Psalm CXLV
David’s Psalm of praise.
1 I WILL extol thee, my God, O King! and I will bless thy name for ever
and evei
2 Every day will I bless thee; and I will praise thy name for ever and ever.
3 Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable.
4 One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy ’
mighty acts.
5 I will speak of the glorious honour of thy majesty, and of thy wondrous
works.
6 And men shall speak of the might of thy terrible acts: and I will declare
thy greatness.
7 They shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness. And shall sing of thy righteousness.
8 The Lord is gracious, and full of compassion;
Slow to anger, and of great mercy.
9 The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.
10 All thy works shall praise thee, O Lord; and thy saints shall bless thee.
11 They shall speak of the glory of thy kingdom, and talk of thy power;
12 To make known to the sons of men his mighty acts. And the glorious majesty of his kingdom.
13 Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
And thy dominion endureth throughout all generations.
14 The Lord upholdeth all that fall, and raiseth up all those that be bowed
down.
15 The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due
season.
16 Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing.
17 The Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works.
18 The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon
him in truth.
19 He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him: He also will hear their cry, and will save them.
20 The Lord preserveth all them that love him:
But all the wicked will he destroy.
21 My mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord:
And let all flesh bless his holy name for ever and ever.
Ai, i.abetic The well-known 45th Psalm sang of the King in his beauty:
structui-e. °, ^. r T l 1
this 145th is a hymn of praise concerning the reign of Jehovah, and his kingdom. It is a Davidic and an alphabetic Psalm. In regard to its alphabetic stnicture, it has one peculiarity, viz., the “nun” is omitted; the reason of which may be, that (as we have seen in some other Psahns of this structure) by means of that, or some other such omission, we might be kept from putting stress on the mere form of the composition.
It is peculiar, also, in its title; indeed, quite unique — “Of The title. David; praise.” The word is n^HJl. Some render this “a hymn;” others, such as Hengstenberg, ^’ b. praise-song,” differing in this from the Thr, the ^’ prayer-song.” It is prayer turned into praise. Patrick remarks, that the term seemed so peculiar and excellent that it was given from this Psalm to the whole book, which is entitled by the Jews, the book of D^nri. Bythner has this note on the word — “So called because it is throughout nothing but the celebration of God; so that the ancient Jews used to say, that the man was already enjoying the felicity of the age to come who daily recited it three times with the mouth and heart,” We are getting now beyond the region of former themes; all in the remaining Psalms is praise, praise; and this title is an appropriate introduction to the closing group of praise-psalms. Nor is its burden less appropriate; for, being a song of the kingdom, it ushers us into the region of eternal praise.
It is a song for all saints. But we may say also. What a The speaker, song in the lips of Christ for the Father’s ear! What a song to soothe his own soul, when still “man of sorrows!” For the jDrospect is presented here of the kingdom made manifest, so that all see the glory of the Lord. It is a Psalm that gathers The theme. up much of the excellency of former Psalms; and so truly is the style of royalty and the manner of a kingdom in it, that we find, in after days, the writer of the Book of Esther using expressions regarding the king and kingdom of Media and Persia, that bear a striking resemblance to the terms employed by the Psalmist — only the one speaks of an earthly, and the other of the heavenly throne.
1. The harp extols Jehovah for what He is, in verses 1-3, Ti,ppian. “My God, 0 King!” — rather, “My God, who art The King.” It is much more emphatic than Psa. v. 8, “My God, and my King;” here he is sung of as the only King. We are reminded at once of Psa. xlv. 2, “My words concern the King.” Of this God and King the Psalmist sings, that he is unlike all idols.
He is self-existent, and infinite, and so the greatness of any of his perfections cannot be told. He is eternal and unchangeable; for he must be celebrated “For ever and ever.” And all this he is in his very being or essence, for he is “Jehovah.” All he does is so wisely done, that for all he is to be praised. And his deeds display such power! Righteous too, is He, and yet abounding in love, kindness, and grace.
“Yes, let me bless (^D■)2^i’l) name for ever and ever,” (comp. 1 Pet.
i. 3, &c.).” ““” Every day will I bless tJiee (comp. Psa. xix. 2); Yes, let me praise CrnbTM^’) — q- d., let me Hallelujah) thy name for
ever and ever!” Great is Jehovah; and OvTllJ) worthy to be praised!” (ver. 1-3.)
How many terms of adoration and honour! Praise, praise, is on his lips; the harp-strings will utter nothing but praise; for “of his greatness there is no searching out,” (comp. Job V. 9).
2. The harp extols the deeds that shew Jehovah’s name, in verses 4-6, or what He is.
“Generation to generation shall commend his works.
Yea, they shall declare his mighty acts.” (Ver. 4.)
Compare Psa. xix. 2, “day unto day” uttering the Lord’s praise in creation. But here it is both creation-works and redemption-wonders that are shewn; for nill cannot fail to remind us of the acts of Him who overthrew Israel’s foes, and of Him whose name is liHJ, “Mighty One” (Psa. xlv. 3), and “Mighty God,” (Isa. ix. 6). His mighty acts, in establishing his kingdom on earth upon the ruins of Antichrist’s dominion, shall form part of the theme. And that is the time when, in a special sense, the next clause shall be understood, though it may apply in some degree to his creation-works:
“Of the majesty of glory (which is), thy beauty. And of the chronicles of thy wondrous acts, let me speak.” (Ver. 5.)
O how his beauty shall burst forth when the King appears with his many crowns! And if Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, amid gorgeous splendour, suggested to his people to cry, “A god, not a man!” what shall creation feel at this sight? The Lord’s beauty, liH (a word applied to creature-beauty in Hos. xiv. 6, Zech. X. 8), is here emphatically exalted beyond comparison by the addition of “the glory of thy beauty;” aye, and “the majesty of the gloiy.” And then the “Chronicles 0^117) (rf t^V wondrous acts” is a term applied in 1 Chron. xxvii. 24, 1 Kings xi. 41, to the acts of Solomon and David, the journals or records made of their deeds; even as it is in Esther vi. 1, to the king of Persia. The terms all bear reference to royalty and government. Then he adds that in all these coming ages there will be a company of those who delight to record the manifestation of his name in his deeds.
“They shall speak of the overwhelming might (m) of thy terrible acts,” (Ver. 6) done in past days, such as Israel has delighted to tell to their children (Psa. lxxviii. 4), even such as He did at the Red Sea (Exod. XV. 11, ^<■^^J, as here), and upon the cities of the plain, as well as on the nations of Canaan.
“And thy greatness, I will recount it I” Leave me to declare, or recount, the manifestations of his “Greatness.” While other men are uttering praise, the Psalmist catches up the theme, as one which he must appropriate to himself — that “greatness” spoken of in 1 Chron. xvii. 19, when he sat before the Lord — that royal greatness which a Persian king’s wealth and magnificence would faintly shadow forth (Esther i. 4, “excellency of his greatness”) when taken as an emblem. But it is chiefly here the display of his greatness in acts of kindness that he is to shew.
3. The harp extols Jehovah’s past manifestation of His gracious character, in verses 7-9. The first words in verse 7 are, “They shall pour out (as from a gushing spring, Psa. xix. 2) the memory of thy great goodness;” and perhaps we ought to understand the clause as asserting that the Lord’s “great goodness” is itself the ““ID.,” the thing to he remembered concerning Him — His memorial, as in Exod. iii. 15, Psa. cii. 12. And then there is allusion to Exod. xxxiv. 6, Numb. xiv. 8, in
verse 8.
“The Lord is gracious and merciful,
Slow to anger and abundant in goodness (IDrT).”
The very words of Exod. iii. 4, though unfortunately altered in our version; and the more to be noticed, as verse 4, “Thy goodness,” is “?|HJD corresponding so exactly to Exod. xxxiii 1 9, ^2113. The God who was thus gracious in the wilderness to his people remains the same evermore. And this is He who at Calvary, in his incarnate Son, manifested his gracious name. We, in our day, turn to the sacrifice of Calvary, as best displaying his great goodness, his memorial, and we sing of” his righteousness’^ as shining there.
“The Lord is good to every one; And his j/earning bowels are over all 7iis works.” (Ver. 9.)
He attends to individual souls, and yet also bends, like the blue sky, over all his universe in mercy. His mercies, like the rainbow, span the world. We see this at the rock of Horeb (Exod. xxxiv.); but we see it best of all at Calvary. What yearnings there! — what love! — what goodness! And the “whole creation” shall yet have a share in that mercy, when the time spoken of in Rom. viii. 19-21 has arrived.
4. The harp extols Jehovah’s kingdom in verses 10-13. All he has created, and all he has wrought in providence, has been of such a character as to yield him a revenue of praise; and his saints act as his priests, presenting the praise. But this will be peculiarly the case when the kingdom is manifested.
“Thetj shall speak of the glory of thy kingdom, And shall talk o, (chronicle, as ver. 5) thy might (see ver. 4), Making known to the sons of men thy mighty acts; And the glory of the majesty of thy kingdom” (Ver. 11, 12.)
The writer of Esther i. 4 says, “While he shewed them the riches of the glory of his kingdom” — a kingdom which was to last only a season. May we suppose that that writer, a man of Israel, was led to use these terms, with this Psalm in his hand, purposely in order to suggest by contrast the infinite difference between that earthly monarch’s splendour, and the glory of the God of Israel? The Persian monarch’s display lasted 180 days, and when its half-year was over, the splendour had vanished; whereas Jehovah’s is (as Dan. iv. 31)
“A kingdom of all eternities —
“In every generation and gene-ation.” (Ver. 13.)
5. The harp extols the qualifications of Him who reigneth in verses 14-19,
“The Lord is an upholder to all that are falling, And maketh all that are bowed down to stand upright.” (Ver. 14.)
Those in distress and trouble are meant by the “falling,” as in Prov. xiii. 16, 17; and who the “bowed down” are, we see by Psa. lvii. 7, where the Psalmist’s soul is nearly overwhelmed by the thought of snares and foes shutting him in. Rejoice, O saints! though ye are feeling disaster and calamity, and are sore distressed, your Lord is coming to put all things in order. He is the uplifter of a fallen World; he will not break the bruised reed. The world shall soon hear no sigh, no murmur, no voice of weeping; for his unsuffering kingdom is at hand! He has provision for all (ver, 15, 16); he is more than was Joseph in Goshen, to his own and to all creation. And he acts on the holiest principles of administration (ver 17), while giving access and audience to his subjects who seek his presence, (ver, 18). Yes, he will satiate their weary souls, and leave not one wish ungratified — not one craving, not one longing — “He will accomplish the desire of those that fear him,” (ver. 19).
6. The harp sings the safe arrival in the kingdom (2 Tim. iv. 18) of his saints, and the ruin of those who resist His kingdom, in verse 20. There is a reference to the day of the Lord’s Coming, when his Israel reach the safe shore, and see the Pharaohs that pursued them overwhelmed in the deep. When he is spoken of as preserving the souls that love him, while “destroying the wicked ones,“” the word for “destroy” is the same (Tpt47>, the opposite of Ip’lt:^) as that in Deut. ii. 12, 21, 22, where we are told of the extirpation of various nations; and the same used in Isa. xiv. 23, of Babylon’s ruin; and the same in Esther iii, 6, when Haman plotted to uproot Israel at one blow. Antichrist shall be consumed and “destroyed” by the brightness of the Lord’s coming, and all that are on his side, in that day when the King establishes his holy kingdom. On the other hand, his saints shall be “preserved” (1 Tim. iv, 18), not only from succeeding dangers, but from the grasp of death itself, and brought by resurrection into his kingdom.
7. The harp invites all to join the sweet singer in praise to the Kin(j, (vex. 21). We saw that the Psahn began by j)re-fixing the peculiar title, “Praise,” TDHPi, in order to excite attention, and tune our hearts for its lively, joyful, thrilling strains. And now it closes, uttering the same note — ‘• My month shall speak the praise (H’j’ni) of the Lord,”
the praise of Him who at the Red Sea was known as “terrible in praises” {JTPlin), and who is known by Calvary, and by scenes of judgment since then, and is to be known ere long in scenes that will never be forgotten. “Let all flesh bless the name of his holiness for ever;” let them cry, in response to the seraphim, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” for we are borne onward to the millennial day by this Psalm, which is so plainly A praise-hymn concerning the kingdom of the Lord, and the Lord the King,