Here the earth is called on to join in resurrection joy and praise, and to celebrate “mercy and truth,” as risen Israel was now doing. Israel, and Israel’s living Head, had been heard chanting their several hallelujahs, and the nations are now, in their turn, called into this harmony and to take part in this holy music.
This Psalm, the shortest portion of the Book of God, is quoted, and given much value to, in Romans 15. And upon this it has been profitably observed, “it is a small portion of Scripture, and as such we might easily overlook it. But not so the Holy Ghost. He gleans up this precious little testimony which speaks of grace to the Gentiles, and presses it on our attention.”
And I may say, I have long delighted in the fact, that the Spirit in the course of the New Testament is often dragging into light, so to speak, some obscure corners of the old scriptures which might be naturally passed by—as Hos. 11:1; Amos 5:26; 9:11; Hab. 1:5; Prov. 25:22; Nah. 1:15. But it helps to affirm the precious truth, that “all scripture is given by inspiration of God.” The stars in that hemisphere of glories may differ in magnitude, but they are all equally the workmanship of one hand. There is, perhaps we may say, no portion of the Old Testament, that is not either expressly cited, or distinctly referred to, or silently glanced at in the New.