Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 146:9
The LORD preserveth the strangers; he relieveth the fatherless and widow: but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.
9. As in Psa 94:6 the sojourners [89] or resident aliens who had no rights of citizenship, orphans, and widows are typical examples of defencelessness. They are therefore specially under Jehovah’s protection, and are commended in the Law to the care of the Israelites.
[89] The LXX regularly renders gr, ‘sojourner,’ by ; but this does not mean ‘proselyte’ in the later technical sense of “a Gentile who through circumcision and observance of the law had been admitted into full religious fellowship with Israel,” but, as the Vulg. renders it here, ‘advena.’ See Schrer’s Hist. of Jewish People, 31, E.T. ii. ii. 315.
relieveth ] R.V. upholdeth.
turneth upside dawn ] Lit. as R.V. marg., maketh crooked; turns aside from its goal, so that it leads to destruction. Cp. Psa 1:6. That which they would fain do to innocent men (Psa 119:78) He does to them.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The Lord preserveth the strangers – He regards them with interest; he defends and guides them. This is the ninth reason why those who trust in the Lord are happy. The stranger – away from home and friends; with no one to feel an interest in him or sympathy for him; with the feeling that he is forsaken; with no one on whom he can call for sympathy in distress – may find in God one who will regard his condition; who will sympathize with him; who is able to protect and befriend him. Compare Exo 12:49; Exo 22:21; Exo 23:9; Lev 19:33; Deu 1:16; Deu 10:18-19; Isa 56:3, Isa 56:6.
He relieveth the fatherless and widow – He is their friend. This is the tenth reason why those who put their trust in the Lord are happy. It is that God is the Friend of those who have no earthly protector. See the notes at Psa 68:5 : A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation.
But the way of the wicked he turneth upside down – He overturns their plans; defeats their schemes; makes their purposes accomplish what they did not intend they should accomplish. The Hebrew word here means to bend, to curve, to make crooked, to distort; then, to overturn, to turn upside down. The same word is applied to the conduct of the wicked, in Psa 119:78 : They dealt perversely with me. The idea here is, that their path is not a straight path; that God makes it a crooked way; that they are diverted from their design; that through them he accomplishes purposes which they did not intend; that he prevents their accomplishing their own designs; and that he will make their plans subservient to a higher and better purpose than their own. This is the eleventh reason why those who put their trust in God are happy. It is that God is worthy of confidence and love, because he has all the plans of wicked men entirely under his control.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 146:9
He relieveth the fatherless.
The fatherless relieved
The Lord relieveth the fatherless–
I. By exciting the compassion of others in their behalf. The feeling of sympathy is one of the noblest affections of our rational nature. To be without compassion for the miserable and the helpless is a strong indication of deep moral depravity. That all are not thus depraved must be owing to the distinguishing goodness and grace of God.
1. Even among those who are still in an unregenerate state we find many who are easily affected with the calamities of others, and who listen with eagerness, as well as with deep concern, to the tale of woe.
2. When Christians behold others around them in poverty and affliction they ascribe it to undeserved mercy that they themselves are not in similar, or even in worse, circumstances. This thought moves their compassion.
II. By exciting the liberality of others towards their support.
1. Even those who are strangers to the power of His grace are often led by a natural principle of benevolence, or perhaps of self-gratification, to abound in alms-deeds. But more especially the Lord endows many of His own servants with a kind and liberal spirit. Being conscious that they have nothing but what they have received, they consider themselves as stewards, who are bound to be faithful. They endeavour, therefore, to honour the Lord with their substance, and with the first-fruits of their increase.
III. By stirring up others to active exertions in their behalf.
IV. By rendering the exertions of others, and especially of His own servants, effectual for this end.
V. More especially by bringing them to an acquaintance with Himself, and sometimes by placing them in stations of usefulness, and even of eminence in the world. (D. Dickson.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 9. Preserveth the strangers] He has preserved you strangers in a strange land, where you have been in captivity for seventy years; and though in an enemy’s country, he has provided for the widows and orphans as amply as if he had been in the promised land.
The way of the wicked he turneth upside down.] He subverts, turns aside. They shall not do all the wickedness they wish; they shall not do all that is in their power. In their career he will either stop them, turn them aside, or overturn them.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
He overthroweth their goings, as the phrase is, Psa 140:4. He maketh them to lose their way; he not only frustrateth their plots and enterprises but turneth them against themselves. This and all the foregoing sentences are so many arguments to encourage all good men to trust in God in all their straits and afflictions.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
The Lord preserveth the strangers,…. The life of them, as he did the daughter of: the Greek, a Syrophenician woman, and a Samaritan, by healing them of their diseases, Mr 7:26; and in a spiritual sense he preserves the lives and saves the souls of his people among the Gentiles, who are aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenant of promise; for these he laid down his life a ransom, and became the propitiation for their sins; to these he sends his Gospel, which is the power of God to salvation unto them;
he relieveth the fatherless and widow; in their distresses and troubles, who have no helper; a wonderful instance of his relieving a widow, in the most disconsolate circumstances, we have in raising the widow of Nain’s son to life, and restoring him to his mother, Lu 7:12; in him “the fatherless”, and all that in a spiritual sense are destitute of help in the creatures, and see they are so, “find mercy”; nor will he leave his people comfortless, or as orphans and fatherless ones, but will and does come and visit them, relieve and supply them with everything convenient for them; though his church here on earth may seem to be as a widow, he being in heaven at the right hand of God, yet he cares for her in the wilderness, and provides for her support, where she is nourished with the word and ordinances, and will be until he comes again; see Ho 14:3;
but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down; so that they cannot find it; nor their hands perform their enterprise; their schemes and counsels are all confounded and blasted by him, and all their policy and power are not able to prevail against his church and people; see Ps 1:6.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
9. Jehovah guarding, etc. By strangers, orphans, and widows, the Psalmist means all those in general who are destitute of the help of man. While all show favor to those who are known to them and near to them, we know that strangers are, for the most part, exposed to injurious treatment. We find comparatively few who come forward to protect and redress widows and orphans; it seems lost labor, where there is no likelihood of compensation. Under these cases the Psalmist shows that whatever the grievance may be under which we suffer, the reason can only be with ourselves if God, who so kindly invites all who are in distress to come to him, does not stretch forth his arm for our help. On the other hand, he declares that everything will have an adverse and unfortunate issue to those who wickedly despise God. We have said upon the first Psalm, that by the way is meant the course of life in general. God will destroy the way of the wicked, inasmuch as he will curse all their counsels, acts, attempts, and enterprises, so that none of them shall have good success. However excellent they may be in planning, although they may be crafty and sharp-sighted, and abound in strength of resources of every kind, God will overturn all their expectations. While he extends his hand to those who are his people, and brings them through all obstacles, and even impassable ways, he on the contrary destroys the path of the wicked, when apparently most open and plain before them.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(9) The stranger, the widow, and the orphan are constantly presented in the Law as objects of compassion and beneficence. The orphan and widow are mentioned as under Gods care (Psa. 68:5).
Relieveth.Or rather, restoreth, by taking up their cause and seeing justice done. Certain forms of the verb are used of bearing witness, and possibly here there is allusion to a court of justice, in which God appears as witnessing on the side of the weak and defenceless.
Turneth upside down.Rather, bends aside. The same word in Psa. 119:78 is rendered dealt perversely. The idea seems in both cases to be that of interference, to thwart and impede a course of action. In Psalms 119 it is an evil-disposed person who interferes with the righteous. Here it is the Divine providence which, when the wicked man has laid out his plans, and looks as it were along a plain and level road of prosperity, bends the prosperous course aside; makes the path crooked, instead of straight; full of trouble and calamity, instead of prosperous and sure.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
9. The word upside is not in the Hebrew, and is not desirable. The way of the wicked is turned down, toward the abyss of darkness, while that of the just is turned upward, toward the perfect day.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 146:9. But the way, &c. The wayhe will overthrow. Mudge. Their steps shall be perplexed and puzzled, so that they shall stumble and fall, and all their projects be defeated.
REFLECTIONS.1st, David’s heart overflowed with gratitude, and therefore his lips were filled with praise. He could say, with deeper sensibility of the blessing, My God, and could not therefore but add, I will praise him while I have any being. Sensible of the vanity of all besides to help, and the insignificance of every creature, he bids us put no trust in any son of man, not even in the mightiest princes. They are changeable, their favour precarious, their promises often delusive: but be they never so able to help us, never so willing, the greatest are dying worms, returning to the dust from whence they came; their breath expires, their projects vanish, and all their thoughts of aggrandizing themselves, or their friends, are at an end. Note; (1.) Whatever a man may possess in this world, all that he can properly call his earth, is that pittance of a grave allotted for his last abode. (2.) Hope in man is delusory; hope in God knows no disappointment. (3.) Though in man there is no help, there is a Son of Man mighty to save; and blessed are they that put their trust in him.
2nd, What is the true happiness of man? The question is here resolved. Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, in all his trials, temptations, and afflictions; whose hope is in the Lord his God, the never-failing refuge of all who fly to him for succour; the Saviour of the faithful in every distress, and to the uttermost. For he is,
1. Able to save them. He is the creator of all things; heaven, and earth, and sea, with all their inhabitants, are the works of his hands; and he that is the almighty Author of all, must needs be as almighty to preserve.
2. He hath promised to help them. He keepeth truth for ever; he is the Amen, the faithful and true witness; and truth itself must fail before his word of promise can disappoint the faithful soul.
3. He is just. He executeth judgment for the oppressed; vindicates their injured innocence, and brings deserved vengeance on their enemies; as in the last day, if not before, will abundantly appear.
4. His tender mercies are over all his works. He giveth food to the hungry; not only the bread of earth to nourish their bodies, but himself, the bread of life, which cometh down from heaven, to nourish the immortal soul.
5. The distressed who seek him, have ever found him their ready friend. He looseth the prisoners, bound by disease, or bound with chains of iron. He opens the eyes of the blind, and raises up those that are bowed down with infirmity. Abundant instances of which appeared, when in the days of his flesh he wrought such miraculous cures, Luk 13:11-12., Mat 11:5., Joh 9:32; Joh 9:41. But greater works than these he doth. The prisoners of sin are loosed by the preaching of his gospel, and the power of Satan broken. The eyes of our mind, blinded by corruption, receive divine illumination; and the impotent faculties of our souls are delivered from their infirmities. The burdens of sin, of sorrow, of temptation, are loosed by him; and with the discoveries of his love, the heads bowed down as the bulrush, under a sense of guilt, are lifted up in praise and joy.
6. His love is upon his people, the righteous, completely such by virtue of their union with him, and as such the objects of his high regard; who are also renewed by his Spirit, and enabled to walk before him and please him.
7. The destitute are relieved by him. The strangers, whom no man careth for; the fatherless and widow, whose situation lays them open to oppression, he preserves. The Syro-Phoenician woman, the Samaritans, the widow of Nain, proved the truth of this: and the strangers of the Gentiles, the spiritually destitute, have found him a merciful God.
8. The wicked will be destroyed by him. Their way he turneth upside down; he will blast their designs, and break their power; and, if not prevented by a timely and penitent return to him, will turn them into hell, to receive the eternal punishment of their sins.
9. The kingdom of Christ shall endure for ever. He shall reign, and therefore his faithful people may be satisfied he will assuredly help them: even thy God, whose perfections are all engaged for their salvation, unto all generations: and such reviving hope cannot but make their souls happy, and engage their everlasting praises. Hallelujah!
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Psa 146:9 The LORD preserveth the strangers; he relieveth the fatherless and widow: but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.
Ver. 9. The Lord preserveth ] These all are his clients, because neglected by the world, as yielding no profit.
He turneth upside down
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
strangers = aliens.
relieveth. Plenty of saving “help” here. Compare the contrast with “man”, (Psa 146:3), “no help”.
wicked = lawless. Hebrew. rasha’.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
preserveth: Psa 68:5, Deu 10:18, Deu 10:19, Deu 16:11, Pro 15:25, Jer 49:11, Hos 14:3, Mal 3:5, Jam 1:27
the way: Psa 18:26, Psa 83:13-17, Psa 145:20, Psa 147:6, 2Sa 15:31, 2Sa 17:23, Est 5:14, Est 7:10, Est 9:25, Pro 4:19, Job 5:12-14, 1Co 3:19
Reciprocal: Psa 1:1 – way Psa 1:6 – way Psa 10:14 – helper Pro 15:9 – The way Isa 24:1 – turneth it upside down Act 9:41 – widows 1Ti 5:3 – widows
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
146:9 The LORD preserveth the {g} strangers; he relieveth the fatherless and widow: but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.
(g) Meaning, all who are destitute of worldly means and help.