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No more tender and beautiful image than this can be found in the whole range of sacred poetry. It is full of precious significance The memories and associations which it suggests are very sweet. We all know the summer harvest of the hay-makers, whose pleasant toils seem to anticipate those of the autumn harvest of the corn. How different is the aspect of the hay-field before the grass is cut, and after it is mown and the hay removed! A meadow covered from end to end with tall ripe grass crowned with rich dark-purple heads of blossom and seed, and rippling in light and shadow like the waves of the sea, as the sun and the wind chase each other over them, is one of the most beautiful of rural sights. Myriads of wild flowers add the glory of their colour and the fragrance of their perfume to the blades of grass among which they grow. The eye is never weary of gazing upon the bright and living mosaic. But how different the aspect when the scythe has done its work. All the beauty has vanished; the fragrance that loaded the air is gone, and nothing remains but the stubble, a short, pale, sickly-yellow sward, without grace of form, beauty or colour. And this desolation of aspect is greatly aggravated during a season of drought, when the sky is as brass, and, the earth is as iron, and the pitiless sun scorches the field. But how striking the change when a shower of rain comes; if it continues, what a healing process goes on, until at last an aftermath is formed which may be even more luxuriant than was the field in its first fresh strong growth. The rain upon the mown grass is thus the harbinger of new beauties and of a richer fragrance and fulness of life. And this is especially so in the arid soil and climate of Bible lands. The grass there, when cut, seems to dry up completely, and a brown naked waste remains. But when the rain comes it seems to spring up as if by magic, and renews with wonderful rapidity its former freshness and fairness (Deuteronomy 32:2; 2 Samuel 23:4). Now, notwithstanding the title, the internal evidence of the psalm points to a far later date, when the Jewish kingdom was reduced to the lowest straits; when the nation was like the mown grass, shorn of their power and glory, blighted, withered and trampled under foot. But in this condition they looked for the advent of a new King who should restore them, and be to them like "rain upon the mown grass." Thus, against the dark background of Jewish calamities arose the bright vision of the Messiah. But the Jews were the representatives of the human race, and therefore the image has a wider application. Through the fall all flesh became grass and his glory as the flower of the field. Everything became adverse to him who was afflicted with the great adversity of sin. But to man thus ruined the Lord Jesus Christ came to save him from his sin. How tender was the dealing of God with man. Like as He came to Adam and Eve after they had sinned, "in the cool of the day" — not suddenly, hastily, or angrily. And though His voice was stern there was a tone of tenderness and pity in it. And a higher life for man, a richer glory for God, is to be the aftermath which shall spring up in the wilderness through the rain of God's grace to sinners. And throughout the whole course of our Lord's life on earth, how wonderfully does He manifest the gentleness and tenderness of God. His works were these of healing and restoration, and are so still. And let the sufferer take the comfort of the text. How bare, scorched, shorn, many a life appears; all beauty, fragrance gone. But though He has mown down so much that we rejoiced in, His purpose is the aftermath which shall be more precious still. The rain of His grace comes down upon the poor, bruised, broken life, and the affliction that is not joyous but grievous afterwards yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness.

(Hugh Macmillan, D. D.)

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KJV: He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth.

WEB: He will come down like rain on the mown grass, as showers that water the earth.