The Expositor's Bible: The Psalms, Vol. 2: Psalms XXXIX.-LXXXIX.Maclaren, Alexander
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The Psalms, Vol. 2: Psalms XXXIX.-LXXXIX.
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. Psalms -- Commentaries
to keep aloof from the multitudes and stand alone in reliance on Jehovah.
Ver. 5 corresponds with ver. 4, in that it sets forth in similar
generality the great deeds with which God is wont to answer man's
trust. But the personality of the poet breaks very beautifully through
the impersonal utterances at two points: once when he names Jehovah as
"my God," thus claiming his separate share in the general mercies and
his special bond of connection with the Lover of all; and once when he
speaks of his own praises, thus recognising the obligation of individual
gratitude for general blessings. Each particle of finely comminuted
moisture in the rainbow has to flash back the broad sunbeam at its
own angle. God's "wonders and designs" are "realised Divine thoughts
and Divine thoughts which are gradually being realised" (Delitzsch).
These are wrought and being wrought in multitudes innumerable; and, as
the psalmist sees the bright, unbroken beams pouring forth from their
inexhaustible source, he breaks into an exclamation of adoring wonder
at the incomparable greatness of the ever-giving God. "There is none
to set beside Thee" is far loftier and more accordant with the tone
of the verse than the comparatively flat and incongruous remark that
God's mercies cannot be told to Him (A.V. and R.V.). A precisely similar
exclamation occurs in Psalm lxxi. 19, in which God's incomparable
greatness is deduced from the great things which He has done. Happy
the singer who has an inexhaustible theme! He is not silenced by the
consciousness of the inadequacy of his songs, but rather inspired to the
never-ending, ever-beginning, joyful task of uttering some new fragment
of that transcendent perfection. Innumerable wonders wrought should be
met by ever-new songs. If they cannot be counted, the more reason for
open-eyed observance of them as they come, and for a stream of praise as
unbroken as is their bright continuance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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