A manual of the book of Psalms · Martin Luther
PSALM XXXIII.
_God is to be praised for his goodness, for his power, and for his providence.—Confidence is to be placed in God._ Rejoice in the LORD, O ye righteous: _for_ praise is comely for the upright. Praise the LORD with harp: sing unto him with the psaltery, and an instrument of ten strings. Sing unto him a new song; play skilfully with a loud noise. For the word of the LORD _is_ right: and all his works _are done_ in truth. He loveth righteousness and judgment: the earth is full of the goodness of the LORD. By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. He gathereth the waters of the sea together as an heap: he layeth up the depth in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the LORD: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. For he spake, and it was _done_; he commanded, and it stood fast. The LORD bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought: he maketh the devices of the people of none effect. The counsel of the LORD standeth for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations. Blessed _is_ the nation whose God _is_ the LORD; _and_ the people _whom_ he hath chosen for his own inheritance.
The LORD looketh from heaven; he beholdeth all the sons of men. From the place of his habitation he looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth. He fashioneth their hearts alike; he considereth all their works. There is no king saved by the multitude of an host: a mighty man is not delivered by much strength. An horse _is_ a vain thing for safety: neither shall he deliver _any_ by his great strength. Behold, the eye of the LORD _is_ upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy: To deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine. Our soul waiteth for the LORD: he _is_ our help and our shield. For our heart shall rejoice in him, because we have trusted in his holy name. Let thy mercy, O LORD, be upon us, according as we hope in thee. This Psalm is a remarkable thanksgiving, where the prophet calls upon all the saints, and those that fear God, to rejoice and give thanks unto God for his preserving the church so wonderfully in the midst of the world, in the midst of the kingdom of the devil, and exposed to so many evils and perils on every side,—to give thanks unto God, I say, who never forsakes the godly, and those that fear him, when tossed to and fro on such waves of temptation, nor suffers them to be overwhelmed, nor to perish, though conflicting in so perilous a manner.
God, says David, created the heaven and this whole universe of things by his word. “He spake, and they were made:” therefore he is omnipotent, and nothing is difficult to him: and hence he can deliver his own from the midst of death, and from the midst of hell. And then, again, his goodness and his truth are exceedingly great and infinite. He regardeth and heareth the afflicted, he is ever present with them in the hour of temptation: and, as David says in another Psalm, “The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart.” Therefore God is not only willing to help and succour the godly, but to succour them even as a father would his children; even as that gracious promise which is comprehended in the First Commandment, declares “I am the Lord thy God:” that is, I will be the Lord thy God: I will be thy life, thy salvation, thy shield, thy defence, thy eternal strength, thy eternal salvation, and consolation; thy eternal and infinite good, against all the evils that can come upon thee:—For this is to be God!
In the first place, therefore, David proclaims with great fulness of expression this unequalled wisdom and power of God,—that God has in his hand all the hearts and thoughts of all men, kings, rulers and potentates throughout the whole world; that he turns them and orders them just as he will; that he governs and overrules all their deliberations and counsels, and directs them all according to his own mind and pleasure. “The Lord (saith David) bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought:” that is, he wonderfully breaks off and disappoints the counsels of the wise, of the kings, of the potentates of this world: and suddenly defeats all the attacks of the enemies against his people and his church, how sure soever of success they may appear, and he turns all their destruction upon the heads of the enemies themselves, so that they cannot perform their enterprises nor accomplish the devices which they plot against the righteous, but they fall themselves into the pits which they have digged, and there perish and rot.
This is no small consolation to those that fear God, amidst all that bitterness and Satanic cruelty which the tyrants of this world execute against the godly, when they fearfully threaten that they will fill all things with blood if they do not deny Christ and his gospel. These make no end of their threats, because they are as if they would terrify God himself, and hurl Christ down from the throne of his majesty. Whereas God, all the while, holds in his power the thoughts and imaginations of every one of them, and also their life and the breath that is in their nostrils: and therefore such are subverted and destroyed in a moment before they have accomplished their designs. Only meditate upon all the examples of this since the beginning of the world. What became of all the counsels of the people of Sodom against Lot? Where is that great monarch and terror of the world, Sennacherib? What (to come to our own times) has become of Pope Leo X. and all the other bitter enemies of the word?
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.