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Psalm 65

Thanksgiving for Earth’s Bounty

To the leader. A Psalm of David. A Song.

1

Praise is due to you,

O God, in Zion;

and to you shall vows be performed,

2

O you who answer prayer!

To you all flesh shall come.

3

When deeds of iniquity overwhelm us,

you forgive our transgressions.

4

Happy are those whom you choose and bring near

to live in your courts.

We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house,

your holy temple.

 

5

By awesome deeds you answer us with deliverance,

O God of our salvation;

you are the hope of all the ends of the earth

and of the farthest seas.

6

By your strength you established the mountains;

you are girded with might.

7

You silence the roaring of the seas,

the roaring of their waves,

the tumult of the peoples.

8

Those who live at earth’s farthest bounds are awed by your signs;

you make the gateways of the morning and the evening shout for joy.

 

9

You visit the earth and water it,

you greatly enrich it;

the river of God is full of water;

you provide the people with grain,

for so you have prepared it.

10

You water its furrows abundantly,

settling its ridges,

softening it with showers,

and blessing its growth.

11

You crown the year with your bounty;

your wagon tracks overflow with richness.

12

The pastures of the wilderness overflow,

the hills gird themselves with joy,

13

the meadows clothe themselves with flocks,

the valleys deck themselves with grain,

they shout and sing together for joy.


5 Terrible things 453453     The original word for terrible things “signifies sometimes terrible sometimes wonderful things, anything that exceeds in greatness or quality. In the latter sense we have it, Deuteronomy 10:21, when speaking of God, it is said, ‘He is thy praise, and he is thy God, that hath done for thee these great and terrible things,’ — great, exceeding, wonderful things; and those acts of mercy, and not of justice or punishment; and so here it appears to signify, being joined with answering us, or granting us, in answer to our prayers, (so ענת signifies to answer a request, to hear a prayer,) and with in righteousness, which frequently imports mercy The LXX. accordingly read it θαυμαστὸς, wonderful.” — Hammond in righteousness wilt thou answer to us He proceeds to illustrate, although in a somewhat different form, the same point of the blessedness of those who are admitted into the temple of God, and nourished in his house. He declares that God would answer his people by miracles or fearful signs, displaying his power; as if he had said, in deliverances as wonderful as those which he wrought for their fathers when they went out of Egypt. It is in no common or ordinary manner that God has preserved his Church, but with terrible majesty. It is well that this should be known, and the people of God taught to sustain their hopes in the most apparently desperate exigencies. The Psalmist speaks of the deliverances of God as specially enjoyed by the Jewish nation, but adds, that he was the hope of the ends of the earth, even to the world’s remotest extremities. Hence it follows, that the grace of God was to be extended to the Gentiles.


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