Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary

on the Whole Bible

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Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)

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P S A L M S

PSALM CXXXVI.

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The scope of this psalm is the same with that of the

foregoing psalm,

but there is something very singular in the composition of it; for the

latter half of each verse is the same, repeated throughout the psalm,

“for his mercy endureth for ever,” and yet no vain repetition. It is

allowed that such burdens, or “keepings,” as we call them, add very

much to the beauty of a song, and help to make it moving and affecting;

nor can any verse contain more weighty matter, or more worthy to be

thus repeated, than this, that God’s mercy endureth for ever; and the

repetition of it here twenty-six times intimates,

1. That God’s mercies to his people are thus repeated and drawn, as it

were, with a continuando from the beginning to the end, with a progress

and advance in infinitum.

2. That in every particular favour we ought to take notice of the mercy

of God, and to take favour we ought to take notice of the mercy of God,

and to take notice of it as enduring still, the same now that it has

been, and enduring for ever, the same always that it is.

3. That the everlasting continuance of the mercy of God is very much

his honour and that which he glories in, and very much the saints’

comfort and that which they glory in. It is that which therefore our

hearts should be full of and greatly affected with, so that the most

frequent mention of it, instead of cloying us, should raise us the

more, because it will be the subject of our praise to all eternity.

This most excellent sentence, that God’s mercy endureth for ever, is

magnified above all the truths concerning God, not only by the

repetition of it here, but by the signal tokens of divine acceptance

with which God owned the singing of it, both in Solomon’s time

(2 Chron. v. 13,

when they sang these words, “for his mercy endureth for ever,” the

house was filled with a cloud) and in Jehoshaphat’s time (when they

sang these words, God gave them victory,

2 Chron. xx. 21, 22),

which should make us love to sing, “His mercies sure do still endure,

eternally.” We must praise God,

I. As great and good in himself,

ver. 1-3.

II. As the Creator of the world,

ver. 5-9.

III. As Israel’s God and Saviour,

ver. 10-22.

IV. As our Redeemer,

ver. 23, 24.

V. As the great benefactor of the whole creation, and God over all,

blessed for evermore,

ver. 25, 26.

Exhortations to Thanksgiving.

     

1 O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy

endureth for ever.

  2 O give thanks unto the God of gods: for his mercy endureth

for ever.

  3 O give thanks to the Lord of lords: for his mercy endureth

for ever.

  4 To him who alone doeth great wonders: for his mercy

endureth for ever.

  5 To him that by wisdom made the heavens: for his mercy

endureth for ever.

  6 To him that stretched out the earth above the waters: for his

mercy endureth for ever.

  7 To him that made great lights: for his mercy endureth for

ever:

  8 The sun to rule by day: for his mercy endureth for ever:

  9 The moon and stars to rule by night: for his mercy endureth

for ever.

     

The duty we are here again and again called to is to give

thanks, to offer the sacrifice of praise continually, not

the fruits of our ground or cattle, but the fruit of our lips,

giving thanks to his name,
Heb. xiii. 15.

We are never so earnestly called upon to pray and repent as to give

thanks; for it is the will of God that we should abound most in the

most pleasant exercises of religion, in that which is the work of

heaven. Now here observe,

1. Whom we must give thanks to–to him that we receive all good from,

to the Lord, Jehovah, Israel’s God

(v. 1),

the God of gods, the God whom angels adore, from whom

magistrates derive their power, and by whom all pretended deities are

and shall be conquered

(v. 2),

to the Lord of lords, the Sovereign of all sovereigns, the stay

and supporter of all supports;

v. 3.

In all our adorations we must have an eye to God’s excellency as

transcendent, and to his power and dominion as incontestably and

uncontrollably supreme.

2. What we must give thanks for, not as the Pharisee that made all his

thanksgivings terminate in his own praise (God, I thank thee,

that I am so and so), but directing them all to God’s glory.

(1.) We must give thanks to God for his goodness and mercy

(v. 1):

Give thanks to the Lord, not only because he does good, but

because he is good (all the streams must be traced up to the fountain),

not only because he is merciful to us, but because his mercy endures

for ever, and will be drawn out to those that shall come after us. We

must give thanks to God, not only for that mercy which is now handed

out to us here on earth, but for that which shall endure for ever in

the glories and joys of heaven.

(2.) We must give God thanks for the instances of his power and wisdom.

In general

(v. 4),

he along does great wonders. The contrivance is wonderful, the

design being laid by infinite wisdom; the performance is wonderful,

being put in execution by infinite power. He alone does marvellous

things; none besides can do such things, and he does them without the

assistance or advice of any other. More particularly,

[1.] He made the heavens, and stretched them out, and in them we not

only see his wisdom and power, but we taste his mercy in their benign

influences; as long as the heavens endure the mercy of God endures in

them,

v. 5.

[2.] He raised the earth out of the waters when he caused the dry land

to appear, that it might be fit to be a habitation for man, and therein

also his mercy to man still endures

(v. 6);

for the earth hath he given to the children of men, and all its

products.

[3.] Having made both heaven and earth, he settled a correspondence

between them, notwithstanding their distance, by making the sun, moon,

and stars, which he placed in the firmament of heaven, to shed their

light and influences upon this earth,

v. 7-9.

These are called the great lights because they appear so to us,

for otherwise astronomers could tell us that the moon is less than many

of the stars, but, being nearer to the earth, it seems much greater.

They are said to rule, not only because they govern the seasons

of the year, but because they are useful to the world, and benefactors

are the best rulers,

Luke xxii. 25.

But the empire is divided, one rules by day, the other by

night (at least, the stars), and yet all are subject to

God’s direction and disposal. Those rulers, therefore, which the

Gentiles idolized, are the world’s servants and God’s subjects.

Sun, stand thou still, and thou moon.

Divine Mercy Celebrated.

     

10 To him that smote Egypt in their firstborn: for his mercy

endureth for ever:

  11 And brought out Israel from among them: for his mercy

endureth for ever:

  12 With a strong hand, and with a stretched out arm: for his

mercy endureth for ever.

  13 To him which divided the Red sea into parts: for his mercy

endureth for ever:

  14 And made Israel to pass through the midst of it: for his

mercy endureth for ever:

  15 But overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red sea: for his

mercy endureth for ever.

  16 To him which led his people through the wilderness: for his

mercy endureth for ever.

  17 To him which smote great kings: for his mercy endureth for

ever:

  18 And slew famous kings: for his mercy endureth for ever:

  19 Sihon king of the Amorites: for his mercy endureth for

ever:

  20 And Og the king of Bashan: for his mercy endureth for

ever:

  21 And gave their land for a heritage: for his mercy

endureth for ever:

  22 Even a heritage unto Israel his servant: for his mercy

endureth for ever.

     

The great things God for Israel, when he first formed them into a

people, and set up his kingdom among them, are here mentioned, as often

elsewhere in the psalms, as instances both of the power of God and of

the particular kindness he had for Israel. See

Ps. cxxxv. 8,

&c.

1. He brought them out of Egypt,

v. 10-12.

That was a mercy which endured long to them, and our redemption by

Christ, which was typified by that, does indeed endure for ever, for it

is an eternal redemption. Of all the plagues of Egypt, none is

mentioned but the death of the first-born, because that was the

conquering plague; by that God, who in all the plagues distinguished

the Israelites from the Egyptians, brought them at last from among

them, not by a wile, but with a strong hand and an arm stretched out to

reach far and do great things. These miracles of mercy, as they proved

Moses’s commission to give law to Israel, so they laid Israel under

lasting obligations to obey that law,

Exod. xx. 2.

2. He forced them a way through the Red Sea, which obstructed them at

their first setting out. By the power he has to control the common

course of nature he divided the sea into two parts, between

which he opened a path, and made Israel to pass between the parts, now

that they were to enter into covenant with him; see

Jer. xxxiv. 18.

He not only divided the sea, but gave his people courage to go through

it when it was divided, which was an instance of God’s power over men’s

hearts, as the former of his power over the waters. And, to make it a

miracle of justice as well as mercy, the same Red Sea that was a lane

to the Israelites was a grave to their pursuers. There he shook off

Pharaoh and his host.

3. He conducted them through a vast howling wilderness

(v. 16);

there he led them and fed them. Their camp was victualled and

fortified by a constant series of miracles for forty years; though they

loitered and wandered there, they were not lost. And in this the mercy

of God, and the constancy of that mercy, were the more observable

because they often provoked him in the wilderness and grieved him in

the desert.

4. He destroyed kings before them, to make room for them

(v. 17, 18),

not deposed and banished them, but smote and slew them, in which

appeared his wrath against them, but his mercy, his never-failing

mercy, to Israel. And that which magnified it was that they were

great kings and famous kings, yet God subdued them as

easily as if they had been the least, and weakest, and meanest, of the

children of men. They were wicked kings, and then their grandeur and

lustre would not secure them from the justice of God. The more great

and famous they were the more did God’s mercy to Israel appear in

giving such kings for them. Sihon and Og are particularly mentioned,

because they were the first two that were conquered on the other side

Jordan,

v. 19, 20.

It is good to enter into the detail of God’s favours and not to view

them in the gross, and in each instance to observe, and own, that God’s

mercy endureth for ever.

5. He put them in possession of a good land,

v. 21, 22.

He whose the earth is, and the fulness thereof, the world and those

that dwell therein, took land from one people and gave it to another,

as pleased him. The iniquity of the Amorites was now full, and

therefore it was taken from them. Israel was his

servant, and, though they had been provoking in the wilderness,

yet he intended to have some service out of them, for to them

pertained the service of God. As he said to the Egyptians, Let

my people go, so to the Canaanites, Let my people in, that

they may serve me. In this God’s mercy to them endureth for

ever, because it was a figure of the heavenly Canaan, the mercy

of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

Divine Mercy Celebrated.

     

23 Who remembered us in our low estate: for his mercy

endureth for ever:

  24 And hath redeemed us from our enemies: for his mercy

endureth for ever.

  25 Who giveth food to all flesh: for his mercy endureth for

ever.

  26 O give thanks unto the God of heaven: for his mercy

endureth for ever.

     

God’s everlasting mercy is here celebrated,

1. In the redemption of his church,

v. 23, 24.

In the many redemptions wrought for the Jewish church out of the hands

of their oppressors (when, in the years of their servitude, their

estate was very low, God remembered them, and raised them up saviours,

the judges, and David, at length, by whom God gave them rest from all

their enemies), but especially in the great redemption of the universal

church, of which these were types, we have a great deal of reason to

say, “He remembered us, the children of men, in our low

estate, in our lost estate, for his mercy endureth for ever;

he sent his Son to redeem us from sin, and death, and hell, and all our

spiritual enemies, for his mercy endureth for ever; he was sent

to redeem us, and not the angels that sinned, for his mercy endureth

for ever.”

2. In the provision he makes for all the creatures

(v. 25):

He gives food to all flesh. It is an instance of the mercy of

God’s providence that wherever he has given life he gives food

agreeable and sufficient; and he is a good housekeeper that provides

for so large a family.

3. In all his glories, and all his gifts

(v. 26):

Give thanks to the God of heaven. This denotes him to be a

glorious God, and the glory of his mercy is to be taken notice of in

our praises. The riches of his glory are displayed in the

vessels of his mercy,
Rom. ix. 23.

It also denotes him to be the great benefactor, for every good and

perfect gift is from above, from the Father of lights, the God

of heaven; and we should trace every stream to the fountain. This

and that particular mercy may perhaps endure but a while, but the mercy

that is in God endures for ever; it is an inexhaustible

fountain.

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Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)

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