Psalms 36:5 - Meaning and Application

David had just looked with grief at the wickedness of the wicked. Now he looks up with comfort to the goodness of God, and that is a fitting contrast. The sight of human sin is dark and painful, but the thought of God’s character is bright and refreshing.

He first reflects on the grace of God, and he begins with God’s own nature. Among people, we often have to complain that there is no truth or mercy, and no justice or right judgment (Hosea 4:1; Isaiah 5:7). But in God there is no flaw at all. Whatever is missing or crooked in the world, nothing is missing or crooked in the One who rules it.

God’s mercy is boundless. “Your mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens.” If people shut their hearts to us, we can still find mercy at God’s throne of grace. When others plan harm against us, God’s thoughts toward us, if we stay close to him, are thoughts of good. On earth we meet little contentment and much trouble, but in heaven, where God’s mercy reigns perfectly and forever, there is full satisfaction.

So no matter how bad the world becomes, we should never think worse of God or his rule. Instead, the sins of people should move us to admire God’s patience. He bears with those who openly offend him, and he still sends sun and rain on them. If God’s mercy were not infinitely greater than any creature’s mercy, he would long ago have flooded the world again. See Isaiah 55:8-9 and Hosea 11:9.

God is also perfectly faithful. “Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.” Even though he allows wicked people to do much harm for a time, he will remain faithful to his warnings against sin, and a day of reckoning will come. He is also faithful to his covenant, that is, his binding promise, with his people. No enemy on earth or in hell can cancel one part of those promises. This is great comfort to good people, because human beings may lie, but God does not.

His faithfulness is high and unchanging. Some understand the words to mean that it reaches above the clouds, beyond all the changing weather of this lower world. Human promises often change with circumstances, but God’s word does not.

God is also completely just and right. “Your righteousness is like the great mountains.” It is firm, unmoving, and plainly visible to all. No truth is clearer than this, the Lord is righteous in all his ways, and he has never done, and will never do, wrong to any of his creatures. Even when clouds and darkness surround him, justice and right are still the home of his throne (Psalm 97:2).

His wisdom is also beyond our full understanding. “Your judgments are a great deep.” His decisions cannot be measured by any human mind, just as a deep sea cannot be measured by a small line. His power is sovereign, meaning he answers to no one, and his way of working is often strange and hidden. “His way is in the sea and his path in the great waters.” We know he does all things wisely and well, but we do not yet know why he does each thing. That will be clear in time to come.

Then the psalmist turns to God’s care for all living things. “You preserve man and beast.” God does more than keep them from harm, he gives them what they need to live. Even animals, though they cannot know or praise him as people can, are still fed by his kindness. Their eyes wait on him, and he gives them their food in the right season.

So we should not be surprised that God gives food to wicked people, since he feeds the animals too. And we should not fear that he will fail to provide for his own children. The God who feeds the young lions will not leave his own people hungry.

The last part speaks of God’s special favor toward his saints, his faithful people. They are drawn by the greatness of his loving-kindness to trust under the shadow of his wings. God’s loving-kindness is precious to them. They taste its sweetness and see that nothing in this world is as lovely or desirable. Those who do not admire God’s loving-kindness do not really know him, and those who do not long for it do not really know themselves.

Because they value his love, they put full confidence in him. They come to him for protection and then are safe and at rest, like chicks under a hen’s wings (Matthew 23:37). This was also the picture used of people who joined themselves to the God of Israel (Ruth 2:12). Nothing draws the heart more strongly than the beauty of God’s loving-kindness.

Their privilege is great. Happy indeed are the people whose God is the Lord, because in him they have, or may have, or will have, complete happiness. Their desires will be answered. They will be abundantly satisfied with the richness of God’s house, with their needs supplied and their souls filled. In God, who is all-sufficient, they will have enough for every need of an enlightened and enlarged soul.

The pleasures of this world and the joys of the senses can never truly satisfy. But the gifts of God’s favor and grace do satisfy. A gracious soul may still want more of God, but it never wants anything more than God himself. Even the gifts of Providence, God’s daily care, give enough to make them content with what they have. “I have all, and abound” (Philippians 4:18). The blessing of holy worship is part of the fatness of God’s house, sweet to a holy soul and strengthening for spiritual life.

Still, the full and overflowing satisfaction is kept for the life to come, in the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. There every vessel will be filled. Their joys will also be steady, for God will make them drink from the river of his pleasures. There are pleasures that are truly divine.

These pleasures are yours, not only because they come from you as the giver, but because they end in you as their center and goal. Since they are spiritual, they are like the joys of the glorious people in heaven, and they even reflect something of the delight of God’s eternal mind.

There is also a river of these pleasures. It is always full, always fresh, and always flowing. There is enough for everyone, and enough for each person, as (Psalm 46:4) says. The pleasures of the body are like dirty, rotten puddle water, but the pleasures of faith are pure and sweet, clear as crystal (Revelation 22:1).

God has not only provided this river of pleasures for his people, he also makes them drink from it. He gives them a holy desire for these joys and, by his Spirit, fills their souls with joy and peace as they trust him. In heaven they will keep drinking forever from those pleasures at God’s right hand, filled full with joy (Psalm 16:11).

Life and light will be their endless blessing and share (Psalm 36:9). Since they have God himself as their happiness, they have in him the fountain of life, from which all those rivers of pleasure flow (Psalm 36:8). The God of nature is the source of natural life. In him we live and move and have our being. The God of grace is the source of spiritual life. All the strength and comfort of a holy soul, and all its good desires, powers, and actions, come from God.

He is the spring and maker of every true sense of divine things, and of every movement toward them. He gives life to whomever he wills, and whoever wants may come and take the water of life freely. He is also the fountain of eternal life. The joy of glorified believers consists in seeing him and enjoying him, and in receiving his love directly, without interruption or fear that it will end.

In him they also have perfect light, which includes wisdom, knowledge, and joy. “In your light we see light” means this: in knowing God now through grace, and seeing him later in glory, our minds will find full satisfaction. The divine light that shines in Scripture, especially in the face of Christ, the light of the world, holds all truth. When we come to see God face to face, beyond the veil, we will see light in its fullness. Then we will know enough, as (1 Corinthians 13:12) and (1 John 3:2) teach.

It also means that, in fellowship with God now, through the grace he gives us and our loving response to him, and later in heaven through enjoying him fully, we will have complete happiness and satisfaction. In his favor we have all the good we could desire. This world is dark, and we find little comfort in it. But in heaven there is true light, with no false light, and no light that fades. Here we know and enjoy God through created things and means, but in heaven God himself will be with us (Revelation 21:3), and we will see and enjoy him directly.

From these thoughts, David moves into prayer, intercession, and holy confidence. He prays first for all believers, asking that they may always know the comfort of God’s favor and grace (Psalm 36:10). The people he prays for are those who know God, who are familiar with him, acknowledge him, and claim him as their own, the upright in heart, who are sincere in religion and faithful to both God and people. Those who are not upright with God do not truly know him as they should.

What he asks for them is God’s loving-kindness, that is, the signs of his favor toward them, and his righteousness, that is, the working of his grace in them. Or these words can mean God’s loving-kindness and righteousness as his goodness kept by promise, his mercy and truth. He asks that this blessing would continue, stretched out to the length of eternity itself. The saints’ joy in heaven will be perfect, yet always growing in a holy way, because the fountain there is always full and the streams always flowing. In these things there is lasting continuance (Isaiah 64:5).

Then he prays for himself, that he may be kept in his integrity and comfort (Psalm 36:11). “Let not the foot of pride come against me,” he says, meaning, do not let proud people trip me up or trample me. “And let not the hand of the wicked prevail,” meaning, do not let evil people, who oppose me, succeed in pulling me away from my purity and integrity by temptation, or from my peace and comfort by trouble. Let those who fight against God never triumph over those who want to hold fast to him.

Those who have known the joy of fellowship with God cannot help but desire that nothing would ever separate them from him. David also rejoices in hope of the final downfall of all his enemies in God’s time (Psalm 36:12). “There,” where they thought they would defeat me, “they have fallen,” trapped in the snare they laid for me. Some understand this as the other world, where the saints stand in judgment and have a place in God’s house, while workers of evil are cast down in judgment, sent into hell, the bottomless pit, from which they will never rise under the heavy weight of God’s wrath and curse.

It is true that we should not rejoice when a particular enemy falls. But the final overthrow of all evil workers will be the lasting triumph of glorified saints.