god's works of providence and grace.
Ps. Ixv. 9 — 13. Thou visitest the earth, and ivaterest it : thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, ivhich is full of water : thou preparest them corn, lohen thou hast so provided for it. Thou ivaterest the ridges thereof abundantly : thou settlest the furrows thereof : thou makest it soft loith shovjers ; thou hlessest the spiringing thereof. Thou crozvnest the year with thy goodness ; and thy paths drop fatness : they drop upon the pastures of the tvilderness : and the little hills rejoice on every side. The pastures are clothed ivith flocks : the valleys also are covered over ivith corn : they shout for joy ; they also sing.
ON what occasion this psahn was written is not certainly known : but it is probable that the inspired penman wrote it on the removal of the famine which God sent to punish the cruelty of Saul and of his bloody house towards the Gibeonites, whom he was bound by covenant to protect. This famine lasted three years : but at last, David having inquired of the Lord on what account this heavy judgment had been sent, and how the removal of it might be obtained, he was informed, that it was sent as a punishment of Saul's treachery, in which the people, no doubt, had too willingly concurred ; and that he must execute on Saul's posterity such a judgment as the Gibeonites themselves should award to them. The Gibeonites demanded that seven of Saul's sons should be put to death. Seven of his sons were accordingly delivered into their hands, and were hanged up by them, as an atonement for their father's sin^ The Gibeonites being now satisfied with this act of retributive justice, the favour of God was restored to the land, and the whole nation was gladdened with the return of plenty. Under this great calamity, David and all the pious of the land had humbled themselves before God ; and in this psalm they acknowledge God as the merciful Answerer of prayer to his penitent people, whilst he was the just Punisher of sin to tiiose who continued impenitent. " He had lately
a 2 Sam. xxi. 1—9.
god's works of providence and grace. 469
604.]
answered them by terrible things in righteousness" for their transgressions : and now he had merci- fully '' heard their prayer/' and " purged away their transgressions."
The words before us give a lively and beautiful description of the change wrought upon the earth through the rich showers with which God, in his mercy, had watered it. Of course our attention there- fore must, in the first place, be fixed on those bless- ings of providence with which we also are favoured : yet, as throughout all the inspired writings there will be found a reference to spiritual blessings, under those terms which at first sight appear to have only a literal and carnal import, it will be proper to notice, also, what we conceive to be mystically contained in this passage. Agreeably to this view, we shall con- sider the text,
I. As literally fulfilled in the blessings of God's Pro- vidence— God is, in reality, " the giver of every good and perfect gift" —
[Because God, in the first creation of the world, assigned to every thing its proper place and office, we are apt to over- look his agency in the things of daily occurrence, and to ascribe them to what are called the laws of nature. But the hand of God is as necessary to uphold the universe, as ever it was to create it at first. The heavenly bodies, it is true, have had their motions given them from the beginning ; and have, for the most part, continued to obey the laws of their creation. But they have occasionally had those laws suspended ; as when the sun stood still upon Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon, for the space of a whole day : and from hence it appears, that they move in subserviency to the will of their Creator, and execute his righteous purposes of vengeance or of love, according to his command. The same may be said respecting the elements of this terraqueous globe. Fire and water have their properties ; according to which, for the most part, they act : but at God's command the waters stood like a wall, to form a passage and a rampart for his chosen people ; and the fire lost its power even to singe the clothes of his faithful servants, who were cast into it for their fidelity to him. In like manner, the earth produces fruits of different kinds ; and the rains at certain seasons descend to call forth into activity its vegetative powers. But the agency both of the