Psalm 103 when was it written

He is intimately familiar with our strengths and weaknesses, and knows our potential for good and evil. If he were not compassionate, we would have no hope. Praise Yahweh, my soul! Whether the psalmist really meant to expand this invitation to Gentiles is open to question. Probably not. But in many places in the Hebrew scriptures, the author widened the horizons further than he understood see Genesis ; ; Psalm ; ; ; Isaiah ; ; b; ; Jeremiah ; Daniel ; Joel ; Zechariah ; Malachi This is probably one of those.

The ASV, which is also in the public domain due to expired copyrights, was a very good translation, but included many archaic words hast, shineth, etc. Broyles, Craig C. Clifford, Richard J. Eerdmans Publishing Co. McCann, J. Clinton, Jr. Ross, Allen P. Waltner, James H. Baker, Warren ed. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Brown, Francis; Driver, S.

Doniach, N. Freedman, David Noel ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, Freedman, David Noel Ed. Mounce, William D. Renn, Stephen D. Sakenfeld, Katharine Doob ed. Nashville: Abingdon Press, VanGemeren, Willem A. Previous Next. PSALM Dust is the small bits of the ground that we live on. To God, our lives are very short, just as the life of a flower seems short to us, verse They will always obey him.

Heaven is the home of God. His throne is the special seat that he sits on. All kings have a throne, and God is king over everything, verse In verse 22 David says what he said in verse 1. Learn to say verse 2 by heart.

By heart means without looking at the words. Here are some lines from a famous Christian song. They use ideas from Psalm Can you find which verses they use? The meanings of some of the words are in brackets. Father-like he tends helps and spares is kind to us, Well our feeble weak frame body he knows, In his hands he gently bears carries us, Rescues us makes us safe from all our foes enemies. We have no idea if David knew the shape of the earth, but the Holy Spirit who inspired David to write this did, and the nature of the earth and our way of describing directions makes this statement particularly inspiring.

As far as the east is from the west is much greater than saying as far as the north is from the south, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. If you travel north on a globe, you begin to travel south as soon as you go over the North Pole. But if you travel east, you will continue east forever. Given the true shape of the earth, east and west never meet — and this is how far God has removed our sins from us!

He loves us infinitely, and he could not love us more than if we had never fallen. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust. The way that a good father cares for and even pities his children in their frailty and weakness, so the LORD pities those who fear Him.

We think of a loving father dealing with his tired children. He does not demand more of them than they can perform, but with care takes into account their weaknesses. He comforts them and measures his expectations according to his wisdom and compassion. Though he knows your trials will work for your good, yet he pities you. Though he knows that there is sin in you, which, perhaps, may require this rough discipline ere you be sanctified, yet he pities you. Though he can hear the music of heaven, the songs and glees that will ultimately come of your present sighs and griefs, yet still he pities those groans and wails of yours.

A pitying God! What can be added to that? The wise reaction to this is, fear the LORD! How much better to be on the side of His pity and compassion than to be on the side of His anger or righteous judgment! For He knows our frame : The pity and compassion of God toward those who fear Him are rooted in His knowledge and understanding of our inherent weakness and impermanence, our transience.

Isaiah , etc. This pity and remembrance were turned to empathy at the incarnation. God Himself added humanity to His deity and experienced our frame and our dust -like weakness. What before He knew by observation, He submitted to know by experience. As for man, his days are like grass; As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.

For the wind passes over it, and it is gone, And its place remembers it no more. Humanity is so transient that his days are like grass and like a flower of the field that blooms one day and withers the next.

When the flower is gone, virtually nothing remains — its place remembers it no more. His hesed — covenant love, loyal kindness — endures from all ages to all ages. His mercy is from everlasting; nor a time when He will love you less — it is to everlasting. To such as keep His covenant : These promises of everlasting love and mercy are given with conditions.

The promises are made to those who fear Him , to those who keep His covenant , and those who remember His commandments to do them. God is enthroned in heaven , beyond the troubles and corruptions of earth. It is established , and will never be moved. And His kingdom rules over all : An eternal contrast is made between the Ruler and the ruled. There is no aspect of the universe that is not under His reign. Bless the LORD, you His angels : David began the psalm by telling his own soul to bless the Lord, but he knew the praise and honor to God should go beyond what he could give.

It is the soul that is to be employed in blessing God, and all that is within us. We make nothing of our religious performances if we do not make heart-work of them, if that which is within us, nay, if all that is within us, be not engaged in them. The work requires the inward man, the whole man, and all little enough. In order to our return of praises to God, there must be a grateful remembrance of the mercies we have received from him: Forget not all his benefits.

If we do not give thanks for them, we do forget them; and that is unjust as well as unkind, since in all God's favours there is so much that is memorable.

How he furnishes himself with abundant matter for praise, and that which is very affecting: "Come, my soul, consider what God has done for thee. Think what the provocation was; it was iniquity, and yet pardoned; how many the provocations were, and yet all pardoned. He has forgiven all our trespasses. It is a continued act; he is still forgiving, as we are still sinning and repenting. This is cured in sanctification; when sin is mortified, the disease is healed; though complicated, it is all healed.

Our crimes were capital, but God saves our lives by pardoning them; our diseases were mortal, but God saves our lives by healing them.

These two go together; for, as for God, his work is perfect and not done by halves; if God take away the guilt of sin by pardoning mercy, he will break the power of it by renewing grace. Where Christ is made righteousness to any soul he is made sanctification, 1 Co. The redemption of the soul is precious; we cannot compass it, and therefore are the more indebted to divine grace that has wrought it out, to him who has obtained eternal redemption for us. See Job , This honour have all his saints.

What is the crown of glory but God's favour? Nothing but divine wisdom can undertake to fill its treasures Prov. When God, by the graces and comforts of his Spirit, recovers his people from their decays, and fills them with new life and joy, which is to them an earnest of eternal life and joy, then they may be said to return to the days of their youth, Job Psa Hitherto the psalmist had only looked back upon his own experiences and thence fetched matter for praise; here he looks abroad and takes notice of his favour to others also; for in them we should rejoice and give thanks for them, all the saints being fed at a common table and sharing in the same blessings.

Truly God is good to all v. It is his honour to humble the proud and help the helpless. He is in a special manner good to Israel, to every Israelite indeed, that is of a clean and upright heart.

He has revealed himself and his grace to us v. Note, Divine revelation is one of the first and greatest of divine favours with which the church is blessed; for God restores us to himself by revealing himself to us, and gives us all good by giving us knowledge. He has made known his acts and his ways that is, his nature, and the methods of his dealing with the children of men , that they may know both what to conceive of him and what to expect from him; so Dr. Or by his ways we may understand his precepts, the way which he requires us to walk in; and by his acts, or designs as the word signifies , his promises and purposes as to what he will do with us.

Thus fairly does God deal with us. He has never been rigorous and severe with us, but always tender, full of compassion, and ready to forgive. It is in his nature to be so v. It is my way, says God, to pardon sin. He is slow to anger, not extreme to mark what we do amiss nor ready to take advantage against us.

He bears long with those that are very provoking, defers punishing, that he may give space to repent, and does not speedily execute the sentence of his law; and he could not be thus slow to anger if he were not plenteous in mercy, the very Father of mercies. Though he signify his displeasure against us for our sins by the rebukes of Providence, and the reproaches of our own consciences, and thus cause grief, yet he will have compassion, and will not always keep us in pain and terror, no, not for our sins, but, after the spirit of bondage, will give the spirit of adoption.

How unlike are those to God who always chide, who take every occasion to chide, and never know when to cease! What would become of us if God should deal so with us? He will not keep his anger for ever against his own people, but will gather them with everlasting mercies, Isa.

We have found him so; we, for our parts, must own that he has not dealt with us after our sins, v. The scripture says a great deal of the mercy of God, and we may all set to our seal that it is true, that we have experienced it. If he had not been a God of patience, we should have been in hell long ago; but he has not rewarded us after our iniquities; so those will say who know what sin deserves.

He has not inflicted the judgments which we have merited, nor deprived us of the comforts which we have forfeited, which should make us think the worse, and not the better, of sin; for God's patience should lead us to repentance, Rom. He has pardoned our sins, not only my iniquity v. Though it is of our own benefit, by the pardoning mercy of God, that we are to take the comfort, yet of the benefit others have by it we must give him the glory.

Observe, 1. The transcendent riches of God's mercy v. Observe, God's mercy is thus great towards those that fear him, not towards those that trifle with him. We must fear the Lord and his goodness. The fulness of his pardons, an evidence of the riches of his mercy v. The sins of believers shall be remembered no more, shall not be mentioned unto them; they shall be sought for, and not found. If we thoroughly forsake them, God will thoroughly forgive them.

He has pitied our sorrows, v. Whom he pities- those that fear him, that is, all good people, who in this world may become objects of pity on account of the grievances to which they are not only born, but born again.

Or it may be understood of those who have not yet received the spirit of adoption, but are yet trembling at his word; those he pities, Jer.