Commentary on Psalms Volume 3 John Calvin (continued)
JOHN CALVIN
streets. 710 14. Our oxen accustomed 711 to the burden, no breach, nor going out, nor cry in our streets. 15. Happy the people to whom it is so! happy the people whose God is Jehovah!
12. Because our sons, etc. These three concluding verses some consider as being a wish or a prayer. 712 Others think that David congratulates himself, and all the people, that through the divine blessing every species of mercy was showered down prosperously upon them. I have no doubt that David commemorates, by way of thanksgiving, the liberality which God had shown to his people. But it consists very well with this, to suppose that he prays at the same time for the continuance or preservation of those divine benefits which must well-nigh be cut off altogether by wicked men and domestic foes, unless God should interpose, in the troubles and confusions which prevailed. The end he has in view therefore is, that God would not suffer the signal blessings with which he had loaded his people to fail and depart. He begins by making mention of the children, comparing the male portion of them, by way of commendation of their excellency, to plants which have grown up in their youth; for trees rarely come to any height if they do not grow large early, and when yet tender. He speaks of the girls as being like corners skillfully and ingeniously cut out, to make the building beautiful; as if he would say that they adorned the house by their comeliness and elegance. It is not surprising that he should reckon a noble and well trained offspring to be the very first of God's earthly blessings, a point of which I have spoken elsewhere more at large. As David speaks in the name of the whole people, and of his own condition as mixed up with that of the community, we may infer from this that he was not exclusively occupied with his own private interests.
13. Our recesses full, etc. Some read storehouses, 713 and I would not reject this meaning. But as the word comes from the same root with
"In our streets. Streets are not proper places for sheep. The word,חוצותchutzoth, is different from that properly rendered 'streets' in the ensuing verse, and is the same that is translated 'fields' in Job 5:10. The word literally means 'outplaces,' and as such is susceptible of various applications; in the present text it probably denotes the outpastures in the commons and deserts." — Illustrated Commentary upon the Bible
"Ou, gras." — Fr. marg. "Or, fat."
"Grant that our sons may be as plants," etc. Such is the view taken by the Translators of the English Bible.
,מזוינוOur garners. This word is to be found in Scripture only once, but it has most probably the same root as,זויתand it may denote primarily our corners, and then our garners; because garners or storehouses were usually at the ends or corners of edifices." — Phillips