Bible Commentaries

Psalms 67:1-2. God be merciful to us — Thy people Israel. And cause his face to shine upon us — As thou hast hid thy face, or withdrawn the tokens of thy favour from us, so do thou now manifest them to us. That thy way may be known upon earth — The way wherein thou requirest men to walk, the way of thy precepts, the way of truth, or the true religion; that by the peculiar and distinguishing tokens of thy favour to us, the heathen world may be convinced of the truth and importance of our religion, may be induced to renounce their idols and their vices, to believe in thee the only living and true God, and embrace thy worship and service, expecting no good but from thee. Thy saving health — Hebrew, ישׁועתךְ, thy salvation, termed, God’s way, in the preceding clause, and both expressions, taken together, signify the way of salvation, which the psalmist desires may be known among all nations. This the ancient and godly Jews expected would be the case at the coming of the Messiah, who is called God’s salvation, and also the way, the truth, and the life, Luke 2:30; John 14:6. And so the sense of the passage is, Deal thus graciously with thy people Israel, that the Gentile world may at last be allured to unite themselves to them, to become proselytes to their religion, and receive their Messiah for their King and Saviour, when he shall be manifested, saying, We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you, Zechariah 8:23.

Psalms 67:3-5. Let all the people praise thee — O hasten that time when the Gentiles shall forsake their dumb idols, and serve and praise thee, the living God, as they have abundant cause to do. O let the nations be glad — For thy great mercy to them in rescuing them from the idolatries and superstitions, the errors and vices of their fathers, and in bringing them to the knowledge of thyself, the true God, and of eternal life. For thou shall judge the people — Shalt rule them, as it is explained in the next clause; righteously — Which is the great commendation of any government, and the greatest argument and encouragement to the Gentiles to put themselves under the government of God; and the rather, because they had found by experience the misery of living under the unrighteous and tyrannical government of Satan, and of their idolatrous and heathen rulers. And govern the nations — Hebrew, תנחם, tanchem, shall lead them, namely, gently, as a shepherd doth his sheep, or a general his soldiers, and not rule them with rigour, as other lords have done. “Thou shall hereafter govern them by righteous and good laws, who were before under the government of the prince of this world, and had nothing to guide them but some few laws and tendencies of nature, or some precepts of an old tradition, which are now almost obliterated.”

Psalms 67:6-7. Then shall the earth yield her increase — When the inhabitants of the earth shall be converted to the worship and service of the true God, he will take away his curse from the earth, and cause it to yield them abundance of all sorts of fruits. Under which one blessing all other blessings, both temporal and spiritual, are comprehended. And God, even our own God — Who is Israel’s God, in a peculiar manner, by that covenant which he hath made with us; shall bless us — Confer still further and greater blessings upon us at the coming of the Messiah, when all the ends of the earth shall fear him — Shall remember and turn unto the Lord, and worship before him, Psalms 22:27.