Psalms 147

Praise the LORD, for it is good to sing praises to our God; for it is pleasant and fitting to praise is fitting. Clarke: praise is comely—decent and proper that every intelligent creature acknowledge the Supreme Being who does good to the children of men.

Shared doxology: both camps gladly sing. Wesleyan Arminians see a sincere summons to fitting praise under grace—good, pleasant, and comely because God is worthy.

Calvin: though benefits extend to all, he addresses God’s people especially; the main celebration is mercy to the chosen. Praise is good, delightful, and pleasant—indirectly censuring weariness at God’s name.

Praise should be offered readily and gladly. Shared with Clarke: Praise the LORD; song of praise is fitting.

The LORD builds up Jerusalem. He gathers together the outcasts of Israel. Clarke: walls rising under the eye as outcasts return to the work. Restoration is praise-material.

Gathering outcasts is mercy meant to be noticed and sung. Both hear: the LORD builds and gathers.

Calvin: builder of Jerusalem points less to stones than to spiritual worship; the Church is formed by God’s power, not human counsel. He gathers the dispersed—God forsakes not the work of His hands.

Restoration as divine architecture. Jerusalem built; outcasts gathered.

He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds. Clarke: the shattered heart—broken by a sense of God’s displeasure—is bound by the divine Surgeon.

Both see: healing for wounds. Arminians preach a Healer who invites the broken to come and be bound up.

Calvin: though the Church labor under many diseases, God will speedily recover it; the figure shows the Church ever safe under His care.

Healing as covenant care. Undisputed: brokenhearted healed; wounds bound.

He counts the number of the stars. He calls them all by their names. Clarke: He whose knowledge tells every star can collect scattered exiles. Wesley: He exactly knows them as we do those we call by name.

No dispute here: star-naming wisdom—creation praise fuels trust for gathering.

Calvin: matchless wisdom regulates the courses of the stars without confusion; each has its fixed office. Gathering outcasts is not harder than numbering stars.

Incomprehensible power and wisdom. Both affirm: stars numbered and named.

Great is our Lord, and mighty in power. His understanding is beyond measure. Clarke: to His intelligence there is no number—He is infinite; therefore He can know and do all things.

Where they meet: greatness without measure. Classical Arminians refuse a small God; praise matches plenitude of power.

Calvin: Great is God, boundless in power and understanding. There cannot be greater folly than to make our judgment the measure of God’s works.

Do not scale God by human measure. Both traditions hear: abundant power; understanding beyond measure.

The LORD upholds the humble. He brings the wicked down to the ground. Clarke: the humbled and afflicted are raised; justice and mercy meet in one verse.

Lifting the meek is pastoral hope; casting the wicked is moral warning. Shared praise of both sides of the LORD’s rule.

Calvin: we are brought low that God may lift us up; the wicked are lifted that they may be cast down. Affliction and envy both meet this verse.

Reformed comfort under the cross. Humble lifted; wicked cast down.

Sing to the LORD with thanksgiving. Sing praises on the harp to our God on the lyre! Clarke: sing a responsive song—answer one another. Thanksgiving is the mode.

Shared doxology: vocal and instrumental praise. The accent falls on willing melody, not forced noise.

Calvin: again he exhorts to sing; abundant matter is not wanting—new proofs of power, goodness, and wisdom meet our eyes.

Thanksgiving as chief exercise. Sing with thanksgiving; melody on the lyre.

He covers the sky with clouds, who prepares rain for the earth, who makes grass grow on the mountains. Clarke: even winds, clouds, and rain are under especial management; providence, not bare chance.

Ordinary weather is praise-material. Clouds, rain, grass on hills.

Calvin: sudden veiling of the heavens displays power; rain prepares grass—mercy and fatherly care in the same act as power. Second causes should not hide providence.

God’s providence reaches to clouds, rain, and the grass on the hills. Shared with Clarke: rain prepared; grass on hills.

He provides food for the livestock, and for the young ravens when they call. Wesley: ravens most contemptible and unclean to Jews, forsaken by dams, wholly left to divine providence.

Common reading: care reaches the overlooked. Wesleyan Arminians hear a Father who feeds what men neglect.

Calvin: naming cattle and ravens emphasizes the argument—if God feeds brutes, He will be nurse and father to us. Young ravens cry unto God as confessing want.

Providence scaled to the least. Both confess: beasts and young ravens fed.

He takes no pleasure in the legs of a man. Wesley: as if He needed either for His designs. Clarke: horse and well-proportioned legs delight men; they are not God’s peculiar delight.

Either reading: human military beauty is not the LORD’s treasure. Arminian interpreters warn against trusting strength God did not ask for as His joy.

Calvin: men have no strength but what is given from above—this checks pride that trusts its own preparation. Strength of horse stands for any protection that intoxicates.

False confidence blocks mercy. Both sides agree: not horse-strength; not legs of a man.

The LORD takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his loving kindness. Clarke: the truly religious; and those just beginning to seek salvation—even the penitent’s cry pleases Him.

Shared center of the doxology: fear and hope in hesed. Both camps worship here; classical Arminians stress sincere hope held out to the seeking soul.

Calvin: fear of God opposed to horse and human strength; hope in His mercy—worship with reverence and dependence upon grace.

Delight is in God-fearers who hope in mercy, not in self-strength. Both traditions see: pleasure in fear and hope in steadfast love.

Covenant address: the rebuilt city is called by name to the choir.

Zion is called to the duty of praise. Arminians detect a people summoned to grateful song for mercies already tasted.

Calvin: having spoken generally, he addresses the Lord’s people who alone can appreciate these mercies. Under Jerusalem he comprises the whole Church.

Church as choir. Praise the LORD, Jerusalem! Praise your God, Zion.

For he has strengthened the bars of your gates. He has blessed your children within you. Wesley: strength consists not in walls and bars, but in His protection. Clarke: walls completed, gates secured, provision safe.

Protection and children blessed—ordinary covenant goods to thank God for.

Calvin: bars strengthened means the holy city perfectly guarded from hostile fear; children blessed prosper within.

God himself guards the city. Gates barred by God; children blessed.

He makes peace in your borders; He fills you with the finest of the wheat. Clarke: no longer troubled by hostile neighbors; finest wheat fills the city.

Both note: peace and bread as praise-reasons. Arminians thank God for tangible mercies without despising them.

Calvin: bounds made peace—enemies restrained; fatness of corn satisfies. Temporal provision under the law led toward higher gifts; faith sees liberality clearer than unbelief.

Peace as divine restraint. Common confession: peace in borders; finest wheat.

He sends out his commandment to the earth. His word runs very swiftly. Wesley: commandment sufficient without instruments; the thing is done without delay. Clarke: substantial word personified, running to perform His will.

Both readings hold: creation obeys speech. His word runs because He speaks with effect.

Calvin: sending forth His word is secret influence governing all; without His appointment no movement among the elements. His word runs quickly—all concurs to effect it.

Nature depends on God’s will. Command sent; word runs swiftly.

He gives snow like wool, and scatters frost like ashes. Wesley: like wool in color, shape, softness, and use—keeping earth’s fruits warm. Clarke: large flakes resembling fine white wool; frost spread over nature’s face.

Both traditions share the psalm’s wonder at winter. Both camps praise the Giver, not chance weather.

Calvin: sudden snow and hoar-frost show how quickly God’s word runs; avoid senseless natural philosophy that starts without His will.

Meteors as prompt obedience. Snow like wool; frost like ashes.

He hurls down his hail like pebbles. Who can stand before his cold? Wesley: great hailstones cast like morsels. Clarke: eastern cold can kill man and beast—hence the cry, who can stand?

Both agree: cold as the LORD’s. Wesleyan Arminians hear majesty that humbles, not a puzzle of genre.

Calvin: ice and cold force recognition of God’s power; piercing cold should compel acknowledgment when wonders alone do not.

Creation’s severity as summons. Agreed: ice like pebbles. Who can stand before his cold?

He sends out his word, and melts them. He causes his wind to blow, and the waters flow. Clarke: command; south wind; thaw; waters flow where ice bound them.

Both hear: same word that freezes also melts. Shared praise of sovereign seasons.

Calvin: He who binds also looses by His word; changes that would seem incredible cry that there is a Being who reigns above.

Word rules freeze and thaw. Both see: word melts; wind blows; waters flow.

He shows his word to Jacob, his statutes and his ordinances to Israel. Clarke: to no nation beside had God given a revelation of His will. Covenant speech crowns the nature hymn.

Undisputed: particular word to Israel. Classical Arminians treasure revealed statutes as grace.

Calvin: another word than the silent law in nature—God teaches men with articulate language. Crowning proof of love: light of eternal life in the word. Moses and the prophets’ part is ascribed to God Himself.

Written revelation as highest mercy. Word to Jacob; statutes to Israel.

He has not done this for just any nation. They don’t know his ordinances. Praise the LORD! Clarke: wondrous ordinances unknown to the nations—therefore praise. The doxology ends where it began: Hallelujah.

Shared closing of Psalm 147: both camps worship for the gift of God’s rules. Wesleyan Arminians join the praise for His particular dealing with Israel.

Calvin: comparison enhances mercy—He preferred one people; pre-eminence leads to gratuitous election, for Israel differed not by native excellency. Hallelujah.

Free distinction. Shared with Clarke: not so with any other nation; Praise the LORD!