Psalm 103
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits; who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
The LORD executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed. He made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel. The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger for ever. He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.
Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust. As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children’s children; to such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them. The LORD hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all.
Bless the LORD, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word. Bless ye the LORD, all ye his hosts; ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure. Bless the LORD, all his works in all places of his dominion: bless the LORD, O my soul.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): As in the lofty Alps some peaks rise above all others, so among even the inspired Psalms there are heights of song which overtop the rest. This one hundred and third Psalm has ever seemed to us to be the Monte Rosa of the divine chain of mountains of praise, glowing with a ruddier light than any of the rest.
G. CAMPBELL MORGAN (1863-1945): This psalm is perhaps the most perfect song of pure praise to be found in the Bible.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): God is not deficient on His part in furnishing us with abundant matter for praising Him. It is our own ingratitude which hinders us from engaging in this exercise…How is it that we are so listless and drowsy in the performance of this the chief exercise of true religion, if it is not because our shameful and wicked forgetfulness buries in our hearts the innumerable benefits of God?
C. H. SPURGEON: Alas! that forgetfulness of God’s benefits is an evil kind of worm that eats into the very heart of our praise. Oh, for a retentive memory concerning the lovingkindness of the Lord!―Come, my heart, wake up, awake every faculty, but especially my memory: “Forget not all His benefits.”
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): If we do not give thanks for them, we do forget them; and that is unjust as well as unkind.
JOHN CALVIN: Doubtless our slothfulness in this matter has need of continual incitement.
CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): It is a favourite opinion of some divines, that we are bound to love God for His own perfections, without having any respect to the benefits which we receive from Him. But this appears to us to be an unscriptural refinement. That God deserves all possible love from His creatures on account of His own perfections, can admit of no doubt―but that any creature can place himself in the situation of a being who has no obligations to God for past mercies, and no expectation of future blessings from Him, we very much doubt: nor are we aware that God any where requires us so to divest ourselves of all the feelings of humanity, for the sake of engaging more entirely in the contemplation of His perfections. Nor indeed can we consent to the idea that gratitude is so low a virtue. On the contrary, it seems to be the principle that animates all the hosts of the redeemed in heaven; who are incessantly occupied in singing praises to Him who loved them, and washed them from their sins in His own blood. By this also all the most eminent saints on earth have been distinguished. In proof of this, we need go no further than to the psalm before us, wherein the man after God’s own heart adores and magnifies his Benefactor, for some particular mercies recently vouchsafed unto him.
MATTHEW HENRY: David is here communing with his own heart, and he is no fool that thus talks to himself and excites his own soul to that which is good. Observe, how he stirs up himself to the duty of praise—and that which is very affecting: “Come, my soul, consider what God has done for thee.”
CHARLES SIMEON: To enumerate all the benefits we have received from God, would be impossible…We would call you then to consider, the freeness and undeservedness of them, and their constancy and continuance. See how triumphantly the Psalmist dwells on this—Note: “Forgiveth, healeth, redeemeth, crowneth, satisfieth.”
J. R. MILLER (1840-1912): What an enumeration of divine blessings this is! Any one of them is worth more than all earth’s treasures combined.
JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): Be thankful for the great things which He has already done for you.
THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): Learn, then, by this the way of stirring up your hearts to thankfulness to God. Take a view of all his benefits to you in Christ, labour to see your interest in them, and then consider that all this God hath ordained not for my salvation only, but for the praise of His glory. All this, if thoroughly apprehended by a fresh view of faith, will at any time move a good heart to give thanks to God.
ANDREW BONAR (1810-1892): How often have saints in Scotland sung this Psalm in days when they celebrated the Lord’s Supper! It is thereby specially known in our land. It is connected also with a remarkable case in the days of John Knox. Elizabeth Adamson, a woman who attended on his preaching, “because he more fully opened the fountain of God’s mercies than others did,” was led to Christ and to rest, on hearing this Psalm―she asked for this Psalm again before she died: “It was in receiving it that my troubled soul first tasted God’s mercy, which is now sweeter to me than if all the kingdoms of the earth were given me to possess.”
CHARLES SIMEON: And let us compare our experience with the Psalmist’s. Has not God made us also the objects of His providential care, by day and by night, from the earliest period of our existence to this present moment? Has He not also renewed to us every day and hour the blessings of His grace, “watering us as His garden,” and “encompassing us with His favour as with a shield?” Surely we may say that “goodness and mercy have followed us all our days;” there has not been one single moment when our Divine keeper has ever slumbered or slept; He has kept us, “even as the apple of His eye;” “lest any should hurt us, He has kept us day and night.” Say now, what are the feelings which such mercies should generate in our souls; and what are the returns which we ought to make to our heavenly Benefactor?
C. H. SPURGEON: He has been blessing thee; now begin thou to bless Him.
