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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - Psalms 68:10 - 68:10
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Thy congregation; thy people of Israel, who are all united in one body under thee, their Head and Governor. For though this word commonly signifies living creatures, yet sometimes it signifies a company of men, as here below, Psa_68:31, and 2Sa_23:13, compared with 1Ch_11:15 Psa_74:19. Or the proper signification of the word may be retained, and it may be rendered thy flock; for God oft compares himself to a shepherd, and his people to sheep, and particularly he is said to have led his people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron, Psa_77:20, to wit, in the wilderness; and consequently he may be here said to have brought his sheep into and made them to dwell in Canaan, as in a green and good pasture, as God speaks of his people under this very metaphor, Psa_23:2.
Prepared; or, prepared it; which pronoun is oft understood, and here most easily out of the foregoing clause of this verse, where it is expressed. Prepared it, to wit, this land, for the use of thy people; which God did many ways; partly by designing it for them, and expelling the old inhabitants to make way for them; and partly by furnishing it with all sorts of provisions, both for necessity. and delight, and making it fruitful by his special blessing, in giving rain in its proper seasons.
Of thy goodness; by thy free and singular goodness; which may be referred both to the cause of this preparation, God did it not for their righteousness or worthiness, but out of his mere mercy, as God oft telleth them; and to the manner and measure of it, God did wonderfully increase the fruits of it, that it might suffice for the supply of such a numerous people; which without his extraordinary blessing it would not do, as appears by the state of that land at this day, as it is reported by travellers and eye-witnesses of it.
For the poor, to wit, for thy people of Israel, whom he here calls poor, partly to repress that pride and arrogance to which they are exceeding prone, and to mind them of the dependence upon God for all that they have and hope for; and partly because they really were, when God undertook the conduct of them into Canaan, a very poor and beggarly people, and so they would have still been, if God had not provided for them in a singular manner.