61:5-8 There is a people in the world that fear God's name. There is a heritage peculiar to that people; present comforts in the soul, earnests of future bliss. Those that fear God have enough in him, and must not complain. We need desire no better heritage than that of those who fear God. Those abide to good purpose in this world, who abide before God, serve him, and walk in his fear; those who do so, shall abide before him for ever. And these words are to be applied to Him of whom the angel said, the Lord shall give unto him the throne of his father David, and of his kingdom there shall be no end, Lu 1:32. God's promises, and our faith in them, are not to do away, but to encourage prayer. We need not desire to be better secured than under the protection of God's mercy and truth. And if we partake of that grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ, we may praise him, whatever be our outward circumstances. But renewed experience of God's mercy and truth towards his people in Christ, is the main matter of our joy in him, and our praise unto him.

Verse 6. - Thou wilt prolong (or, mayest thou prolong) the king's life. The question arises - What king? Some answer that David prays for the extension of his own life; or, if not exactly of his own life, then for the prolongation of his dynasty upon the throne (Hengstenberg); others suggest that a distant exile, perhaps in Assyria, prays for the life of the reigning King of Judah, Josiah probably ('Four Friends,' p. 117); but the Messianic interpretation is perhaps the best. The writer, lifted up above himself and above sublunary things, abiding, as he does, in the spiritual tabernacle under the shelter of God's wings (ver. 4), prays for long continuance of days for the true King, the ideal King, Messiah, of whom David and his house are types: "Mayest thou add days to the days of the King," and make his years as many generations; or, as generation and generation; i.e. eternally continuous.

Thou wilt prolong the King's life,.... Or "add days to the days of the King" (a). Meaning either himself, who, though his life was in danger by fighting with the Syrians and Edomites, or rather through the conspiracy of his son; yet was assured that he should yet live many years more, and especially in his posterity; and that his kingdom would be established for ever, as was promised him, 2 Samuel 7:12. Or rather the King Messiah, so the Targum: and Kimchi observes, that if this psalm respects the captivity, the King is the King Messiah: it may be understood of his life as man; who, though he died, rose again, and lives for evermore; and that, as to the glory of God the Father, so to the good of his people, for whom he makes intercession; and of the continuance of his spiritual seed, in whom he may be said to live, and his days be prolonged, Isaiah 53:10; and of the duration of his kingdom, of which there will be no end. For it is an everlasting one, as follows:

and his years as many generations; he living, and his posterity and kingdom continuing, age after age. The Targum is,

"his years as the generations of this world, and the generations of the world to, come.''

(a) "dies super dies regis adjicieo", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, &c.

6, 7. the king—himself and his royal line ending in Christ. Mercy and truth personified, as in Ps 40:11; 57:3.

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