Psalm 145:9

The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(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.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

145:1-9 Those who, under troubles and temptations, abound in fervent prayer, shall in due season abound in grateful praise, which is the true language of holy joy. Especially we should speak of God's wondrous work of redemption, while we declare his greatness. For no deliverance of the Israelites, nor the punishment of sinners, so clearly proclaims the justice of God, as the cross of Christ exhibits it to the enlightened mind. It may be truly said of our Lord Jesus Christ, that his words are words of goodness and grace; his works are works of goodness and grace. He is full of compassion; hence he came into the world to save sinners. When on earth, he showed his compassion both to the bodies and souls of men, by healing the one, and making wise the other. He is of great mercy, a merciful High Priest, through whom God is merciful to sinners.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

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 Psalm 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.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

8, 9. (Compare Ps 103:8; 111:4).

over all, &c.—rests on all His works.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Is good to all; not to Israel only, but to all mankind, whose hearts he fills with food and gladness, as it is said, Acts 14:17; yea, to all his creatures, as it is in the next clause, to beasts as well as men. See Psalm 136:25 147:9.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

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, Psalm 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 Ephesians 2:10.

Geneva Study Bible

The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

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.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 9. - 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" (Matthew 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. Psalm 145:9

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

This memorable utterance of Jahve concerning Himself the writer of Psalm 103, which is of kindred import, also interweaves into his celebration of the revelation of divine love in Psalm 145:8. Instead of רב־חסד the expression here, however, is וגדול חסד (Kerמ, as in Nahum 1:3, cf. Psalm 89:29, with Makkeph וּגדל־). The real will of God tends towards favour, which gladly giving stoops to give (חנּוּן), and towards compassion, which interests itself on behalf of the sinner for his help and comfort (רחוּם). Wrath is only the background of His nature, which He reluctantly and only after long waiting (ארך אפּים) lets loose against those who spurn His great mercy. For His goodness embraces, as Psalm 145:9 says, all; His tender mercies are over all His works, they hover over and encompass all His creatures. Therefore, too, all His works praise Him: they are all together loud-speaking witnesses of that sympathetic all-embracing love of His, which excludes no one who does not exclude himself; and His saints, who live in God's love, bless Him (יברכוּכה written as in 1 Kings 18:44): their mouth overflows with the declaration (יאמרוּ) of the glory of the kingdom of this loving God, and in speaking (ידבּרוּ) of the sovereign power with which He maintains and extends this kingdom. This confession they make their employ, in order that the knowledge of the mighty acts of God and the glorious majesty of His kingdom may at length become the general possession of mankind. When the poet in Psalm 145:12 sets forth the purpose of the proclamation, he drops the form of address. God's kingdom is a kingdom of all aeons, and His dominion is manifested without exception and continually in all periods or generations (בּכל־דּור ודר as in Psalm 45:18, Esther 9:28, a pleonastic strengthening of the expression בּדר ודר, Psalm 90:1). It is the eternal circumference of the history of time, but at the same time its eternal substance, which more and more unfolds and achieves itself in the succession of the periods that mark its course. For that all things in heaven and on earth shall be gathered up together (ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι, Ephesians 1:10) in the all-embracing kingdom of God in His Christ, is the goal of all history, and therefore the substance of history which is working itself out. With Psalm 145:13 (cf. Daniel 3:33, Daniel 4:31, according to Hitzig the primary passages) another paragraph is brought to a close.