1. O God! we have heard with our ears. The people of God here recount the goodness which he had formerly manifested towards their fathers, that, by showing the great dissimilarity of their own condition, they may induce God to alleviate their miseries.

2. Thou hast expelled the heathen with thy hand. This is an illustration of the preceding verse: for the inspired writer had not yet expressly referred to that work of God, the fame of which had been preserved by their fathers.

“The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; (for ye were the fewest of all people) but because the Lord loved you,” (Deut. 7:7, Deut.

4. Thou, even thou, art my King, O God! In this verse the faithful express still more plainly what I have already alluded to a little before, namely, that the goodness of God was not only apparent in the deliverance of his people, but also flowed upon them in continued succession from age to age;…

5. Through thee we have pushed, or smitten, with the horn our adversaries. The prophet here declares in what respect God had manifested himself to be the King of this people. He did so by investing them with such strength and power, that all their enemies stood in fear of them.

8. In God we will boast all the day This is the conclusion of the first part of the psalm. To express the meaning in a few words, they acknowledge, that in all ages the goodness of God had been so great towards the children of Abraham, that it furnished them with continual matter of thanksgiving.

9. Nevertheless thou hast abhorred us Here follows a complaint, in which they bewail their present miseries and extreme calamity. There is here described such a change as showed not only that God had ceased to exercise towards them his accustomed favor, but also, that he was openly adverse and…

10. Thou hast made us to turn back from the enemy. Here the people of God still further complain, that he had made them to flee before their enemies, and had given them up as a prey to be devoured by them.

To the same purpose is that other comparison, (verse 11) in which they say that they were given as sheep for food By this the prophet intimates, that being already vanquished previous to the battle, they fell down, as it were, upon the earth before their enemies, ready to be devoured by them, and…

“O Lord, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways?” The complaint which is here made amounts rather to this, That the faithful are like poor wretched creatures wandering in desert places, seeing God had withdrawn his hand from them.

This they express still more clearly in the following clause, in which they say, We have not stretched out our hands to a strange god. By these words they intimate, that, contented with God alone, they did not suffer their hopes to be divided on different objects, nor gazed around them in search of…

‘Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,’ Matt. 5:10, seems to differ widely from the language here expressed by the people of God.