Psalm 135:4

Verse 4. Jacob, Israel. Praise the Lord for enroling you in this company. To quicken you in this work of praise, consider what you were; you were not a people, God raised you up from the very dunghill to this preferment; remember your past estate. Look, as old Jacob considered what he had been when God preferred him ( Genesis 32:10 ); "With my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands;" so do you say, I am a worthless creature, it is God that hath taken me into his grace, praised be the Lord that hath chosen me. Then consider how many are left to perish in the wide world. Some live out of the church's pale that never heard of Christ, and many others have only a loose general form of Christianity. Oh! blessed be God that hath chosen me to be of the number of his peculiar people. It is said ( Zechariah 13:8 ), "And it shall come to pass in all the land, saith the Lord, that two parts shall be cut off and die, but the third shall be left therein." We pass through many bolters before we come to be God's peculiar people, as the corn is ground, bolted, searched before it comes to be fine flour. Many have not the knowledge of God, and others live in the church but are carnal; and for me to be one of his peculiar people, a member of Christ's mystical body, oh! what a privilege is this! And then what moved him to all this? Nothing but his own free grace. Therefore praise the Lord. -- Thomas Manton.

Verse 4. His peculiar treasure. The Hebrew word scgullah signifieth God's special jewels, God's proper ones, or God's secret ones, that he keeps in store for himself, and for his own special service and use. Princes lock up with their own hands in secret their most precious and costly jewels; and so doth God his: "For the LORD hath chosen Jacob unto himself, and Israel for his peculiar treasure", or for his secret gain. --Thomas Brooks.

Verse 4. His peculiar treasure. Will not a man that is not defective in his prudentials secure his jewels? "They shall be mine in that day when I make up my jewels, and I will spare them as a father his son that serveth him:" Malachi 3:17 . If a house be on fire, the owner of it will first take care of his wife and children, then of his jewels, and last of all, of his lumber and rubbish. Christ secures first his people, for they are his jewels; the world is but lumber and rubbish. --Richard Mayhew.

HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS

Verse 4. It is a song of praise, and therefore election is mentioned because it is a motive for song.