Psalm 47:4
He shall choose our inheritance for us, the excellency of Jacob whom he loved. Selah.
WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): To what does this sentiment refer—our inheritance?
JOHN BOYS (1619-1625): “He shall choose our inheritance for us,” means that He hath chosen, that is, hath appointed, of His own good will and mercy towards us, our inheritance; not only things meet for this life as lands, and houses, and possessions, but even all other things concerning the hope of a better life.
WILLIAM JAY: The Christian has “another and a better country,” Hebrews 11:16; “an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven” for him, 1 Peter 1:4; and this inheritance God has chosen for him…But the sentiment here refers to time rather than eternity, and to God’s choice in the regulation of our allotments on earth—Realize this principle. See the providence of God determining the bounds of your habitations; the age in which you were to live; the stations you were to fill; the comforts you were to enjoy; and the trials you were to endure.
G. CAMPBELL MORGAN (1863-1945): This is a song of the sovereignty of God.
WILLIAM CAREY (1761-1834): God has a sovereign right to dispose of us as He pleases.
WILLIAM JAY: He has a right much greater than that of the potter over the clay; a right still greater than that of a father over his children; a right derived from absolute propriety. For has He not a right to do what He will with His own? What right have we to choose? We have neither made ourselves, nor redeemed ourselves, nor sustained ourselves. From His wardrobe we have been clothed, at His table we have been fed. He it is that draws the curtains of night around us, and tells creation to be quiet while we slumber and sleep; and His mercies are new every morning. Secondly, God is qualified to choose for us. As the right belongs to Him, so the ability belongs to Him to judge, and His judgment is always according to truth. He can never be mistaken in His decision. He knoweth our frame. He can distinguish between our wants and our wishes. He knoweth what will be good for us, and what would prove injurious to us. But every thing unfits us for choosing our inheritance for ourselves—we are too ignorant, too selfish, and too impatient for this.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Ignorance of the providence of God is the cause of all impatience.
A. B. JACK (Unknown): We are all very apt to believe in Providence when we get our own way; but when things go awry, we think, if there is a God, He is in heaven and not upon the earth. When we get our own way, we are happy and contented. When we are subjected to disappointment, we become the victims of despair. We are all like crickets. The cricket, in the spring, builds his house in the meadow, and chirps for joy because all is going so well with him. But when he hears the sound of the plough a few furrows off, and the thunder of the oxen’s tread, then his young heart fails him. By-and-by the plough comes crunching along, turns his dwelling bottom-side up, and as he goes rolling over and over, without a house and without a home, “Oh,” he says, “the foundations of the world are breaking up, and everything is hastening to destruction.” But the husbandman, as he walks behind the plough, does he think the foundations of the world are breaking up? No. He is thinking only of the harvest that is to follow in the wake of the plough; and the cricket, if it will but wait, will see the husbandman’s purpose.
JOHN CALVIN: Truly we never lean upon a better support than when, disregarding the appearance of things present, we depend entirely upon the Word of the Lord, and apprehend by faith that blessing which is not yet apparent…Therefore, whenever we wander in uncertainty through intricate windings, we must contemplate, with eyes of faith, the secret providence of God which governs us and our affairs.
BASIL (329-379): Never let us say of anything, it happened by chance; there is nothing that has not been fore-arranged, nothing which has not its own special end, by which it forms a link in the chain of appointed order.
ROWLAND HILL (1744-1833): All is under the management of infinite wisdom.
WILLIAM JAY: And if you have not much of the world―ask―why is it? Is it because my Heavenly Father is not able to give me more? No. The silver and the gold are his. The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof. The world, and they that dwell therein. Is it because He has no inclination to indulge me? No. He takes pleasure in the prosperity of His servants. It is therefore to be resolved into the wisdom and kindness of His administration.
GILES FLETCHER (1586-1623): It may be thou art godly and poor―Tis well; but canst thou tell whether, if thou wert not poor, thou wouldst be godly? Surely God knows us better than we ourselves do, and therefore can best fit the estate to the person.
WILLIAM JAY: His wisdom tells Him how much I can bear―and His kindness will not suffer Him to give me more. His aim is my welfare. The same disposition which leads Him to give, induces Him to deny. He corrects and He crowns with the same love. This loss is to enrich me: this sickness is to cure me. I know that “all things work together for good, to them that love God, to them that are the called, according to His purpose,” Romans 8:28.
WILLIAM ARNOT (1808-1875): Strangers may speak of providence; but only the children love it. Those who are alienated from God in their hearts, do not like to be so completely in His power.
WILLIAM JAY: Let us remember that He has chosen for us already.
THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): The Apostle Paul assures us that “we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world,” Ephesians 1:4; and that “we are saved and called according to God’s own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ, before the world began,” 2 Timothy 1:9.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): This is the language of every gracious soul, “God shall choose my inheritance for me; let Him appoint me my lot, and I will acquiesce in the appointment. He knows what is good for me better than I do for myself, and therefore I will have no will of my own but what is resolved into His.”
WILLIAM JAY: As to life itself, He shall determine how long or how short shall be its continuance; and the time, place, mode, and means of my removal I leave with Him in whose hands my breath is, and in “whose hands are all my ways.”—Thus, as to all my interest, all that alarms my fears, all that excites my hopes, all that engages my expectations in the world, I commit to Him, in compliance with His merciful commands and injunctions: “Cast thy burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain thee,” Psalm 55:22; “Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass,” Psalm 37:5; “Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you,” 1 Peter 5:7.
