An outburst of thanksgiving.
A deep heart-effusion, in which all that the religious imagination, inspired by love, can suggest, is projected upon the picture of Jehovah, the redeeming God of Israel.
I. HIS LOVING-KINDNESS. (Cf. Isaiah 55:3; and the Hebrew word in Isaiah 63:7; Psalms 89:28-49; Psalms 107:43; Lamentations 3:22.) The word ( הֶסֶד) suggests a world of love. When used of men it implies pity, benignity, especially in circumstances of misfortune, as Genesis 21:23; 1 Samuel 10:2; Job 6:14. How fine is the saying in 2 Samuel 9:3, "I will act kindly toward him like unto God"! So that all human expressions of kindness may be and should be conceived as flowing from the one eternal Fountain. Sometimes, by a figure, God himself is called Favour, Mercy (Psalms 144:2; Jonah 2:9).
II. HIS GREAT DEEDS. "Renown," or "deeds of renown." The divorce of feeling from deed, of sentiment from action, that we so often see in feeble humanity, we do not find in God. With him, heart and head are one. His deeds are daily, world-extended, historical, eternal. Every commotion of the nations, every war, every revolution, must be traced to the influence of his Spirit in the last resort.
III. HIS GENEROUS BESTOWALS. There is an exuberant outflow of thought, feeling, and language here. Jehovah is to be celebrated "according to that which is due for all that he hath bestowed, according to his compassion and his abundant loving-kindnesses." Were it not that the impression of pain is keener and deeper with us than that of pleasure, it would be seen that at every moment life teems with mercies, gifts from the Giver of all good.
IV. His PROVIDENCE IN HISTORY. They were his people in virtue of the primeval covenant. They were his sons by adoption. The great salvation out of Israel was prototypical of all acts in which Jehovah "became unto them a Saviour. Distinct and strong is the representation of the sympathy of God with their suffering; distressed in all their distresses." His love and his clemency are again mentioned. He was ever, in that long and strange history of rebellion, "overcoming evil with good "—a pardoning God. His care was that of a mother's heart—carrying the people, as it were, from their birth, promising to carry them even to hoar hairs. "I bare made, and I will bear; I will carry, and I will deliver you" (Isaiah 46:3, Isaiah 46:4). Yet it is part of such providential dealing to chastise. There were especially times when the people did evil in the sight of Jehovah ( 2:11; 3:7). Secretly a Holy Spirit, or Spirit of holiness, was striving with them, and they were constantly resisting it. The great covenant with God was founded on this principle of holiness; this was the distinctive characteristic of the people as of their God. By their untruth to the covenant, they changed him as it were from a friend to an enemy. Thwarted love turns to jealousy (Exodus 34:14), and the gracious face of the Father becomes that of the wrathful Judge.—J.