Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Calvin Complete Commentary - Psalms 89:52 - 89:52
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
52.Blessed be Jehovah for ever! I am surprised why some interpreters should imagine, that this verse was added by some transcriber in copying the book, affirming, that it does not correspond with the context: as if the language of praise and thanksgiving to God were not as suitable at the close of a psalm as at the opening of it. I have therefore no doubt, that the prophet, after having freely bewailed the calamities of the Church, now, with the view of allaying the bitterness of his grief, purposely breaks forth into the language of praise. As to the words Amen, and Amen, I readily grant, that they are here employed to distinguish the book. (561) But whoever composed this psalm, there is no doubt, that by these words of rejoicing, the design of the writer was to assuage the greatness of his grief in the midst of his heavy afflictions, that he might entertain the livelier hope of deliverance.
(561) Or, as if our Redeemer were slow-paced, halt, or lame, and his Church should never behold his steps. With this agrees the Chaldee paraphrase: — “ slowness of the footsteps of the feet of thy Messiah or anointed.” Kimchi renders, “ delays of the Messiah;” “ discourse,” he observes, “ of those who say that he will never come.” A similar style of speech has been employed by the enemies of the gospel, as Calvin goes on to observe, who scoffingly asked in the days of the apostles, and who still ask, “ is the promise of his coming?” 2Pe_3:4.