Psalms 145:8
Psa 145:8-13 This memorable utterance of Jahve concerning Himself the writer of Ps 103, which is of kindred import, also interweaves into his celebration of the revelation of divine love in Psa 145:8. Instead of רב־חסד the expression here, however, is וגדול חסד (Kerî, as in Nah 1:3, cf. Psa 89:29, with Makkeph וּגדל־). The real will of God tends towards favour, which gladly giving stoops to give (חנּוּן), and towards compassion, which interests itself on behalf of the sinner for his help and comfort (רחוּם). Wrath is only the background of His nature, which He reluctantly and only after long waiting (ארך אפּים) lets loose against those who spurn His great mercy. For His goodness embraces, as Psa 145:9 says, all; His tender mercies are over all His works, they hover over and encompass all His creatures. Therefore, too, all His works praise Him: they are all together loud-speaking witnesses of that sympathetic all-embracing love of His, which excludes no one who does not exclude himself; and His saints, who live in God’s love, bless Him (יברכוּכה written as in 1Ki 18:44): their mouth overflows with the declaration (יאמרוּ) of the glory of the kingdom of this loving God, and in speaking (ידבּרוּ) of the sovereign power with which He maintains and extends this kingdom. This confession they make their employ, in order that the knowledge of the mighty acts of God and the glorious majesty of His kingdom may at length become the general possession of mankind. When the poet in Psa 145:12 sets forth the purpose of the proclamation, he drops the form of address. God’s kingdom is a kingdom of all aeons, and His dominion is manifested without exception and continually in all periods or generations (בּכל־דּור ודר as in Ps 45:18, Est 9:28, a pleonastic strengthening of the expression בּדר ודר, Psa 90:1). It is the eternal circumference of the history of time, but at the same time its eternal substance, which more and more unfolds and achieves itself in the succession of the periods that mark its course. For that all things in heaven and on earth shall be gathered up together (ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι, Eph 1:10) in the all-embracing kingdom of God in His Christ, is the goal of all history, and therefore the substance of history which is working itself out. With Psa 145:13 (cf. Dan. 3:33, Dan 4:31, according to Hitzig the primary passages) another paragraph is brought to a close.
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