Psalm 145:9

Verse 9. Even the worst taste of God's mercy; such as fight against God's mercy taste of it; the wicked have some crumbs from mercy's table. "The Lord is good to all." Sweet dewdrops are on the thistle as well as on the rose. The diocese where mercy visits is very large. Pharaoh's head was crowned though his heart was hardened. --Thomas Watson.

Verse 9. His tender mercies are over all his works. When the sensible sinner is seeking faith of God, he may plead the largeness of mercy. God's mercy is like the firmament spread over all this lower world; and every infirm creature partakes more or less of its influence, according to its exigence and capacity. True, may he say, I have made myself by sin, the vilest of all creatures; I am become worse than the beasts that perish; as vile as a worm, as loathsome as a toad, by reason of the venomous corruption that is in my heart, and my woeful contrariety to the nature of a holy God. But there is "mercy over all", even over such vile and loathsome creatures as these; there may be some over me, though wrath do now abide on me. Oh, let that mercy, whose glory it is to stretch itself over all, e reach my soul also! Oh, that the blessed and powerful influence thereof would p beget faith in my heart! --David Clarkson.

Verse 9. His tender mercies. The nature and force of the word ~ymxr, is properly the bowels; that is, there are tender mercies in God (so we term it in the Benedictus). Not of the ordinary sort, slight, and such as pierce not deep, come not far; but such as come de profundis, from the very bowels themselves, that affect that part, make the bowels relent. And what bowels? Not the bowels of the common man (for then ~w[m had been the right word), but ~mxr are the bsw[lv of a par[nt (so, we said, the word signifies), and this adds much; adds to m[rcy stosgh, natural love; to one strong affection another as strong or stronger than it.

And what parent? the more pitiful of the twain, the mother. For ~xr (the singular of this word) is Hebrew for the womb. So as this, to the two former addeth the sex; the sex holden to be the more compassionate. Of all mercies, those of the bowels; and of all bowels, the bowels of a parent; and of the two parents, those of the mother: such pity as the mother takes of the children of her womb. Mercies are in God; such mercies are in God.

"Over all." It is good news for us that these mercies are in God; but, better yet, that they are in him with a super -- "over." But, best of all, that that super is a super omnia -- "over all." Much is said in few words to mercy's praise when 'tis said, super omnia. Nihil supra were much, none above it: but it is written super omnia, above all. He that saith this leaves no more to say; there is no higher degree; super omnia is the superlative.

All that are above are not over. It is not above only, as an obelisk or Maypole, higher than all about them, but have neither shadow nor shelter; no good they do! Mercy hath a broad top, spreading itself over all. It is so above all, as it is over them, too. As the vault of this chapel is over us, and the great vault of the firmament over that; the super of latitude and expansion, no less than of altitude and elevation. And this to the end that all may retire to it, and take covert; it over them, and they under it. Under it, under the shadow of it, as of Esay's "great rock in the wilderness", from the heat: under it, under the shelter of it as of Daniel's "great tree", from the tempest. ( Isaiah 32:2 Daniel 4:11-12 ). - -Lancelot Andrewes.

HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS

Verse 9. The universal goodness of God in no degree a contradiction to the special election of grace.