Bible Commentaries

Three words carry on the chain of blessings:

(1) "Length of days" (see the Psalm 91:16 note);

(2) "Years of life," i. e., of a life worth living (compare Psalm 30:5; Psalm 42:8);

(3) "Peace," tranquility inward and outward, the serenity of life continuing through old age until death. Compare 1 Timothy 4:8.

The two elements of a morally perfect character:

(1) "Mercy," shutting out all forms of selfishness and hate.

(2) "Truth," shutting out all deliberate falsehood, all hypocrisy, conscious or unconscious.

The words that follow possibly refer to the Eastern custom of writing sacred names on pieces of papyrus or parchment, and wearing them around the neck, as charms and talismans against evil. Compare, however, 1 Peter 3:3-4.

Compare Luke 2:52. These are the two conditions of true human growth.

In preaching "trust in God" the moralist anticipates the teaching that man is justified by faith. To confide in God's will, the secret of all true greatness, is to rise out of all our anxieties and plans and fears when we think of ourselves as the arbiters of our own fortunes, and so "lean to our own understanding."

Not in acts of solemn worship or great crises only, but "in all thy ways;" and then God will make the "path" straight and even.

The great hindrance to all true wisdom is the thought that we have already attained it.

Navel - The central region of the body is taken as the representative of all the vital organs. For "health" we should read healing, or, as in the marg. There is probably a reference to the local applications used by the surgery of the period as means of healing.

"Substance" points to capital, "increase" to revenue. The Septuagint as if to guard against ill-gotten gains being offered as an atonement for the ill-getting, inserts the quaifying words, "honor the Lord from thy righteous labors."