Psalm 98:1; Psalm 138:5
O sing unto the LORD a new song, for He has done marvelous things.
Yea, they shall sing in the ways of the LORD: for great is the glory of the LORD.
WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): These are words of promise as well as of prediction. Therefore, we may consider these words as containing one of the exceeding great and precious promises upon which He has called us to hope, and which are all “yea and amen in Christ Jesus, to the glory of God by us,” 2 Corinthians 1:20. The Psalmist tells us the people of God shall sing in the ways of the Lord. First, we understand the “ways of the Lord,” to include the way in which God walks with regard to us—His ways in nature, in His varied dealings with us, and in the different actions of His providence and grace, as well as the ways which He has appointed and commanded His people to walk in with regard to Himself.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): By “the ways of the Lord,” David sometimes means the happy and prosperous issue of affairs, but more frequently he uses this expression to denote the rule of a holy and righteous life.
ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): The ways of the Lord—the straight ways. “For the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them,” Hosea 14:9.
WILLIAM JAY: Secondly, they not only walk in the ways of the Lord, but sing in them. This implies acquiescence, approbation, satisfaction, pleasure, delight. Whence springs this singing in the ways of the Lord? We may look after some of the near sources of it. The first of which is conviction. It is a reasonable service; and as the Christian is able to give a reason of the hope which is in him, so is he also able to give a reason of his joy.
THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): They shall make the ways of the Lord—His glorious acts—the subject of their songs.
WILLIAM JAY: Hence, says the apostle, “They joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have received the atonement,” Romans 5:11. Secondly, it arises from renovation. He is born of God, and therefore hungers and thirsts after righteousness; therefore he feeds—yea, he not only feeds, but feasts—upon the provision of the gospel. He finds God’s words, and he eats them, and they are to him the joy and rejoicing of his heart. Thirdly, it is derived from experience. He has tasted that the Lord is gracious: this taste has provoked appetite, and increased it.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): We learn by experience what peace and joy there are in being conformed to God’s will. There is a vast difference between a theoretical conviction that God’s will is “good, and acceptable, and perfect” and actually proving it to be so for ourselves, yet that is what we do, just so far as we heed the injunction “Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your minds, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God,” Romans 12:2 Just so far as we render a willing and more constant obedience to this exhortation, we not only prove for ourselves that God’s commandments “are not grievous,” 1 John 5:3, but we discover that “in keeping of them there is great reward,” Psalm 19:11—that is, in this life. Then it is that we “sing in the ways of the LORD.” Then it is that we obtain a personal acquaintance, an experimental realization of the goodness, the acceptableness, and perfection of the divine will. We determine for ourselves both by inward relish and outward practice the excellence of His will…We prove that God’s will contains everything necessary to make us spiritually complete and to be all that we ought to be.
WILLIAM JAY: And there is much to cause the Christian to sing in the ways of the Lord, when he considers his former experience, when he reviews the dealings of God with him, the surprising instances of goodness he has met with, in which the Lord has been not only better to him than his fears, but surpassing his hopes, and has done exceeding abundantly above what he could either ask or think. Fourthly, this singing flows from fellowship. “As iron sharpeneth iron, so doth the countenance of a man his friend,” Proverbs 27:17; “Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart; so doth the sweetness of a man’s friend by hearty counsel,” Proverbs 27:9.
THOMAS WATSON (1620-1686): Walking with God is a pleasant walk, the ways of wisdom are called “ways of pleasantness,” Proverbs 3:17…Walking with God is like walking among beds of spices, which send forth a fragrant perfume. This is it which brings peace, Acts 9:31, “Walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost.” While we walk with God, what sweet music doth the bird of conscience make in our breast!
CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): We drudge in the ways of sin. But we shall sing “in the ways of the LORD.”
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): If your pleasure is not “in the ways of the Lord,” then, surely, you cannot know much about those ways. You must be a stranger to them and you must be walking in paths which may look like the ways of God, but are not really so. I do not say that those who know the Lord are always happy, but I say that they are always “the seed that the Lord God has blessed,” Isaiah 61:9—and when the ways get very tough, and become the paths of sufferings, and the pains are frequent and incessant, then still sing! No music that goes up to the Throne of God is sweeter in Jehovah’s ears than the song of suffering saints…Saints have often sung God’s high praises in the fires, but will your doubting and desponding, as if you had none to help you, magnify the Most High?
WILLIAM JAY: Fifthly, this singing springs from his prospects and anticipations. The Christian while here has some Bethel visits, and some of Pisgah’s views; but there are better things for him still in reserve, and therefore his prospects cheer and animate him. Oh to see Jesus as He is! Oh to be like Him! Oh to be ever with the Lord, and to have no more to do with a wicked world without and a wicked heart within! Oh to be as innocent as Adam in Paradise, and as holy as the Son of God Himself!—what an expectation is here!
ISAAC WATTS (1674-1748): There we shall see His face,
And never, never sin:
There from the river of His grace
Drink endless pleasure in.
CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): Tell me, ye who have been redeemed from death and hell, whether every feeling of your souls should not be swallowed up in joy? Why are we not “singing in the ways of the Lord?” Is it not said of true Christians, that, though they have never seen Jesus Christ, “yet, believing in him, they rejoice in him with joy unspeakable and full of glory,” 1 Peter 1:8.
D. L. MOODY (1837-1899): I pity the professed Christian who has not a song in his heart, who never ‘feels like singing.’ It seems to me if we are truly children of God, we will want to sing about it.
