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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 145:8 - 145:8
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This memorable utterance of Jahve concerning Himself the writer of Ps 103, which is of kindred import, also interweaves into his celebration of the revelation of divine love in Psa 145:8. Instead of רַב־חָֽסֵד the expression here, however, is וגדול חָֽסֶד (Kerî, as in Nah 1:3, cf. Psa 89:29, with Makkeph וּגְדָל־). The real will of God tends towards favour, which gladly giving stoops to give (חַנּוּן), and towards compassion, which interests itself on behalf of the sinner for his help and comfort (רַחוּם). Wrath is only the background of His nature, which He reluctantly and only after long waiting (אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם) lets loose against those who spurn His great mercy. For His goodness embraces, as Psa 145:9 says, all; His tender mercies are over all His works, they hover over and encompass all His creatures. Therefore, too, all His works praise Him: they are all together loud-speaking witnesses of that sympathetic all-embracing love of His, which excludes no one who does not exclude himself; and His saints, who live in God's love, bless Him (יְבָֽרְכוּכָה written as in 1Ki 18:44): their mouth overflows with the declaration (יֹאמֵרוּ) of the glory of the kingdom of this loving God, and in speaking (יְדַבֵּרוּ) of the sovereign power with which He maintains and extends this kingdom. This confession they make their employ, in order that the knowledge of the mighty acts of God and the glorious majesty of His kingdom may at length become the general possession of mankind. When the poet in Psa 145:12 sets forth the purpose of the proclamation, he drops the form of address. God's kingdom is a kingdom of all aeons, and His dominion is manifested without exception and continually in all periods or generations (בְּכָל־דֹּור וָדֹר as in Ps 45:18, Est 9:28, a pleonastic strengthening of the expression בְּדֹר וָדֹר, Psa 90:1). It is the eternal circumference of the history of time, but at the same time its eternal substance, which more and more unfolds and achieves itself in the succession of the periods that mark its course. For that all things in heaven and on earth shall be gathered up together (ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι, Eph 1:10) in the all-embracing kingdom of God in His Christ, is the goal of all history, and therefore the substance of history which is working itself out. With Psa 145:13 (cf. Dan. 3:33, Dan 4:31, according to Hitzig the primary passages) another paragraph is brought to a close.