_O that thou wouldest rend the heavens_ This God is said to do, or to
_bow the heavens, and come down_, when he gives a very signal display
of his power. It is a metaphor taken from men who, when they would
resolutely and effectually help a person in distress, break through
every opposition and obst... [ Continue Reading ]
_When thou didst terrible things_ This may relate to what he did first
in Egypt, and afterward in the wilderness; _which we looked not for_
Such things as we could not have expected; _the mountains flowed down_
See Exodus 19:18; Deuteronomy 32:22; Psalms 18:7, with the notes. But
Lowth proposes anot... [ Continue Reading ]
_Thou meetest him that rejoiceth_, &c. “Thou preventest, with the
blessings of thy goodness, those that take pleasure in the ways of thy
commandments, and live under a continual sense of thy providence.”
_Behold, thou art wroth_ Or greatly angry; _for_, or _because, we have
sinned_ Have been guilty... [ Continue Reading ]
_We are all as an unclean thing_ Or, _unclean person_, as שׂמא
equally signifies. He seems to allude to persons unclean through the
leprosy, which was the highest degree of uncleanness among the Jews.
He means that the body of the people were like one under a ceremonial
pollution, who was not admitt... [ Continue Reading ]
_But now, O Lord, thou art our Father_ Notwithstanding all this, thou
art our Father, having both created and adopted us; therefore pity us
thy children; _we are the clay, and thou our potter_ We are in thy
hands as clay in the hands of the potter: thou canst form us, and
dispose of us as thou pleas... [ Continue Reading ]
_Thy holy cities_ Zion and Jerusalem, mentioned immediately after; or
other cities also in the land of Judea besides these two; called
_holy_, because God had his synagogues in them, in which he was
worshipped, Psalms 74:8. _Zion is a wilderness_, &c. Utterly waste:
not only the ordinary cities, but... [ Continue Reading ]