The Book of Psalms

Word Study

"bless," Hebrew barkhi (בָּרְכִי). The verb is a command, and David aims it at himself: "Bless the LORD, O my soul." He does not wait to feel like praising; he preaches to himself, orders his own heart, reminds it. The heart does not always rise of itself.

"all that is within me," kol-qeravai (כָּל־קְרָבַי), all my inward parts. Nothing inside is left out of the summons. David rouses the whole of himself, every inward faculty, to bless God's holy name.

"his benefits," gemulav (גְּמוּלָיו), his dealings, what He has rendered. The great danger David guards against is named plainly: "forget not all his benefits." Ingratitude is mostly a failure of memory; blessings received slip out of mind, and the soul grows cold because it has forgotten.

"forgiveth," hassoleach (הַסֹּלֵחַ). Look at what comes first in the list. Before healing, before rescue, before any earthly good, the very first and greatest benefit is pardon. Our deepest need is not health or comfort but forgiveness, and God meets it first, and He forgives "all thine iniquities."

"healeth," harofe (הָרֹפֵא). The second benefit follows the first, and it too is total: "all thy diseases." God is named here as the Physician of His people, and the "all" is as wide in the healing as in the pardon.

"redeemeth thy life from destruction," haggo'el mishachat (הַגּוֹאֵל מִשַּׁחַת). The word for redeeming is that of a kinsman buying back what was lost, and what is bought back here is the life itself, drawn up out of the pit.

"crowneth," ha'meatterekhi (הַמְעַטְּרֵכִי). The rescued life is not merely spared but honoured, crowned "with lovingkindness and tender mercies," and satisfied with good "so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's."

Explanation

Notice first that David does not wait to feel like praising; he commands his own soul: "Bless the LORD, O my soul." He preaches to himself, stirs himself up, rouses "all that is within me" to worship. There is a lesson in that. The heart does not always rise of itself; sometimes it must be talked to, ordered, reminded. And the great danger David guards against is named plainly: "forget not all his benefits." Ingratitude is mostly a failure of memory; blessings received slip out of mind, and the soul grows cold because it has forgotten. So David sets himself to remember, and he lists the benefits in a deliberate order. Look at what comes first: "Who forgiveth all thine iniquities." Before healing, before rescue, before any earthly good, the very first and greatest benefit is pardon. This is telling. Our deepest need is not health or comfort but forgiveness, and God meets it first. Then follow the others, healing, redemption from the pit, the crown of lovingkindness, the satisfying of the soul with good, until "thy youth is renewed like the eagle's." And mark the word "all", "all thine iniquities... all thy diseases." God's forgiveness is not partial, pardoning the small sins and leaving the great; He forgives them all. The soul that truly remembers this cannot stay silent.

Gospel Focus

"Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases", these twin benefits came walking among men in Jesus Christ, who joined forgiveness and healing in a single act. To the palsied man He said, "thy sins be forgiven thee," and then, "that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins... Arise" (Matthew 9:6), healing the body to prove His power over the soul. He is the great Physician of both, and by His wounds the deepest healing comes, for "with his stripes we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5). He "redeemeth thy life from destruction," buying us back from the pit with His own blood, and He crowns the redeemed "with lovingkindness and tender mercies." So do as David did: preach to your own soul, refuse to forget, and count the benefits Christ has won for you, forgiveness first of all, then healing, redemption, and a crown of mercy, and let all that is within you bless His holy name.

Word Study

"merciful and gracious," Hebrew rachum vechannun (רַחוּם וְחַנּוּן). The section opens by naming God's settled character, and it is the character out of which everything that follows flows: mercy and grace, "plenteous" and never in short supply.

"slow to anger," erekh appayim (אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם). He "will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger for ever." Grace here is defined by what God does not do: "He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities." Mercy is measured as much by the judgment withheld as by the blessing given.

"removed our transgressions," hirchiq... pesha'einu (הִרְחִיק פְּשָׁעֵינוּ), put our transgressions far away. Mark the measurement: "As far as the east is from the west." Why east from west, and not north from south? Because north and south have fixed points, the poles, and are a measurable distance apart; but east and west never meet. God removed our sins infinitely, to a place from which they can never return to accuse us.

"father pitieth," kerachem av (כְּרַחֵם אָב). Tenderest of all is the heart behind the mercy: "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him." The measure of His mercy is as high as heaven above the earth, but its motive is fatherly compassion.

"our frame," yitzrenu (יִצְרֵנוּ), how we are formed. His pity is grounded in intimate knowledge. God is not a hard master with unrealistic demands; He knows exactly how frail we are and how easily we break.

"we are dust," afar anachnu (עָפָר אֲנָחְנוּ). "He remembereth that we are dust." His compassion flows from that knowledge, and He pities us as a father pities a weak and stumbling child.

Explanation

This passage is the golden heart of the psalm, and three things in it repay a close look. First, grace is defined by what God does not do: "He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities." If God gave us what we deserve, we would be undone; grace is precisely that He does not. Mercy is measured as much by the judgment withheld as by the blessing given. Second, mark the two great measurements of that mercy. "As the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy", an immeasurable height, mercy piled up as high as the sky. And then the more wonderful picture: "As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us." Why east from west, and not north from south? Because north and south have fixed points, the poles, and are a measurable distance apart; but east and west never meet. Travel east forever and you never arrive at west. God did not remove our sins a finite distance; He removed them infinitely, to a place from which they can never return to accuse us. Third, and tenderest of all, is the heart behind the mercy: "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him." And His pity is grounded in intimate knowledge: "he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust." God is not a hard master with unrealistic demands; He knows exactly how frail we are, how easily we break, and His compassion flows from that knowledge. He remembers we are dust, and pities us as a father pities a weak and stumbling child.

Gospel Focus

"As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us", this infinite removal of our sins was accomplished at the cross of Jesus Christ. There God "hath not dealt with us after our sins," not because He ignored them, but because He dealt with them fully in His Son, who "his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree" (1 Peter 2:24). God "made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin" (2 Corinthians 5:21), and so our transgressions were carried away an infinite distance, never to be counted against us again, for God says, "their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more" (Hebrews 8:12). And the fatherly pity of this psalm is the very heart the Lord Jesus revealed, most famously in the father who saw the prodigal "yet a great way off," and "had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck" (Luke 15:20). That is how God receives returning sinners. He knows your frame, remembers you are dust, has removed your sins as far as the east from the west, and pities you as a Father, all in Jesus Christ.

Word Study

"his days are as grass," Hebrew ke'chatzir yamav (כֶּחָצִיר יָמָיו). After the towering mercies of the middle verses, the psalm turns to look honestly at how small and short we are. Grass is the commonest, most easily cut thing in the field, and that is what our days are.

"a flower of the field," ketzitz hassadeh (כְּצִיץ הַשָּׂדֶה). The picture is of a wildflower, bright and lovely for a morning. It is not an ugly image but a brief one; man does flourish, and that is exactly the pathos of it.

"the wind passeth over it," ruach avrah-bo (רוּחַ עָבְרָה־בּוֹ). It takes no great catastrophe to end the flower, only a passing wind. Our lives are that lightly held.

"it is gone," einennu (אֵינֶנּוּ). The word is a flat absence: it is not. Not only does the flower die; "the place thereof shall know it no more", the very spot where it stood forgets it ever grew.

"from everlasting to everlasting," me'olam ve'ad-olam (מֵעוֹלָם וְעַד־עוֹלָם). Then comes the great "But" that is the whole comfort of the passage. We are grass; His mercy is eternal, reaching down to lay hold of our vanishing lives and extending even "unto children's children." Our days are brief, but they are held by a mercy that never began and will never end.

Explanation

After the towering mercies of the middle verses, the psalm turns to look honestly at how small and short we are, "As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth." The picture is of a wildflower, bright and lovely for a morning, and then, "the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more." Not only does the flower die; the very spot where it stood forgets it ever grew. That is the sobering truth of our mortality: we bloom briefly and are swept away, and the world closes over the place where we were. But then comes the great "But" that is the whole comfort of the passage: "But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting." Set your fleeting life beside this, and see the contrast. We are grass; His mercy is eternal. We are here for a morning; His lovingkindness runs "from everlasting to everlasting." And here is the wonder: this one eternal thing, the mercy of God, reaches down and lays hold of our vanishing lives, and even extends "unto children's children," outlasting not only us but our descendants. Our grass-like days are brief, but they are held by a mercy that never began and will never end. That is where the frail flower finds its security, not in its own short bloom, but in the everlasting love that surrounds it.

Gospel Focus

"As for man, his days are as grass... But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting", the New Testament takes up this very contrast and shows where the everlasting mercy is found. Peter writes, "all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of the Lord endureth for ever" (1 Peter 1:24-25), and that enduring word is the gospel of Jesus Christ. The everlasting mercy laid hold of our fleeting lives when Christ, "having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end" (John 13:1), and sealed it in "the blood of the everlasting covenant" (Hebrews 13:20). Though our days are grass, all who are in Christ are born again "not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible," and so we do not finally perish with the flower. Anchor your short, withering life to the everlasting mercy of God in Jesus Christ, and though the wind pass over you, you shall not be gone; you shall live in the love that is from everlasting to everlasting.