Psalm 22:28; Daniel 2:21—Job 12:23; Proverbs 14:34—Psalm 66:7
The kingdom is the LORD’s: and he is the governor among the nations.
He removeth kings, and setteth up kings—He increaseth the nations, and destroyeth them: he enlargeth the nations, and straighteneth them again.
Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people—He ruleth by his power for ever; his eyes behold the nations: let not the rebellious exalt themselves. Selah.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): The cabinet counsels of princes are before God’s eye, 2 Kings 6:11…Kingdoms have their ebbings and flowings, their waxings and wanings; and both are from God.
ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): And this is marked by the extraordinary note “Selah,” or, “Mark well, take notice.” So the term may be understood.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Mark the presence of the great Ruler among the nations. He breaks in pieces oppressive thrones, and punishes guilty peoples. No one can study the rise and fall of empires without perceiving that there is a power which makes for righteousness, and, in the end, brings iniquity before its bar, and condemns it with unsparing justice.
EDWARD PAYSON (1783-1827): It is indispensably necessary to the perfection of God’s moral government that it should extend to nations and communities, as well as to individuals. This, I conceive, is too evident to require proof, for how could God be considered as the moral governor of the world, if nations and communities were exempt from His government?
JAMES HERVEY (1713-1758): How can the justice of God, with regard to a wicked nations, be shown, but by executing His vengeance upon them, in temporal calamities?
C. H. SPURGEON: National sins demand national punishments.
JAMES HERVEY: Consider, Sirs, the very essence of political communities is temporal, purely temporal. It has no existence but in this world. Hereafter, sinners will be judged and punished, singly and in a personal capacity only. How then shall He that is Ruler among nations, maintain the dignity of His government over the kingdoms of the earth, but by inflicting national punishments for national provocations?
C. H. SPURGEON: The whole history of God’s dealings with mankind proves that though a nation may go on in wickedness; it may multiply its oppressions; it may abound in bloodshed, tyranny, and war; but an hour of retribution draweth nigh. When it shall have filled up its measure of iniquity, then shall the angel of vengeance execute its doom. There cannot be an eternal damnation of nations as nations, the destruction of men at last will be that of individuals, and at the bar of God each man must be tried for himself. The punishment, therefore, of nations, is national. The guilt they incur, must receive its awful recompense in this present time state.
JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): Though the occasion will require me to take some notice of our public affairs, I mean not to amuse you with what is usually called a political discourse. The Bible is my system of politics. There I read, that “the Lord reigneth,” Psalm 97:1; that “He doth what He pleaseth in the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth,” Daniel 4:35; that no wisdom, understanding, counsel, or power, can prevail without His blessing, Proverbs 21:30; that as “righteousness exalteth a nation,” so “sin is the reproach,” and will even totally be the ruin of any people.
CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): This is political wisdom on scriptural principles. If “righteousness exalteth a nation,” the open acknowledgment of it is the sure path to national prosperity. If it be not beneath statesmen to take lessons from the Bible, let them deeply ponder this sound political maxim, which commends itself to every instinct of the unsophisticated mind. Indeed it would be a strange anomaly in the Divine administration, if the connection between godliness and prosperity, ungodliness and misery, established in individual cases, should not obtain in the multiplication of individuals into nations.
ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): Justice, reigning in a nation, puts an honour upon it. A righteous administration of the government, impartial equity between man and man, public countenance given to religion, the general practice and profession of virtue, the protecting and preserving of virtuous men, charity and compassion to strangers, these “exalt a nation;” they uphold the throne, elevate the people’s minds, and qualify a nation for the favour of God, which will make them high, as a “holy nation,” Deuteronomy 26:19. Vice, reigning in a nation, puts disgrace upon it: “Sin is a reproach” to any city or kingdom, and renders them despicable among their neighbours. The people of Israel were often instances of both parts of this observation; they were great when they were good, but when they forsook God all about them insulted them and trampled on them.
CHARLES BRIDGES: As they were a righteous or sinful nation, they were marked by corresponding exaltation or reproach. The Scripture records clearly prove this to be the rule of national conduct—not the wisdom of policy, extent of empire, splendid conquests, flourishing trade, abundant resources—but righteousness—exalteth a nation.
WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): Nations who depend for their protection and prosperity upon navies, armies, commerce, and forget God; they are idolaters.
ADAM CLARKE: It is therefore the interest and duty of princes to use their power for the suppression of vice and support of virtue.
EDWARD PAYSON: National judgments are always the consequence of national sins.
C. H. SPURGEON: Go ye this day to Jerusalem, look beneath the buildings of the modern town, and mark the excavations which reveal the utter ruin of the holy city…Why was the siege of Jerusalem the most bloody and horrible in all history?” It was because the Jews rejected the Messiah, and would not believe the testimony of the Living God. O accursed unbelief!
MATTHEW HENRY: If Jerusalem be punished―shall not the nations?
JOHN NEWTON: We likewise are a highly favored people, and have long enjoyed privileges which excite the admiration and envy of surrounding nations: and we are a sinful, ungrateful people; so that, when we compare the blessings and mercies we have received from the Lord, with our conduct towards Him, it is to be feared we are no less concerned than Israel was of old. Some people are startled at the enormous sum of our national debt: they who understand spiritual arithmetic may be well startled if they sit down and compare the debt of national sin.
JOHN FLAVEL (1630-1691): O that we would but steer our course according to those rare politics of the Bible, those divine maxims of wisdom!
J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): This is the book on which the well-being of nations has always hinged, and with which the best interests of every nation at this moment are inseparably bound up. Just in proportion as the Bible is honoured or not, light or darkness, morality or immorality, true religion or superstition, liberty or despotism, good laws or bad, will be found in a land.
MATTHEW HENRY: People are ruined, not so much by doing what is amiss, as by doing it and not repenting of it—doing it and standing to it.
EDWARD PAYSON: As sinful nations, like individuals, if they do not reform, usually become worse, it will ever be found that the last days of a nation are its worst days, and that the generation which is destroyed is more abandoned than all preceding generations.
JOHN NEWTON: To stand in the breach, by prayer, that, if it may be, wrath may yet be averted, and our national mercies prolonged—This, I think, is the true patriotism, and the best, if not the only way, in which persons in private life may serve their country.
