Psalm 145:16 You open your hand, and satisfy the desire of every living thing. : — I. THE ONE GREAT BENEFACTOR. He is named by David (ver. 1) as his God and King; and such is Jehovah unto all His saints. Their Proprietor and Preserver, their Ruler and Portion in a gracious and peculiar sense. But in the text God is adored as good to all, the one great Benefactor of every living thing. We do not forget that the support which God vouchsafes unto all, and the supplies which He grants to every living thing are not direct and immediate. These, in many instances, reach the creatures through the intervention of numerous channels, various agencies and instrumentalities. God does not now, as of old, rain bread upon the earth — and neither while preserving man or beast in His precious grace is the hand of the Lord seen, or His voice heard, or His glory visible. Still, He Himself is the one great benefactor of all flesh, of every living thing. In Him our breath is, and His are all our ways. II. THE MULTITUDE AND VARIETY OF THE DEPENDENTS. "Every living thing." Yes, the king in his palace, and the spider which shares the chamber with the monarch; the old man, staff in hand from very age, and the infant smiling on its mother's lap; the mariner in his ship in the midst of the sea, and the ploughman with his oxen in the peaceful valley; the senators in their council-hall, and the birds singing in the branches of the forest; the rich man feasting in his mansion, and the sheep which stray on its lawns; the cattle upon a thousand hills; the poor blind man begging his bread from door to door, the faithful dog which guides his sightless steps, — toward all these, and multitudes greater far, and in varieties more perplexing still, does our God open His hand and satisfy the desire! III. THE FREENESS AND LIBERALITY OF THE GIFTS. "Thou openest Thine hand." No doubt in the course of Providence there are seasons of famine or of scarcity. We are to have the poor always with us, and we discover constant instances of poverty or destitution. There have been years that the locust did eat, and the canker worm, and the caterpillar, and the palmer worm — God's great army which He sends against us. Even mid the joy of this plentiful harvest we have to lament blight and failure in a portion of the produce of the earth. These, however, are exceptional seasons, and, as judgment is God's strange works, as these occur they are to be regarded as reproofs for sin, meant to instruct the earth in righteousness, and that man having "cleanness of teeth" appointed him may be taught his weakness, and turn unto the Lord. IV. THE SATISFACTION WHICH THE GIFTS AFFORD. "Thou satisfiest the desire of every living thing." Is it any comfort, is it any relief to us to obscure the perfections of the one great Benefactor, and to conceal His administration in all the earth, to say that the satisfying of the desire of every living thing is the effect of natural laws, the order of the earth; and that while it remaineth "seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease"? Thus may speak philosophy falsely so called, and with such crude and false reasoning many may be content. Natural laws, and the order of the earth, forsooth! Who ordained these laws, and who keeps them in operation? Who appointed that order, and preserves it from derangement or disturbance? Revelation teaches us to ascribe all this to God. Reason is fully satisfied only when admitting His dominion in the universe. (John Smart, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing.WEB: You open your hand, and satisfy the desire of every living thing. |
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