Psalms 65

1 To victory, the psalm of the song of David. God, praising becometh thee in Zion; and a vow shall be yielded to thee in Jerusalem. (God, praises be due to thee in Zion; and our vows shall be paid to thee in Jerusalem.)

2 Hear thou my prayer; each man shall come to thee. (Hear thou my prayer; let everyone come to thee.)

3 The words of wicked men had the mastery over us; and thou shalt do mercy to our wickednesses. (The words of the wicked had the mastery over us; but thou hath shown mercy toward our wickednesses.)

4 Blessed is he, whom thou hast chosen, and hast taken; he shall dwell in thy foreyards. We shall be [ful]filled with the goods of thine house; thy temple is holy, (Happy is he, whom thou hast chosen, and thou hast brought to live in thy courtyards; and we shall be satisfied with the good things of thy House, yea, of thy holy Temple.)

5 wonderful in equity. God, our health, hear thou us; thou art hope of all coasts of earth, and in the sea afar. (With wonderful things, and with victory, thou answereth us, O God, our salvation/O God, our deliverance; thou art the hope of all who be at the ends of the earth, and who be far across the sea.)

6 And thou makest ready hills in thy virtue, and art girded with power; (And thou preparest the mountains with thy strength, and thou art girded with power;)

7 which troublest the depth of the sea, the sound of the waves thereof. Folks shall be troubled, (ye who maketh the sea to be still, when it is troubled, yea, who quieteth the roar of its waves. And the people as well; when they be troubled.)

8 and they that dwell in the ends shall dread of thy signs; thou shalt delight the outgoings of the morrowtide and eventide. (And they who live at the ends of the earth shall be filled with awe at thy signs; thou even makest the morning and the evening to have delight at what thou hast done.)

9 Thou hast visited the land, and hast greatly filled it; thou hast multiplied to make it rich. The flood of God was [full-]filled with waters; thou madest ready the meat of them, for the making ready thereof is so (The rivers of God were filled full with water; and thou preparedest rain for the land/and thou preparedest corn for the land, for such is its preparation).

10 Thou filling greatly the streams thereof, multiply the fruits thereof; the land bringing forth fruits shall be glad in the gutters of it. (And by greatly filling up its streams, thou hast multiplied its fruits; and the land bringing forth these fruits shall be glad for all this water.)

11 Thou shalt bless the crown of the year of thy good will; and thy fields shall be [full-]filled with plenty of fruits. (Thou shalt crown the year with thy goodness/with thy good things; and thy fields shall be filled full with plenty of fruits.)

12 The fair things of desert shall wax fat; and little hills shall be compassed with full out joying. (The fields of the wilderness shall grow fat; and the hills shall resound with rejoicing.)

13 The wethers of sheep be clothed, and valleys shall be plenteous of wheat; they shall cry (out), and soothly they shall say praising/and soothly they shall say psalm. (The pastures shall be clothed with sheep, and the valleys shall be plentiful with corn; they shall cry aloud, and truly they shall say praises/and truly they shall sing songs.)

Psalms 65 Commentary

Chapter 65

God is to be praised in the kingdom of grace. (1-5) In the kingdom of providence. (6-13)

Verses 1-5 All the praise the Lord receives from this earth is from Zion, being the fruit of the Spirit of Christ, and acceptable through him. Praise is silent unto thee, as wanting words to express the great goodness of God. He reveals himself upon a mercy-seat, ready to hear and answer the prayers of all who come unto him by faith in Jesus Christ. Our sins prevail against us; we cannot pretend to balance them with any righteousness of our own: yet, as for our transgressions, of thine own free mercy, and for the sake of a righteousness of thine own providing, we shall not come into condemnation for them. Observe what it is to come into communion with God in order to blessedness. It is to converse with him as one we love and value; it is to apply ourselves closely to religion as to the business of our dwelling-place. Observe how we come into communion with God; only by God's free choice. There is abundance of goodness in God's house, and what is satisfying to the soul; there is enough for all, enough for each: it is always ready; and all without money and without price. By faith and prayer we may keep up communion with God, and bring in comfort from him, wherever we are. But it is only through that blessed One, who approaches the Father as our Advocate and Surety, that sinners may expect or can find this happiness.

Verses 6-13 That Almighty strength which sets fast the mountains, upholds the believer. That word which stills the stormy ocean, and speaks it into a calm, can silence our enemies. How contrary soever light and darkness are to each other, it is hard to say which is most welcome. Does the watchman wait for the morning? so does the labourer earnestly desire the shades of evening. Some understand it of the morning and evening sacrifices. We are to look upon daily worship, both alone and with our families, to be the most needful of our daily occupations, the most delightful of our daily comforts. How much the fruitfulness of this lower part of the creation depends upon the influence of the upper, is easy to observe; every good and perfect gift is from above. He who enriches the earth, which is filled with man's sins, by his abundant and varied bounty, can neither want power nor will to feed the souls of his people. Temporal mercies to us unworthy creatures, shadow forth more important blessings. The rising of the Sun of righteousness, and the pouring forth of the influences of the Holy Spirit, that river of God, full of the waters of life and salvation, render the hard, barren, worthless hearts of sinners fruitful in every good work, and change the face of nations more than the sun and rain change the face of nature. Wherever the Lord passes, by his preached gospel, attended by his Holy Spirit, his paths drop fatness, and numbers are taught to rejoice in and praise him. They will descend upon the pastures of the wilderness, all the earth shall hear and embrace the gospel, and bring forth abundantly the fruits of righteousness which are, through Jesus Christ, to the glory of the Father. Manifold and marvellous, O Lord, are thy works, whether of nature or of grace; surely in loving-kindness hast thou made them all.

Chapter Summary

To the chief Musician, A Psalm [and] Song of David. Some copies of the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions read "a song of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, "sung" by the people of the captivity, when they were about to come out;" and some copies have "Haggai": but though it is possible it might be sung upon that occasion, it is certain it was not then composed, but was written by David, as the genuine title shows: as for Jeremiah; he was not carried captive to Babylon, and Ezekiel died before the return of the people from it; nor is there anything in the psalm relating to that captivity. The title of it, indeed, in the Arabic version, is concerning the captivity of the people; which it seems to have taken from some Greek copy; and Kimchi and Arama interpret it of the captivity of the people of the Jews; but then they mean their present captivity, and their deliverance from it. According to the title of it in the Syriac version, the occasion of it was the bringing up of the ark of God to Sion; and Aben Ezra is of opinion that David composed the psalm at that time; or that one of the singers composed it at the building of the temple, and which he thinks is right, and perhaps is concluded from Psalm 65:1; and who also says it was composed in a year of drought; but it rather seems to have been written in a year of great plenty, as the latter part of it shows; and the whole seems to respect the fruitful, flourishing, and happy state of the church in Gospel times, for which it is a song of praise.