Introduction
To the chief Musician, A Psalm and Song of David.
The scene and the subject presented by this psalm are beautiful and imposing. The people are assembled in Zion to give thanks. Prayer has been answered; a deliverance of some sort, and of vast public concern, has been granted; a public offence of some kind has been forgiven, (Psalms 65:3; Psalms 65:5;) and somehow these circumstances connect with previous despondency at the cutting off the supplies of food for the people, and joy for the now renewed rains, copiously watering the earth and reviving the promise of a plentiful harvest. With these surroundings the people join in praises to the God of providence for his special manifestations in nature. To what occasion these intimations best fit we may not positively affirm. The mention of “Zion” as the place of worship dates it after the settlement of the ark there, but gives no further intimation of time. The title assigns David as the author; and though this is not infallible, it is too respectable to be set aside without cause. We cannot, with some, (as Delitzsch and Perowne,) assign the date to the overthrow of Sennacherib, for this does not suit the marked idyllic character of the poem. The large consideration given to rain, as the special form in which prayer had been answered, the joy of nature, and the admission of “iniquities” and “transgressions,” (Psalms 65:3,) which manifestly had been the moral cause of the public calamity, do not suit Hezekiah’s administration. On the contrary, Psalms 65:7 might suit this hypothesis. We should, therefore, probably look to the record of 2 Samuel 21:1-14 the sufferings by “the famine in the days of David, three years, year after year,” and to the deliverance therefrom for the historic explanation of the allusions of the psalm. At that time “David sought the face of the Lord, and the Lord answered him.”
In this beautiful psalm God is praised as “the God of our (his people’s) salvation,” Psalms 65:1-4; as the God of all nations and peoples, Psalms 65:5-8; as the God of nature, governing the elements and ordering the seasons for the sustentation and comfort of man and of all living creatures, Psalms 65:9-13.TITLE:
A Psalm and Song of David A Psalm of David, a Song. See note on Psalms 30:0, title.
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