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This is very evidently a psalm arranged for alternate singing in the temple service. One section of the singers gives the sentences, and the other section answers with the ever-recurring refrain of the psalm, "For his mercy endureth forever." It is a refrain which has peculiar point and interest when regarded as sung by the returned exiles in their restored temple. They felt very deeply what it was to be "monuments of God's mercy," and that sense of God's mercy to them enabled them to read aright the story of the ages old and hoary, and to anticipate aright the ages that were yet to be. God's mercy evidently had been upon his people .from everlasting, and that was the best of guarantees that it would be unto everlasting. Let any man worthily apprehend God's mercy to him, and that man will be well assured that God's "mercy endureth for ever."

I. THE PERSONAL SENSE OF GOD'S MERCY. There are some things, perhaps many things, which cannot be learned intellectually, which no man can know until he knows experimentally. He may know about them, and may be able to talk about them, but the knowledge is a surface-matter; it is not real, not spiritually effective, until it comes through personal experience. God's mercy is one of these things. There are elements in mercy which we can mentally apprehend, such as tenderness, considerateness, gentleness, pity; but there is an element which we can only realize by feeling in relation to it. A man must feel undeserving before he can know what God's mercy is. Then he gains a right sense of the "pitifulness of thy great mercy." The self-satisfied Pharisee never thinks that God's mercy concerns him. In that mercy the penitent publican finds refuge.

II. ITS RAYS THROWN BACK ON THE PAST OF DIVINE DEALING. Let a man feel thus in relation to God's mercy, and then he can look back over his own past, and back over the past of history, and find God's mercy, as bearing and forbearing, everywhere. So the returned exiles would be able to read their old history as a nation. What shone out to view everywhere was God's mercy. Man's waywardness and willfulness, and God's pitifulness and gentleness.

III. ITS RAYS THROWN FORWARD ON THE FUTURE OF DIVINE DEALING. It is alone on the basis of what God is to us that we can rest our confidence of what he is going to be. Our soul's argument takes this form, "This God is our God for ever and ever; he will be our Guide even unto the end." Because his mercy is our portion, we are sure that "his mercy endureth for ever." R.T.

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KJV: O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.

WEB: Give thanks to Yahweh, for he is good; for his loving kindness endures forever.