But power may be whimsical, changeable, or may shroud its designs in mystery; therefore, if it is to be trusted, its purposes and methods must be so far known that a man may be able to reckon on it. Therefore the psalm adds unchangeable faithfulness to His power. But Power, however faithful, is not yet worthy of trust, unless it works according to righteousness, and has an arm that wars against wrong; therefore to creative might and plighted troth the psalmist adds the exercise of judgment. Nor are these enough, for the conception which they embody may be that of a somewhat stern and repellent Being, who may be reverenced, but not approached with the warm heart of trust; therefore the psalmist adds beneficence, which ministers their appropriate food to all desires, not only of the flesh, but of the spirit. The hungry hearts of men, who are all full of needs and longings, may turn to this mighty, faithful, righteous Jehovah, and be sure that He never sends mouths but He sends meat to fill them. All our various kinds of hunger are doors for God to come into our spirits.
The second series of sentences deals mainly with the Divine beneficence in regard to man's miseries. The psalmist does not feel that the existence of these sad varieties of sorrow clouds his assurance in God's goodness. To him, they are occasions for the most heart-touching display of God's pitying, healing hand. If there is any difference between the two sets of clauses descriptive of God's acts, the latter bring into clearer light His personal agency in each case of suffering. This mighty, faithful, righteous, beneficent Jehovah, in all the majesty which that name suggests, comes down to the multitude of burdened ones and graciously deals with each, having in His heart the knowledge of, and in His hand the remedy for, all their ills. The greatness of His nature expressed by His name is vividly contrasted with the tenderness and lowliness of His working. Captives, blind persons, and those bowed down by sorrows or otherwise appeal to Him by their helplessness, and His strong hand breaks the fetters, and His gentle touch opens without pain the closed eyes and quickens the paralysed nerve to respond to the light, and His firm, loving hold lifts to their feet and establishes the prostrate. All these classes of afflicted persons are meant to be regarded literally, but all may have a wider meaning, and be intended to hint at spiritual bondage, blindness, and abjectness.
The next clause (ver. 8c) seems to interrupt the representation of forms of affliction, but it comes in with great significance in the centre of that sad catalogue; for its presence here teaches that not merely affliction, whether physical or other, secures Jehovah's gracious help, but that there must be the yielding of heart to Him, and the effort at conformity of life with His precepts and pattern, if His aid is to be reckoned on in men's sorrows. The prisoners will still languish in chains, the blind will grope in darkness, the bowed down will lie prone in the dust, unless they are righteous.
The series of afflictions which God alleviates is resumed in ver. 9 with a pathetic triad—strangers, widows, and fatherless. These are forlorn indeed, and the depth of their desolation is the measure of the Divine compassion. The enumeration of Jehovah's acts, which make trust in God blessed in itself, and the sure way of securing help which is not vain, needs but one more touch for completion, and that is added in the solemn thought that He, by His providences and in the long run, turns aside (i.e. from its aim) the way of the wicked. That aspect of God's government is lightly handled in one clause, as befits the purpose of the psalm. But it could not be left out. A true likeness must have shadows. God were not a God for men to rely on, unless the trend of His reign was to crush evil and thwart the designs of sinners.
The blessedness of trust in Jehovah is gathered up into one great thought in the last verse of the psalm. The sovereignty of God to all generations suggests the swift disappearance of earthly princes, referred to in ver. 4. To trust in fleeting power is madness; to trust in the Eternal King is wisdom and blessedness, and in some sense makes him who trusts a sharer in the eternity of the God in whom is his hope, and from whom is his help.
[PSALM CXLVII.]
1 Hallelujah!
For it is good to harp unto our God,
For it is pleasant: praise is comely.
2 Jehovah is the builder up of Jerusalem,
The outcasts of Israel He gathers together;
3 The healer of the broken-hearted,
And He binds their wounds;
4 Counting a number for the stars,
He calls them all by names.
5 Great is our Lord and of vast might,
To His understanding there is no number.
6 Jehovah helps up the afflicted,
Laying low the wicked to the ground.
7 Sing to Jehovah with thanksgiving,
Harp to our God on the lyre,
8 Covering heaven with clouds,
Preparing rain for the earth;
Making the mountains shoot forth grass,
9 Giving to the beast its food,
To the brood of the raven which croak.
10 Not in the strength of the horse does He delight,
Not in the legs of a man does He take pleasure.
11 Jehovah takes pleasure in them that fear Him,
Them that wait for His loving-kindness.