Psalm 92:1f
‘A Song for the Sabbath Day. It is a good thing to give thanks to the Lord…; to sing praises to Your name…; to show forth Your lovingkindness in the morning, and Your faithfulness every night!… I will triumph in the works of Your hands!’ Psalm 92:1-4.
Calvin comments: “This Psalm contains an exhortation to praise God…, insisting especially upon His justice displayed in the protection of His people and the destruction of the wicked. By such truth, it encourages to the practice of righteousness — and preserves us from fainting under the cross of Christ….
“There is no reason to doubt …the…singing (of) this Psalm, as the inscription bears, upon the Sabbath Day…. It was good to have a certain day set apart, for singing the praises of God….
“The reason why the Psalmist appropriated this Psalm to the Sabbath, is sufficiently obvious…. We need to be disentangled from all cares, if we would seriously apply ourselves to the praises of God…. The right observance of the Sabbath does not consist in idleness…, but in the celebration of the Divine name….
“He adverts to the grounds which we have for praising God…, in remembrance of His ‘goodness’ and ‘faithfulness’ which should inflame our hearts to such exercise. If we had any proper sense and experience of them!…
“The Psalmist…speaks of our announcing God’s goodness in the ‘morning’ — and His faithfulness ‘at night’…. He means, that beginning to praise the Lord from earliest dawn — we should continue His praises to the latest hour of the night….
“Christ has appeared, and the Church has reached full age…. The Psalmist repeats the truth that the Sabbath was not prescribed as a day of idleness, but a season when we should collect our whole energies — for meditation upon the works of God….
“Those are best qualified for celebrating the praises of God, who recognize and feel His fatherly goodness and can undertake this service with willing and joyful minds. His language implies that the goodness and faithfulness of God…are apparent in His works….
“What produces joy in our hearts, is the exhibition which God gives of Himself as a Father. And of His deep and watchful anxiety for our welfare….
“The cause of our brutish indifference, is our inability to savour or relish the end designed in the works of God! As the universe proclaims throughout that God is faithful and good, it behoves us to be diligently observant of these tokens — and to be excited by a holy joy to the celebration of His praise!” So, then — it’s good to thank the Lord on the Sabbath, morning and evening! You too!
