We know, from the parts of the mountains which are visible, that there are lower parts concealed from us by the waters, and are confident that the hidden parts meet the base around which the waters lie. And thus we should learn, from the righteousness which is conspicuous when we look towards the heavens, that there is a righteousness all around those lower obscurities which we are unable to penetrate, that the foundations which are beneath the waves are of the same material as the summits which are above, and which often glow with sunlight, though they may be sometimes shrouded in mist. Gods judgments are likened to the sea, whose depths we have no power of exploring; but out of this sea, at the same time encompassing and containing it, rise towering mountains, and these are the righteousness of God–that righteousness within which all His dealings rest, which may be said to hold them in their embrace, as the roots of the everlasting hills the multitudes of the waters, and which again, like the mountains, may be so discerned above the billows as to leave no doubt of its existing beneath. And as the hills which encircle a deep lake not only form by their foundations and sides the reservoir into which it is gathered, but make a mirror of their surface in which they glass their tops; so not only does the righteousness of God enclose and hold His judgments, but often so images itself that an attentive eye may catch the reflection. What, then, have we to do, when we launch out into the deep, but to remember the mountains which soar on every side, over whose massive, but far spreading, roots we may be sure that we are voyaging even when no line could take the soundings of the mighty abyss? We should never feel lost, as it were, in the judgments, if we kept in mind the righteousness of God; we should never be so far from land as to feel adrift on a boundless waste if faith were in exercise–faith in the perfections and attributes of our Maker–for there would be always some peak of the everlasting hills discernible by faith, some eminence coming out from the vast gatherings of cloud, serving as a beacon in the midst of the tempest. We can, however, imagine a man to have prepared himself, according to our foregoing directions, for surveying what is inexplicable in Gods dealings by fortifying his belief in Gods attributes. Still, when his eyes are on the great deep, it will be hard to keep faith in full exercise: he will be apt to forget, as he gazes on the dark, unfathomable expanse, the principles of which he thought himself so certain, and he will feel, Oh for some distinct, some visible evidence of that goodness of God which seems so opposed by all this darkness, and all this confusion! And you shall have it, the psalmist seems to exclaim; I will summon men of every country and every age, from the north and the south, from the east and the west; send hither the young and the old, I will summon every beast of the field, I will summon every fowl of the air; let the sea give up its multitude, let every leaf, every flower, every water-drop, pour forth its insect population–who feeds the innumerable throng? who erects their storehouses? who gives the supply for all these tenants of earth, sea, air? How comes it to pass that, morning after morning, the sun awakens huge cities to life, and causes the silent forest to echo with the warblings of birds, and calls into activity thousands of creatures on every mountain and every valley, and yet out of all this interminable throng thus revivified every dawn there is not the solitary being for whom there is no provision in the granaries of nature? The eyes of all wait upon Thee; Thou openest Thy hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing. Every planet, as it marches on, is moved by God; every star, as it revolves, is turned by God; every flower, as it opens, is unfolded by God; every blade of grass, as it springs, is reared by God–He preserveth man and beast. Aye, and if in place of suffering thought to wander across the spreadings of the universe, and nowhere can it reach the spot in which God is not busied, and nowhere find a creature of which He is not the life–if in place of this you carry it down to the inhabitants of this lower creation, what a picture is spread before it by the simple fact that in every department of animated nature the Almighty is momentarily engaged in ministering to the myriads whom He has called into existence–that from the king upon his throne to the beggar in his hovel, from the grey-haired veteran to the infant at the breast, from the lordly lion to the most insignificant reptile, from the vast leviathan to the tiny animalcule which we know only by the microscope, there is not to be found a solitary instance of a being neglected or overlooked by God, not a single case of life sustained independently of God, or that could last one second if God withheld His inspiration. And with this picture to turn to, after gazing till the vision has ached on the great deep of Gods judgments, ought you not to be always able to refresh yourselves in the midst of dark and intricate dispensations, and to get quit of the doubts and suspicions which may be raised by the apparent want of a strict moral government? Indeed, my brethren, there is not a morsel of food which we eat, there is not a bird which cheers us by its wild music, there is not an insect which we see sporting in the sun which ought not to reprove us if we mistrust God because His ways are unsearchable. Can it be that God is unmindful of the world, or that He is not studying what is for the good of His creatures, when He shows Himself attentive to the wants and comforts of the very meanest living thing, and whilst He regulates the course of the stars, and marshals the ranks of the cherubim and the seraphim, He bends down from His glorious throne and applies a guardianship as close to the ephemeral insect that floats by in the breeze, as though it were the only animate production, or the only one that required His providential care? (H. Melvill, B. D.)
Harvest thanksgiving
The earnest Christian cannot look abroad upon the face of Nature with a careless eye or an unmoved heart. By him God is seen in everything, and what others ascribe coldly to the operations of Nature he traces directly to the finger of God. The most insignificant flower is eloquent to him of his Creators goodness; the meanest insect that crawls beneath his feet speaks to him of God; and as he stands upon some mountain height and surveys the outstretched landscape, as he gazes upon the gorgeous panorama of wooded forest and sparkling stream, well-cultivated plains and waving cornfields, his heart glows within him with a sense of devout admiration, and he readily responds to the psalmists language.
I. Our dependence upon God. In our calm moments we all acknowledge that without Gods help we are helpless; without His blessing we cannot prosper. But such is the monotony of human life, such the regularity of events, and, I must add, such the subtle pride of the human heart, that this truth often becomes obscured and lost sight of. We need some sudden shock, some reversal of our present state to convince us of our own personal nothingness and our entire dependence upon God. The man endowed with a strong and healthy constitution is scarcely alive to the value of health. If he thinks about it at all, he traces it to his own early rising and freedom from anxiety, his moderation in all things, his temperance and active exercise. But let the smallest portion of his bodily organism be deranged–let some secret fever germ enter the stream of life and poison the mans blood–let him be cast upon a bed of sickness, so that the slightest effort becomes intolerable, and the commonest functions of the body are attended with pain, and he at once becomes sensible of his dependence upon a Higher Power. He learns now what he might otherwise never have learned, that his own health is not absolutely in his own hands, but that it is in God he lives and moves and has his being. Thus he rises from the bed of sickness a wiser and better man; he has more sympathy in his heart for others, and more gratitude towards the Great Giver and Disposer of all things. A similar danger attends those that are engaged in the cultivation of the land, the danger, I mean, of forgetting God. The honest farmer who rises with the lark and takes a praiseworthy pride in his earthly calling is, we will assume, on the whole successful. He is kind to his labourers, and these cheerfully perform the tasks assigned to them. The seasons come round, and each brings with it its own duties. The land is tilled, the seed sown, and at the appointed time the labours of the husbandman are crowned with an abundant, harvest. On the other hand, his neighbour–a farmer like himself–is thoughtless and thriftless. He desires to get on, but lacks common judgment and common energy. His plans do not succeed. His cattle die. His land is impoverished for want of proper cultivation. His harvests are poor, and there is a look about the whole place that tells of coming poverty and ruin. And then how great the danger to the successful farmer; the danger of tracing success in his case to his own energy and enterprise, his own skill and industry, and overlooking altogether the hand of God. It is true that honest industry is generally in this world, and through Gods own appointment., rewarded with success. It is true that God has promised that while the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest . . . shall not cease, but we are surely abusing that promise, and as surely taking too high a view of our own powers if we fail to realize our dependence upon God, and to acknowledge His goodness in giving us the appointed weeks of the harvest.
II. The duty of acknowledging our dependence upon God. If it be wrong on the part of a son to despise or dispute his fathers claims upon his regard and affection; if it be contemptible pride on the part of a pensioner to be ashamed to speak of his benefactor or to recognize his obligations, then it is a sin of no ordinary character to forget Him upon whose daily bounty we live, and to whom we owe the varied blessings we enjoy, Hence, my brethren, to the Christian mind there is something peculiarly pleasing in our gathering together in the house of God this day. Whatever our occupation may be, we are all (indirectly at any rate) dependent upon the labours of the husbandman. We are all interested in a good harvest. A bad harvest means scarcity of bread, and scarcity of bread means suffering to many hundreds and thousands of our fellow-creatures; and on the other hand it is not easy to exaggerate the tendency of an abundant harvest to spread throughout the country a general spirit of peace and contentment. Again, our meeting together on this occasion may be regarded as an emphatic protest against, the scepticism of the day. Men of science are pushing their researches into the varied realms of Nature. Phenomena hitherto considered inexplicable are referred to general laws, and second causes are thus usurping the place of the first great cause. Thus the Creator is, as it were, thrust out of His own creation, and it is sometimes argued as though God had originally called this world into being, and then left it to itself–to be guided and controlled by those eternal laws that were at its creation impressed upon it. Now, against this cold and heartless philosophy our meeting together this day is an emphatic protest.. We thus acknowledge our belief in the universal presence and agency of a Personal God. (C. B. Brigstocke, M. A.)
Gods grace and bounty meted out
William Huntingdon told the story about, a farmer who, when one of his daughters was married, gave her a thousand pounds as a wedding present. There was another daughter, and her father did not give her a thousand pounds when she was married, but he gave her something as a wedding present, and then he kept on pretty nearly every day in the week sending her what he called the hand-basket portion with fathers love. And so in the long run she received a good deal more than her sister did. I do like when I get a mercy to have it come to me with my heavenly Fathers love, just my daily portion as I need it; not given all in a lump so that I might go away with it into a far country, as we are sure to do if we have all our mercy at once, but given day by day, as the manna fell, with our heavenly Fathers love every time a fresh token of infinite grace and infinite love. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 15. The eyes of all wait upon thee] What a fine figure! The young of all animals look up to their parents for food. God is here represented as the universal Father, providing food for every living creature.
In due season] The kind of food that is suited to every animal, and to all the stages of life in each animal. This is a wonderful mystery. It is a fact that all are thus provided for; but how is it done? All expect it from God, and not one is disappointed! For,
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The eyes of all living creatures wait upon thee; expect and receive their supplies wholly from thy bounty. Expectation is here figuratively ascribed to brute creatures, as Psa 104:27; Rom 8:22.
In due season; when they need it.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
15, 16. eyes of . . . theeor,look with expecting faith (Psa 104:27;Psa 104:28).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The eyes of all wait upon thee,…. Not of all creatures, the beasts of the field, the fishes of the sea, and fowls of the air, as in
Ps 104:27; but of all the Lord’s people, who are subject to fall and be depressed: these, as they look unto him for deliverance and salvation, and wait upon him for it, and expect it from him; so their eyes are directed to him for their spiritual food, as well as for their temporal bread, and ask it of him, and wait to have it from him:
and thou givest them their meat in due season; the meat which endures to everlasting life; the flesh of Christ, which is meat indeed; the doctrines of the Gospel, which, as some of them are milk for babes, others are meat for strong men, or strong meat for experienced believers: and these are given forth under Christ’s direction, by his ministering servants, who are his wise and faithful stewards, that give to everyone of the family their portion of meat in due season, which is the word fitly spoken; and, when it is so, how good it is! Lu 12:42. This is food convenient for them, given out “in his time” h, as in the original; either in the Lord’s time, which he sees best; or in their time, as the Syriac version, when they most need it, and it will do them most good.
h “suo tempore”, Pagninus, Montanus, Musculus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius, Michaelis.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
15. The eyes of all hope in thee. David adduces an additional proof of God’s goodness, in giving food to all living creatures, and thus showing himself in the character of the father of a family. Some interpreters, led by the term hope, which is employed, restrict the application to men, as being endued with reason and intelligence, to seek their food from their heavenly father, while the beasts seek it only in a gross manner, by sight or smell. But although not endued with the exercise of reason, leading them to depend upon God’s providence, necessity itself forces even them, by a certain hidden instinct, to seek their food, so that they may very properly be said to hope in God, as elsewhere the young ravens are said to cry unto him. (Psa 147:9.) Besides, those who would restrict the words to man, still leave them open to the charge of impropriety; for the wicked have no regard to the fatherly care of God, more than the ox or the ass. Since such is the order established in nature that all animals are brought to a dependence upon their Maker, there is no impropriety in supposing the affection of desire or expectation to be here put for the fact of dependence itself. (282) All ambiguity is taken away by the next verse, where every living thing is said to be satisfied. It is said that he gives them their food, and in its season, for the very variety of it serves more to illustrate the providence of God. Each has its own way of feeding, and the different kinds of aliment are designed and adapted for different uses. David therefore speaks of that food which is particular to them. The pronoun is not in the plural, and we are not to read in their season, as if it applied to the animals. The food he notices as given in its season; for here also we are to notice the admirable arrangements of divine providence, that there is a certain time appointed for harvest, vintage, and hay crop, and that the year is so divided into intervals, that the cattle are fed at one time upon grass, at another on hay, or straw, or acorns, or other products of the earth. Were the whole supply poured forth at one and the same moment, it could not be gathered together so conveniently; and we have no small reason to admire the seasonableness with which the different kinds of fruit and aliment are yearly produced.
(282) “ Il ne sera point mal connenable que l’affection soit yei mise pour la chose mesme.” — Fr.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(15, 16) These verses are adapted from Psa. 104:27-28
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
15, 16. These verses were chanted in the ancient Church before the noon repast. Psa 145:15 was also repeated at the Holy Communion. In due season is referred to the successive maturing of various grains and fruits in the course of the year. It is put as a marked feature of the divine government, that, great as it is, the wants of the weakest are treated with consideration, even to the feeding of the sparrows and the tinting of a lily.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Here again I only detain the Reader to remark, that while we read these scriptures, which point out Jehovah as the universal parent of nature; what a glorious addition to the subject doth it become, to take into the contemplation Jehovah under those endearing characters, as the Father of mercies, and the God of all grace. What titles are these! And what a blessed thing, when we know him under those characters in our own experience. Reader! think of God the Father under those precious titles. As a Father of mercies, he begets mercies as his people need them. And as the God of all grace, he hath all sorts of grace, and all degrees of grace; large, full, great, unceasing. God is able (saith the apostle) to make all grace abound towards you, 2Co 9:8 ; 1Pe 5:10 . What a blessed consideration to every poor sinner, conscious of his need, whatever his need be, that God hath pardoning grace, quickening grace, strengthening grace, restraining and preventing grace; yea, all grace.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 145:15 The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season.
Ver. 15. The eyes of all wait upon thee ] Heb. look up with hope to this great housekeeper of the world. The elephant is said to turn up the first sprig towards heaven when he comes to feed. The young ravens cry to God for food, Psa 147:9 ; at least by implication.
Their meat
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
eyes of all wait. Figure of speech Prosopopoeia. App-6.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Psa 145:15-21
Psa 145:15-21
THE UNIVERSALITY OF GOD’S BLESSINGS
“The eyes of all wait for thee;
And thou givest them their food in due season.
Thou openest thy hand and satisfiest the desire of every living thing.
Jehovah is righteous in all his ways,
And gracious in all his works.
Jehovah is nigh unto all them that call upon him,
To all that call upon him in truth.
He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him;
He will also hear their cry and save them.
Jehovah preserveth all them that love him;
But all the wicked will he destroy.
My mouth shall speak the praise of Jehovah;
And let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever.”
“All wait … every living thing … all that call upon him … all that call upon him in truth … all them that love him … all the wicked … all flesh” (Psa 145:15-16; Psa 145:18; Psa 145:20-21). It is clear that the universality of God’s involvement with his creation is in focus here. He feeds every living creature; he is especially solicitous for the well-being of those who love him and those who call upon him sincerely. He is even concerned with “all” the wicked. Not a one of them shall escape the special attention that God has in mind for evil men.
Many of the sentiments of these verses find echoes in the New Testament, Christ mentioned the sparrow that cannot fall to ground without the knowledge of God.
The logic of the last commandment here is convincing. Since all living things owe their lives and their continued existence upon earth to God’s special loving care, then, “Let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever.”
It is a fact that challenges the attention of thoughtful men that God indeed maintains every species of life which he has created. Take a look at those tiny little hummingbirds, or the robust red-breasted robins, or any type of living creature on earth, and then remember that for countless generations God has preserved, maintained, and continued them upon the earth. Furthermore, this has sometimes been done in spite of men and in the face of their efforts to destroy a given species. It is remarkable that men’s efforts have so often been checkmated, and that human efforts have really been responsible for the extinction of very few orders of living creatures, the dodo bird being one exception. Why is this? God takes care of His creation.
E.M. Zerr:
Psa 145:15. The thought of this verse is similar to the preceding one; that is, there is a proviso understood. God will give the good things of life to those who wait (took toward) upon Him, which indicates their faith in the divine provision.
Psa 145:16. It should be understood that David was considering the blessings that God gives through nature and necessary for man’s temporal comfort and existence.
Psa 145:17. In all of God’s provisions for the creatures of his care he has done the right thing. For that reason we should be satisfied with his providence. Verse 18. To call upon the Lord in truth means to call in the manner taught in His revelation of truth. That will make it necessary for man to study the Word of God.
Psa 145:19. The condition for granting the favors of this verse is that the persons seeking them must fear him. That does not mean merely to be afraid of the Lord, but they must respect him enough to obey his commandments.
Psa 145:20. The same kind of condition is connected with the favor of God in this verse as that of the preceding one except here it is worded to love him. But that will result in the same obedience for Jesus taught the principle that love is proved by obedience. See the passage in Joh 14:23 on the subject of love and obedience.
Psa 145:21. David personaIly determined to praise the Lord with his own mouth. He was desirous also that all flesh (all beings with human flesh) should praise Him, since no man lives who does not owe his very existence to the goodness of God.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
The eyes: Psa 145:9, Psa 104:21, Psa 104:27, Psa 136:25, Psa 147:8, Psa 147:9, Gen 1:30, Job 38:39-41, Joe 2:22, Mat 6:26, Luk 12:24, Act 17:25
wait upon thee: or, look unto thee
Reciprocal: Gen 1:29 – to you Rth 1:6 – in giving Job 39:8 – General Psa 33:5 – earth Psa 50:12 – fulness Psa 104:14 – causeth Psa 146:7 – which giveth food Joe 1:20 – cry Jon 4:11 – and also Zec 9:1 – when Mar 6:42 – General Mar 8:2 – compassion Luk 12:6 – and Act 14:17 – in that 1Co 9:9 – Doth Gal 6:9 – for
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
FOR A HARVEST FESTIVAL
The eyes of all wait upon Thee, O Lord: and Thou givest them their meat in due season.
Psa 145:15 (Prayer Book Version)
We shall find a few minutes consideration of the words in the text most suitable to the occasion of our Harvest Festival, and most helpful to us if we desire to enter fully into the spirit of religious thankfulness and holy joy, which the event of harvest ought to arouse in our souls.
I. The eyes of all wait upon Thee, O Lord; and Thou givest them their meat in due season.That was the result of the unknown Psalmists observation of the course of events. He looked round upon the wide corn-fields of Palestine, extending for miles all around, and waving golden in the sunshine with their precious increase. There, as long as industry dwelt in the land, and its fertile plains and terraced hills were inhabited by the free husbandman and vinedresser, the valleys stood thick with corn, and the hills, terrace after terrace, were clothed with vines, purple with such grapes as those of Eshcol, a single bunch of which, in the days of Moses, was a burden for two men. In those days, the palmy days of Israel, the garners were full and plenteous with all manner of storethere was no decay, no leading into captivity, and no complaining in their streets.
That was the Psalmists experience, and it prompted the pious thanksgiving in the text.
II. We look to-day over a wider horizon, and are led to a similar conclusion.Our knowledge extends to many countries of which our Psalmist had never heard. All of these minister to the support of our people. Abundant and plentiful as our harvest has been, we know that we do not at home grow sufficient corn for our teeming population. The whole world combines to furnish the corn which we need.
And we must not look at this great gift of harvest from a selfish point of view, and as it concerns the supply of our own personal wants alone. We must not look at the harvest of the world as if it was sent for the purpose of feeding English people only. The poor Hindoo in his rice field rejoices in his joyful increase as much as we.
III. Thus, in various forms and by different instrumentalities, God feeds all His creatures.They look to Him for their food; they cry to Him knowingly or unknowingly, blindly and ignorantly, or with sense and knowledge, when they need it; the lions roaring after their prey, do seek their meat from God, says the Psalmist; and in some way or other they give, more or less, gratefully, thanks to the Great Father of all. These wait all upon Thee; and thou mayest give them meat in due season. When Thou givest it them they gather it; and when Thou openest Thy hand they are filled with good. But if the lower animals thank God only unconsciously, that is not so with man. He stands at the head of the ranks of Creation, and it is his duty and his privilege to offer up to God the praises and thanksgivings of allfully, freely, sincerely, intelligently, for all His good gifts; and especially for this good gift of harvest, upon which all the others depend, because upon it depends life and health and existence.
IV. It ought not to be passed over in silence that we have this year a harvest plentiful beyond the average of many years past.It is not so fully recognised as it should be that England has been specially blessed for many years past in being exempted from even partial failure of the wheat crop. The harvest, as we have said, never fails everywhere. It may as surely be counted on generally as the sunrise or the night. But this general certainty is quite consistent with partial failures here and there. Two such, those in India and in China, must be within the memory of us all. Even from these we have been this year, by Gods mercy, exempt.
Are we thankful for them? thankful, that is to say, in the religious sensenot merely glad in a selfish way, that so much more wealth or the means of wealth, has come into our hand; but thankful religiouslyreferring these our good things to the kind Providence of Godand rendering back to Him something, whatever it may be, doing some kindness, or helping some good work, as a thank-offering to Him.
Illustration
We have seen the eyes of a dog fastened on the little child who is eating its cake. The whole nature of the dumb animal is expressed in that eager and alert gaze. Ears, muscles, eyes are all at one. So, says the Psalmist, the eyes of all living things wait upon God, but their eager expectancy does not disturb the tranquillity of His being, for He knows that He can fulfil the desire of every living thing as easily as any of us can open our hands.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
145:15 The eyes of {i} all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season.
(i) That is, as well of man as of beast.