_O that thou wouldest rend the heavens_ This God is said to do, or to _bow the heavens, and come down_, when he gives a very signal display of his power. It is a metaphor taken from men who, when they would resolutely and effectually help a person in distress, break through every opposition and obst... [ Continue Reading ]
_When thou didst terrible things_ This may relate to what he did first in Egypt, and afterward in the wilderness; _which we looked not for_ Such things as we could not have expected; _the mountains flowed down_ See Exodus 19:18; Deuteronomy 32:22; Psalms 18:7, with the notes. But Lowth proposes anot... [ Continue Reading ]
_Thou meetest him that rejoiceth_, &c. “Thou preventest, with the blessings of thy goodness, those that take pleasure in the ways of thy commandments, and live under a continual sense of thy providence.” _Behold, thou art wroth_ Or greatly angry; _for_, or _because, we have sinned_ Have been guilty... [ Continue Reading ]
_We are all as an unclean thing_ Or, _unclean person_, as שׂמא equally signifies. He seems to allude to persons unclean through the leprosy, which was the highest degree of uncleanness among the Jews. He means that the body of the people were like one under a ceremonial pollution, who was not admitt... [ Continue Reading ]
_But now, O Lord, thou art our Father_ Notwithstanding all this, thou art our Father, having both created and adopted us; therefore pity us thy children; _we are the clay, and thou our potter_ We are in thy hands as clay in the hands of the potter: thou canst form us, and dispose of us as thou pleas... [ Continue Reading ]
_Thy holy cities_ Zion and Jerusalem, mentioned immediately after; or other cities also in the land of Judea besides these two; called _holy_, because God had his synagogues in them, in which he was worshipped, Psalms 74:8. _Zion is a wilderness_, &c. Utterly waste: not only the ordinary cities, but... [ Continue Reading ]