But though Israel may boast themselves triumphantly, turning to the earth, when it looks on high it can only say He bath done what pleased Him, "Not unto us, not to us, 0 Jehovah"—the expression not merely of humble consciousness but of righteous desire, "Unto thy Name give glory." But His Name is identified, for He has identified it with them. "For thy mercy and for thy truth's sake," for thus His Name was manifested towards Israel—if only truth, then must Israel have been rejected, for they had crucified their Messiah, as well as broken their law, but the promises of Jehovah must not fail because man does, and therefore, in His inscrutable wisdom, He brings in by mercy the accomplishment of His truth, and when, instead of going about to establish their own righteousness they stumble at the stumbling stone, they take mercy as their only and just hope, then the truth is established according to God's own promises and heart; and Jesus is owned as the way of it, for grace (khesed) and truth (emeth) came by Him, and, though rejected, will be established with additional splendor and glory therefore by Him. This then was how different a ground for Israel! Not the law—the law was given by Moses—that was their righteousness, but they had failed, utterly failed. Such is the ground Israel rests on then, and therefore the question can really be raised between God in Jacob and the heathen acting in scornful despite of their old sorrows and present abasement, saying "Where is he?" The answer is of faith. Though Jesus may not yet be publicly manifested, yet, by the Spirit of Christ in the midst of them, "Our God is in the heavens," and, as to all the prosperity of the Gentiles, and their abasement, they say, as Jesus on the non-repentance of Israel, "He hath done whatsoever it pleased him"—the heathen idols are nothing (compare the chapters of Isaiah, onwards, after chapter 40, where the question is raised, and the humiliation of Christ also brought in) and so they that trust in them. Then the Spirit of Christ thereon turns and addresses itself to Israel, "0 Israel, trust in Jehovah," and asserts also the mercy—He is their help, etc.; and then the promise of millennial blessing from verse 14, but Jewish and earthly—those spared—(vv. 17, 18)—full of blessing, but blessing for Israel on the earth.
This Psalm is the manifest supplication of Israel in the extremity of the Heathen's presence in the latter day, claiming not that they should but the necessity of Jehovah's Name, for there Israel was, and the Heathen saying, ready to say, "Where is now their God?" The earth seemed to say "Not here." But Jehovah was indeed identified with Israel, so their faith now recognized, but in the way of mercy before—truth to Israel, mercy to the Gentiles. Now, they having been in unbelief, "Mercy and truth are met together," but mercy must be their first claim. Their God was indeed in the heavens, and He had done whatsoever it pleased Him. Their idols indeed were on earth, and they were nothing at all—those that made them and those that trust in them—for the question in the latter day shall be indeed the God of Jacob and owning Him. "Let Israel trust in Jehovah," in the midst of all that was going on. Whosoever feared Jehovah should be owned. We can always say yir'e Jehovah bit' khu ba Jehovah (Ye who fear Jehovah trust in Jehovah).
12, 13. This is the manifest recognition that God had not forgotten, consequently He would bless, answering to trust, the vow of the Remnant.
14, 15. Here the Lord turns to the poor Remnant, and declares their portion—too strong for recognition of promise in them, filling their hearts, it burst forth and flows over in blessing on them; compare verse 15 with what we have noticed on al-khas-d'ka (because of Thy mercy)—verse 16 hangs on it. The earthly blessing is the subject here, but under the blessing of Him whose is the heaven and the heavens, but as sent it was in the Jews.
17, 18. Isa. 26 clearly explains these verses, as does Ezekiel. As the Psalm begins with humiliation, it ends in blessing of fullness.