Psalms 147:12-20
EXPOSITION
Verse 12. Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem; praise thy God, O Zion. How the poet insists upon praise: he cries praise, praise, as if it were the most important of all duties. A peculiar people should render peculiar praise. The city of peace should be the city of praise; and the temple of the covenant God should resound with his glories. If nowhere else, yet certainly in Zion there should be joyful adoration of Zion's God. Note, that we are to praise the Lord in our own houses in Jerusalem as well as in his own house in Zion. The holy city surrounds the holy hill, and both are dedicated to the holy God, therefore both should ring with hallelujahs.
EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS
Verse 12. That all Creation must involuntarily praise the Lord, and that the primary duty of conscious intelligence is the willing praise of the same Deity, are the two axioms of the Psalmist's theology. He has in the first part of this Psalm been stating the first, and now he is about to announce the second. --Martin Geier.
HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS
Verse 12.
EXPOSITION
Verse 13. For he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates. Her fortifications were finished, even to the fastenings of the gates, and God had made all sound and strong, even to her bolts and bars: thus her security against invading foes was guaranteed. This is no small mercy. Oh, that our churches were thus preserved from all false doctrine and unholy living! This must be the Lord's doing; and where he has wrought it his name is greatly to be praised. Modern libertines would tear down all gates and abolish all bars; but so do not we, because of the fear of the Lord. He hath blessed thy children within thee. Internal happiness is as truly the Lord's gift as external security. When the Lord blesses "thy sons in the midst of thee", thou art, O Zion, filled with a happy, united, zealous, prosperous, holy people, who dwell in communion with God, and enter into the joy of their Lord. When God makes thy walls salvation thy gates must be praise. It would little avail to fortify a wretched, starving city; but when the walls are strengthened, it is a still greater joy to see that the inhabitants are blessed with all good gifts. How much our churches need a present and abiding benediction.
EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS
Verse 13. He hath strengthened the bars of thy gates. Blessed is the city whose gates God barreth up with his power, and openeth again with his mercy. There is nothing can defend where his justice will strike; and there is nothing can offend where his goodness will preserve. --Thomas Adams.
Verse 13-14. The Psalmist recites four arguments from which he would have Zion sing praises.
HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS
Verse 13. A Strong Church.
EXPOSITION
Verse 14. He maketh peace in thy borders. Even to the boundaries quiet extends; no enemies are wrangling with the borderers. If there is peace there, we may be sure that peace is everywhere. "When a man's ways please the Lord he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him." Peace is from the God of peace. Considering the differing constitutions, conditions, tastes, and opinions of men, it is a work of God when in large churches unbroken peace is found year after year; and it is an equal wonder if worldlings, instead of persecuting the godly, treat them with marked respect. He who builds Zion is also her Peace maker, the Lord and Giver of peace. And filleth thee with the finest of the wheat. Peace is attended with plenty, -- plenty of the best food, and of the best sort of that food. It is a great reason for thanksgiving when men's wants are so supplied that they are filled: it takes much to fill some men: perhaps none ever are filled but the inhabitants of Zion; and they are only to be filled by the Lord himself. Gospel truth is the finest of the wheat, and those are indeed blessed who are content to be filled therewith, and are not hungering after the husks of the world. Let those who are filled with heavenly food fill their mouths with heavenly praise.
EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS
Verse 14. He maketh peace in thy borders, etc. There is a political peace -- peace in city and country; this is the fairest flower of a Prince's crown; peace is the best blessing of a nation. It is well with bees when there is a noise; but it is best with Christians when, as in the building of the Temple, there is no noise of hammer heard. Peace brings plenty along with it; how many miles would some go on pilgrimage to purchase this peace! Therefore the Greeks made Peace to be the nurse of Pluto, the God of wealth. Political plants thrive best in the sunshine of peace. "He maketh peace in thy borders, and filleth thee with the finest of the wheat." The ancients made the harp the emblem of peace: how sweet would the sounding of this harp be after the roaring of the cannon! All should study to promote this political peace. The godly man, when he dies, "enters into peace" (Isaiah 57:2); but while he lives, peace must enter into him. -- Thomas Watson.
Verse 14. He maketh peace. The Hebrews observe that all the letters in the name of God are literae quiescentes, letters of rest. God only is the centre where the soul may find rest: God only can speak peace to the conscience. --John Stoughton, --1639.
Verse 14. Finest of the wheat. If men give much it is in cheap and coarse commodity. Quantity and quality are only possible with human production in in verse ratio; but the Lord gives the most and best of all supplies to his pensioners. How truly the believer under the gospel knows the inner spirit of the meaning here! The Lord Jesus Christ says, "My peace I give unto you." And when he sets us at rest and all is reconciliation and peace, then he feeds us with himself -- his body, the finest wheat, and his blood, the richest wine. --Johannes Paulus Palanterius.
HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS
Verse 14-15. See "Spurgeon's Sermons", No. 425: "Peace at Home, and Prosperity Abroad."
Verse 14-15. Church blessings.
EXPOSITION
Verse 15. He sendeth forth his commandment upon earth. His messages fly throughout his dominions: upon earth his warrants are executed as well as in heaven. From his church his word goes forth; from Zion he missions the nations with the word of life. His word runneth very swiftly: his purposes of love are speedily accomplished. Oriental monarchs laboured hard to establish rapid postal communication; the desire, will, and command of the Lord flash in an instant from pole to pole, yea, from heaven to earth. We who dwell in the centre of the Lord's dominions may exceedingly rejoice that to the utmost extremity of the realm the divine commandment speeds with sure result, and is not hindered by distance or time. The Lord can deliver his people right speedily, or send them supplies immediately from his courts above. God's commands in nature and providence are fiats against which no opposition is ever raised; say, rather, to effect which all things rush onward with alacrity. The expressions in the text are so distinctly in the present that they are meant to teach us the present mission and efficiency of the word of the Lord, and thus to prompt us to present praise.
EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS
Verse 15. His word runneth very swiftly. There is not a moment between the shooting out of the arrow and the fastening of it in the mark; both are done in the very same atom and point of time. Therefore we read in the Scripture of the immediate effects of the word of Christ. Saith he to the leprous man; "Be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed": Matthew 8:3. And to the blind man, "Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he received his sight"; Mark 10:52. No arrow makes so immediate an impression in the mark aimed at as the arrow of Christ's word. No sooner doth Christ say to the soul, Be enlightened, be quickened, be comforted, but the work is done. -- Ralph Robinson.
HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS
Verse 15. (second clause). See "Spurgeon's Sermons", No. 1607: "The Swiftly Running Word." EXPOSITION
Verse 16. Here follow instances of the power of God upon the elements. He giveth snow like wool. As a gift he scatters the snow, which falls in flakes like fleecy wool. Snow falls softly, covers universally, and clothes warmly, even as wool covers the sheep. The most evident resemblance lies in the whiteness of the two substances; but many other likenesses are to be seen by the observant eye. It is wise to see God in winter and in distress as well as in summer and prosperity. He who one day feeds us with the finest of the wheat, at another time robes us in snow: he is the same God in each case, and each form of his operation bestows a gift on men. He scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes. Here again the Psalmist sees God directly and personally at work. As ashes powder the earth when men are burning up the rank herbage; and as when men cast ashes into the air they cause a singular sort of whiteness in the places where they fall, so also does the frost. The country people talk of a black frost and a white frost, and the same thing may be said of ashes, for they are both black and white. Moreover, excessive cold burns as effectually as great heat, and hence there is an inner as well as an outer likeness between hoarfrost and ashes. Let us praise the Lord who condescends to wing each flake of snow and scatter each particle of rime. Ours is no absent or inactive deity: he worketh all things, and is everywhere at home.
EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS
Verse 16. He giveth snow like wool. There are three things considerable in snow, for which it is compared to wool. First, for the whiteness of it. Snow is white as wool; snow is so exceeding white that the whiteness of a soul cleansed by pardoning grace, in the blood of Christ, is likened unto it (Isaiah 1:18); and the latter part of the same verse intimates that the whiteness of snow bears resemblance to that of wool. The whiteness of snow is caused by the abundance of air and spirits that are in that pellucid body, as the naturalists speak. Any thing that is of a watery substance, being frozen or much wrought upon by cold, appears more white; and hence it is that all persons inhabiting cold climates or countries, are of a whiter complexion than they who inhabit hot. Secondly, snow is like wool for softness, 'tis pliable to the hand as a lock or fleece of wool. Thirdly, snow is like wool (which may seem strange) with respect to the warmness of it. Though snow be cold in itself, yet it is to the earth as wool, or as a woollen cloth or blanket that keeps the body warm. Snow is not warm formally, yet it is warm effectively and virtually; and therefore is it compared to wool. -- Joseph Caryl.
Verse 16. Like wool. Namely, curled and tufted, and as white as the snow in those countries. Isaiah 1:18 Revelation 1:14. --John Diodati.
Verse 16. Snow like wool. The ancients used to call snow eriwdez udwr, woolly water (Eustathius, in Dionys. Perieget. p. 91). Martial gives it the name of densum vellus aquarum, a thick fleece of waters (Epigram. l. iv. Ep. 3). Aristophanes calls clouds, "flying fleeces of wool" (Nubes, p. 146). Pliny calls it the forth of the celestial waters (Nat. His. lib. xvii. cap. 2). --Samuel Burder.
Verse 16. He giveth snow like wool. In Palestine snow is not the characteristic feature of winter as it is in northern latitudes. It is merely an occasional phenomenon. Showers of it fall now and then in severer seasons on the loftier parts of the land, and whiten for a day or two the vineyards and cornfields: but it melts from the green earth as rapidly as its sister vapours vanish from the blue sky ... But the Psalmist seized the occasional snow, as he seized the fleeting vapour, and made it a text of his spiritual meditations. Let us follow his example.
"He giveth snow like wool", says the Psalmist. This comparison expressly indicates one of the most important purposes which the snow serves in the economy of nature. It covers the earth like a blanket during that period of winter sleep which is necessary to recruit its exhausted energies, and prepare it for fresh efforts in the spring; and being, like wool, a bad conductor, it conserves the latent heat of the soil, and protects the dormant life of plant and animal hid under it from the frosty rigour of the outside air. Winter sown wheat, when defended by this covering, whose under surface seldom falls much below 32 Fahr., can thrive even though the temperature of the air above may be many degrees below the freezing point. Our country, enjoying an equable climate, seldom requires this protection; but in northern climates, where the winter is severe and prolonged, its beneficial effects are most marked. The scanty vegetation which blooms with such sudden and marvellous loveliness in the height of summer, in the Arctic regions and on mountain summits, would perish utterly were it not for the protection of the snow that lies on it for three quarters of a year.
But it is not only to Alpine plants and hibernating animals that God gives snow like wool. The Eskimo take advantage of its curious protective property, and ingeniously build their winter huts of blocks of hardened snow; thus, strangely enough, by a homoeopathic law, protecting themselves against cold by the effects of cold. The Arctic navigator has been often indebted to walls of snow banked up around his ship for the comparative comfort of his winter quarters, when the temperature without has fallen so low that even chloric ether became solid. And many a precious life has been saved by the timely shelter which the snow storm itself has provided against its own violence. But while snow thus warms in cold regions, it also cools in warm regions. It sends down from the white summits of equatorial mountains its cool breath to revive and brace the drooping life of lands sweltering under a tropic sun; and from its lofty inexhaustible reservoirs it feeds perennial rivers that water the plains when all the wells and streams are white and silent in the baking heat. Without the perpetual snow of mountain regions the earth would be reduced to a lifeless desert.
And not only does the Alpine snow thus keep always full rivers that water the plains, but, by its grinding force as it presses down the mountains, it removes particles from the rocks, which are carried off by the rivers and spread over the plains. Such is the origin of a large part of the level land of Europe. It has been formed out of the ruins of the mountains by the action of snow. It was by the snow of far off ages that our valleys and lake basins were scooped out, the form of our landscapes sculptured and rounded, and the soil formed in which we grow our harvests. Who would think of such a connection? And yet it is true! Just as each season we owe the bloom and brightness of our summer fields to the gloom and blight of winter, so do we owe the present summer beauty of the world to the great secular winter of the glacial period. And does not God bring about results as striking by agencies apparently as contradictory in the human world? He who warms the tender latent life of the flowers by the snow, and moulds the quiet beauty of the summer landscape by the desolating glacier, makes the cold of adversity to cherish the life of the soul, and to round into spiritual loveliness the harshness and roughness of a carnal, selfish nature. Many a profitable Christian life owes its fairness and fruitfulness to causes which wrecked and wasted it for a time. God giveth snow like wool; and chill and blighting as is the touch of sorrow, it has a protective influence which guards against greater evils; it sculptures the spiritual landscape within into forms of beauty and grace, and deepens and fertilizes the soil of the heart, so that in it may grow from God's own planting the peaceable fruits of righteousness.
And now let us look at the Giver of the snow. "He giveth snow like wool." "The snowflake", as Professor Tyndall strikingly says, "leads back to the sun" -- so intimately related are all things to each other in this wonderful universe. It leads further and higher still -- even to him who is our sun and shield, the light and heat of all creation. The whole vast realm of winter, with its strange phenomena, is but the breath of God -- the Creative Word -- as it were, congealed against the blue transparency of space, like the marvellous frost work on a window pane. The Psalmist had not the shadow of a doubt that God formed and sent the annual miracle of snow, as he had formed and sent the daily miracle of manna in the desert. It was a common place thing; it was a natural, ordinary occurrence; but it had the Divine sign upon it, and it showed forth the glory and goodness of God as strikingly as the most wonderful supernatural event in his nation's history. When God would impress Job with a sense of his power, it was not to some of his miraculous, but to some of his ordinary works that he appealed. And when the Psalmist would praise God for the preservation of Israel and the restoration of Jerusalem -- as he does in the Psalm from which my subject is taken --it is not to the wonderful miraculous events with which the history of Israel abounded that he directs attention, but to the common events of Providence and the ordinary appearances and processes of nature. He cannot think enough of the Omnipotent Creator and Ruler of the Universe entering into familiar relations with his people, and condescending to their humblest wants. It is the same God that "giveth snow like wool", who "shows his word unto Jacob, and his statutes and commandments unto Israel." And the wonder of the peculiarity is enhanced by thoughts borrowed from the wonders of nature. We know a thousand times more of the nature, formation, and purpose of the snow than the Psalmist did. But that knowledge is dearly earned if our science destroys our faith. What amount of precision of scientific knowledge can compensate us for the loss of the spiritual sensibility, which in all the wonders and beauties of the Creation brings us into personal contact with an infinitely wise mind and an infinitely loving heart? --Hugh Macmillan, in "Two Worlds are Ours", 1880.
Verse 16. Snow. It is worth pausing to think what wonderful work is going on in the atmosphere during the formation and descent of every snow shower; what building power is brought into play; and how imperfect seem the productions of human minds and hands when compared with those formed by the blind forces of nature. But who ventures to call the forces of nature blind? In reality, when we speak thus, we are describing our own condition. The blindness is ours; and what we really ought to say, and to confess, is that our powers are absolutely unable to comprehend either the origin or the end of the operations of nature. --John Tyndall, in "The Forms of Water", 1872.
Verse 16-17. The Lord takes the ice and frost and cold to be his; it is not only his sun, but his ice, and his frost: "he scattereth his hoar frost like ashes." The frost is compared to ashes in a threefold respect. First, because the hoar frost gives a little interruption to the sight. If you scatter ashes into the air, it darkens the light, so doth the hoar frost. Secondly, the hoary frost is like ashes because near in colour to ashes. Thirdly, 'tis like, because there is a kind of burning in it: frost burns the tender buds and blossoms, it nips them and dries them up. The hoar frost hath its denomination in the Latin tongue from burning, and it differs but very little from that word which is commonly used in Latin for a coal of fire. The cold frost hath a kind of scorching in it, as well as the hot sun. Unseasonable frosts in the spring scorch the tender fruits, which bad effect of frost is usually expressed by carbunculation or blasting. --Joseph Caryl.
HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS
Verse 16. The unexpected results of adversity: snow acting as wool.
Verse 16-18. See "Spurgeon's Sermons," No. 670: "Frost and Thaw." EXPOSITION
Verse 17. He casteth forth his ice like morsels. Such are the crumbs of hail which he casts forth, or the crusts of ice which he creates upon the waters. These morsels are his ice, and he casts them abroad. The two expressions indicate a very real presence of God in the phenomena of nature. Who can stand before his cold? None can resist the utmost rigours of cold any more than they can bear the vehemence of heat. God's withdrawals of light are a darkness that may be felt, and his withdrawals of heat are a cold which is absolutely omnipotent. If the Lord, instead of revealing himself as a fire, should adopt the opposite manifestation of cold, he would, in either case, consume us should he put forth all his power. It is ours to submit to deprivations with patience, seeing the cold is his cold. That which God sends, whether it be heat or cold, no man can defy with impunity, but he is happy who bows before it with childlike submission. When we cannot stand before God we will gladly lie at his feet, or nestle under his wings.
EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS
Verse 17. He casteth forth his ice like morsels. Or, shivers of bread. It is a worthy saying of one from this text, -- The ice is bread, the rain is drink, the snow is wool, the frost a fire to the earth, causing it inwardly to glow with heat; teaching us what to do for God's poor. --John Trapp.
Verse 17. He casteth forth his ice like morsels. The word here translated "morsels", means, in most of the places where it occurs in the Bible, pieces of bread, exactly the LXX ywmoúj; for this very ice, this wintry cold, is profitable to the earth, to fit it for bearing future harvests, and thus it matures the morsels of bread which man will yet win from the soil in due season. --Genebrardus, in Neale and Littledale.
Verse 17. Morsels. Or, crumbs. Genesis 18:5 Judges 19:5. Doubtless the allusion is to hail. --A.S. Aglen.
Verse 17. "It is extremely severe", said his sister to Archbishop Leighton one day, speaking of the season. The good man only said in reply, "But thou, O God, hast made summer and winter." --From J.J. Pearson's Life of Archbishop Leighton, 1830. EXPOSITION
Verse 18. He sendeth out his word, and melteth them. When the frost is sharpest, and the ice is hardest, the Lord intervenes; and though he doth no more than send his word, yet the rocks of ice are dissolved at once, and the huge bergs begin to float into the southern seas. The phenomena of winter are not so abundant in Palestine as with us, yet they are witnessed sufficiently to cause the devout to bless God for the return of spring. At the will of God snow, hoarfrost, and ice disappear, and the time of the opening bud and the singing of birds has come. For this let us praise the Lord as we sun ourselves amici the spring flowers. He causeth his wind to blow, and the waters flow. The Lord is the great first cause of everything; even the fickle, wandering winds are caused by him. Natural laws are in themselves mere inoperative rules, but the power emanates directly from the Ever present and Ever potent One. The soft gales from the south, which bring a general thaw, are from the Lord, as were those wintry blasts which bound the streams in icy bonds. Simple but effectual are the methods of Jehovah in the natural world; equally so are those which he employs in the spiritual kingdom; for the breath of his Holy Spirit breathes upon frozen hearts, and streams of penitence and love gush forth at once.
Observe how in these two sentences the word and the wind go together in nature. They attend each other in grace; the gospel and the Holy Spirit cooperate in salvation. The truth which the Spirit breathed into prophets and apostles he breathes into dead souls, and they are quickened into spiritual life.
EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS
Verse 18. He sendeth out his word, and melteth them. Israel in the captivity had been icebound, like ships of Arctic voyagers in the Polar Sea; but God sent forth the vernal breeze of his love, and the water flowed, the ice melted, and they were released. God turned their captivity, and, their icy chains being melted by the solar beams of God's mercy, they flowed in fresh and buoyant streams, like "rivers of the south", shining in the sun. See Psalms 126:4.
So it was on the day of Pentecost. The winter of spiritual captivity was thawed and dissolved by the soft breath of the Holy Ghost, and the earth laughed and bloomed with spring tide flowers of faith, love, and joy. --Christopher Wordsworth. EXPOSITION
Verse 19. He sheweth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. He who is the Creator is also the Revealer. We are to praise the Lord above all things for his manifesting himself to us as he does not unto the world. Whatever part of his mind he discloses to us, whether it be a word of instruction, a statute of direction, or a judgment of government, we are bound to bless the Lord for it. He who causes summer to come in the place of winter has also removed the coldness and death from our hearts by the power of his word, and this is abundant cause for singing unto his name. As Jacob's seed of old were made to know the Lord, even so are we ill these latter days; wherefore, let his name be magnified among us. By that knowledge Jacob is ennobled into Israel, and therefore let him who is made a prevailing prince in prayer be also a chief musician in praise. The elect people were bound to sing hallelujahs to their own God. Why were they so specially favoured if they did not, above all others, tell forth the glory of their God?
EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS
Verse 19. Here we see God in compassion bending down, in order to communicate to the deeply fallen son of man something of a blessed secret, of which, without his special enlightenment, the eye would never have seen anything, nor the ear ever have heard. -- J.J. Van Oosterzee, on "The Image of Christ."
Verse 19-20. If the publication of the law by the ministry of angels to the Israelites were such a privilege that it is reckoned their peculiar treasure -- He hath shewed his statutes unto Israel; he hath not dealt so with any nation -- what is the revelation of the gospel by the Son of God himself? For although the law is obscured and defaced since the fall, yet there are some ingrafted notions of it in human nature; but there is not the least suspicion of the gospel. The law discovers our misery, but the gospel alone shows the way to be delivered from it. If an advantage so great and so precious doth not touch our hearts; and, in possessing it with joy, if we are not sensible of the engagements the Father of mercies hath laid upon us; we shall be the most ungrateful wretches in the world. -- William Bates.
Verse 19-20. That some should have more means of knowing the Creator, others less, it is all from the mercy and will of God. His church hath a privilege and an advantage above other nations in the world; the Jews had this favour above the heathens, and Christians above the Jews; and no other reason can be assigned but his eternal love. -- Thomas Manton.
HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS
Verse 19.
EXPOSITION
Verse 20. He hath not dealt so with any nation. Israel had clear and exclusive knowledge of God, while others were left in ignorance. Election is the loudest call for grateful adoration. And as for his judgments, they have not known them; or, and judgments they had not known them, as if not knowing the laws of God, they might be looked upon as having no laws at all worth mentioning. The nations were covered with darkness, and only Israel sat in the light. This was sovereign grace in its fullest noontide of power. Praise ye the Lord. When we have mentioned electing, distinguishing love, our praise can rise no higher, and therefore we close with one more hallelujah.
HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS
Verse 20. He hath not dealt so with any nation... Praise ye the Lord. The sweet Psalmist of Israel, a man skilful in praises, doth begin and end this Psalm with Hallelujah. In the body of the Psalm he doth set forth the mercy of God, both towards all creatures in general in his common providence, and towards his church in particular. So in this close of the Psalm: "He sheweth his word unto Jacob, and his statutes to Israel. He hath not dealt so with any nation." In the original 'tis, "He hath not dealt so with every nation": that is, with any nation. In the text you may observe a position and a conclusion. A position; and that is, that God deals in a singular way of mercy with his people above all other people. And then the conclusion: "Praise ye the Lord." Doctrine. That God deals in a singular way of mercy with his people, and therefore expects singular praises from his people. -- Joseph Alleine (1633-1668), in "A Thanksgiving Sermon."
Verse 20. See the wonderful goodness of God, who besides the light of nature, has committed to us the sacred Scriptures. The heathen are enveloped in ignorance. As for his judgments, they have not known them. They have the oracles of the Sybils, but not the writings of Moses and the apostles. How many live in the region of death, where the bright star of Scripture has never appeared! We have the blessed Book of God to resolve all our doubts, and to point out a way of life to us. "Lord, how is it thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?" John 14:22. --Thomas Watson.
HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS
Verse 20. Electing Grace inspires the Heart with Praise.
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