Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 36:5
Thy mercy, O LORD, [is] in the heavens; [and] thy faithfulness [reacheth] unto the clouds.
5. O Lord, thy lovingkindness reacheth to the heavens;
Thy faithfulness even unto the skies.
God’s lovingkindness ( Psa 36:7 ; Psa 36:10) and faithfulness cannot be measured. For the comparison see Job 11:8; Job 22:12; Job 35:5: and cp. Psa 57:10; Psa 103:11: Eph 3:18.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
5 9. From the grievous spectacle of human perversity the Psalmist takes refuge in adoring contemplation of the character of God, the only source of life and light, who deals blessing liberally to all His creatures.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens – This commences the second part of the psalm – the description of the character of God in contrast with the character of the wicked man. The meaning here is, evidently, that the mercy of God is very exalted; to the very heavens, as high as the highest object of which man can conceive. Thus, we speak of virtue as exalted, or virtue of the highest kind. The idea is not that the mercy of God is manifested in heaven, for, mercy being favor shown to the guilty, there is no occasion for it in heaven; nor is the idea that mercy, as shown to man, has its origin in heaven, which is indeed true in itself; but it is, as above explained, that it is of the most exalted nature; that it is as high as man can conceive.
And thy faithfulness – Thy truthfulness; thy fidelity to thy promises and to thy friends.
Reacheth unto the clouds. The clouds are among the highest objects. They rise above the loftiest trees, and ascend above the mountains, and seem to lie or roll along the sky. The idea here, therefore, as in the first part of the verse, is, that it is elevated or exalted.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 36:5-7
Thy mercy, O Lord, Is in the heavens; and Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.
Sky, earth and sea; a parable of God
This wonderful description of the manifold brightness of the Divine nature is introduced in this psalm with singular abruptness. It is set side by side with a vivid picture of an evildoer, a man who mutters in his own heart his godlessness, and with obstinate determination plans and plots in forgetfulness of God. We should go mad when we think of mans wickedness Unless we could look up and see, with one quick turn of the eye, the heaven opened and the throned love that sits up there gazing on the chaos, and working to soothe sorrow, and to purify evil.
I. We have God in the boundlessness of his loving nature, His mercy, faithfulness and righteousness are set before us. Now, the mercy spoken of is the same as the love told of in the New Testament, or, more nearly still, the grace. Mercy is love in its exercise to persons who might expect something else, being guilty. As a general coming to a body of mutineers with pardon and favour upon his lips, instead of with condemnation and death; so God comes to us forgiving and blessing. All His goodness is forbearance, and His love is mercy, because of the weakness, the lowliness, and the ill desert of us on whom the love falls. And this same quality of mercy stands here at the beginning and the end. All the attributes of God are within the circle of His mercy, like diamonds set in a golden ring. But next to mercy comes faithfulness. Thy faithfulness, etc. This implies a verbal revelation, and definite words from Him pledging Him to a certain line of action. He hath said, and shall He not do it. He will not alter the thing that is gone out of His lips. It is only a God who has spoken to men who can be a faithful God. He will not palter with a double sense, keeping His word of promise to the ear, and breaking it to the hope. The next beam of the Divine brightness is Righteousness. Thy righteousness is, etc. The idea is just this, to put it into other words, that God has a law for His being to which He conforms; and that whatsoever things are fair, and lovely, and good, and pure down here, those things are fair, and lovely, and good, and pure up there. All these characteristics of the Divine nature are boundless. Thy mercy is in the heavens, towering up above the stars and dwelling there like some Divine ether filling all space. The heavens are the home of light, the source of every blessing, arching over every head, rimming every horizon, holding all the stars, opening into abysses as we gaze, with us by night and by day, undimmed by the mist and smoke of earth, unchanged by the lapse of centuries; ever seen, never reached, bending over us always, always far above us. For even they, however they may dissolve and break, are yet subject to His unalterable law, and fulfil His gracious purpose. Then Thy righteousness is like the great mountains. Like them, its roots are fast and stable; its summits touch the clouds of fleeting human circumstance: it is a shelter and a refuge, inaccessible in its steepest peaks, but affording many a cleft in its rocks where a man may hide and be safe. But, unlike them, it knew no beginning and shall know no end. Then, with wonderful poetical beauty and vividness of contrast, there follows upon the emblems of the great mountains of Gods righteousness the emblem of the mighty deep of His judgments. Here towers Vesuvius; there at its feet lie the waters of the bay. The mountains and the sea are the two grandest things in nature, and in their combination sublime; the one the home of calm and silence, the other in perpetual motion. But the mountains roots are deeper than the depths of the sea, and though the judgments are a mighty deep, the righteousness is deeper, and is the bed of the ocean. There is obscurity, doubtless, in these judgments, but it is that of the sea: not in itself, but in the dimness of the eye that looks upon it. The sea is clear, but our sight is limited. We cannot see to the bottom. A man on the cliff can look much deeper into the ocean than a man on the level beach. Let us remember that it is a hazardous thing to judge of a picture before it is finished; of a building before the scaffolding is pulled down, and it is a hazardous thing for us to say about any deed or any revealed truth that it is inconsistent with the Divine character. Wait a bit.
II. So much, then, for the great picture here of these boundless characteristics of the Divine nature. Now let us look for a moment at the picture of man sheltering beneath Gods wings. How excellent is Thy loving-kindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings. Gods loving-kindness, or mercy, is precious, for that is the true meaning of the word translated excellent. We are rich when we have that for ours; we are poor without it. That man is wealthy who has God on his side; that man is a pauper who has not God for his. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Voices of a summer landscape
That from which the psalmist has borrowed his lessons in all probability lay before him as he mused. We imagine him at the time a fugitive from Saul. From the wickedness and craft of men, he turns to the goodness and faithfulness of God.
I. Gods mercy. He declares that it is throned in the heavens. These suggest–
1. Its height. Climb the loftiest mountain, and yet they look down upon you. And so with the mercy of our God. It is the one all-enfolding, all-transcending fact in Gods moral universe. It is high; we cannot attain unto it.
2. Its age and changelessness. The earth which the sky overshadows has seen many mutations. Beneath there is nothing but flux, restlessness, change. But the sky has looked down on it all, serene and unvarying, amidst all the overturning and mutations of the countless years. Time writes no wrinkles on its stedfast blue.
3. Akin to this is another thought–the heavens are all-embracing, ever-present, and ever-free. The noblest scenes of earth, it has been said, can be seen and known but by few. The sky is for all, Be your dwelling-place on the bleakest and dreariest swamp, without a tree or a hill to diversify its surface, you have still overhead a picture of loveliness and of mystery as often as you choose to look up. Thread the narrowest thoroughfare of a crowded town, and far above the filth and squalor, between the eaves of the tall and tottering tenements that enclose you, there are strips of clear blue sky, reminding you that, whatsoever be the restlessness, the sorrow, and the vice below, there is nothing above but beauty, purity, and peace. So again with the mercy of our God; it is exceeding broad. It is the attribute of all attributes that is ever engirdling the world. Mercy is the very sphere in which we live and move.
II. Gods faithfulness. Faithfulness has its close connection with mercy. Mercy is that which gives the promise, faithfulness is that which keeps it. Mercy determines the character of Gods dealing with a helpless and sin-stricken world, faithfulness secures their continuance. Mercy defines the nature and the terms of the covenant of grace, faithfulness provides for its stedfastness, and carries it out to its final completion. Faithfulness is mercy bonded and pledged.
III. Gods righteousness. The element is one that cannot be spared from the picture. A God may be merciful, He may be faithful, too, but what avails it if both attributes do not rest upon justice? Yonder vault of Gods house, curtained with clouds and fretted with innumerable fires, is raised on its pillars. The everlasting hills bear it up, and their columns support the overarching dome. So with Gods righteousness. It lies at the base of His other attributes. It is as the mountains.
1. Stable. Nothing–storm or tempest–can move them.
2. Conspicuous. Long after the citys spires have disappeared, and wood and river, field and vineyard have been lost in the distant blue, the outline of the sentinel hills may remain, massive and majestic as ever–every summit and jag cut clear against the sky. So again with the Divine righteousness. There is much that will pass away, but this, never.
3. The mountains are the sources of many blessings. To them we owe the moisture that laves and that gladdens the thirsty earth. If the waters go down by the valleys, they go up by the mountains first, and the rivers that fertilize our fields, turn our mills, and give drink to man and to beast, have their springs in green nooks and cool stony caverns on their distant slopes. Thus with the righteousness of God. So do the mountains bring peace to the people, and the little hills by righteousness.
IV. Gods judgments. From the sky, the clouds and the mountains, the psalmist now turned to the floods. Those, perhaps, of the great and wide sea. What are all Gods attributes that we have considered without wisdom to direct the whole? O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom, etc. We can see but little, but that is enough. Let us thank God. (W. A. Gray.)
Earthly emblems of heavenly things
The three grandest objects in the kingdom of nature are the heavens, the hills, and the sea: the heavens for their clearness, their height, and their all-embracing circuit; the hills for their strength, their security, and their shade; and the sea for its boundless immensity, its unfathomable profundity, and its inexplicable mystery.
I. Gods mercy. This means His loving-kindness to a sinner, His gracious disposition to receive again into favour those who were aforetime the objects of His wrath. Now, this mercy, says the psalmist, is in the heavens, which indicates–
1. The conspicuous and prominent position which it occupies in the kingdom of grace.
2. Since God has set His mercy in the heavens, it must overtop the highest mountain of mans transgression.
3. If Gods mercy be in the heavens, we shall never be able to get beyond it.
(1) This is true in a very important sense of the entire family of man. For we live in a world of mercy.
(2) What is true of the human family as a whole, is likewise true and pre-eminently true of the individual saint. Gods mercy surrounds him like the blue vault of heaven.
II. Gods righteousness. No doubt the psalmist refers to the particular character of rectitude which God maintains in all His dealings with His sinful creatures. At the same time, we cannot greatly err in attaching to the term its New Testament Signification of Gods gracious provision for saving men through the obedience unto death of His Son.
1. The great mountains, the mountains of God, as David calls them, suggest the idea of stability, or strength. Hence they are fit emblems of the righteous character of God, which nothing that may happen can ever prevent from ruling in all His dealings with His creatures; and of the righteous work of Christ through which grace reigns unto eternal life. It is everlasting as the high hills of God (Isa 51:6).
2. The great mountains speak of security or protection. Yet the security and protection of the hills are only emblems, beautiful and significant, but still faint, of that impregnable defence which is enjoyed by him who is arrayed in Christs robe of righteousness, and who puts his trust in the righteous character of God.
3. The great mountains afford a shade to exhausted travellers as they pass along beneath a burning sky; and the like refreshment does a saint enjoy when in spirit he reposes in the finished righteousness of Christ.
III. Gods judgments. These are His ways, acts, providential dispensations. Rightly called judgment is, as not being haphazard operations, but the solemn decisions of His infinite mind. Every step of the Divine procedure is deliberately weighed. Gods judgments are like the sea in respect of–
1. Mystery.
2. Profundity.
3. Immensity.
They relate indeed to the little speck of time in which we live, and the little spot of ground on which we stand, but they stretch away out as well beyond the confines of the tomb, away out into the unnumbered ages of that illimitable eternity into which we are fast going, as the sea spreads itself out beyond the gaze of men. (T. Whitelaw, D. D.)
Two comparisons
I. Thy mercy, o Lord, is in the heavens.
1. Visible.
2. Lofty.
3. Encompassing the whole human family.
II. Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.
1. The clouds are changeful. The small one becoming large. The dark one becoming clear. One joining another till the entire face of the heavens is covered with them. All these mutations required and produced by the Lord. He proclaimed, through Jonah, the destruction of Nineveh in forty days. The citizens repented, and the threatening was not executed. This shows that He did change His proposed course of action. All Gods threatenings and promises are conditional.
2. The clouds at times move slowly. Creep along so tardily, as if they were unwilling to move. Seem to stop altogether for hours. Like the promises and threatenings of the Lord. Prayers not answered for ten, twenty, and thirty years. Wait on the Lord patiently, lie shall bring it to pass.
3. The clouds sometimes move rapidly. Resemble war-horses rushing over the battle-field, or horses sweeping along the race-course. Koran, Dathan and Abiram, Achan, Ananias and Sapphira. Many sudden deaths. The sword of Divine justice is suspended over the sinners head. It may not fall for a long time, it may fall in a moment. Be ye also ready, for in such an hour as you think not, the Son of Man cometh. (A. McAuslane, D. D.)
Thy righteousness is like the great mountains.—
Mountain meditations
I. That the righteousness of Jehovah was fixed and unchangeable. Nothing in the world so impresses the mind with the idea of unchangeableness as the great mountains. All things on, beneath and around them change, but they remain the same. And so it is with Gods righteousness.
II. It is only as you come near the great mountains that their real greatness appears. So also is it with Gods righteousness. The man who has climbed highest in the way of righteousness knows best how great is the distance he has yet to climb.
III. Only as the sun lifts the clouds are the high summits clearly revealed. And so in regard to God, clouds and darkness are round about Him; and it is only as the Sun of Righteousness arises, that we can look upon God. You cannot see the mountains without the sun–the moon is only reflected sunlight–and so all true vision of God is by means of Christ. (W. O. Horder.)
The mountains of God
I am not specially careful to inquire in detail as to what the psalmist refers to when he speaks of the righteousness of the Lord. He is righteous altogether. Now, just as every continent, and almost every country, has a chain of mountains running across it, or along its length, which is, as it were, the backbone of the country, giving it character, and fixing certain hounds, and providing the water-sheds, so the righteousness of God, the essential holiness of the King of kings, the inflexible justice of the great Lawgiver is as a mighty range of hills which runs the whole length of Gods dealings with His people.
I. Their sublimity. Come up into the hill of the Lord, climb these mountains of God, contemplate the righteousness of the Most High, who can by no means clear the guilty and will not wink at sin. View the vast expanses of His righteousness, and the towering masses of His holiness, and wonder, with a great amazement, that they have not crushed you long ago. Instead of that catastrophe you are permitted to climb among these highlands, and to sun yourself upon their summits. But oh, with all our familiarity of approach to God, let us not forget how great and good God is.
II. Their purity. How clear the air on those sunlit summits! How bright the sky above the travellers head! I would fain enter, as far as it is possible, into a comprehension of the absolute holiness of God. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?
III. Their stability. A process of disintegration is perhaps always going on; sun, and wind, and rain, and snow, all these things affect our mountains somewhat, but despite that fact they remain, their roots fixed in the heart of the earth, and their peaks piercing the passing clouds. So is it with the righteousness of God. You cannot bribe God; neither threatenings nor persuadings will turn Him from His course. He keeps His promises to the letter, every one of them, and the covenant which He has signed, and which Christ has sealed with His own most precious blood, can never be set aside.
IV. Their mystery. One cannot climb even one of our own little hills without risk of becoming enveloped in the driving mist and in the falling cloud. Have you ever wondered that God is not found out by man and understood by finite comprehension? The wonder would be if He were. His righteousness is like the great mountains.
V. Their utility. They are ornamental, it is true, but they are even more useful than they are ornamental. Gods righteousness is not merely to be looked at from a distance, wondered at, and admired; it is to be rejoiced in, and trusted in. It serves a purpose that nothing else can serve.
1. Think, for instance, of the shelter that is provided by the great mountains.
2. Although we can hardly say that the mountains provide pasturage, yet the fact remains that some of the best of land is found among the hills.
3. There is light upon the mountains, too. In Thy light we shall see light. I have heard of those who have ascended the mountain over-night, that they might see the sun rise on the morrow. Things that were dark and inscrutable before will become comparatively plain when the light that is to be viewed from the peaks of Gods righteousness shines forth.
4. The mountains of every country have a very distinct influence upon the peoples of those countries, just as the plains have. You will find a different race down there, where all is level, from those who dwell among the hills. There are the hardy and stalwart men, the men of brawn and brain. If we could only acclimatize ourselves to dwell as it were among the high doctrines of Gods Word, and the noble thoughts that are in the Bible concerning our blessed God, how it would alter us; our very complexion would be different, our manhood would be increased, our spiritual strength would be intensified. (T. Spurgeon.)
Gods righteousness like the mountains
Gods works in nature seem to be intended by God to be to us pictures of His works in the moral and spiritual world.
I. As we wander through the world from land to land they strike upon our view by their prominence. From afar we see them, conspicuous above tower and battlement, temple and dome. Such in its prominence is the righteousness of God (Psa 145:17). His dealings with His creatures illustrate the character of righteousness, the principle of rendering to every one his due.
II. Gods righteousness is like the great mountains in its permanence. The cloud-capped towers are dismantled and destroyed, the gorgeous palaces of kings fade and perish, the solemn temples are deserted and crumble into dust, but the great mountains remain. The revolutions of governments, the shocks of nations in deadly strife, the scourge of pestilence and the slaughter of war disturb not their repose, and even Time, the great innovator, in his destroying course passes them by So Gods righteousness is an everlasting righteousness. His righteous wrath is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men (Rom 1:18). But, on the other hand, His righteous grace is revealed in our blessed Saviour, and all the pride and rebellion, the selfishness and hypocrisy, and sinful unbelief of the world shall not change His purposes of grace to them that trust in Jesus.
III. Gods righteousness is like the great mountains in the protection it affords us. What cause men have to bless God for mountains! They form a barrier and defence against the hostile elements of nature and the cruel oppression of men. How refreshing are the mountainous parts of India compared with the hot and unhealthy plains! Behold the range of mountains that separate Morocco from the great Sahara, and see in them the only barrier against the encroachments of the desert. Morocco is not a wilderness because of her mountains. Or, again, turning to the political map of Europe, why is it that while Poland is divided and despoiled, Hungary in subjection, and Denmark crippled and reduced, Switzerland still flourishes in her ancient vigour? Surely it is because of her mountains. Within those wild fastnesses Freedom has trained up, age after age, a generation to call her blessed. Their mountains, rising in noble defence all around them, have bidden defiance to the invader and the oppressor, and the hardy race to-day rejoices in the freedom it so dearly loves. And as the mountains are round about that land, so is the Lord round about His people (Psa 125:2). The prophecy spoken of old has been fulfilled (Isa 32:2). We need protection–
1. From the punishment of sin.
2. From the accusations of Satan.
3. From the ills of this mortal state. (J. Silvester, M. A.)
Gods righteousness like the mountains
I. Great mountains are unchangeable. All round the Alps revolution has been the normal state for centuries. Thrones have tottered, governments have changed, monarchs have been deposed; but Mont Blanc has stood unmoved amid it all. Everywhere the great mountains mock the eternities of history, and the permanence of human institutions. It is even so with Gods righteousness; nay, infinitely more so. Infatuation has even attempted to alter it, infidelity has tried to impair its foundations, and subvert it; human philosophy has called it in question; arrogant caprice would carve it after its own designs; but such attempts are as futile as a man trying to move the Alps. Gods righteousness, like Himself, is without variableness or shadow of turning.
II. Great mountains are conspicuous. Travellers tell us the Himalayas may be seen two hundred and fifty miles off. And how conspicuous is Gods righteousness. In the history of the world there is nothing more prominent; in all the great episodes of the past it is first to arrest our attention.
III. Great mountains are obscurable now, all is bright and sunny; anon, all is dark and gloomy. The intelligent traveller knows these obscurations are from beneath; indeed, he sees the vapour rising rapidly from the valley to thicken the canopy over his head. So the Divine righteousness is obscurable, but the obscurations are from beneath. The mists of distrust will hide it; the fogs of unbelief will shut it out; the vapour of doubt will shroud it; the dark, thick, murky atmosphere of scepticism, bordering on the very darkness of despair, will conceal it altogether: But, though you see it not, it is there. The traveller may put his hand through the mist, and feel the palpable rock.
IV. Great mountains are dangerous to explore without a guide. Some have foolishly attempted it, and valuable lives have been sacrificed in the attempt. And, alas, what a perilous position, and what a painful end have men come to, by essaying the exploration of Gods righteousness without a guide! The Bible is the only unerring directory. Let us pray the Divine Spirit to guide us into all truth.
V. GREAT MOUNTAINS ARE PROTECTIVE. It is pleasing to see many towns and villages in Switzerland and Savoy nestling in happy, peaceful security in fruitful valleys at the foot of the great mountains. Not only are they protected in some instances from easterly winds, and northern blasts, but these advantages have enabled the inhabitants to win and maintain an honourable independence amid the great military and aggressive powers of Europe. I was shown in the early part of the valley of the Rhone, two lines of hills which almost met, and there I was informed a comparative handful of brave Swiss defeated an invading army. And the spot is considered a sort of Thermopylae in the annals of the country to this day! Gods righteousness is protective and defensive. It graduates the present salvation and future security of His people. All His other attributes, pledged in their behalf, have their foundation in this.
VI. Great mountains command the most glorious views! Views your imagination cannot picture. The varied tints of the sunlight upon the pinnacles of snow. The distant ranges, so illusively near. The spreading valleys and calm blue lakes. The harmony of the landscape, light and shade blending marvellously together. So from the mount of Gods righteousness most wonderful views are obtained. Aspects of the Divine character, which cannot possibly be seen from the flats of reason and science. From the height of this attribute the agreement of all the Divine attributes is beheld, and the glorious harmony between the dispensations of nature, providence, and grace, is discovered. From this elevation may be seen Mercy and Truth meeting together, Righteousness and Peace kissing each other. (T. J. Guest.)
Righteousness and great mountains
The Bible full of similitudes. Sometimes intermingled, sometimes in clusters. No book in the world is so rich in illustrations, and from it uninspired poesy has enriched itself with its greatest beauties. God has by these similitudes married earth and heaven, time and eternity, the visible and the invisible.
I. That Gods righteousness is like the great mountains because it is durable. Sometimes God compares, sometimes contrasts Himself with the mountains. As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so, etc. Mountains may depart, yet His kindness shall not depart, etc. They are after all only relatively durable. The mountain is not the same as it was a thousand years ago. But Gods righteousness is unchangeable, from the necessity of His nature: because not exposed to accident or peril.
II. In mysteriousness. There is a mystery about all mountains, but the greater the one is the greater the other. There is mystery about Gods righteousness; about His person. Would it not be strange if we could see the full extent of Gods righteousness? The eye of the soul, like that of the body, is restricted in its power of vision.
III. Has heights dangerous to climb. And even when men do scale the heights of Monte Rosa and the Matterhorn, they could not live there. And men can no more live on the mountains of theology than on these others.
IV. Are a bulwark and a defence. And because Christs is a righteous atonement, therefore its defence is sure. (Enoch Mellor, D. D.)
Gods righteousness like the great mountains
The great mountains are planted in the earth for signs, and they are instinct with spiritual truth. They are the outward and visible manifestations of Jehovahs righteousness.
1. For like the great mountains, the righteousness of God produces a deep and awful feeling in the mind when first beheld in all its greatness and transcendent glory. Before the righteousness of God, the human spirit, filled with a deep and abiding sense of impurity and transgression, bows and worships. One hand alone–that of the Great Architect who planned and built the world–formed the soft ethereal substance into the solid earth, smoothed out the valleys, and lifted up the great mountains until they kissed the skies. And as no human hand could create, so no human power can destroy those great mountains. It is so with respect to the righteousness of God. It was God who planned it, wrought it out, and embodied it, and fully manifested it in the person and work of Christ. And no human power can remove or destroy the righteousness of God. The hand that planted can alone uproot. The power that establishes and supports can alone remove. Like the great mountains, that are girded with a strength which is invincible, and rooted with a firmness which is immovable, is the righteousness of God. Thy righteousness is like the great mountains.
2. But the righteousness of God is like the great mountains in another respect, namely, that of spotless purity. There the snow lies white and pure upon the crown and bosom of the great mountains, pure and white as it fell from the hand of the holy God. It is only where the great mountains strike their massive roots into the earth, that moraines or detached masses of rock and loose earth or sand are to be seen casting their dark shadows, and leaving their stains upon the pure whiteness of the glacier and the virgin snow. And it is thus with the righteousness of God. It is only at that point where it comes into contact with the righteousness of man, which is a filthy righteousness, that you see elements of impurity appearing, and appearing there, because the human spirit at its best is so imperfect, that stains and shadows lie upon it, and the very purity of God seems marred by the human soul that reposes on its bosom. But beyond the region where human imperfection touches the perfection of God, there is a vast and lofty range of spotless purity and Divine righteousness, where no shadows fall, where no stain can be detected.
3. Again, the striking comparison of our text proclaims with great power and beauty, that in order to attain the true vision of God we need to be lifted up. By our sinfulness we have left the heights, and have come into low places, where we raise to a bad eminence our lower passions and propensities. But, in the hour of our trouble, we instinctively look up to the mountains, feeling, like true hillsmen, the attraction of the Fatherland, and knowing that there is help for us there. And that our observations may be true, we must not only take but keep the heights. Only when standing on the hill of God, when surveying all things from the great mountain of Gods righteousness, do we arrive at the knowledge of the eternal truth.
4. Gods righteousness is like the great mountains, inasmuch as it is the throne, the source of our help. The great mountains are said to prolong, and do prolong, the worlds day, to do battle with its storms, to bring peace, to purify and lighten the corrupt and heavy atmosphere; they enlarge, defend, and bless the whole sphere of human life, and keep open the windows of heaven for the pouring down of its righteousness–its bountiful liberalities. The mountains are as the throne of help. The mountains defend and bless the valleys and the plains, as the heavens defend and bless the earth. The mountains stand for the calm and majestic home of goodness and truth and eternal might. The mountains are above the changes they control. The mountains gather and disperse the clouds; they attract and revivify the air; they condense the atmosphere, and distil its living waters, and send them forth to refresh and fertilize the plains. The mountains are as the earths lungs to restore to the atmosphere its used-up virtues. They brace the air, and keep the mildew from the growing corn. By the powerful influence of the mountains the valleys are always green, and food is abundantly provided for man and beast! And the mountains represent the help of other heights–the righteousness of God. For our help cometh from the hill of the Lord. (Christian Weekly.)
Thy judgments are a great deep.—
A great deep
I. The mystery of the divine dealings. That wondrous ocean that occupies two-thirds of all the space upon this globe–how little is known of it! How true this is of the ways of God! They, then, are fools who pretend to criticize and carp and complain at that which He does.
II. Their ceaseless activity. More than anything in all creation besides, the ocean, I think, is the type of tireless and perpetual activity. And it is well for us, if we can believe in the same thing as regards the rule and government–the beneficent providence of Almighty God. It is the pulse of creation, and is always beating, even when creation sleeps. It is the engineer whose hand is on the handle, and whose eye is on the steam gauge, however the passengers may read or sleep, or deport themselves in the ship or train. God is, God works, God wills, God governs, and that as the sea is never at rest, so God walketh always,
III. Their healthful and beneficent power. The storms of ocean have sent many a mariner to an untimely grave; but we know that the wild commotion of storm and billow, when the salt waters are churned into a seething cauldron of yeasty foam, means the charging the winds with the liberated ozone, iodine, and other health-giving elements of life; these raging tempests mean the keeping fresh and pure and salutary the waters that roll to every coast, the billows that lave and lap on every shore. A quiet ocean, a stagnant sea, an inactive deep, would mean ultimate pestilence, and death to the wide world of man and beast. No, the storm and tempests have their mission of good, their errand of mercy for man, and in this the judgments of God are a great deep, for its storms and tempests, its pains and disappointments, its wild waves of trouble as well as its sparkling ripples of peace, are healthful, useful, salutary and beneficent, both to body and soul. He doeth all things well.
IV. Their unchanging change. The oceans sudden, various, unaccountable, and seemingly lawless changes have, nevertheless, in and through them all, fixity and certainty. All are subject to ascertained laws than which nothing is more exact and sure. And so of all that happens to us here, nothing, however apparently so, is really of chance. The Lord knoweth the way that I take, and when I am tried I, etc.
V. Their sustaining power. The sea is very deep–very mysterious, and at times very stormy, but what a splendid water-way it is! How grand a well-captained vessel, floating proudly over its surface to seek some far-off shore, and gain the precious things of far-off land! England is the England she is, rich and great, and powerful and prosperous, because she has learned to trust the sea. Yes, the great deep is a grand thing to sail on; but not so grand as is the providence and gracious government of God. Trust to that; put out on that sea; spread wide the sails of prayer to catch the breezes of heaven; steer your course by Gods own sun and star; and be you sure of this, whatever of head-winds you may meet, whatever of chopping seas you may contend with, whatever storm and gale may menace your safety or toss your craft about–that great deep will bear you up; that Divine ocean will bear you on; that unfathomable sea will ensure you a safe voyage. Faith never suffers shipwreck.
VI. Their precious treasures. Precious things are hidden in mysterious recesses. Ocean contains innumerable buried treasures. Gold, silver, and precious stones are laid up there. But how great is Thy goodness which Thou hast laid up for them that fear Thee. Treasures both of grace and glory, for the life that now is and for that which is to come. (J. Jackson Wray.)
Preparation for dark providences
In saying Thy righteousness is like the great mountains, he asserts Gods justice and equity to be fixed and immovable; too deeply based, and too lofty, ever to be overthrown or even shaken. In saying, Thy judgments are a great deep, he is to be understood as declaring, that, notwithstanding the confessed justice and equity of God, there is much which is inscrutable in His dealings, much which is not to be fathomed by us in our present state of being. And when he proceeds to the simple, but touching exclamation, O Lord, Thou preservest man and beast!–we may regard him as taking refuge from what is perplexing and mysterious in what is plain and unquestionable; dispersing doubts which might arise from obscurities in providence, by reference to that general and gracious guardianship which proves God the protector of every living thing. Now it is not needful to insist on the truths of the text. They are sufficiently self-evident. We all know that there is much that is mysterious in Gods dealings with men, and that consequently His judgments may fitly be called a great deep. And we all know that it is God who preserveth both man and beast. But whilst the truth of the several propositions is readily confessed, and therefore does not need to be proved, there may be something in the order in which they are arranged by the psalmist, to suggest matter for important reflection. Besides the second of the two propositions may well obtain earnest consideration from us, for men are so often disconcerted and dissatisfied because of the fact it declares.
I. Consider the reasons for expecting that Gods judgments would be a great deep. Even now amongst men the dealings of the wise are often founded on maxims not understood or appreciated by the great mass of their fellows; so that conduct appears unaccountable, which, nevertheless, proceeds from a very high sagacity. Is it, then, to be wondered at, that God, whose wisdom is as far above that of the wisest of the earth as the heaven is above this lower creation, should be inexplicable in His actings, often doing that which we utterly fail to understand. And there may be other reasons for the inscrutableness of which we now speak. Why may it not be supposed, that God often of set purpose veils Himself in clouds, working in a mode which transcends our understandings, in order to conciliate our reverence, and keep faith in exercise? If we were always able to discern the reasons of the Divine dealings, who does not see that our own wisdom would soon come to be considered as well nigh equal to that of God? And then, again, what place would there be for faith, if there were no depths in the Divine judgments; if every reason was so plain, every design so palpable, that no one could do otherwise than acquiesce in the fitness and goodness of all Gods appointments? It is very easy, if you cast but a cursory glance over the dealings of the Divine Being, observe the jostling and confusion which seem almost universal, and mark the unexpected turn which things take, to endeavour to assign the reason of this appointment, or to assign the possible use of that; it is very hard to feel assured that all is ordered for the best, that there is not a spring in motion which God does not regulate, and not a force in action which He does not control. Yet when we come to search into what was to have been expected, we do not find that we could reasonably have looked for any other state of things. Ought we not to feel that it is the very darkness in which the Almighty doth dwell which obtains for Him the reverence of such creatures as ourselves, excites their faith, and perpetually reminds them of a judgment to come?
II. The position in which these words are placed. They are inserted between two other propositions, from which they derive and on which they throw no inconsiderable light. Consider, then–
1. The connection between the first two clauses of the text. Now, there is no better way of preparing the mind to contemplate the unsearchableness of God than the settling it in its persuasion of the righteousness of God. For we cannot be thoroughly persuaded of the righteousness of God, and not be thoroughly persuaded that, even when His dealings are the darkest, they have only to be seen in the light of His wisdom, and they will commend themselves as the best that could have been devised. And this is the reason why good men are, practically, so little perplexed by the intricacies of the Divine providence. They are certain of Gods righteousness. In this manner the psalmist may be said to fortify himself for considering the inscrutableness of the Divine dealings by assuring himself of the Divine righteousness. And so, possessed of that which must keep him from sinking, he throws himself into the vast profound, and exclaims, Thy judgments are a great deep. Aye, it is in this way that we should all endeavour to equip ourselves for trial. We launch into the great deep of Gods judgments with but dim apprehensions of Gods righteousness; and no marvel, then, if we are presently as mariners without a compass, and cry out as though God had forgotten to be gracious. But if we are busied, whilst not yet driven upon that vast ocean, with certifying ourselves that God cannot swerve from His purpose, that God cannot cease to overrule evil, we could not fail, when we found ourselves in the dark waters, to have our eye on the star which is to teach us how to steer. The imagery employed in this psalm is very beautiful. The psalmist combines the mountains and the deep. The mountains are to be considered as rising out of the waters, and girding them round 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 just as confident that the lower parts make the basin from which the waters flow. And thus we should learn from seeing, when we look towards the heavens, that there is righteousness all around this lower obscurity which we are unable to penetrate, that the foundations which are beneath the waves are of the same materials as the summits which are above, and which often glow in the sunlight, though they may sometimes be hidden in the mist. This, we say, is the idea figuratively conveyed by the expression of the psalmist. Once give the character of mountains to the righteousness, regard that righteousness as immovable, and as girding round the whole economy of Providence, and it can hardly come to pass that you should be overwhelmed by the Divine dealings, however little you may be able to fathom them. And thus is the transition from the righteousness to the judgments of God in our text exactly indicative of the process which should take place in our minds. And now consider–
2. The connection between the two last propositions of the text. There seems to be something very abrupt in this second transition, to pass from the great deep of Gods judgments to the preserving man and beast; from so great mysteries to the everyday mercies which are showered upon the world. But even a believer in Gods righteousness may, as he looks out upon the great deep of Providence, desire some distinct, some visible evidence of that goodness of God which seems so opposed to all this darkness and confusion. And this is what the last clause of our text gives him. For from all creation witnesses are summoned to attest the goodness of God. Man and every beast of the field, every fowl of the air, yea, all that passes through the paths of the sea, are to furnish proof of the watchful care and love of God. Will you say that all the animation which is kept up in the universe, and all the sustenance which is so liberally provided for every tribe, must be referred to the workings of certain laws and properties irrespective of the immediate agency of an ever-present, ever-actuating Divinity? This is nothing better than idolatry of second causes, and denial of the First; this is substituting nature–an ideal–for Him who is the Creator and Preserver of all. How comes it to pass that morning after morning the sun wakens huge cities into life, and causes the silent forests to echo with the warbling of birds, and calls into activity thousands of creatures in every mountain and in every valley, and yet, that out of all the interminable hordes thus revivified at every dawn, there is not the solitary being for whom there is no provision in the granaries of nature? Can it be that God is unmindful of the world, that He is not studying in what He arranges and appoints, the good of His creatures, when He shows Himself attentive to the wants and comforts of the meanest living thing? It seems to us that there is thus a beautiful, though tacit, reasoning in the text, and that the second proposition is most admirably placed between the first and the last. It is as though David had said, Come, let us muse on the righteousness of God. He would not be God if He were not righteous in all His ways; and therefore we may be sure that whatsoever He does is the best that could be done, whether or not we can perceive its excellence. This being settled, having determined that His righteousness is like the great mountains, let us look upon His judgments. Ah! what an abyss of dark waters is here! How unsearchable, how unfathomable, are these judgments! Yes, but being previously convinced of Gods righteousness, we ought not to be staggered by what is dark in His dispensations. True; yet the mind does not seem satisfied by this reasoning. It may be more convincing to the intellect, but it does not address itself to the feelings. Well then, pass from what is dark in Gods dealings to what is clear. He is about your path, and about your bed. The eyes of all wait upon Him; He openeth His hand, He satisfieth the desire of every living thing. Is this a God of whom to be suspicious? Is this a God to mistrust? No, surely. If you be able to say, Thy righteousness is like the great mountains, did it not quite prepare you for the fact, Thy judgments are a great deep, every remaining suspicion will be scattered when you can join in the confession, O Lord, Thou preservest man and beast. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
Fathomless
I. The dealings of God with his people are often unfathomable. But why does the Lord send us an affliction which we cannot understand?
1. Because He is the Lord. He is God, and therefore it becometh us ofttimes to sit in silence, and feel it must be right, though we equally know we cannot see how it is so.
2. God sendeth us trials of this sort for the exercise of our graces. Now is there room for faith. When thou canst trace Him thou canst not trust Him. Here is room, too, for humility. The feeling that everything is beyond our knowledge brings to us humility, and we sit down at the foot of Jehovahs throne. I think there is hardly a grace which is not much helped by the deeps of Gods judgments. Certainly love has frequently been developed to a high degree in this way, for the soul at last comes to say, No, I will not desire the reason; I do so love Him; let His will stand for a reason; that shall he enough for me; it is the Lord; let Him do what seemeth Him good.
3. We have sins which we cannot fathom, and it is little marvel, therefore, if we have also chastisements which we cannot fathom.
II. Gods judgments are a great deep: then they are safe sailing. Ships never strike on rocks in the great deeps. When the sailor begins to come up the Thames, then it is that there is first one sandbank and then another, and he is in danger; but out in the deep water, where he finds no bottom, he is but little afraid. So in the judgments of God. When He is dealing out affliction to us, it is the safest possible sailing that a Christian can have. For then he need fear no fall; when he is low, he need fear no pride; when he is humbled under Gods hand, then he is less likely to be carried away with every wind of temptation. Gods judgments are a great deep, but they are safe sailing, and under the guidance and presence of the Holy Spirit they are not only safe, but they are advantageous. I greatly question whether we ever do grow in grace much except when we are in the furnace.
III. Gods judgments are a great deep, but they conceal great treasure. Down in those great depths who knows what there may be? Pearls lie deep there. And so with the deep judgments of God. What wisdom is concealed there, and what treasures of love and faithfulness, and what David calls very tenderness, for in very tenderness, saith he, hast Thou afflicted me. We do not, perhaps, as yet, receive, or even perceive the present and immediate benefit of some of our afflictions. There may be no immediate benefit; the benefit may be for hence and to come. The chastening of our youth may be intended for the ripening of our age. I do not know that that blade required the rain on such a day, but God was looking not to February as such, but to February in its relation to July, when the harvest should be reaped. He considered the blade not merely as a blade, and in its present necessity, but as it would be in the full corn in the ear.
IV. Gods judgments are a great deep: then they work much good. The great deep, though ignorance thinks it to be all waste, a salt and barren wilderness, is one of the greatest blessings to this round world. If, to-morrow, there should be no more sea, it would be the greatest of all curses. It is from the sea that there arises the perpetual mist which, floating by and by in mid-air, at last descends in plenteous showers on hill and vale to fertilize the land. The sea is the great heart of the world–I might say the circulating blood of the world. There is no waste in the sea; it is all wanted. It must be there; there is not a drop of it too much. So with our afflictions which are Thy judgments, O God! They are necessary to our life, to our souls health, to our spiritual vigour. It is good for me that I have been afflicted, said David.
V. If Gods judgments are a great deep, then they become a highway of communion with himself. We thought at one time that the deep separated different peoples; that nations were kept asunder by the sea; but lo! the sea is to-day the great highway of the world. The rapid ships cross it with their white sails, or with their palpitating engines they soon flash across the waves. And so our afflictions–which we thought in our ignorance would separate us from our God–are the highway by which we may come nearer to God than we otherwise could. They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business on the great waters, these see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep. You that keep close in shore and have but small trials, you are not likely to know much of His wonders in the deep. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 5. Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens] That is, thou art abundant, infinite in thy mercy; else such transgressors must be immediately cut off; but thy long-suffering is intended to lead them to repentance.
Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds] ad shechakim, to the eternal regions; above all visible space. God’s faithfulness binds him to fulfil the promises and covenants made by his mercy. Blessings from the heavens, from the clouds, from the earth, are promised by God to his followers; and his faithfulness is in all those places, to distribute to his followers the mercies he has promised.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Though this be the disposition and carriage of mine enemies towards me, and therefore I can expect no good from them, yet thou, O Lord, blessed be thy name, art of another temper; they are cruel and perfidious and unrighteous, but thou art infinite in mercy, and faithfulness, and righteousness, and loving-kindness, as it here follows; and therefore though I despair of them, yet I trust in thee, as other men do for these reasons, Psa 36:7.
Is in the heavens; or, is unto (as the prefix beth oft signifies, as Gen 11:4, and elsewhere, and as it is here explained in the following clause)
the heavens. As it is on the earth, of which there was no question, so it reacheth thence to the heavens, i.e. it is infinite and incomprehensible.
Thy faithfulness; the truth both of thy threatenings against thine and mine enemies, and of thy promises made to me and other good men.
Reacheth unto the clouds, i.e. is far above our reach, greater and higher than we can apprehend it.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
5, 6. mercy . . . and . . .faithfulnessas mercy and truth (Ps25:10).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Thy mercy, O Lord, [is] in the heavens,…. Meaning either the general mercy of God the earth is full of, and extends to all creatures; to which it is owing that wicked men before described are not consumed; and which reaches “up to the heavens” d, as the words are by some rendered, as their sins do; see Ps 57:10; or the special mercy of God, and regards not the objects of it, creatures in heaven; for there at, none there proper objects of mercy; but the seat of it, the heart of God, who is in heaven; or the repository of it, the covenant of grace, which is full of the sure mercies of David; and of mercy there was a most glaring instance, when the son of God was sent down from heaven, to obtain salvation for sinful men; or it may denote the original of it, the heaven, being, as Aben Ezra observes some Jewish interpreters say, the fountain of mercy, and the spring of truth; or the greatness and abundance of it, it being as high as heaven, yea, above it; see Ps 103:11;
[and] thy faithfulness [reacheth] unto the clouds; which lies in the execution of his purposes, whose counsels of old were faithfulness and truth; and in keeping his covenant and promises; he never changes his mind, nor forgets his word; he is a God of truth, and cannot lie; he knows the end from the beginning; no unforeseen event can turn up to hinder the performance of what he has purposed and promised, and he is able to perform; nor does ever any of the good things he has spoken of fail: though his faithfulness sometimes seems to be not only to the clouds, but in them, and out of sight; providences seem to clash with promises, which make unbelief to say, doth his promise fail for evermore? yet, though we believe not, he abides faithful, Ps 77:8 2Ti 2:13.
d “usque ad coelos”, Pagninus, Musculus, Muis, Piscator, Gejerus, Michaelis; so Kimchi & Noldius, p. 164. No. 744. & Ainsworth.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(Heb.: 36:6-10) The poet now turns from this repulsive prospect to one that is more pleasing. He contemplates, and praises, the infinite, ever sure mercy of God, and the salvation, happiness, and light which spring from it. Instead of , the expression is , the syncope of the article not taking place. alternating with , cf. Psa 57:11, has here, as in Psa 19:5; Psa 72:16, the sense of touching or reaching to the spot that is denoted in connection with it. The poet describes the exaltation and super-eminence of divine mercy and faithfulness figuratively, after earthly standards. They reveal themselves on earth in a height that reaches to the heavens and extends to , i.e., the thin veil of vapour which spreads itself like a veil over the depths of the heavens; they transcend all human thought, desire, and comprehension (Psa 103:11, and cf. Eph 3:18). The (righteousness) is distinguished from the (faithfulness) thus: the latter is governed by the promises of God, the former by His holiness; and further, the latter has its being in the love of God, the former, on the other hand, manifests itself partly as justifying in mercies, and partly as avenging in wrath. Concerning the righteousness, the poet says that it is like the mountains of God, i.e., (cf. cedars of God, Psa 80:11) unchangeably firm (Psa 111:3), like the giant primeval mountains which bear witness to the greatness and glory of God; concerning God’s judgments, that they are “a great deep,” incomprehensible and unsearchable ( , Rom 11:33) as the great, deep-surging mass of waters in the lower parts of the earth, which becomes visible in the seas and in the rivers. God’s punitive righteousness, as at length becomes evident, has His compassion for its reverse side; and this, as in the case of the Flood (cf. Jon 4:11), embraces the animal world, which is most closely involved, whether for weal or for woe, with man, as well as mankind.
Lost in this depth, which is so worthy of adoration, the Psalmist exclaims: How precious (cf. Psa 139:17) is Thy mercy, Elohim! i.e., how valuable beyond all treasures, and how precious to him who knows how to prize it! The Waw of is the explicative Waw = et hoc ipsum quod. The energetic form of the future, , has the pre-tonic Kametz, here in pause, as in Psa 36:8; Psa 39:7; Psa 78:44. The shadow of God’s wings is the protection of His love, which hides against temptation and persecution. To be thus hidden in God is the most unspeakable blessedness, Psa 36:9: they satiate themselves, they drink full draughts of “the fatness of Thy house.” The house of God is His sanctuary, and in general the domain of His mercy and grace. (cf. , Psa 65:5) is the expression for the abundant, pleasant, and powerful gifts and goods and recreations with which God entertains those who are His; and (whence , as in Deu 8:13; Isa 40:18) is the spiritual joy of the soul that experiences God’s mercy to overflowing. The abundant fare of the priests from Jahve’s table (vid., Jer 31:14), and the festive joy of the guests at the shelamim-offering, i.e., the communion-offering, – these outward rites are here treated according to their spiritual significance, receive the depth of meaning which radically belongs to them, and are ideally generalized. It is a stream of pleasures ( ) with which He irrigates and fertilizes them, a paradisaic river of delights. This, as the four arms of the river of Paradise had one common source (Gen 2:10), has its spring in God, yea, God is the fountain itself. He is “the fountain of life” (Jer 2:13); all life flows forth from Him, who is the absolutely existing and happy One. The more inwardly, therefore, one is joined to Him, the fuller are the draughts of life which he drinks from this first fountain of all life. And as God is the fountain of life, so also is He the fountain of light: “In Thy light do we see light;” out of God, seeing we see only darkness, whereas immersed in God’s sea of light we are illumined by divine knowledge, and lighted up with spiritual joy. The poet, after having taken a few glimpses into the chaos of evil, here moves in the blessed depths of holy mysticism [ Mystik, i.e., mysticism in the good sense – true religion, vital godliness], and in proportion as in the former case his language is obscure. So here it is clear as crystal.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| The Amazing Goodness of God; Favour of God towards His People; David’s Prayers, Intercessions and Triumphs. | |
5 Thy mercy, O LORD, is in the heavens; and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds. 6 Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep: O LORD, thou preservest man and beast. 7 How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings. 8 They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures. 9 For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light. 10 O continue thy lovingkindness unto them that know thee; and thy righteousness to the upright in heart. 11 Let not the foot of pride come against me, and let not the hand of the wicked remove me. 12 There are the workers of iniquity fallen: they are cast down, and shall not be able to rise.
David, having looked round with grief upon the wickedness of the wicked, here looks up with comfort upon the goodness of God, a subject as delightful as the former was distasteful and very proper to be set in the balance against it. Observe,
I. His meditations upon the grace of God. He sees the world polluted, himself endangered, and God dishonoured, by the transgressions of the wicked; but, of a sudden, he turns his eye, and heart, and speech, to God “However it be, yet thou art good.” He here acknowledges,
1. The transcendent perfections of the divine nature. Among men we have often reason to complain, There is no truth nor mercy, (Hos. iv. 1), no judgment nor justice, Isa. v. 7. But all these may be found in God without the least alloy. Whatever is missing, or amiss, in the world, we are sure there is nothing missing, nothing amiss, in him that governs it. (1.) He is a God of inexhaustible goodness: Thy mercy, O Lord! is in the heavens. If men shut up the bowels of their compassion, yet with God, at the throne of his grace, we shall find mercy. When men are devising mischief against us God’s thoughts concerning us, if we cleave closely to him, are thoughts of good. On earth we meet with little content and a great deal of disquiet and disappointment; but in the heavens, where the mercy of God reigns in perfection and to eternity, there is all satisfaction; there therefore, if we would be easy, let us have our conversation, and there let us long to be. How bad soever the world is, let us never think the worse of God nor of his government; but, from the abundance of wickedness that is among men, let us take occasion, instead of reflecting upon God’s purity, as if he countenanced sin, to admire his patience, that he bears so much with those that so impudently provoke him, nay, and causes his sun to shine and his rain to fall upon them. If God’s mercy were not in the heavens (that is, infinitely above the mercies of any creature), he would, long ere this, have drowned the world again. See Isa 55:8; Isa 55:9; Hos 11:9. (2.) He is a God of inviolable truth: Thy faithfulness reaches unto the clouds. Though God suffers wicked people to do a great deal of mischief, yet he is and will be faithful to his threatenings against sin, and there will come a day when he will reckon with them; he is faithful also to his covenant with his people, which cannot be broken, nor one jot or tittle of the promises of it defeated by all the malice of earth and hell. This is matter of great comfort to all good people, that, though men are false, God is faithful; men speak vanity, but the words of the Lord are pure words. God’s faithfulness reaches so high that it does not change with the weather, as men’s does, for it reaches to the skies (so it should be read, as some think), above the clouds, and all the changes of the lower region. (3.) He is a God of incontestable justice and equity: Thy righteousness is like the great mountains, so immovable and inflexible itself and so conspicuous and evident to all the world; for no truth is more certain nor more plain than this, That the Lord is righteous in all his ways, and that he never did, nor ever will do, any wrong to any of his creatures. Even when clouds and darkness are round about him, yet judgment and justice are the habitation of his throne, Ps. xcvii. 2. (4.) He is a God of unsearchable wisdom and design: “Thy judgments are a great deep, not to be fathomed with the line and plummet of any finite understanding.” As his power is sovereign, which he owes not any account of to us, so his method is singular and mysterious, which cannot be accounted for by us: His way is in the sea and his path in the great waters. We know that he does all wisely and well; but what he does we know not now; it will be time enough to know hereafter.
2. The extensive care and beneficence of the divine Providence: “Thou preservest man and beast, not only protectest them from mischief, but suppliest them with that which is needful for the support of life.” The beasts, though not capable of knowing and praising God, are yet graciously provided for; their eyes wait on him, and he gives them their meat in due season. Let us not wonder that God gives food to bad men, for he feeds the brute-creatures; and let us not fear but that he will provide well for good men; he that feeds the young lions will not starve his own children.
3. The peculiar favour of God to the saints. Observe,
(1.) Their character, v. 7. They are such as are allured by the excellency of God’s loving-kindness to put their trust under the shadow of his wings. [1.] God’s loving-kindness is precious to them. They relish it; they taste a transcendent sweetness in it; they admire God’s beauty and benignity above any thing in this world, nothing so amiable, so desirable. Those know not God that do not admire his loving-kindness; and those know not themselves that do not earnestly covet it. [2.] They therefore repose an entire confidence in him. They have recourse to him, put themselves under his protection, and then think themselves safe and find themselves easy, as the chickens under the wings of the hen, Matt. xxiii. 37. It was the character of proselytes that they came to trust under the wings of the God of Israel (Ruth ii. 12); and what more proper to gather proselytes than the excellency of his loving-kindness? What more powerful to engage our complacency to him and on him? Those that are thus drawn by love will cleave to him.
(2.) Their privilege. Happy, thrice happy, the people whose God is the Lord, for in him they have, or may have, or shall have, a complete happiness. [1.] Their desires shall be answered, (v. 8): They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house, their wants supplied; their cravings gratified, and their capacities filled. In God all-sufficient they shall have enough, all that which an enlightened enlarged soul can desire or receive. The gains of the world and the delights of sense will surfeit, but never satisfy, Isa. lv. 2. But the communications of divine favour and grace will satisfy, but never surfeit. A gracious soul, though still desiring more of God, never desires more than God. The gifts of Providence so far satisfy them that they are content with such things as they have. I have all, and abound, Phil. iv. 18. The benefit of holy ordinances is the fatness of God’s house, sweet to a sanctified soul and strengthening to the spiritual and divine life. With this they are abundantly satisfied; they desire nothing more in this world than to live a life of communion with God and to have the comfort of the promises. But the full, the abundant satisfaction is reserved for the future state, the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Every vessel will be full there. [2.] Their joys shall be constant: Thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures. First, There are pleasures that are truly divine. “They are thy pleasures, not only which come from thee as the giver of them, but which terminate in thee as the matter and centre of them.” Being purely spiritual, they are of the same nature with those of the glorious inhabitants of the upper world, and bear some analogy even to the delights of the Eternal Mind. Secondly, There is a river of these pleasures, always full, always fresh, always flowing. There is enough for all, enough for each; see Ps. xlvi. 4. The pleasures of sense are putrid puddle-water; those of faith are pure and pleasant, clear as crystal, Rev. xxii. 1. Thirdly, God has not only provided this river of pleasures for his people, but he makes them to drink of it, works in them a gracious appetite to these pleasures, and by his Spirit fills their souls with joy and peace in believing. In heaven they shall be for ever drinking of those pleasures that are at God’s right hand, satiated with a fulness of joy, Ps. xvi. 11. [3.] Life and light shall be their everlasting bliss and portion, v. 9. Having God himself for their felicity, First, In him they have a fountain of life, from which those rivers of pleasure flow, v. 8. The God of nature is the fountain of natural life. In him we live, and move, and have our being. The God of grace is the fountain of spiritual life. All the strength and comfort of a sanctified soul, all its gracious principles, powers, and performances, are from God. He is the spring and author of all its sensations of divine things, and all its motions towards them: he quickens whom he will; and whosoever will may come, and take from him of the waters of life freely. He is the fountain of eternal life. The happiness of glorified saints consists in the vision and fruition of him, and in the immediate communications of his love, without interruption or fear of cessation. Secondly, In him they have light in perfection, wisdom, knowledge, and joy, all included in this light: In thy light we shall see light, that is, 1. “In the knowledge of thee in grace, and the vision of thee in glory, we shall have that which will abundantly suit and satisfy our understandings.” That divine light which shines in the scripture, and especially in the face of Christ, the light of the world, has all truth in it. When we come to see God face to face, within the veil, we shall see light in perfection, we shall know enough then, 1Co 13:12; 1Jn 3:2. 2. “In communion with thee now; by the communications of thy grace to us and the return of our devout affections to thee, and in the fruition of thee shortly in heaven, we shall have a complete felicity and satisfaction. In thy favour we have all the good we can desire.” This is a dark world; we see little comfort in it; but in the heavenly light there is true light, and no false light, light that is lasting and never wastes. In this world we see God, and enjoy him by creatures and means; but in heaven God himself shall be with us (Rev. xxi. 3) and we shall see and enjoy him immediately.
II. We have here David’s prayers, intercessions, and holy triumphs, grounded upon these meditations.
1. He intercedes for all saints, begging that they may always experience the benefit and comfort of God’s favour and grace, v. 10. (1.) The persons he prays for are those that know God, that are acquainted with him, acknowledge him, and avouch him for theirs–the upright in heart, that are sincere in their profession of religion, and faithful both to God and man. Those that are not upright with God do not know him as they should. (2.) The blessing he begs for them is God’s loving-kindness (that is, the tokens of his favour towards them) and his righteousness (that is, the workings of his grace in them); or his loving-kindness and righteousness are his goodness according to promise; they are mercy and truth. (3.) The manner in which he desires this blessing may be conveyed: O continue it, draw it out, as the mother draws out her breasts to the child, and then the child draws out the milk from the breasts. Let it be drawn out to a length equal to the line of eternity itself. The happiness of the saints in heaven will be in perfection, and yet in continual progression (as some thing); for the fountain there will be always full and the streams always flowing. In these is continuance, Isa. lxiv. 5.
2. He prays for himself, that he might be preserved in his integrity and comfort (v. 11): “Let not the foot of pride come against me, to trip up my heels, or trample upon me; and let not the hand of the wicked, which is stretched out against me, prevail to remove me, either from my purity and integrity, by any temptation, or from my peace and comfort, by any trouble.” Let not those who fight against God triumph over those who desire to cleave to him. Those that have experienced the pleasure of communion with God cannot but desire that nothing may ever remove them from him.
3. He rejoices in hope of the downfall of all his enemies in due time (v. 12): “There, where they thought to gain the point against me, they have themselves fallen, been taken in that snare which they laid for me.” There, in the other world (so some), where the saints stand in the judgment, and have a place in God’s house, the workers of iniquity are cast in the judgment, are cast down into hell, into the bottomless pit, out of which they shall assuredly never be able to rise from under the insupportable weight of God’s wrath and curse. It is true we are not to rejoice when any particular enemy of ours falls; but the final overthrow of all the workers of iniquity will be the everlasting triumph of glorified saints.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
5. O Jehovah! thy mercy is unto the heavens. Commentators think that David, after having described the great corruption and depravity which every where prevail in the world, takes occasion from thence to extol in rapturous praises the wonderful forbearance of God, in not ceasing to manifest his favor and good-will towards men, even though they are sunk in iniquity and crime. But, as I have already observed, I am of a somewhat different opinion. After having spoken of the very great depravity of men, the prophet, afraid lest he should become infected by it, or be carried away by the example of the wicked, as by a flood, quits the subject, and recovers himself by reflecting on a different theme. It usually happens, that in condemning the wicked, the contagion of their malice insinuates itself into our minds when we are not conscious of it; and there is scarcely one in a hundred who, after having complained of the malice of others, keeps himself in true godliness, pure and unpolluted. The meaning therefore is, Although we may see among men a sad and frightful confusion, which, like a great gulf, would swallow up the minds of the godly, David, nevertheless, maintains that the world is full of the goodness and righteousness of God, and that he governs heaven and earth on the strictest principles of equity. And certainly, whenever the corruption of the world affects our minds, and fills us with amazement, we must take care not to limit our views to the wickedness of men who overturn and confound all things; but in the midst of this strange confusion, it becomes us to elevate our thoughts in admiration and wonder, to the contemplation of the secret providence of God. David here enumerates four cardinal attributes of Deity, which, according to the figure of speech called synecdoche, include all the others, and by which he intimates, in short, that although carnal reason may suggest to us that the world moves at random, and is directed by chance, yet we ought to consider that the infinite power of God is always associated with perfect righteousness. In saying that the goodness of God is unto the heavens, David’s meaning is, that in its greatness it is as high as the heavens. In the same sense he adds, Thy truth is even unto the clouds The term truth in this place may be taken either for the faithfulness which God manifests in accomplishing his promises, or for the just and well regulated character of his government, in which his rectitude is seen to be pure and free from all deception. But there are many other similar passages of Scripture which constrain me to refer it to the promises of God, in the keeping and fulfilling of which he is ever faithful.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(5) Thy mercy, O Lord, is in . . .Better,
Jehovah, to the heavens (reacheth) thy grace,
Thy faithfulness to the sky.
i.e., there are no narrower bounds of divine mercy and truth.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
5. From the revolting picture of depravity thus given, the psalmist turns, in this second strophe, (Psa 36:5-9,) to elevating and comforting thoughts of God.
Thy mercy in the heavens faithfulness unto the clouds “In” and “unto” are parallel here, so also “heavens” and “clouds.” The comparison is to that which, in our eyes, seems most lofty and honourable, contrasting with the low devices of wicked men.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
In Contrast To What Transgression Offers YHWH Offers Compassion, F Faithfulness, Righteousness, Justice, and The Preservation of Life ( Psa 36:5-6 ).
Psa 36:5-6
‘Your lovingkindness, O YHWH, is in the heavens,
Your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
Your righteousness is like the mountains of God,
Your judgments are a great deep,
O YHWH, you preserve man and beast.’
In contrast with the five aspects of the hearts of those who follow iniquity are the five attributes of the heart of YHWH. Notice that the contrast with sinfulness is not in terms of the goodness of the righteous, but of the goodness of their God. It is He Who lifts up the righteous and makes the righteous what they are. They are like that because He has personally ‘blessed’ them (Mat 5:3-9; Php 2:13). Thus to Him must be the glory.
The Five Attributes of YHWH.
His compassion and covenant love are so vast that they are ‘in the Heavens’, stretched out in a huge expanse which goes beyond the range of human sight.
His faithfulness is so substantial that it reaches up to the skies (and here the sky is not the limit).
His righteousness is as huge as ‘the mountains of God’, the very highest of the mountains.
His judgments are as deep as the ocean, a depth not yet plumbed by man.
He is the preserver of all life, whether that of man or beast. He is the source and giver of life.
So God’s love and faithfulness (compare Psa 57:10; Psa 103:11), His righteousness and justice (compare Psa 9:8; Psa 33:5; Psa 37:6; Psa 72:2), and His life-giving and life-preserving qualities, are so vast that they are beyond man’s ability to fully comprehend. They are wider than the heavens, higher than the stars, greater than the mountains, deeper than the sea. We can compare here Eph 3:18-19, speaking of the work of the Spirit within which makes known to us the love of God and of Christ, and makes it a part of us. ‘That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, to the end that you being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length, and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that passes knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fullness of God’.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Psa 36:5. Thy mercy, O Lord, &c. As much as to say, “This is my comfort still, that thy loving-kindness and faithfulness are infinitely greater than the hatred and falsehood of Saul.”
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
What a beautiful transition the Psalmist here hath made from the corruption of men, to contemplate the mercy and faithfulness of God? How beautiful also the highly finished comparisons here made of God’s righteousness, and judgments?
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 36:5 Thy mercy, O LORD, [is] in the heavens; [and] thy faithfulness [reacheth] unto the clouds.
Ver. 5. Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens ] Yea, far above them, Psa 108:4 , and over all thy good and men’s bad works. Otherwise thou couldest never endure such provocations of the profane rout; who yet live upon thee, and share in thy general goodness, admiratur David incredibilem Dei patientiam, &c. (Vat.).
And thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Psalms
SKY, EARTH, AND SEA: A PARABLE OF GOD
Psa 36:5 – Psa 36:7
This wonderful description of the manifold brightness of the divine nature is introduced in this psalm with singular abruptness. It is set side by side with a vivid picture of an evildoer, a man who mutters in his own heart his godlessness, and with obstinate determination plans and plots in forgetfulness of God. Without a word to break the violence of the transition, side by side with that picture, the Psalmist sets before us these thoughts of the character of God. He seems to feel that that character was the only relief in the contemplation of the miserable sights of which the earth is only too full. We should go mad when we think of man’s wickedness unless we could look up and see, with one quick turn of the eye, the heaven opened and the throned Love that sits up there gazing on all the chaos, and working to soothe sorrow, and to purify evil.
Perhaps there is another reason for this dramatic and striking swiftness of contrast between the godless man and the revealed God. The true test of a life is its power to bear the light of God being suddenly let in upon it. How would yours look, my friend! if all at once a window in heaven was opened, and God glared in upon you? Set your lives side by side with Him. They always are side by side with Him whether you know it or not; but you had better bring your ‘deeds to the light that they may be made manifest’ now, than to have to do it as suddenly, and a great deal more sorrowfully, when you are dragged out of the shows and illusions of time, and He meets you on the threshold of another world. Would a beam of light from God, coming in upon your life, be like a light falling upon a gang of conspirators, that would make them huddle all their implements under their cloaks, and scuttle out of the way as fast as possible? Or would it be like a gleam of sunshine upon the flowers, opening out their petals and wooing from them fragrance? Which?
But I turn from such considerations as these to the more immediate subject of my contemplations in this discourse. I have ventured to take so great words for my text, though each clause would be more than enough for many a sermon, because my aim now is a very modest one. I desire simply to give, in the briefest way, the connection and mutual relation of these wonderful words; not to attempt any adequate treatment of the great thoughts which they contain, but only to set forth the meaning and interdependence of these manifold names for the beams of the divine light, which are presented here. The chief part of our text sets before us God in the variety and boundlessness of His loving nature, and the close of it shows us man sheltering beneath God’s wings. These are the two main themes for our present consideration.
I. We have, first, God in the boundlessness of His loving nature.
Now that ‘mercy’ or ‘lovingkindness’ of which my text thus speaks, is very nearly equivalent to the New Testament ‘love’; or, perhaps, still more nearly equivalent to the New Testament ‘grace.’ Both the one and the other mean substantially this-active love communicating itself to creatures that are inferior and that might have expected something else to befall them. Mercy is a modification of love, inasmuch as it is love to an inferior. The hand is laid gently upon the man, because if it were laid with all its weight it would crush him. It is the stooping goodness of a king to a beggar. And mercy is likewise love in its exercise to persons that might expect something else, being guilty. As a general coming to a body of mutineers with pardon and favour upon his lips, instead of with condemnation and death; so God comes to us forgiving and blessing. All His goodness is forbearance, and His love is mercy, because of the weakness, the lowliness, and the ill desert of us on whom the love falls.
Now notice that this same ‘quality of mercy’ stands here at the beginning and at the end. All the attributes of the divine nature, all the operations of the divine hand lie within the circle of His mercy-like diamonds set in a golden ring. Mercy, or love flowing out in blessings to inferior and guilty creatures, is the root and ground of all God’s character; it is the foundation and impulse of all His acts. Modern science reduces all modes of physical energy to one, for which it has no name but-energy. We are taught by God’s own revelation of Himself-and most especially by His final and perfect revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ-to trace all forms of divine energy back to one which David calls ‘mercy,’ which John calls ‘love.’
It is last as well as first, the final upshot of all revelation. The last voice that speaks from Scripture has for its special message ‘God is Love.’ The last voice that sounds from the completed history of the world will have the same message, and the ultimate word of all revelation, the end of the whole of the majestic unfolding of God’s purposes will be the proclamation to the four corners of the universe, as from the trump of the Archangel, of the name of God as Love. The northern and the southern poles of the great sphere are one and the same, a straight axle through the very heart of it, from which the bounding lines swell out to the equator, and towards which they converge again on the opposite side of the world. So mercy is the strong axletree, the northern pole and the southern, on which the whole world of the divine perfections revolves and moves. The first and last, the Alpha and Omega of God, beginning and crowning and summing up all His being and His work, is His mercy, His lovingkindness.
But next to mercy comes faithfulness. ‘Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.’ God’s faithfulness is in its narrowest sense His adherence to His promises. It implies, in that sense, a verbal revelation, and definite words from Him pledging Him to a certain line of action. ‘He hath said, and shall He not do it?’ ‘He will not alter the thing that is gone out of His lips.’ It is only a God who has actually spoken to men who can be a ‘faithful God.’ He will not palter with a double sense, ‘keeping His word of promise to the ear, and breaking it to the hope.’
But not only His articulate promises, but also His own past actions, bind Him. He is always true to these; and not only continues to do as He has done, but discharges every obligation which His past imposes on Him. The ostrich was said to leave its eggs to be hatched in the sand. Men bring men into positions of dependence, and then lightly shake responsibility from careless shoulders. But God accepts the cares laid upon Him by His own acts, and discharges them to the last jot. He is a ‘faithful Creator.’ Creation brings obligations with it; obligations for the creature; obligations for the Creator. If God makes a being, God is bound to take care of the being that He has made. If He makes a being in a given fashion, He is bound to provide for the necessities that He has created. According to the old proverb, if He makes mouths it is His business to feed them. And He recognises the obligation. His past binds Him to certain conduct in His future. We can lay hold on the former manifestation, and we can plead it with Him. ‘Thou hast been, and therefore Thou must be.’ ‘Thou hast taught me to trust in Thee; vindicate and warrant my trust by Thy unchangeableness.’ So His word, His acts, and His own nature, bind God to bless and help. His faithfulness is the expression of His unchangeableness. ‘Because He could swear by no greater, He sware by Himself.’
Take, then, these two thoughts of God’s lovingkindness and of God’s faithfulness and weave them together, and see what a strong cord they are to which a man may cling, and in all His weakness be sure that it will never give nor break. Mercy might be transient and arbitrary, but when you braid in ‘faithfulness’ along with it, it becomes fixed as the pillars of heaven, and immutable as the throne of God. Only when we are sure of God’s faithfulness can we lift up thankful voices to Him, ‘because His mercy endureth for ever.’ A despotic monarch may be all full of tenderness at this moment, and all full of wrath and sternness the next. He may have a whim of favour to-day, and a whim of severity to-morrow, and no man can say, ‘What doest thou?’ But God is not a despot. He has, so to speak, ‘decreed a constitution.’ He has limited Himself. He has marked out His path across the great wide region of possibilities of the divine action; He has buoyed out His channel on that ocean, and declared to us His purposes. So we can reckon on God, as astronomers can foretell the motions of the stars. We can plead His faithfulness along with His love, and feel that the one makes sure that the other shall be from everlasting to everlasting.
The next beam of the divine brightness is righteousness. ‘Thy righteousness is like the great mountains.’ Righteousness is not to be taken here in its narrow sense of stern retribution which gives to the evildoer the punishment that he deserves. There is no thought here, whatever there may be in other places in Scripture, of any opposition between mercy and righteousness, but the notion of righteousness here is a broader and greater one. It is just this, to put it into other words, that God has a law for His being to which He conforms; and that whatsoever things are fair and lovely, and good, and pure down here, those things are fair, and lovely, and good, and pure up there; that He is the Archetype of all excellence, the Ideal of all moral completeness: that we can know enough of Him to be sure of this that what we call right He loves, and what we call right He practises.
Brethren! unless we have that for the very foundation of our thoughts of God, we have no foundation to rest on. Unless we feel and know that ‘the Judge of all the earth doeth right,’ and is right, and law and righteousness have their home and seat in His bosom, and are the expression of His inmost being, then I know not where our confidence can be built. Unless ‘Thy righteousness, like the great mountains,’ surrounds and guards the low plain of our lives, they will lie open to all foes.
Then, next, we pass from the divine character to the divine acts. Mercy, faithfulness, and righteousness all converge and flow into the great river of the divine ‘judgments.’
By judgments are not meant merely the acts of God’s punitive righteousness, the retributions that destroy evildoers, but all God’s decisions and acts in regard to man. Or, to put it into other and briefer words, God’s judgments are the whole of the ‘ways,’ the methods of the divine government. So Paul, alluding to this very passage when he says ‘How unsearchable are Thy judgments!’ adds, as a parallel clause, meaning the same thing, ‘and Thy ways past finding out.’ That includes all which men call, in a narrower sense, judgments, but it includes, too, all acts of kindness and loving gifts. God’s judgments are the expressions of His thoughts, and these thoughts are thoughts of good and not of evil.
But notice, in the next place, the boundlessness of all these characteristics of the divine nature.
‘Thy mercy is in the heavens,’ towering up above the stars, and dwelling there, like some divine ether filling all space. The heavens are the home of light, the source of every blessing, arching over every head, rimming every horizon, holding all the stars, opening into abysses as we gaze, with us by night and by day, undimmed by the mist and smoke of earth, unchanged by the lapse of centuries; ever seen, never reached, bending over us always, always far above us. So the mercy of God towers above us, and stoops down towards us, rims us all about and arches over us all, sheds down its dewy benedictions by night and by day; is filled with a million stars and light-points of duty and of splendour; is near us ever to bless and succour and help, and holds us all in its blue round.
‘Thy faithfulness reacheth to the clouds.’ Strange that God’s fixed faithfulness should be compared to the very emblems of mutation. The clouds are unstable, they whirl and melt and change. Strange to think of the unalterable faithfulness as reaching to them! May it not be that the very mutability of the mutable may be the means of manifesting the unalterable sameness of God’s faithful purpose, of His unchangeable love, and of His ever consistent dealings? May not the apparent incongruity be a part of the felicity of the bold words? Is it not true that earthly things, as they change their forms and melt away, leaving no track behind, phantomlike as they are, do still obey the behests of that divine faithfulness, and gather and dissolve and break in brief showers of blessing, or short, sharp crashes of storm, at the bidding of that steadfast purpose which works out one unalterable design by a thousand instruments, and changeth all things, being in itself unchanged? The thing that is eternal, even the faithfulness of God, dwells amid, and shows itself through, the things that are temporal, the flying clouds of change.
Again, ‘Thy righteousness is like the great mountains.’ Like these, its roots are fast and stable; like these, it stands firm for ever; like these, its summits touch the fleeting clouds of human circumstance; like these, it is a shelter and a refuge, inaccessible in its steepest peaks, but affording many a cleft in its rocks, where a man may hide and be safe. But, unlike these, it knew no beginning, and shall know no end. Emblems of permanence as they are, though Olivet looks down on Jerusalem as it did when Melchizedek was its king, and Tabor and Hermon stand as they did before human lips had named them, they are wearing away by winter storms and summer heats. But, as Isaiah has taught us, when the earth is old, God’s might and mercy are young; for ‘the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but My kindness shall not depart from thee.’ ‘The earth shall wax old like a garment, but My righteousness shall not be abolished.’ It is more stable than the mountains, and firmer than the firmest things upon earth.
Then, with wonderful poetical beauty and vividness of contrast, there follows upon the emblem of the great mountains of God’s righteousness the emblem of the ‘mighty deep’ of His judgments. Here towers Vesuvius; there at its feet lie the waters of the bay. So the righteousness springs up like some great cliff, rising sheer from the water’s edge, while its feet are laved by the sea of the divine judgments, unfathomable and shoreless. The mountains and the sea are the two grandest things in nature, and in their combination sublime; the one the home of calm and silence, the other in perpetual motion. But the mountain’s roots are deeper than the depths of the sea, and though the judgments are a mighty deep, the righteousness is deeper, and is the bed of the ocean.
The metaphor, of course, implies obscurity, but what sort of obscurity? The obscurity of the sea. And what sort of obscurity is that? Not that which comes from mud, or anything added, but that which comes from depth. As far as a man can see down into its blue-green depths they are clear and translucent; but where the light fails and the eye fails, there comes what we call obscurity. The sea is clear, but our sight is limited.
And so there is no arbitrary obscurity in God’s dealings, and we know as much about them as it is possible for us to know; but we cannot see to the bottom. A man on the cliff can look much deeper into the ocean than a man on the level beach. The higher you climb the further you will see down into the ‘sea of glass mingled with fire’ that lies placid before God’s throne. Let us remember that it is a hazardous thing to judge of a picture before it is finished; of a building before the scaffolding is pulled down, and it is as hazardous for us to say about any deed or any revealed truth that it is inconsistent with the divine character. Wait a bit; wait a bit! ‘Thy judgments are a great deep.’ The deep will be drained off one day, and you will see the bottom of it. ‘Judge nothing before the time.’
But as an aid to patience and faith hearken how the Psalmist finishes up his contemplations: ‘O Lord! Thou preservest man and beast.’ Very well then, all this mercy, faithfulness, righteousness, judgment, high as the heavens, deep as the ocean, firm as the hills, it is all working for this-to keep the millions of living creatures round about us, and ourselves, in life and well-being. The mountain is high, the deep is profound. Between the mountain and the sea there is a strip of level land. God’s righteousness towers above us; God’s judgments go down beneath us; we can scarcely measure adequately the one or the other. But upon the level where we live there are the green fields where the cattle browse, and the birds sing, and men live and till and reap and are fed. That is to say, we all have enough in the plain, patent facts of creation and preservation of man and animal life in this world to make us quite sure of what is the principle that prevails up to the very top of the inaccessible mountains, and down to the very bottom of the unfathomable deep. What we know of Him, in the blessings of His love and providence, ought to interpret for us all that is perplexing. What we understand is good and loving. Let us be sure that what we do not yet understand is good and loving too. The web is of one texture throughout. The least educated ear can catch the music of the simpler melodies which run through the Great Composer’s work. We shall one day be able to appreciate the yet fuller music of the more recondite parts, which to us at present seem only jangling and discord. It is not His melody but our ears that are at fault. But we may well accept the obscurity of the mighty deep of God’s judgment, when we can see plainly that, after all, the earth is full of His mercy, and that ‘the eyes of all things wait on God, and He giveth them their meat in due season.’
II. So much, then, for the great picture here of these boundless characteristics of the divine nature. Now let us look for a moment at the picture of man sheltering beneath God’s wings.
‘How precious is Thy lovingkindness, therefore the children of men put their trust.’ There is only one thing that will ever win a man’s heart to love God, and that is that God should love him first, and let him see it. ‘We love Him because He first loved us,’ is the New Testament teaching. Is it not all adumbrated and foretold in these words: ‘How precious is Thy loving-kindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust’?
We may be driven to worship after a sort by power; we may be smitten into some cold admiration, into some kind of reluctant subjection and trembling reverence, by the manifestation of divine perfections. But there is only one thing that wins a man’s heart, and that is the sight of God’s heart; and it is only when we know how precious His lovingkindness is that we shall be drawn towards Him.
And then this last verse tells us how we can make God our own: ‘They put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings.’ The word here rendered, and accurately rendered, ‘put their trust,’ has a very beautiful literal meaning. It means to flee for refuge, as the manslayer might flee into the strong city, or as Lot did out of Sodom to the little city on the hill, or as David did into the cave from his enemies. So, with such haste, with such intensity, staying for nothing, and with the effort of your whole will and nature, flee to God. That is trust. Go to Him for refuge from all evil, from all harm, from your own souls, from all sin, from hell, and death, and the devil.
Put your trust under ‘the shadow of His wings.’ That is a beautiful image, drawn, probably, from the grand words of Deuteronomy, where God is likened to the ‘eagle stirring up her nest, fluttering over her young,’ with tenderness in her fierce eye, and protecting strength in the sweep of her mighty pinion. So God spreads the covert of His wing, strong and tender, beneath which we may all gather ourselves and nestle.
And how can we do that? By the simple process of fleeing unto Him, as made known to us in Christ our Saviour; to hide ourselves there. For let us not forget how even the tenderness of this metaphor was increased by its shape on the tender lips of the Lord: ‘How often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings!’ The Old Testament took the emblem of the eagle, sovereign, and strong, and fierce; the New Testament took the emblem of the domestic fowl, peaceable, and gentle, and affectionate. Let us flee to that Christ, by humble faith with the plea on our lips-
‘Cover my defenceless head
With the shadow of Thy wing’;
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Psa 36:5-9
5Your lovingkindness, O Lord, extends to the heavens,
Your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
6Your righteousness is like the mountains of God;
Your judgments are like a great deep.
O Lord, You preserve man and beast.
7How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God!
And the children of men take refuge in the shadow of Your wings.
8They drink their fill of the abundance of Your house;
And You give them to drink of the river of Your delights.
9For with You is the fountain of life;
In Your light we see light.
Psa 36:5-9 This strophe describes YHWH’s character and actions toward His people. As the rebel chose and lived in light of his/her choices, so too, the faithful followers must continue to respond to YHWH’s love.
1. YHWH is described as, Psa 36:5-6
a. lovingkindness (BDB 338, i.e., covenant loyalty, see SPECIAL TOPIC: LOVINGKINDNESS (HESED)
b. faithfulness (BDB 53, see SPECIAL TOPIC: Believe, Trust, Faith, and Faithfulness in the Old Testament )
c. righteousness (BDB 842, see SPECIAL TOPIC: RIGHTEOUSNESS )
d. judgments (BDB 1048, see SPECIAL TOPIC: JUDGE, JUDGMENT, and JUSTICE )
These are four powerful, recurrent attributes of YHWH. They characterize His dealings with humans. In light of these attributes humans and all life on this planet is preserved (BDB 446, KB 448, Hiphil imperfects). Elohim created and sustains this planet, its people, its animals, and its plant life (see SPECIAL TOPIC: NAMES FOR DEITY ).
2. Faithful followers
a. take refuge in the shadow of Your wings (see SPECIAL TOPIC: SHADOW AS METAPHOR FOR PROTECTION AND CARE )
b. drink their fill of the abundance of Your house (see Contextual Insights, D or note at Psa 36:8)
c. have Your house as
(1) the fountain of life, cf. Jer 2:13; Jer 17:13
(2) light (i.e., truth, health, joy, cf. Psa 18:28; Psa 27:1)
Psa 36:7 O God! And the children of men It is possible that God (Elohim) here should/could refer to leaders, because it seems to parallel man and beasts (i.e., a category of two) in Psa 36:6 c. If so, then the two categories of humans referred to must be
1. leaders (i.e., judges in Exo 21:6; Psa 82:6 or leaders in Psa 29:1; Psa 58:1)
2. those led
NEB, REB, TEV, and AB footnote have Gods and men.
Psa 36:8 Your house In this context it does not refer to the temple but a recreated Eden (i.e., delight, BDB 726, Psa 36:8 b) or eschatological setting (i.e., new age, cf. Psa 46:4; Eze 47:1-12; Joe 3:18; Rev 22:1-2).
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
mercy = lovingkindness, or grace (as in Psa 36:7).
LORD. Hebrew. Jehovah. App-4. mountains: i.e. great and mighty.
Thy judgments = And Thy just decrees. The “And” was cancelled by the Massorites (see the Babylonian Talmud Nedarim, 37b-38a). Ginsburg Int. (pp. 307-8).
LORD = Jehovah, because of preservation, which is more than creation. See App-4.
man. Hebrew. ‘adam. App-14.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Psa 36:5-9
Psa 36:5-9
THE LOVINGKINDNESS OF GOD
“Thy lovingkindness, O Jehovah, is in the heavens;
Thy faithfulness reaches unto the skies.
Thy righteousness is like the mountains of God;
Thy judgments are a great deep:
O Jehovah, thou preservest man and beast.
How precious is thy lovingkindness, O God!
And the children of men take refuge under the shadow of thy wings.
They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house;
And thou wilt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures.
For with thee is the fountain of life:
In thy light shall we see light.”
“Thy faithfulness reaches unto the skies” (Psa 36:5). No matter how depraved and wicked men may be, the contrasting glory of God is here set over against it. “God’s covenant faithfulness is seen everywhere on earth and also towers into the very heavens.
“Thy faithfulness” (Psa 36:5) “… thy righteousness” (Psa 36:6). “The righteousness of God is here distinguished from his faithfulness. His faithfulness is governed by his promises, and his righteousness is determined by his holiness.
“Thou preserveth man and beast” (Psa 36:6). “There is not a man nor a beast in the whole earth that is uncared for by the Lord. Jesus himself taught the same thing, declaring with reference to sparrows, “That not one of them is forgotten in the sight of God” (Luk 12:6).
“Mountains of God … a great deep” (Psa 36:6). “In these verses, all that is infinite, sublime, and unfathomable in nature is made emblematic of the perfections of Jehovah.
Note also in these verses that (1) God takes care of his Covenant people; (2) he cares for man and beast; and (3) he is the God of “all men,” not merely of the Jews. This is powerfully indicated in the next verse.
“How precious is thy lovingkindness, O God! And the children of men take refuge under the shadow of thy wings” (Psa 36:7). The word here rendered God is [~’Elohiym], the God of all men. In passages where his relationship to the Covenant people is considered, Jehovah is used. Although sometimes used interchangeably, there is often a special reason for the choice of one or the other. As Leupold said, “God is here most appropriately designated as [~’Elohiym], because he is regarded as the Father of all the children of men, and not Israel’s only.
“They shall be satisfied … and … drink of the river of thy pleasures” (Psa 36:8). “The word here rendered `pleasures’ (`delights’ in the KJV) comes from the same root as the word Eden, the Paradise of God. The meaning is that God’s people shall have an abundance of all joys and satisfactions, suggestive of the very Garden of Eden itself.
“In thy light shall we see light” (Psa 36:9). What a shame that the world rushes on in the gathering shadows, still neglecting its only true source of light. Christ is “The Light of the World.” In his light, that is, in the light of God’s Word, men may see light. Otherwise, they shall continue to stumble and grope their way in the darkness.
“These words reveal a highly spiritual conception of the nature of man’s fellowship with God, anticipating some of the loftiest teachings of the New Testament. “In him (Christ) was life, and this life was the light of men” (Joh 1:4). “This is one of the most spiritual pictures of God in the whole Psalter.”
E.M. Zerr:
Psa 36:5. Heavens and clouds are used to indicate the extent of God’s mercy and faithfulness. There is no limit to the mercy of God on his part. Man limits it by his refusal to meet the terms on which divine mercy is offered. Psa 36:6. In a number of verses the psalmist expressed his adoration for the qualities of the Lord by some comparisons. He used some of the things of the material creation for his figures. A mountain is lofty and great, and the sea has great depth; so is the goodness of God. Both man and beast owe their existence to the preserving might of their Creator.
Psa 36:7. Strong defines the original word for excellent by “valuable.” The term, then, means something more than a mere sentiment. When God extends his kindness to the children of men, they receive something that is of actual assistance in life.
Psa 36:8. Fatness literally means richness, and when used figuratively means that rich blessings are to be had in the house of the Lord. A river is abundant in volume, continuous in supply, pure in quality. For these reasons it is used to compare the pleasures flowing from the throne of God. (Rev 22:1.)
Psa 36:9. A fountain has about the same meaning as a river when used as an illustration. It is continuous and bountiful. The light that comes from God is infinite, yet it is adapted to the needs of man, shedding light across his pathway.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
God of Nature and God of Grace
Thy lovingkindness, O Lord, is in the heavens;
Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the skies.
Thy righteousness is like the mountains of God;
Thy judgements are a great deep.Psa 36:5-6.
The landscape from which the Psalmist has borrowed his lessons in all probability lay beside him while he mused. We imagine him at the time a fugitive from Saul. He is hid in some desert-retreat, with the everlasting hills round about him, and the gleams and the shadows of a summer noon overhead. He had been cast out from the comforts of an earthly home, but God was his dwelling-place and his refuge. Hunt him as men might, they could not drive him where Jehovahs righteousness did not environ him, and the wings of His lovingkindness stretch to shadow and protect. Out there, amidst the silence and restfulness of nature, Gods breath was about him to cool and to strengthen, and His voice spoke comfort and peace. So the Psalmist speaks little of himself. He mentions his trials and perils only for the sake of dismissing them. From the wickedness and the craft of men he is fain to turn to the goodness and the faithfulness of God, of which all things around were eloquent.
I was struck with the fact that Scripture is adapted to every land, on Sunday week, as I sat in the little English Church at Zermatt, right under the shadow of the gigantic Matterhorn, and read such passages as these on its walls: Ye frost and cold, bless ye the Lord, praise Him and magnify Him for ever. Ye mountains and hills, bless ye the Lord, praise Him and magnify Him for ever. And as day after day I moved about in a land where in every direction the eye rested on gigantic peaks, whose crests were often lost in the clouds, these words were ever rising in my mind: Thy righteousness is like the mountains of God.1 [Note: W. Garrett Horder.]
I
The Lovingkindness of God
Thy lovingkindness, O Lord, is in the heavens.
The mercy or lovingkindness of which the Psalmist speaks is very nearly equivalent to the New Testament grace. Both mean substantially thisactive love communicating itself to creatures who are inferior, and who might have expected something else to befall them. Mercy is a modification of love, inasmuch as it is love to an inferior. The hand is laid gently upon the man, because if it were laid with all its weight it would crush him. It is the stooping goodness of a king to a beggar. And mercy is likewise love in its exercise to persons that might expect something else, being guilty. As a general coming to a body of mutineers with pardon and favour upon his lips, instead of with condemnation and death, so God comes to us forgiving and blessing. All His goodness is forbearance, and His love is mercy, because of the weakness, the lowliness, and the ill desert of us on whom the love falls.
1. As the heavens are high above the earth, so Gods lovingkindness evermore transcends man. Far above the towers that mens hands have reared, the waves that the tempests uplift, the peaks that the earth has heaved, the heaven stretches its distant curtain, embracing but surmounting them all. And so with the mercy of our God. It is the one all-enfolding, all-transcending fact in Gods moral universe, lifting itself far above the region of human experience and analogy. It is high; we cannot attain to it. It is far above mans mercies, for our goodness extendeth not to Gods, and while greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends, God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. It is far above mans deserts, for we are not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth which He showeth to His servants. It is far above mans sins, for high as he has heaved the mountains of his provocations, Gods mercy can transcend the loftiest. It is far above mans prayers and conceptions, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are His ways higher than our ways, and His thoughts than our thoughts, and He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think.
Great God! I stood beneath the skies one night,
When all Thy stars were out, serene and clear,
And tried to think of Thee, and feel Thee near,
When, suddenly, a sense of all Thy might,
Thy times to come, Thy wonders out of sight,
Struck chill on memy spirit reeled for fear;
Scarce certain of the ground I stand on here,
I shrank abased beneath Thy awful height;
When soft as dew, a word of Holy Writ
Fell on my troubled mind; Thy mercy, Lord,
Is greater than the heavensthen all above,
Around, beneath, took comfort from the word;
For twas as if the heavens were newly lit
With their best, brightest starthe Star of Love.
2. Like the face of the summer sky, the lovingkindness of God is unalterable. The earth which the sky overshadows has seen many mutations. Surely the mountain falling cometh to nought, and the rock is removed out of its place. The waters wear the stones; thou washest away the things that grow out of the dust of the earth. Rivers have altered their courses. The sea has shifted its ancient bounds. Forests have sunk in swamps. Empires have risen and fallen. The grass rustles and the lizards bask by the broken columns of cities that pulsed with the interests and sounded with the traffic of busy men. Generation after generation has come and gone, and the place that knew them once knows them no more for ever. Beneath there is nothing but flux, restlessness, change. But the sky has looked down on it all, serene and unvarying, amidst all the overturning and mutations of the countless years. Time writes no wrinkles on its steadfast blue. Orion hangs his glittering sword, and the Pleiades weave their mystic braids, just as they did for Isaac when he went forth to the field to meditate at the eventide; for Abraham when God took him out from his tent, and bade him look up to heaven with the promise of a seed that should be as the stars of heaven for multitude; for Adam when the first day faded over him, and the glories of the night revealed themselves amidst the balm and the silences of an unstained Eden. So with the mercy of God. All down the ages His covenant has stood, ordered in all things and sure amidst all changes, free from variableness or any shadow of turning. As the heavens that were formed of old continue unto this day according to Gods ordinance, so does the word that is settled there.
Miss R. having told Dr. Duncan that a young man had said at a meeting that there was not mercy in God from everlastingthere could not be mercy till there was misery, he said, God is unchangeable; mercy is an attribute of God. The man is confounding mercy with the exercise of mercy. There could not be the exercise of mercy till there was misery; but God was always a merciful God. You might as well say that there could not be justice in God till there were creatures towards whom to exercise punitive justice.1 [Note: David Brown, Memoir of John Duncan, 422.]
3. Like the canopy of heaven, the lovingkindness of God is all-embracing. The noblest scenes of earth, it has been said, can be seen and known but by few; it is not intended that man should live always in the midst of them; he injures them by his presence, he ceases to feel them if he be always with them. But the sky is for all. Bright as it is, it is not too bright or good for human natures daily food. It is fitted in all its functions for the perpetual comfort and exaltation of the heart. No rough hand can sully the clear blue vault above, as it unfolds its splendour and dispenses its blessings for a worldful at once, and that without money or price. Be your dwelling-place on the bleakest and dreariest swamp, without a tree or a hill to diversify its surface, you have still overhead a picture of loveliness and of mystery as often as you choose to look up. Thread the narrowest thoroughfare of a crowded town, and far above the filth and squalor, between the eaves of the tall and tottering tenements that enclose you, there are strips of clear blue sky, reminding you that, whatever be the restlessness, the sorrow, and the vice below, there is nothing above but beauty, purity, and peace. So again with the mercy of our God; it is exceeding broad. It is the attribute of all attributes that is ever engirdling and overshadowing us, making its existence known through a thousand channels, in a thousand ways. Mercy is the very sphere in which we live and move; it is swift as the light of heaven, near to us as its circling breaths. And it is just as free. Rich and poor, high and low, all have alike a share in it. And as it is the gift of God to all, so is it the gift of God to all in all circumstances, throughout every change of their changing lives.
The Doctor must keep his temper: this is often worse to manage than even his time, there is so much unreason, and ingratitude, and peevishness, and impertinence, and impatience, that it is very hard to keep ones tongue and eye from being angry; and sometimes the Doctor does not only well, but the best when he is downrightly angry, and astonishes some fool, or some insolent, or some untruth doing or saying patient; but the Doctor should be patient with his patients, he should bear with them, knowing how much they are at the moment suffering. Let us remember Him who is full of compassion, whose compassion never fails; whose tender mercies are new to us every morning, as His faithfulness is every night; who healed all manner of diseases, and was kind to the unthankful and the evil; what would become of us, if He were as impatient with us as we often are with each other? If you want to be impressed with the Almightys infinite loving-kindness and tender mercy, His forbearance, His long-suffering patience, His slowness to anger, His Divine ingeniousness in trying to find it possible to spare and save, think of the Israelites in the desert, and read the chapter where Abraham intercedes with God for Sodom, and these wonderful peradventures.1 [Note: Dr. John Brown, Hor Subseciv, ii. 35 (appendix).]
My fear is not of expanding, but of contradicting, the Gospel which we are sent to preach; not of seeing too strong a testimony in the Bible to the will of Him in whom is light and no darkness at all, but of limiting its testimonies to meet my narrow conceptions; not of exaggerating the duty of the Church to be a witness against all hard and cruel conceptions of our Father in Heaven, which lead to a confusion between Him and the Spirit of Evil, but of not perceiving how manifold are the ways in which that duty should be fulfilled. I am sure that if the Gospel is not regarded as a message to all mankind of the redemption which God has effected in His Son; if the Bible is thought to be speaking only of a world to come, and not of a Kingdom of Righteousness and Peace and Truth with which we may be in conformity or in enmity now; if the Church is not felt to be the hallower of all professions and occupations, the bond of all classes, the instrument of reforming abuses, the admonisher of the rich the friend of the poor, the asserter of the glory of that humanity which Christ bearswe are to blame, and God will call us to account as unfaithful stewards of His treasures.1 [Note: Life of Frederick Denison Maurice, ii. 227.]
II
The Faithfulness of God
Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the skies.
Gods faithfulness is in its narrowest sense His adherence to His promises. It implies, in that sense, a verbal revelation, and definite words from Him, pledging Him to a certain line of action. He hath said, and shall He not do it? He will not alter the thing that is gone out of His lips. It is only a God who has actually spoken to men that can be a faithful God. He will not palter with a double sense, keeping His word of promise to the ear, and breaking it to the hope. And not only His articulate promises, but also His own past actions, bind Him. He is always true to these; and not only continues to do as He has done, but discharges every obligation which His past imposes on Him. The ostrich was said to leave its eggs to be hatched in the sand. Men bring men into positions of dependence, and then lightly shake responsibility from careless shoulders. But God accepts the cares laid upon Him by His own acts, and discharges them to the last jot. He is a faithful Creator. Creation brings obligations with itobligations on the creature, obligations on the Creator. If God makes a being, God is bound to take care of the being that He has made. If He makes a being in a given fashion, He is bound to provide for the necessities that He has created. According to the old proverb, if He makes mouths it is His business to feed them. And He recognizes the obligation. His past binds Him to certain conduct in His future. We can lay hold on the former manifestation, and we can plead it with Him. Thou hast been, and therefore Thou must be. Thou hast taught me to trust in Thee; vindicate and warrant my trust by Thy unchangeableness. So His word, His acts, and His own nature, bind God to bless and help. His faithfulness is the expression of His unchangeableness. Because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself.
I believe that love and righteousness and justice in God mean exactly the same thing, namely, a desire to bring His whole moral creation into a participation of His own character and His own blessedness. He has made us capable of this, and He will not cease from using the best means for accomplishing it in us all. When I think of God making a creature of such capacities, it seems to me almost blasphemous to suppose that He will throw it from Him into everlasting darkness, because it has resisted His gracious purposes towards it for the natural period of human life. No, He who waited so long for the formation of a piece of old red sandstone will surely wait with much long-suffering for the perfecting of a human spirit.1 [Note: Letters of Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, ii. 242.]
1. The faithfulness of God reaches to the clouds of sin and remorse.Think of David after his terrible fall. The clouds gathered round him then as they never gathered before. As he had sowed, so he was reaping; and no sufferings are so terrible or so testing as the sufferings that are the obvious outcome and natural retribution of a mans own follies and crimes. What of the darkness that envelops him thenwhen the sword that he had lifted against Uriah was turned against himself, and he experienced in the sins of his family the reproduction of his own, to the overshadowing and embitterment of his later years? Youth gone from him, his spirit crusheddoes the man lose his hope and let go his hold on the promise of a truth-keeping God? Behind clouds such as these, does he fail to grasp and to cling to the faithfulness he spoke of in the years long gone by? Listen: Although my house be not so with God; yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire, though he make it not to grow. Yes, whom God loves He loves throughout, and He loves to the end.
A friend once showed an artist a costly handkerchief on which a blot of ink had been made. Nothing can be done with it now, it is absolutely worthless. The artist made no reply, but carried it away with him. After a time he sent it back, to the great surprise of his friend, who could scarcely recognize it. In a most skilful and artistic way he had made a fine design in India ink, using the blot as a basis, making the handkerchief more valuable than ever. A blotted life is not necessarily a useless life. Jesus can make a life beautiful though it has been marred by sin.1 [Note: Twentieth Century Pastor, xxviii. (1911) 252.]
2. The faithfulness of God reaches to the clouds of trouble.God has hid His Church ere this in the mountain mists and in the deep places of the earth, till they were dead or vanished that sought its life.
You remember the story of the godly family whose home lay across the track a returning army was expected to follow, when flushed with victory and athirst for rapine and blood. Be a wall of fire unto us, O God, was the prayer which the father put up as he knelt at the household altar ere retiring for the night, and having thus committed himself and his circle to the hands of a preserving God, he and they together laid them down in peace, and took their quiet rest, knowing who it was that made them dwell in safety. The night-watches hastened on, morning came, and the family awoke. All was unwontedly dark and still when they rose. There was no light from chink or from window, nor sound of stirring life around. Noiselessly, and all unseen, the hand whose protection they craved stole forth from the wintry heavens, not, indeed, in the shape of a wall of fire, but in something as sufficient and safein wreath upon wreath of driven snow. Meanwhile the foe had passed by, and had gone on his way, and those whom he threatened breathed freely, for they knew that their tabernacle was at peace.2 [Note: W. A. Gray, The Shadow of the Hand, 15.]
III
The Righteousness of God
Thy righteousness is like the mountains of God.
1. The idea in the mind of the Psalmist was that the righteousness of Jehovah is fixed and unchangeable. Mens ideas of righteousness may change. Those of one age may differ from those of another; one land may have a different standard from that of another. But in spite of this there is an everlasting, an unchanging righteousness in God. Nothing in this world so impresses the mind with the idea of unchangeableness as the great mountains. The dwellings of men in the valleys are ever undergoing change; at every visit something new strikes onethe fields which men cultivate produce their different crops, the forests on the mountain sides grow denser and taller, the rivers alter their course, even the sea is restless, now receding from and now encroaching on the land; but the great mountains seem to be lifted to a realm beyond change. The snow upon them, it is true, is ever melting; the glaciers between them are ever moving, but the granite rock beneath seems ever the same. The generations of men who dwell beneath them live their little life and pass away; year after year new and wondering eyes look up to these mountains, but there they stand, the most impressive symbol of permanence in a world of change.
(1) The mountains are stable and permanent.The mountains were thought to be the most ancient parts of the earth, the framework on which the Great Architect of the Universe had builded; next the earth generally; and then the world, or, in the Hebrew sense, the fruitful, habitable part of the earth. So in the Athanasian Creed, The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal. Eternal and changelessly the same throughout eternity, and therefore we do not read, Thou wast God from everlasting, or, Thou wilt be God world without end; but, Thou art God, the same past, present, and to come. As we look up to-day, so have the successive generations of men lifted up their eyes to the mountains that speak to each of an unimaginable and almost limitless past.
Stand at the mountains foot and look up at its high head, and remember how it has braved many a storm which hissed itself out of breath over it, and it still remains to-day scarred like a veteran, it is true, but yet proud and firm on the victorious field.
His proud head the airy mountain hides
Among the clouds; his shoulders and his sides
A shady mantle clothes; his curling brows
Frown on the gentle stream, which calmly flows;
While winds and storms his lofty forehead beat,
The common fate of all thats high and great.
It was not yesterday that it was reared; it will not fall to-morrow; but it has seen generation after generation come and go, with all their faith and fear, their love and lust, their weal and woe; and to-day it looks down upon another race which trusts and trembles, sins and sorrows, loves and laughs, as though they were the first that mountain ever looked upon. Oh! if it could only speak, it would tell us how the actors constantly change on the stage of Time; that the play, now tragic, now comic, oftenest commonplace, is always the same, and that it has seen it acted over and over again; and yet it looks on with no tired look. Whenever you see the mountain, you see that which is very old, and that which is very young. The signs of its age are also the symbols of its youth. It transmutes the furrows of its old age into the dimples of childhoods laughter. Perpetual youth is the prerogative of the old mountain. It lasts, lives on
Eternal pyramids, built not with hands,
From linked foundations that deep-hidden lie,
Ye rise apart, and each a wonder stands!
Your marble peaks, which pierce the clouds so high,
Seem holding up the curtain of the sky;
And there, sublime and solemn, have ye stood,
While crumbling Time, oer-awed, passed reverent by,
Since Natures resurrection from the flood,
Since earth, new born, again received Gods plaudit, Good!
How many races have ye seen descend
Into Times grave, the lowly with the great;
How many kingdoms seen asunder rend,
How many empires fall, how many centuries end?1 [Note: J. A. Davies, Seven Words of Love, 168.]
(2) The righteousness of God is more permanent than the mountains.Though the mountains seem as if they did not change, yet they do change. The atmospheric influences which play upon them do alter them, though the alteration may be imperceptible to men who can observe them only for a few brief years. But absolutely without change is the righteousness of God. How is Gods righteousness shown? Most of all in His kindness. And so Isaiah says, For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my righteousness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee. There is one thing in this universe of change which is absolutely without change, and that is the eternal righteousness: I the Lord change not; therefore ye, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed. Here is a resting-place for our souls. In this world nothing abides in one stage. We move from childhood to youth, from youth to manhood, from manhood to old age, from old age to the unseen world, but God changes not. We pass into new relationships, from being children to being parents, from having to serve to having to govern, from the active government of manhood to the quiescent stage of old age; friends drop from our side, old bonds are broken, new bonds are formed; but in the midst of this sea of change, where the waters are ever in movement, now receding, now advancing, there is a rock which abidesthe righteousness of God. There is one point on which the eye can rest. There is one spot on which the foot can be planted. There is one place of anchorage for the soulthe rightousness of God.
Geologists tell us that these giants of Bernese mountains are but a third now of their original height, and we know how, to quote Ruskin, The hills, which, as compared with human beings, seem everlasting, are in truth as perishing as they, their veins of flowing fountain weary the mountain heart, as the common pulse does ours; the natural force of the iron crag is abated in its appointed time, like the strength of the sinews in a human old age; and it is but the lapse of the larger years of decay which, in the sight of the Creator, distinguishes the mountain range from the moth and the worm. Yet God and His attributes, and even His relations to man, remain unchanged, and from this treasury Isaiah picks out the two jewels of kindness and peace for our thankful contemplation.1 [Note: J. W. Horsley, in The Church Times, July 28, 1911.]
Arthur Clough, whose early death prevented him from becoming the foremost poet of the age, and who passed through many spiritual vicissitudes, felt and expressed this in his noble lines:
It fortifies my soul to know
That, though I perish, Truth is so:
That, howsoeer I stray and range,
Whateer I do, Thou dost not change.
I steadier step when I recall
That, if I slip, Thou dost not fall.2 [Note: W. Garrett Horder.]
2. The righteousness of God is like the great mountains in its power to inspire awe, wonder, and reverence. The great height of mountains, the vastness of their bulk, and their far-reaching extent overawe the spectator, and dwarf him into insignificance in their presence. Their dark and frowning crags, their awful chasms, and their mysterious yet gigantic forms shut his lips in silent awe, and chasten his thoughtless spirit into seriousness and reflection. If they should fall upon him he is crushed like an insect by the foot. A thunder-storm among the mountains is an awful thing. Once experienced, it will never be forgotten. The Law of Moses was fitly given amid thunderings and lightnings and a great earthquake among the mountains of Sinai. Like the great mountains the righteousness of God is an awful thing. When we are first convinced of sin and stand in the presence of God we tremble and cry out for fear.
So Christian turned out of his way to go to Mr. Legalitys House for help: but behold, when he was got now hard by the Hill, it seemed so high, and also that side of it that was next the wayside, did hang so much over, that Christian was afraid to venture further, lest the Hill should fall on his Head; wherefore there he stood still; and wotted not what to do. Also his burden now seemed heavier to him than while he was in his way. There came also flashes of fire out of the Hill that made Christian afraid that he should be burned: here therefore he sweat, and did quake for fear.1 [Note: Bunyan, Pilgrims Progress (Cambridge edition), 152.]
(1) The real greatness of the mountains appears only as we approach them. We look up at them from the valleys and fancy that an hours climb will bring us to their summit. It seems as if we could shoot an arrow to the top; but we begin to climb, and as we climb they seem to lift their heads higher and higher. And so it is with the righteousness of God. Until we begin to strive after it, it seems within easy reach; it is only when we begin the long ascent that its height is really felt, and the higher we go the loftier does it appear. The man who has climbed highest in the way of righteousness knows best how great is the distance he has yet to climb. Indeed, to the man who has not begun to strive after righteousness, it seems most easy of attainment. It seems to him far easier to be righteous than to be learned, or muscular, or inventive. He stands more amazed at some great work of art, or literature, or mechanical contrivance than at the sight of righteousness in man. And why? The one can be apprehended by the eye and the other can be apprehended only by the heart, and his heart has not been trained by the pursuit of righteousness to appreciate its glory. Righteousness is only spiritually discerned. It cannot be seen by the eye, or heard by the ear, or felt by the hand. It needs a deeper faculty. The delicate, subtle fancy of poetry, or the grace of art, or the exquisite suggestiveness of the noblest music is not discerned by the uncultured. Preparation is needed before any of these can be discerned. And the beauty of holiness, which is only another name for righteousness, is not revealed save to those who, by striving after it, have realized the difficulty and glory of its attainment. Only those who have begun to walk in the way of righteousness know how lofty, how far off, how difficult to reach, is the position to which the great Master, Christ, calls us when He says, Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
About ten days ago we started from the valley of Zermatt, which is itself some thousands of feet above the level of the sea, and for nearly five hours were climbing up to the well-known Gorner Gratz, and when we reached it, the Matterhorn, instead of seeming nearer, positively seemed farther off, the distance to the summit appeared greater. When we were in the valley the lower mountains around its base seemed to lessen the distance, and only when these were scaled could we realize its awful height.1 [Note: W. Garrett Horder.]
(2) The summits of the mountains are clearly revealed only as the sun lifts the clouds. And so it is with the righteousness of God. Clouds and darkness are round about Him, until Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, arises, and brings Him into view. Before, all was mystery and gloom to men. Their eyes could not pierce the cloud. They feared as they entered therein. But on the mystery Christ threw His revealing light, so that the clouds were lifted and all stood out in startling clearness. And then men began to realize that the righteousness which seemed so repellent was but the vesture of love; nay, that there could not be any real righteousness unless, at its very heart, there was the fire of love; just as there could not be any verdure or beauty on the earth but for the central core of fire within.
I stand upon the mount of God,
With sunlight in my soul;
I hear the storms in vales beneath,
I hear the thunders roll.
But I am calm with Thee, my God,
Beneath these glorious skies;
And to the height on which I stand
Nor storms nor clouds can rise.
Oh, this is life! Oh, this is joy!
My God, to find Thee so!
Thy face to see, Thy voice to hear,
And all Thy love to know.
3. Mountain chains have been a refuge for the oppressed in all ages. Liberty, bruised and broken on the level plain, has fled into the mountain ranges and there has found a refuge. Out of the level plains of Egypt Israel escapes and finds its life in the rocky ranges of Mount Horeb. In the mountains of Palestine the Israelites escape from Moabitish hosts on the east of them and the Philistine hosts on the south of them. In the mountain caves of En-gedi David hides from the persecuting hosts of Saul. In the mountains Greece finds its escape from the overwhelming Persian hosts. In the mountains of Switzerland liberty is cradled, while all over Europe despotism is triumphant. In the mountains of Northern Italy the Waldenses keep alive the Protestant religion before Protestantism has been born.
We are not accustomed to think that God is a refuge because of His righteousness. We rather, perhaps, think His righteousness closes His heart to us in our sinfulness. Perhaps we will say that a good man, a benevolent man, a merciful man, will serve as a refuge to us in our hour of need, but not a man strong in his righteousness. And yet, if we will consider a little, it is not the righteousness, it is the unrighteousness, of men that makes them unmerciful and therefore repellent. One man repels another, not because the first man is too righteous to have mercy, but because he is not righteous enough. The men that are fighting scepticism are half sceptics. The man who only half believes is at enmity with the man who does not believe at all, because he is in perpetual fear lest his half-belief shall be taken away from him; but he who is anchored, by a chain that cannot be broken, to the eternal verities has no fear, and therefore has a heart open to all argument and all reasons, and considers them with patience and gentleness. So it is a dormant sense of unrighteousness in us that makes us afraid of the unrighteous.
In that marvellous story, Hawthornes Marble Faun, when Miriam has fallen into a great sin and comes to Hilda, and Hilda will not receive her because of that sin, bidding her not come nearer, and Miriam cries, Because I have sinned I need your friendship the more, Hilda replies, If I were one of Gods angels, incapable of stain, I would keep ever at your side and try to lead you upward. But I am a poor, lonely girl, and God has given me my purity, and told me to take it back to Him unstained, and I dare not associate with the criminal lest I carry back to Him a stained and spotted garment. It is the consciousness of a dormant impurity in the pure Hilda that makes her dread to receive to her heart the impure as her companion. It is not Hildas perfection of righteousness, it is her imperfection, that makes her fail as a refuge to poor, sinful, despairing Miriam. Now, Gods righteousness is of the kind that never can be harmed.1 [Note: Lyman Abbott.]
IV
The Judgments of God
Thy judgements are a great deep.
By judgments are not meant merely the acts of Gods punitive righteousness, the retributions that destroy evil-doers, but all Gods decisions and acts in regard to man. Or, to put it into other and briefer words, Gods judgments are the whole of the ways, the methods of the Divine government. So St. Paul, alluding to this very passage, when he says, How unsearchable are his judgments, adds, as a parallel clause, meaning the same thing, and thy ways past finding out. That includes all that men call, in a narrower sense, judgments; but it includes, too, all acts of kindness and loving gifts. Gods judgments are the expressions of His thoughts, and these thoughts are thoughts of good and not of evil.
Perhaps it was the great and wide sea that the Psalmist thought of while he spokethe secret of whose depths only Omniscience could see, the noise of whose billows only Omnipotence could still. Or perhaps it was some land-locked lake, on whose shining surface he looked down, as it crisped with the breezes or slept in the calms of a long summer day. But in either case, the picture yields a ready lesson: Thy judgments, he says, are a great deep. It is the one touch that is needed to enhance the description; for what were mercy, faithfulness, and righteousness, without infinite wisdom to plan and direct the whole? But this wisdom is evermore a great deep, unsearchable and unfathomable, whether it lies in the heart of God as His purpose, or in the word of God as His statutes, or in the ways of God as His Providence. Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
1. The deep means mystery. We cannot escape the mystery in life, it is true, just as we cannot explore all oceans secrets. But it is not wisdom to think we have touched bottom because the plummet ceases to descend. The plumb line slackens in our hands. But that may mean only that life is too deep for our pessimists soundings, which have never gone deeper than the shifting surface tides. What is the obscurity of the sea? Not that which comes from mud, or anything added, but that which comes from depth. As far as a man can see down into its blue-green depths they are clear and translucent; but when the light fails and the eye fails, there comes what we call obscurity. The sea is clear, but our sight is limited.
Here towers Vesuvius; there at its feet lie the waters of the bay. So the Righteousness springs up like some great cliff, rising sheer from the waters edge, while its feet are laved by the sea of the Divine judgments, unfathomable and shoreless. The mountains and the sea are the two grandest things in nature, and in their combination sublime; the one the home of calm and silence, the other perpetual motion. But the mountains roots are deeper than the depths of the sea, and though the judgments are a mighty deep, the righteousness is deeper, and is the bed of the ocean.1 [Note: A. Maclaren.]
2. The righteousness of God is seen in His judgments. In Gods nature the mountain height answers back to the sea deep; the great deep of judgment reflects the mountain summits of righteousness in its clear calm. We need to remember this great truth of the unity of Gods purpose in the world; for the age which disputes most passionately the justice of Gods judgments is the age which most completely ignores or opposes His commands. A man on the cliff can look much deeper into the ocean than a man on the level beach. The farther we climb the farther we shall see down into the sea of glass mingled with fire that lies placid before Gods throne. Let us remember that it is a hazardous thing to judge of a picture before it is finished, of a building before the scaffolding is pulled down; and it is a hazardous thing for us to say about any deed or any revealed truth that it is inconsistent with the Divine character. Let us wait a bit! Thy judgments are a great deep. The deep will be drained off one day, and we shall see the bottom of it. Let us judge nothing before the time.
If we believe in the Father and His good purpose towards us, what we require of affliction and of suffering, what we have a right to require, is this, that it should be felt to be helping us and purifying us. God gives us a natural sense of justice, implanting it deep in our hearts; and it is through this sense of justice that all the best victories of humanity have been won. The Father cannot have it in His heart that we should merely be crushed and silenced by our punishment; that we should submit, simply because there is no way out, as a little bird submits to be torn by a hawk. If our submission is like that, it is worth nothing; it only plunges our spirit in deeper darkness.2 [Note: A. C. Benson, Thy Rod and Thy Staff, 106.]
One night when I was recently crossing the Atlantic, an officer of our boat told me that we had just passed over the spot where the Titanic went down. And I thought of all that life and wreckage beyond the power of man to recover and redeem. And I thought of the great bed of the deep sea, with all its held treasure, too far down for man to reach and restore. Too far down! And then I thought of all the human wreckage engulfed and sunk in oceanic depths of nameless sin. Too far gone! For what? Too far down! For what? Not too far down for the love of God! Listen to this: He descended into hell, and He will descend again if you are there. If I make my bed in hell, thou art there. Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. He bore our sin; then He got beneath it; down to it and beneath it; and there is no human wreckage lying in the ooze of the deepest sea of iniquity that His deep love cannot reach and redeem. What a Gospel! However far down, Gods love can get beneath it!1 [Note: J. H. Jowett, Things That Matter Most (1913), 17.]
Literature
Davies (J. A.), Seven Words of Love, 165.
Dearden (H. W.), Parochial Sermons, 68.
Gray (W. A.), The Shadow of the Hand, 198.
Hanks (W. P.), The Eternal Witness, 142.
Maclaren (A.), A Years Ministry, ii. 211.
Christian World Pulpit, xxxiv. 188 (W. G. Horder); xl. 169 (L. Abbott); lxxv. 60 (E. E. Newell).
Church Times, July 28, 1911 (J. W. Horsley).
Preachers Magazine, vii. 439 (R. Brewin).
Twentieth Century Pastor, xxviii. (1911) 201 (J. E. Flower).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
mercy: Psa 52:1, Psa 57:10, Psa 103:11, Psa 108:4, Isa 55:7-9
faithfulness: Psa 89:2, Psa 92:2, Psa 100:5, Mat 24:35, Heb 6:18-20
Reciprocal: Gen 9:10 – General 2Ch 30:18 – The good Job 37:23 – in judgment Psa 8:1 – thy Psa 33:4 – all his Psa 59:16 – sing aloud Psa 71:19 – Thy righteousness Psa 89:1 – thy faithfulness Psa 97:6 – The heavens Psa 138:2 – and praise Psa 145:7 – abundantly Isa 55:9 – General Jer 9:24 – lovingkindness Lam 3:23 – great Dan 4:22 – thy greatness Act 14:17 – in that Rom 2:2 – judgment 1Co 10:13 – but 1Th 5:24 – Faithful
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Psa 36:5-6. Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens Where it reigns in perfection and to eternity; and from whence it is extended to the sinful and miserable children of men, who peculiarly need it And thy faithfulness The truth, both of thy threatenings against thine enemies, and of thy promises made to good men; reacheth unto the clouds Is far above our reach, greater and higher than we can apprehend it. As if he had said, Mine enemies are cruel and perfidious, but thou art infinite in mercy and faithfulness, and in righteousness and lovingkindness, as it here follows: and, therefore, though I despair of them, yet I trust in thee, as other men do for these reasons. Thy righteousness In all thy counsels and ways in the government of the world; is like the great mountains Steadfast and immoveable: eminent and conspicuous to all men. Thy judgments The executions of thy counsels, or the administration of the affairs of the world, and of thy church; are a great deep Unsearchable as the ocean. O Lord, thou preservest man and beast The worst of men, yea, even the brute beasts have experience of thy care and kindness, and therefore I have no reason to doubt of it.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
36:5 Thy {e} mercy, O LORD, [is] in the heavens; [and] thy faithfulness [reacheth] unto the clouds.
(e) Though wickedness seems to overflow all the world, yet by your heavenly providence you govern heaven and earth.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
2. Reflection concerning the Lord 36:5-9
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
David delighted in meditating on God’s attributes rather than disregarding Him. Instead of pushing God out of his worldview, the psalmist made Him the center of it. He gloried in God’s loyal love, faithfulness, righteousness, and justice.