“To the chief musician, a psalm of David, a song. To thee waiteth praise, O God, in Zion, and to thee shall vow be paid. Hearer of prayer, to thee shall all flesh come. Iniquities [lit. words or matters of] have been far too strong for me: our transgressions, thou wilt purge them. Blessed [he whom] thou wilt choose and bring near: he shall dwell in thy courts. We shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, thy holy temple. Terrible things in righteousness thou wilt answer us, O God of our salvation; confidence of all the ends of the earth and sea, afar off; establishing mountains by his strength, girded with power, stilling the roar of seas; roar of their waves, and the tumult of peoples. And those inhabiting the uppermost parts shall fear because of thy signs; the outgoings of morning and evening thou wilt make to shout for joy. Thou hast visited the earth and watered it; greatly wilt thou enrich it; the river of God is full of water; thou preparest their corn, for so thou preparest it (the earth). The furrows thou dost water, thou dost break down its ridges; with showers thou wilt soften it; its springing thou wilt bless. Thou crownest the year [with] thy goodness, and thy paths drop fatness. They drop [on] the pastures of the wilderness, and the hills are girded with joy. The sheep-walks are clothed with the sheep, and the valleys are covered with corn; they shout for joy, yea, they sing” (ver. 1-14).
Here the positive side of blessing is before the heart; for to Jewish thought the people and the land (and indeed all the earth) are blended in their expectations of goodness at length triumphant. And terrible things in righteousness are not absent, even if the joyous change be more prominent. Not such is our proper but heavenly hope in the coming of our Lord Jesus; it is to be with Himself in the Father's house, though we surely love His appearing and expect to be manifested with Him when He is manifested in glory. Our hope is to be translated to heaven, as Christ ascended, apart from all judgment of the world, in which the Jew shall be involved but delivered out of it, when the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.