Psalms 103:7-17

7 He made known his ¹ways to Moses, his ²acts to the people of Israel.

8 The LORD is ³merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

9 ⁴He will not always chide, nor will he ⁵keep his anger forever.

10 He does not deal with us ⁶according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.

11 For ⁷as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his ⁸steadfast love toward ⁹those who fear him;

12 as far as the east is from the west, so far does he ¹⁰remove our transgressions from us.

13 As ¹¹a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion ¹²to those who fear him.

14 For he knows our frame;^[a] he ¹³remembers that we are dust.

15 As for man, his days are like ¹⁴grass; he flourishes like ¹⁵a flower of the field;

16 for ¹⁶the wind passes over it, and ¹⁷it is gone, and ¹⁸its place knows it no more.

17 But ¹⁹the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on ²⁰those who fear him, and his righteousness to ²¹children's children,

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Psalms 103:7-17 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 103

\\<>\\. The Targum adds, ``spoken in prophecy,'' as doubtless it was, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Some think it was written by David, after a fit of illness, and his recovery from it, since he speaks of his diseases being healed, and his youth renewed; for which reason the Syriac interpreter suggests it was written in his old age; for he makes the subject of the psalm to be, ``concerning coldness which prevailed upon him in old age;'' but rather he wrote it when his heart was warm with a sense of the love of God, and spiritual blessings of grace flowing from thence; and in it celebrates and sings the benefits of New Testament times; and it is a psalm suitable to be sung by every believer, under a quick sense of divine favours: wherefore the above interpreter better adds, ``also an instruction and thanksgiving by men of God;'' whom the psalmist may very well be thought to personate, even in Gospel times; and much rather than the Jews in captivity, as Kimchi thinks.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

Cross References 21

1. Exodus 33:13; [Psalms 25:4]
2. [Psalms 78:11; Exodus 34:10]
3. See Psalms 86:15
4. Isaiah 57:16
5. Psalms 30:5; Jeremiah 3:5, 12; Micah 7:18
6. Ezra 9:13
7. See Psalms 36:5
8. Psalms 117:2
9. ver. 13, 17; Luke 1:50
10. [Isaiah 38:17; Isaiah 43:25; Micah 7:19]
11. Malachi 3:17
12. [See ver. 11 above]
13. Psalms 78:39
14. Psalms 90:5
15. See Job 14:2
16. Isaiah 40:7
17. Psalms 37:36
18. See Job 7:10
19. Psalms 25:6
20. [See ver. 11 above]
21. Exodus 20:5, 6

Footnotes 1

[a]. Or knows how we are formed

The English Standard Version is published with the permission of Good News Publishers.