Yahweh is good to all. His tender mercies are over all his works.
Parallel Translations
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Yahweh is good to all. His tender mercies are over all his works.
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The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.
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The LORD is good to all; and His tender mercies are over all His works.
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Cross-references (9)
Passages linked to Psalms 145:9 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Nahum 1:7 Yahweh is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and he knows those who take refuge in him.
- Psalms 100:5 For Yahweh is good. His loving kindness endures forever, his faithfulness to all generations.
- Matthew 5:45 that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.
- Jonah 4:11 Shouldn’t I be concerned for Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred twenty thousand persons who can’t discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much livestock?”
- Psalms 104:27 These all wait for you, that you may give them their food in due season.
- Acts 17:25 He isn’t served by men’s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself gives to all life and breath, and all things.
- Psalms 65:9-13 You visit the earth, and water it. You greatly enrich it. The river of God is full of water. You provide them grain, for so you have ordained it. You drench its furrows. You level its ridges. You soften it with showers. You bless it with a crop. You crown the year with your bounty. Your carts overflow with abundance. The wilderness grasslands overflow. The hills are clothed with gladness. The pastures are covered with flocks. The valleys also are clothed with grain. They shout for joy! They also sing.
- Psalms 36:6-7 Your righteousness is like the mountains of God. Your judgments are like a great deep. Yahweh, you preserve man and animal. How precious is your loving kindness, God! The children of men take refuge under the shadow of your wings.
- Acts 14:17 Yet he didn’t leave himself without witness, in that he did good and gave you rains from the sky and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.”
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 9. Jehovah is good to all, etc. The truth…
9. Jehovah is good to all, etc. The truth here stated is of wider application than the former, for the declaration of David is to the effect, that not only does God, with fatherly indulgence and clemency, forgive sin, but is good to all without discrimination, as he makes his sun to rise upon the good and upon the wicked. (Matthew 5:45.) Forgiveness of sin is a treasure from which the wicked are excluded, but their sin and depravity does not prevent God from showering down his goodness upon them, which they appropriate without being at all sensible of it. Meanwhile believers, and they only, know what it is to enjoy a reconciled God, as elsewhere it is said —
“Come ye to him, and be ye enlightened, and your faces shall not be ashamed; taste and see that the Lord is good.” (Psalm 34:5, 8.)
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When it is added that the mercy of God extends to all his works, this ought not to be considered as contrary to reason, or obscure. Our sins having involved the whole world in the curse of God, there is everywhere an opportunity for the exercise of God’s mercy, even in helping the brute creation.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Psa 145:9 The LORD [is] good to all: and…
Psa 145:9 The LORD [is] good to all: and his tender mercies [are] over all his works.
Ver. 9. The Lord is good to all] And of this he hath not left myself without witness, Act 14:17.
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And his tender mercies are over all his works] Holding the whole creation together, which else (by reason of the curse for man’s sin, hurling confusion over the world) would long since have been shattered and dissipated.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Is good to all; not to Israel only, but…
Is good to all; not to Israel only, but to all mankind, whose hearts he fills with food and gladness, as it is said, Act 14:17; yea, to all his creatures, as it is in the next clause, to beasts as well as men. See Psa 136:25; 147:9.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain The Lord is good to all,.... Which is to…
The Lord is good to all,.... Which is to be understood not of the general and providential goodness of God to all men, to all his creatures, and the works of his hands; but of the special goodness of Christ before mentioned, Psa 145:7; which extends to all the chosen people of God; who are all loved by Christ, redeemed by him, justified and glorified by him; and to Gentiles as well as Jews; for whom he tasted death, laid down his life a ransom for them, and became the propitiation for their sins. Hence his Gospel has been sent to both; and some of each have been effectually called by his grace, and more will. This shows this psalm belongs to Gospel times, in which the grace of Christ appears more large and extensive:
and his tender mercies are over all his works; meaning not all the creatures his hands have made; though he has a tender regard to them, and is kind and merciful to them all; but such as are made new creatures in him and by him, who are eminently called his workmanship, the work of his hands; these, all of them, share in his special mercy and goodness; see Eph 2:10.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 9. The Lord is good to all] There…
Verse 9. The Lord is good to all] There is not a soul out of hell that is not continually under his most merciful regards; so far is he from willing or decreeing before their creation the damnation of any man.
His tender mercies] His bowels of compassion are over all his works; he feels for his intelligent offspring, as the most affectionate mother does for the child of her own bosom. And through this matchless mercy, these bowels of compassion, his son Jesus tasted death for every man. How far is all that is here spoken of the nature of God opposed to the Molochian doctrine of the eternal decree of reprobation!
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"His grace for every soul is free:
For his, who forged the dire decree;
For every reprobate and me."
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain The Lord is good to all - To all…
The Lord is good to all - To all his creatures. That is, he is kind and compassionate toward them; he is disposed and ready to do them good. There is not one of them whom he is not ready and willing to bless; not one whose happiness would not be agreeable to him, or whose welfare he is not ready to promote. Compare Psa 100:5.
And his tender mercies are over all his works - In all that he has made there is evidence that he is a kind and benevolent God. He has a heart to love, to bless, what he has made; everywhere arrangements are made for happiness; he is not disposed to cast off the feeble, the erring, and the suffering; he is willing to receive back again those who have wandered from him, to pardon the offending, to wipe away the tears of the sorrowful.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 9. Jehovah is good to all] Not merely, as…
9. Jehovah is good to all] Not merely, as P.B.V., unto every man, but as the parallelism of the next line shews, to all creation.
tender mercies] Compassions.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (9, 10) All.—This wide outlook over the world as…
(9, 10) All.—This wide outlook over the world as the object, with all that it contains, of the Divine pity and love, is a noble anticipation of our Lord’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount and is introduced in a similar manner. Just as the subjects of the kingdom of heaven should exceed the heathen in kindness and goodness, because they know the universal and impartial grace of the Father, so here the saints, the members of the covenant, are to bless Jehovah, who shows them peculiar favour, but also lets His tender mercies flow in an unchecked stream over all His works. All Jehovah’s works confess Him, but His saints bless Him.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain The Lord is good to all; and his tender…
The Lord is good to all; and his tender mercies are over all his works. "The Lord is good to all;" he "maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and send-eth rain on the just and on the unjust". (Mat_5:45) He "wouldeth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he may turn from his wickedness and live," And his "tender mercies," or "compassions," are not only over his human creatures, but" over all his works all that he has made animals as well as men, "creeping things," zoophytes, all that can feel.
"The Lord is good to all.
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I NEVER WAS IT MORE.NECESSARY THAN NOW TO INSIST UPON THIS BLESSED REVELATION OF GOD.
1. For one main characteristic of the days in which we live is meg"s sensitiveness to human suffering. From one cause and another they have become open-eyed and tender-hearted in regard to the terrible distresses which afflict such vast portions of the human race. And this sensitiveness and compassion are unquestionably from God, and are the product of that good and blessed Spirit of God, who "like as a father pitieth his children." He has been, so we believe, moving upon the minds of men, and has caused the bitter cry of human sorrow to pierce and penetrate, and rouse to practical help, many who before were but little conscious of, and less concerned about, the dark and deplorable facts that lay all around them. Here and there we find those who regard these sad conditions of society as inevitable, and therefore hopeless, and who look on with cynic doubt and disparaging suggestions; whilst others are bestirring themselves to find some sort of remedy.
2. But this very sensitiveness needs to be soothed and sustained, strengthened and guided, by the faith of the love of God. For else it will rush into wild schemes, which can do no good to those in distress, and will only recoil in many sad and terrible ways on those who devised them. Or else it will settle down into a hopeless despair, and to vain, frantic protests against what it deems the cruel laws under which men are condemned to live.
3. Nothing but confident trust in the love of God will avail. For all efforts to ameliorate the lot of our fellow-men demand patience and energy, and a hopefulness that nothing can quench. To face the gigantic evils of human life is no child"s play, no holiday sport, but real, serious, earnest work, from which all but the true-hearted will turn away. Apart from this, men cannot and will not persevere in the often apparently hopeless task of lightening the burdens which oppress so terribly so many of their fellowmen.
II FOR THE FOES OF THIS FAITH ARE FOUND, FOR THE MOST PART, IN THE FALSE OPINIONS OF MEN. Opinions which they seldom express openly, but which, nevertheless, paralyze their power for good, and hinder all the efforts which they make to mend or end the evils around them. These false opinions confront the truth of our text, and fight against it, and too often seem to get the better of it.
1. Now, one of these false opinions is this that chance rules all. Life, according to this opinion, is as a mere chip on a stream, caught now by this eddy, now whirled about by that, driven by this current in one direction, and then by another in a different one; borne hither and thither, from side to side, the sport of every breeze and of every stray force that may bear upon it. Life, they say again, is a labyrinthine puzzle, the clue of which no man has found; and so men go groping on, hoping always to find the right turning, but quite as likely to take the wrong. The poor and the distressed are simply unlucky, the prosperous are but the favorites of Fortune, the fickle goddess who, they say, governs all our lives. Now, no doubt, there is much in human life that looks as if it were the result of mere chance. For it could not be foreseen, nor influenced by anything within our power; as, for example, of what parents we should be born, the kind of home which we should have, the circumstances amid which we should be trained, what constitution we should inherit, by what teachers we should be instructed. And many more and all-important elements in determining what our lives shall be, are, without doubt, beyond both our knowledge and control. Any hour of any day, in a moment, something may happen utterly unexpected by us, and which we could in no wise have helped or hindered, but which may have the effect of entirely altering, for the better or the worse, our whole future. Just as by one pull of a lever the pointsman shunts the entire train on to a different line, the effect of which will be to take it the whole breadth or length of the land apart from where it would have gone had that lever not been pulled. And so often is it with the effect of some seemingly insignificant and unforeseen event upon our lives. When, some years ago, the huge reef of rocks which barred one of the entrances to the harbor of New York was removed, who that did not know of the arrangements that had been made, would have imagined that there was any connection between the tremendous upheaving and shattering of those massive rocks, and the mere moving of a handle by a little girl on shore some miles away? But we know they must have been connected, and that, without the insignificant antecedent, the great result could never have followed. And similarly slight are many of the causes which make or mar a man"s life. Observing such facts, the old Greeks came to believe in the doctrine of chance. The universe, according to them, was but the fortuitous coming together of the atoms which compose it. And still there are those who, if not professedly, yet really, do believe that chance, good luck, fortune, and mere accident govern all things. But the doctrine is horribly and utterly false. It is only our ignorance of the connection between events that makes us judge as we do. In any manufactory, our ignorance of the relation of one process to another never leads us to deny that there is such relation. We are sure there is, though we do not know what it is. Why cannot we reason in the same way in reference to the various processes which go to make up our lives? We are not the sport of mere haphazard or blind chance, but we are under the wise, firm, loving rule of our Father in heaven; he is ordering, directing, and controlling all our affairs, and causing all things to work together for good to them that love him.
2. Another foe to the faith that God is love" is the doctrine of destiny. It teaches that our lives are all governed by irresistible Divine decrees, and that we are happy or miserable, good or bad, saved or lost, according to Divine determinations made concerning us from the beginning, and entirely irrespective of our merit or demerit, or any choice or will of our own whatsoever. A vast theological system has been formed upon this basis, and is still upheld by many. It was first sketched out by St. Augustine, in the fifth century; but it was elaborated and developed into a rigid system by the great Protestant leader Calvin. According to this system, the human soul is helpless. From the foundation of the world it has been elected either to eternal glory or to eternal damnation; and to this latter awful doom the great mass are predestined, whilst only the few elect souls are ordained to eternal life. The author of this frightful. system himself says of it, that it is "decretum horribile fatem attamen verum." Such is Calvinism, this doctrine of destiny. It is marvelous how men with human hearts in them, men who had ever known a mother"s love or a father"s care, could have come to entertain and maintain dogmas so horrible and so heart-crushing as these. The stern and awful days in which both Augustine and Calvin lived may partly account for it; for they were such as stirred the darker and fiercer moods of men"s minds into terrible activity. And men, forgetting the whole spirit of the Bible, and oblivious of the great love of God in Christ, and failing amid their terrible days to see the innumerable proofs of God"s grace and goodness, set up their poor logic and their interpretations of particular texts, and they heeded not the gentler teachings of their own hearts, and so they forged and fashioned that dark creed which has saddened and bewildered and injured in many ways all those on whom its grim shadow has fallen. But it is a false creed, and to be scouted and abhorred of every truth-loving soul. It must be false; for it has the whole of the deepest instincts of the human heart against it, as well as the spirit of the whole Bible and the revelation of God in Christ. Furthermore, it is suicidal to the very aim and intent of God"s dealings with us, which is that we should love him with all cur heart, etc. But no man who really believes what this dreadful creed teaches can love God. If it were true, God would be a Moloch, and not our heavenly Father; a monster to be dreaded, and not the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. A creed that has such result is thereby proved to be false, and it is therefore to be condemned by all good men.
3. The belief that we are the creatures of circumstances.
III "MAN"S INHUMANITY TO MAN." Here is another fruitful cause of men"s doubt of the love of God. Also
IV OUR SORROWS, AND YET MORE, OUR SINFULNESS. These stand must do so in the way of our faith. The sinful heart is ever an unbelieving heart. It is only when "our hearts condemn us not," that we have confidence towards God. But let Christ lake away our sin, and then we shall readily believe. S.C.
Recognizing God"s universal goodness.
"We who recognize the loving-kindness, as well as the power of God, in what may seem the harsher and more forbidding agencies of Nature, ought not to be weary and faint in our minds if over our warm human life the same kind pitying hand should sometimes cause his snow of disappointment to fall like wool, and cast forth his ice of adversity like morsels, knowing that even by these unlikely means shall ultimately be given to us, too, as to Nature, the beauty of Sharon and the excellency of Carmel" (Hugh Macmillan). "The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world"s joy. The lonely pine on the mountain-top waves its somber boughs, and cries," Thou art my sun." And the little meadow violet lifts its cup of blue, and whispers with its perfumed breath, "Thou art my sum" So God sits, effulgent in heaven, not for a favored few, but for the universe of life; and there is no creature so poor or so low that he may not look up with childlike confidence and say, "My Father, thou art mine" (Ward Beecher). Our Lord taught concerning the heavenly Father, "He maketh his san to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
I GOD"S UNIVERSAL GOODNESS IS NOT THE APPEARANCE OF THINGS. From man"s point of view the world is full of things that he cannot call good. And he often wonders why God made things as they are. How can he call calamities and disasters, bloodshed and war, pain and death, signs of Divine goodness? He can only see the appearance; and with that limited vision it is wholly impossible for man to realize the universal goodness of God. And in moral spheres he is equally puzzled. Crime constantly goes undetected and unpunished. The wicked succeed and the righteous fail. How can God be good to all when so many live lives of misery?
II GOD"S UNIVERSAL GOODNESS IS THE FACT OF THINGS. But it can only be seen from proper points of view, and with the properly cleared vision. God"s world is not a material, it is a moral world, and a material only for the sake of the moral God"s universal goodness is clearly seen in the measure in which we can apprehend God"s moral end in everything that he does and permits. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain Ver. 9. The LORD is good to all. No…
Ver. 9. The LORD is good to all. No one, not even his fiercest enemy, can this; for the falsehood would be too barefaced, since the very existence lips which slander him is a proof that it is slander. He allows his live, he even supplies them with food, and smooths their way with many forts; for them the sun shines as brightly as if they were saints, and the rain waters their fields as plentifully as if they were perfect men. Is not this goodness to all? In our own land the gospel sounds in the ears of all who care to listen; and the Scriptures are within reach of the poorest child. It would be a wanton wresting of Scripture to limit this expression to the elect, as some have tried to do; we rejoice in electing love, but none the less we welcome the glorious truth, "Jehovah is good to all."
And his tender mercies are over all his works. Not "his new covenant works", as one read it the other day who was wise above that which is written, yea, contrary to that which is written. Kindness is a law of God's universe: the world was planned for happiness; even now that sin has so sadly marred God's handiwork, and introduced elements which were not from the beginning, the Lord has so arranged matters that the fall is broken, the curse is met by an antidote, and the inevitable pain is softened with mitigations. Even in this sin stricken world, under its disordered economy, there are abundant traces of a hand skilful to soothe distress and heal disease. That which makes life bearable is the tenderness of the great Father. This is seen in the creation of an insect as well as in the ruling of nations. The Creator is never rough, the Provider is never forgetful, the Ruler is never cruel. Nothing is done to create disease, no organs are arranged to promote misery; the incoming of sickness and pain is not according to the original design, but a result of our disordered state. Man's body as it left the Maker's hand was neither framed for disease, decay, nor death, neither was the purpose of it discomfort and anguish; far otherwise, it was framed for a joyful activity, and a peaceful enjoyment of God. Jehovah has in great consideration laid up in the world cures for our ailments, and helps for our feebleness; and if many of these have been long in their discovery, it is because it was more for man's benefit to find them out himself, than to have them labelled and placed in order before his eyes. We may be sure of this, that Jehovah has never taken delight in the ills of his creatures, but has sought their good, and laid himself out to alleviate the distresses into which they have guiltily plunged themselves.
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The duty of kindness to animals may logically be argued from this verse. Should not the children of God be like their Father in kindness?
Ver. 9. The Lord is good to all, etc. According to the doctrine of Christianity, we are not the creatures of a God who takes no care of his beings, and leaves them to themselves; not the offspring of a father who disowns his children, who does not concern himself about them, and is indifferent to their happiness and their misery. No; never has God, according to that comfortable doctrine, left himself unwitnessed to man; never withdrawn from him his fatherly providence and love; never abandoned the fortunes of his feeble, helpless, untutored children, to blind chance or to their own ignorance. No; from their first progenitor, to his latest posterity, he has himself provided for their support, their instruction, their guidance, their progress to higher attainments. He has constantly revealed himself to them m various ways; constantly shed innumerable benefits on them; sometimes lovingly correcting, and sometimes bountifully blessing them; has constantly been nigh to them, and has left them in want of no means for becoming wiser and better. George Joachim Zollikofer, 1730-1788.
Ver. 9. The Lord is good to all, etc. God's pity is not as some sweet cordial, poured in dainty drops from a golden phial. It is not like the musical water drops of some slender rill, murmuring down the dark side of Mount Sinai. It is wide as the whole scope of heaven. It is abundant as all the air. If one had art to gather up all the golden sunlight that today falls wide over all the continent, falling through every silent hour; and all that is dispersed over the whole ocean, floating from every wave; and all that is poured refulgent over the northern wastes of ice, and along the whole continent of Europe, and the vast outlying Asia and torrid Africaif we could in any wise gather up this immense and incalculable outflow and treasure that falls down through the bright hours, and runs in liquid ether about the mountains, and fills all the plains, and sends innumerable rays through every secret place, pouring over and filling every flower, shining down the sides of every blade of grass, resting in glorious humility upon the humblest thingson sticks, and stones, and pebbleson the spider's web, the sparrow's nest, the threshold of the young foxes' hole, where they play and warm themselvesthat rests on the prisoner's window, that strikes radiant beams through the slave's tear, and puts gold upon the widow's weeds, that plates and roofs the city with burnished gold, and goes on in its wild abundance up and down the earth, shining everywhere and always, since the day of primal creation, without faltering, without stint, without waste or diminution; as full, as fresh, as overflowing today as if it were the very first day of its outlayif one might gather up this boundless, endless, infinite treasure, to measure it, then might he tell the height, and depth, and unending glory of the pity of God! That light, and the sun, its source, are God's own figure of the immensity and copiousness of his mercy and compassion. Henry Ward Beecher, 1875.
Ver. 9. Even the worst taste of God's mercy; such as fight against God's mercy taste of it; the wicked have some crumbs from mercy's table. "The Lord is good to all." Sweet dewdrops are on the thistle as well as on the rose. The diocese where mercy visits is very large. Pharaoh's head was crowned though his heart was hardened. Thomas Watson.
Ver. 9. His tender mercies are over all his works. When the sensible sinner is seeking faith of God, he may plead the largeness of mercy. God's mercy is like the firmament spread over all this lower world; and every infirm creature partakes more or less of its influence, according to its exigence and capacity. True, may he say, I have made myself by sin, the vilest of all creatures; I am become worse than the beasts that perish; as vile as a worm, as loathsome as a toad, by reason of the venomous corruption that is in my heart, and my woeful contrariety to the nature of a holy God. But there is "mercy over all", even over such vile and loathsome creatures as these; there may be some over me, though wrath do now abide on me. Oh, let that mercy, whose glory it is to stretch itself over all, e reach my soul also! Oh, that the blessed and powerful influence thereof would p beget faith in my heart! David Clarkson.
Ver. 9. His tender mercies. The nature and force of the word Mymxr, is properly the bowels;that is, there are tender mercies in God (so we term it in the Benedictus). Not of the ordinary sort, slight, and such as pierce not deep, come not far; but such as come de profundis, from the very bowels themselves, that affect that part, make the bowels relent. And what bowels? Not the bowels of the common man (for then Mwem had been the right word), but Mmxr are the bowels of a parent (so, we said, the word signifies), and this adds much; adds to mercy stosgh, natural love;to one strong affection another as strong or stronger than it.
And what parent? the more pitiful of the twain, the mother. For Mxr (the singular of this word) is Hebrew for the womb. So as this, to the two former addeth the sex; the sex holden to be the more compassionate. Of all mercies, those of the bowels; and of all bowels, the bowels of a parent;and of the two parents, those of the mother:such pity as the mother takes of the children of her womb. Mercies are in God; such mercies are in God.
"Over all." It is good news for us that these mercies are in God; but, better yet, that they are in him with a super "over." But, best of all, that that super is a super omnia "over all." Much is said in few words to mercy's praise when 'tis said, super omnia. Nihil supra were much, none above it: but it is written super omnia, above all. He that saith this leaves no more to say; there is no higher degree; super omnia is the superlative.
All that are above are not over. It is not above only, as an obelisk or Maypole, higher than all about them, but have neither shadow nor shelter; no good they do! Mercy hath a broad top, spreading itself over all. It is so above all, as it is over them, too. As the vault of this chapel is over us, and the great vault of the firmament over that; the super of latitude and expansion, no less than of altitude and elevation. And this to the end that all may retire to it, and take covert; it over them, and they under it. Under it, under the shadow of it, as of Esay's "great rock in the wilderness", from the heat:under it, under the shelter of it as of Daniel's "great tree", from the tempest. (Isa 32:2 Da 4:11-12). Lancelot Andrewes.
Ver. 9. The universal goodness of God in no degree a contradiction to the special election of grace.
Psalms 145:10*
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain The Lord is good to all.
Psa_145:9
The Lord is good to all.
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The goodness of God
Goodness is the same quality in all beings which have understanding, in God, in angels, and in men; it is, and it must be, the same in kind, differing only in degree. Now goodness in us is a disposition and an endeavour to promote the welfare and happiness of others; and from this notion of human goodness we may frame some conceptions of the Divine goodness, and say that goodness in God is a disposition to bestow at all times and in all places upon all His creatures all the good which, according to their several natures, they are capable of receiving, and which it is reasonable that He, as the wise Governor and Preserver of the whole, should bestow upon each individual.
1. That God is good appears from the necessary connection between goodness and other Divine perfections. God is supremely wise, and knoweth, beyond a possibility of mistaking, what is best and most beneficial for the whole; He is almighty, and able to execute His purposes; and possessing everything in which happiness consists, He can be under no temptation to hurt and to oppress others.
2. To suppose that God is not good is to suppose Him weaker and more imperfect and worse than the worst of His creatures. In men every sin is general, and in particular every sin against the rules of goodness may be ascribed to the temptation of present profit or pleasure, to a power which the mind hath of fixing its thoughts entirely upon the object which it desires, and of overlooking the ill consequences arising from it, and in some measure to error and mistake. But God, if He were an evil being, would be disposed to evil neither by mistake, nor temptation, nor passion, nor advantage, and would choose evil purely as evil. And upon this absurd supposition, instead of the Best and Greatest, He would be the lowest and the meanest of all beings; for nothing can be great that is not good.
3. That God is good appears also from the goodness which is seen in His creatures, in men. Goodness in this world is exercised in some degree by many, and is esteemed and commended by almost all. If this disposition be found in some measure in us, it must be most eminently in our Creator, from whom this and all other virtues must be derived. It is the observation of a great philosopher that the artist loves the work of his hands better than his work would love him if it were endued with sense and reason; and that the person who confers a great benefit upon another loves him whom he obliges better than the obliged person loves him. To which it may be added, that parents generally love their children more than they are beloved by them. And yet, in all these instances, gratitude, one would think, should make the love of the inferior to be the strongest; but experience shows that it hath not this effect. These observations may be reduced to this general truth, that love descends more than it ascends; and we may be permitted, I think, to apply this to God and to ourselves, and to say that our great and good Creator and Benefactor loves us far better than even the most dutiful of us love Him.
4. The goodness of God appears in its effects, in the blessings which we receive from Him.
5. Another proof of the goodness of God is to be taken from the testimony of Scripture. (J. Jortin, D. D.)
Objections to the goodness of God
1. Objections are taken from the evil that is in the world, which may be comprised under these two sorts, the evil of sin, and the evil of pain. God is either the author of all these evils, or at least He permits them. How can this be reconciled with His goodness, and how could they enter into a world created and ruled by a beneficent Lord, who is good to all, and whose tender mercies are over all His works? To this difficulty two general answers may be made, in which a humble and modest mind may acquiesce.
(1) We are so incompetent judges of Gods providence that we ought not to charge Him with want of goodness from those evils which we see and experience.
(2) In all questions of this nature it is the part of every prudent inquirer to consider the difficulties on both sides, and to embrace the opinion which hath the fewest. By this way of judging the question before us is soon decided; for there are many unanswerable proofs of Gods goodness, there are many absurdities which follow the denial of it; and the difficulties which attend it arise in all probability from our limited capacity and imperfect knowledge, which cannot discover the whole plan and system of Divine providence.
(3) From these general answers let us now descend to a consideration of particulars. It was an act worthy of our beneficent Author to create a variety of beings endued with reason and capable of immortal happiness. But a rational agent must be a free agent; for to reason and to act require and imply choice and liberty; and every created and free being must have a power of sinning, unless he had the perfections of his Creator; which is impossible. Thus the evil of sin entered into the world in such a manner that it cannot be charged upon God and prove any want of goodness in Him. If we consider the evil of pain as the consequence of sin, we must acknowledge that we are deservedly subject to it, and that beings who act perversely and unreasonably ought to suffer for it. The pain to which the good are liable, if it be to them an occasion of exercising many virtues, and of qualifying themselves for greater rewards in a better state, is profitable and desirable. The pain to which the bad are exposed, if it may, as it certainly may, be useful to them to reclaim them from sin, and to remind them to seek happiness where it is to be found, is also of great advantage; and, if it have not this effect upon them, it is a punishment which they deserve.
2. The doctrine of future punishments, as it is contained in the Gospel, hath often and often been made an objection to the Divine goodness, and to the truth of Christianity. Yet it seems not hard to weaken all its force by the following suppositions, which are founded both in natural and in revealed religion.
(1) There are, as we have shown, many plain, direct, and undeniable proofs of Gods goodness.
(2) The punishment of sin is not to be accounted an act of arbitrary power, proceeding merely from Divine appointment; for in all government correction is absolutely necessary for the reformation of offenders, or for the good of the whole.
(3) We are told that God hath committed all judgment to His Son, to Him who loved us, and died for us, and who cannot be supposed to join no clemency to justice.
(4) We know also both from reason and revelation, that the recompenses and the punishments of the age to come shall be and must be infinitely various, and proportionable to the good and to the bad actions and qualities of men.
(5) We are told likewise, that when judgment shall be pronounced every mouth shall be stopped, stopped not by outward violence, but by inward conviction. All nature shall assent to the equity of the sentence, and it shall be impossible to make any rational objection to it.
(6) The doctrine of the future state of retribution is usually delivered in figurative expressions, which of course are somewhat obscure and ambiguous, and it is of the same nature as prophecy, which is never fully understood till the event explains it. So we must wait for the event before we can form a sure judgment concerning it; and in the meantime objections must be unreasonable, and may be rejected as such. (J. Jortin, D. D.)
The goodness of God
I. What is the proper notion of goodness as it is attributed to God?
1. More general in opposition to all moral evil and imperfection, which we call sin and vice; and so the justice, and truth, and holiness of God are in this sense His goodness. But there is--
2. Another notion of moral goodness which is more particular and restrained; and then it denotes a particular virtue in opposition to a particular vice; and this is the proper and usual acceptation of the word goodness; and the best description I can give of it is this, that it is a certain propension and disposition of mind whereby a person is inclined to desire and procure the happiness of others; and it is best understood by its contrary, which is an envious disposition, a contracted and narrow spirit, which would confine happiness to itself, and grudgeth that others should partake of it or share in it; or a malicious and mischievous temper which delights in the harms of others, and to procure trouble and mischief to them.
II. This perfection of goodness belongs to God.
1. The acknowledgment of natural light. The first act of worship is to believe the being of God; and the next to ascribe majesty or greatness to Him; and to ascribe goodness, without which there can be no greatness (Seneca).
2. The testimony of Scripture and Divine revelation (Exo_34:5; Psa_86:5; Psa_119:68; Luk_18:19).
3. The perfection of the Divine nature.
(1) Goodness is the chief of all perfections, and therefore it belongs to God.
(2) There are some footsteps of it in the creatures, and therefore it is much more eminently in God.
III. The effects and the extent of it.
1. The universal extent of Gods goodness to all His creatures.
(1) In giving being to so many creatures.
(2) In making them all so very good; considering the variety, and order, and end of them.
(3) In His continual preservation of them.
(4) In providing so abundantly for the welfare and happiness of all of them, so far as they are capable and sensible of it.
2. The goodness of God to men.
(1) That He hath given us such noble and excellent beings, and placed us in so high a rank and order of His creatures.
(2) That He hath made and ordained so many things chiefly for our use.
(3) His tender love and peculiar care of us above the rest of the creatures, being ready to impart and dispense to us the good that is suitable to our capacity and condition, and concerned to exempt us from those manifold evils of want and pain to which we are obnoxious.
(4) The provision He has made for our eternal happiness. (J. Tillotson.)
Mans care of Gods goodness
The Lord is loving to every man (P. B. Version). Every man implicitly owns this when he says, Life is sweet. How much of unconscious enjoyment flows through us from day to day of which we take no heed, until some disturbance takes place, some obstruction occurs in the channel of communication with the world without. The blessing of sight, the joy of looking out on the green pasture and the trees--we can only fully appreciate when these windows of sense are darkened. We see the blessing and the joy of hearing by contrast with the deprivation of the deaf, and of speech by contrast with those of the dumb. If it were not for suffering, awakening reflection, we should ignore this great sum of unconscious good which the long blue hours serenely flowing have brought us from day to day. And then this good of reflection itself--how great! To hold up the magic mirror of memory, to see our past therein, not as it was when present, mixed with much that was painful and repulsive, but beautified, idealized, glorified by that poet-soul which is within us all. If we could all paint, or versify, or compose in music, we should all leave works of art behind us, the material of which should be drawn from our own experience. We should leave behind us songs like this ancient Hebrew psalm. Your own personal impressions must always be worth more to you than those of any other thinker, however profound. What, then, are our impressions about the world, about the existing constitution of things? May we venture to speak for one another on such a point, and say that while with each of us there are mixed impressions, on the whole the impression of good preponderates? We are governed greatly by our temperament in these matters; our minds are of different tone; but upon each and all of us, may it not be said, the world and life have left impressions of something exceedingly beautiful, exceedingly precious, though profoundly mysterious? In passing through a gallery of paintings, and studying the style of the different masters, we gain much insight into the turn of feeling and of fancy of the particular painters. One man steeps his views in light; another throws the sombre hue of melancholy thought upon rock, and river, and waterfall, and mountain height. One will suggest the majesty of Nature and the littleness of man; another will use the grandest effects of Nature but as the background to human passion and action. Each seer makes something different of the world and of man; each artist adds something to the world as we see it, or takes away something that we had found there. And all these different representations, suggesting feelings so various in the mind of the observer, from sadness to gaiety and exhilaration, unite in one point: they are all representations of that which is beautiful. And with all our diversities of natural feeling and experience--if we should try to describe the print that life has made upon our minds--we should, whether in stumbling accents or in eloquent strains, be describing something that has been, in part painful, in part pleasurable, but in both pleasure and pain profoundly interesting, unspeakably beautiful and holy; something in part severe, in part humorous in its expression, but in this mixture of severity and of humour, truly loving and gentle in its purport. These passive impressions teach us more than we can learn from books. Whether we leave our mark upon the world or no, it is certain the world leaves its mark upon us. And is it not the fact that the longer we live the better worth reading the inscription becomes? Do not men become more tolerant as they grow older? Does not the fact of evil give way before the far greater fact of good as the explanation of life? If men ever try to build up systems of theology again, they must choose out new ground and build on fresh foundations; on the ground and foundation of our text, that the Lord is loving to every man, and that His tender mercies are over all His works. Not only our passive impressions and the general pictures which insensibly form in our minds as the result of experience of the world--but in our active life we have evidence that points the same way. This little world within--what an undiscovered country it is still to every one of us! We never know what we can do till we try, the proverb says. We never know what we are until we have wrought ourselves into deeds. And the very power seems to come by the exertion. Cells full of energy seem to open in the mind at the touch of need, and not before. People are surprised at what they can do and bear upon an emergency. There is indeed a marvel in the life of mind, of soul. So long as we study this we shall be believers in miracles. All that is supposed to pass outside the mind that is marvellous can be but parables of the life of the soul itself. First and last, we must seek for God at that shrine; there the living oracles must be found; and it is the deepest superstition if we suppose that Scripture, however sacred, souls, other than our own, however inspired, can do aught for us except help us to bring to light and read a little more distinctly the inscription and record of God upon our own souls. The discovery of ourselves and of our vocation means some fresh discovery of the meaning of God to us. The return to Nature, the falling back on what is original in us, the exertion of ourselves according to the proper bent and direction of our faculties--all this, giving distinctness to the picture of ourselves, gives at the same time distinctness to the picture of the God who is good and loving to every man. Then we may extend these reasonings from ourselves to the rest of the creation. If I feel that God is good to me, I have a reason for believing that He is good to others like me. Some seem nearer to God and to know more of His secrets than I do. Others seem less favoured. Yet why should I doubt, concerning the most miserable and pitiable, that the tender mercies of the Eternal are over him, as over me? Thus may we reason from the particular to the general--from the truth learnt in our own hearts to the truth of the vast universe of which we form a part; and conversely. At times we may see more clearly the universal than the particular truth. We may see that the world is the expression of an infinite benevolence, we may need to see that our personal being is the expression of the same. Let us then remember that the great Power which throbs through the universe is the same Power which causes our heart to throb, our brain to think. So may we end in
Feeling God loves us and that all that errs
Is a strange dream which death will dissipate,
in endorsing from our own life-experience the words of the psalmist. (E. Johnson, M. A.)
Universality of Gods goodness
Gods pity is not as some sweet cordial, poured in dainty drops from a golden phial. It is not like the musical water-drops of some slender rill, murmuring down the dark sides of Mount Sinai. It is wide as the whole scope of heaven. It is abundant as all the air. If one had art to gather up all the golden sunlight that to-day falls wide over all this continent, falling through every silent hour; and all that is dispersed over the whole ocean, flashing from every wave; and all that is poured refulgent over the northern wastes of ice, and along the whole continent of Europe, and the vast outlying Asia and torrid Africa--if one could in any wise gather up this immense and incalculable outflow and treasure that falls down through the bright hours, and runs in liquid ether about the mountains, and fills all the plains, and sends innumerable rays through every secret place, pouring over and filling every flower, shining down the sides of every blade of grass, resting in glorious humility upon the humblest things--on sticks, and stones, and pebbles--on the spiders web, the sparrows nest, the threshold of the young foxes hole, where they play and warm themselves--that rests on the prisoners window, that strikes radiant beams through the slaves tear, that puts gold upon the widows weeds, that plates and roofs the city with burnished gold, and goes on in its wild abundance up and down the earth, shining everywhere and always, since the day of primal creation, without faltering, without stint, without waste or diminution; as full, as fresh, as overflowing to-day as if it were the very first day of its outlay--if one might gather up this boundless, endless, infinite treasure to measure it, then might he tell the height, and depth, and unending glory of the pity of God! The light, and the sun, its source, are Gods own figures of the immensity and copiousness of His mercy and compassion. (H. W. Beecher.)
His tender mercies are ever all His works.--
On the mercy of God
Mercy, as it is ascribed to God, may be considered and taken two ways.
I. For the principle itself; which is nothing else but the simple undivided nature of God, as it does manifest and cast abroad itself in such and such acts of grace and favour to the creature. Which very same essence or nature, according to different respects, is called wisdom, justice, power, mercy, and the like.
II. It is taken for the effects and actions flowing from that principle by which it does so manifest and exert itself. Which also admit of a distinction into two sorts.
1. Such as are general, and of equal diffusion to all.
2. Such as are special, and peculiarly relate to the redemption and reparation of fallen man, whom God was pleased to choose and single out from the rest of His works as the proper object for this great attribute to do its utmost upon. Now it was the former sense that was intended by the psalmist in the text, as is evident from the universality of the words. It was such a mercy as spread itself over all His works; such a one as reached as wide as creation and providence. It was like the sun and the light, to shine upon all without exception. And therefore we are not at all concerned here to treat of the miracles of Gods pardoning mercy, as they display themselves in the satisfaction and ransom paid down by Christ for sinners: for it would be a great deviation from the design of the words to confine the overflowing goodness of a Creator to the more limited dispensations of a Redeemer: and so to drown a universal in a particular. For the prosecution of the words there is no way that seems more easy and natural, and withal more full, for the setting forth of Gods general mercy to the creature, than to take a survey of the several parts of the creation, and therein to show how it exerts and lays itself out upon each of them How many and vast endearments might we draw from God barely as a Creator! Suppose there had never been any news of a Redeemer to fallen Adam; no hope, no after-game for him as a sinner; yet let us peruse the obligations that lay upon him as a man. Was it not enough for him, who but yesterday was nothing, to be advanced into an existence, that is, into one perfection of the Deity? Was it not honour enough for clay to be breathed upon, and for God to print His image upon a piece of dirt? Certainly it would be looked upon as a high kindness for any prince to give his subject his picture; was it no act of love, therefore, in God to give us souls endued with such bright faculties, such lively images of Himself, which He might have thrust into the world with the short and brutish perceptions of a few silly senses; and like the beasts, have placed our intellectuals in our eyes or in our noses? Was it no favour to make that a sun which He might have made but a glow-worm? no privilege to man that he was made lord of all things below? that the world was not only his house, but his kingdom? that God should raise up one piece of earth to rule over all the rest? Surely all these were favours, and they were the early preventing favours of a Creator: for God then knew no other title, He bore no other relation to us; there was no price given to God that might induce Him to bid Adam rise out of the earth, a man rather than a spire of grass, a twig, a stone, or some such other contemptible superiority to nothing. No; He furnished him out into the world with all this retinue of perfections upon no other motive but because He had a mind to make him a glorious piece of work; a specimen of the arts of Omnipotence; to stand and glister in the top and head of the creation. Wherefore all the hard thoughts men usually have of God ought by all means and arts of consideration to be suppressed: for the better effecting of which we may fix our meditation upon these two qualities that do always attend them:
(1) Their unreasonableness.
(2) Their danger.
1. And first for their unreasonableness. All such thoughts are not any true resemblances of our Creator, but merely our own creatures. All the sad appearances of rigour that we paint Him under are not from Himself, but from our misrepresentations: as the fogs and mists we sometimes see about the sun issue not from Him, but ascend from below, and owe their nearness to the sun only to the deception of the spectator.
2. The other argument against mens entertaining such thoughts of God is the consideration of their exceeding danger. Their malignity is equal to their absurdity: for whosoever strives to beget or foment in his heart such persuasions concerning God makes himself the devils orator, and declaims his cause; whose proper characteristic badge it is to be the great accuser or calumniator. (R. South, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.