Psalms 65:5

By terrible things. — Rather, wondrously, a noun used adverbially.

Wilt thou answer us. — Better, Thou dost answer us; describing the usual course of God’s providence. The LXX. and Vulg. make it a prayer: “Hear us.”

The conviction that God, the God of Israel’s salvation or deliverance, would answer wonderfully in righteousness, was, of course, based on the whole experience of the Divine dealings. Righteousness was recognised as the foundation on which the moral order rested.

The confidence of all the ends of the earth. — This might refer to Israel in exile; but it seems more in accordance with the general tenor of the psalm to give the words their widest range. Consciously or unconsciously the whole world rests in God.

Of them that are afar off upon the sea. — Literally, of the sea of those at a distance, i.e., of the farthest seas. (Comp. Isaiah 11:11 : “of the islands of the sea.”)