The pleasantness of the Divine Name.
"God is love," and this absolute fact concerning him is embodied in the Divine Name. This is especially true for us to whom the Divine Name of names is "our Father." The word used here is elsewhere used in the sense of propitious or gracious; and it is the graciousness, pitifulness, long-suffering of God which, man thinks of as making his Name so lovely. In Psalms 54:6 we find the expression, I will praise thy Name, O Lord; for it is good. Some think the meaning of the psalmist is, that the work of offering praise is pleasant; but it is fresher, and an indication of deeper feeling in the psalmist, that he should associate pleasantness even with the sound of the Divine Name.
I. THE PLEASANTNESS OF THE DIVINE TAME, BECAUSE OF WHAT IT RECALLS. There is a whole history of Divine dealings embodied in the Name. Illustrate from the way in which some special intervention of God was put into a special form of the Divine Name, such as Jehovah-jireh, Jehovah-nissi, Jehovah-tsidkenu, etc. The whole story of the Divine patience, intervention, and redemption is gathered up into the general name Jehovah, and is recalled by it. So the spiritual redemption is recalled by the name given to God manifest in the flesh—Jehovah-Jesus, Jehovah-Emmanuel. How pleasant the names which recall such gracious things!
II. THE PLEASANTNESS OF THE DIVINE NAME BECAUSE OF WHAT IT CONTAINS. It is familiar to point out that a name embodies and expresses the attributes or characteristics of a person. The early Bible names have distinct meanings; they describe persons. The Divine Name is lovely because it describes our ideal of everything true, pure, kind, gracious, wise. It describes him who is the "chief among ten thousand, and altogether lovely." The satisfaction and rest of the human heart cannot come only out of what God says, or out of what God does; it comes out of what God is; and what God is is embodied in his Name.
III. THE PLEASANTNESS OF THE DIVINE NAME BECAUSE OF WHAT IT SUGGESTS OR ASSURES. When we have absolute confidence in a person, and seal that confidence by fixing our own name for him, all our future relations with that person are guaranteed. So the name Jehovah (Yehweh), "I am that I am," seals our absolute confidence in God, and suggests entire trust in him, and the certainty of Divine help and blessing in all that may unfold before us. He is the "same yesterday, and today, and for ever.'—R.T.