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These verses are a statement of the solid reasons of that happiness.

I. THE LORD'S INFINITE POWER. (Ver. 6.) He is the Creator of the heavens and the earth, "the sea, and all that therein is." He is the mighty God, and infinite in power.

II. HIS ETERNAL TRUTH. He is faithful to his Word; he "keepeth truth for ever." None ever trusted in him and found his Word to fail. Contrast this with human help.

III. HIS BOUNDLESS COMPASSION. See what an array of poor, helpless, and miserable ones are here enumerated as the special objects of his goodness.

1. The oppressed. (Ver. 7.) For them, when none else can or will, he executeth judgment, and avenges them of their adversaries.

2. The hungry, the starving poor; to them he giveth food.

3. The prisoner; those immured in the tyrant's dungeon, or shut up in rigid captivity.

4. The blind. In all ages, in the lands of the Bible, blindness was a calamity as common as it was terrible; to give them sight was, therefore, one of the chiefest mercies of God, and declared his bounty and goodness as great indeed.

5. The bowed down. What a vast company of these human experience has ever furnished! The burden of care, the weight of responsibility, the crushing power of sorrow, - these are ever at work to recruit the ranks of the bowed down. But it is the Lord's special office - an office to the fulfillment of which not only the psalmist here, but myriads of God's people in all ages, bear their testimony, to raise up them that be bowed down (Luke 13:10-17).

6. The strangers. In our day, in Christian lands, the stranger is not so forlorn a being as he undoubtedly was in the days of the psalmist. Then, to live on the other side of a river flowing between one territory and another, made a man a rival, a foe, as the very etymology of the word "rival" tells, and bound you to treat him as your deadly enemy. Hence, for a man to be a stranger in a strange land was to be exposed to all manner of insult and wrong, and to be in continual peril of life itself. Israel had been such a stranger, and knew all the miseries of such a lot; but he here bears his testimony that "the Lord preserveth the strangers."

7. The desolate by bereavement. The fatherless and the widow are selected as types of the most desolate of all. Remember the parable of the importunate widow as showing the peril of oppression on the part of cruel adversaries, and of neglect and injustice on the part of a corrupt and unscrupulous judge. If God did not interfere for these desolate ones, none other would. But "he relieveth," etc. Such is the compassion of the Lord our God; and when a man knows this, not merely by hearing of it, but by actual experience, how can he keep from rendering praise to the Lord? The very stones would cry out if he were silent.

IV. HIS PERFECT RIGHTEOUSNESS. Hence it is that he executeth judgment for the oppressed, He will not suffer wrong to prevail; but" the way of the wicked he turneth upside down," for "the Lord loveth the righteous." It is delightful to think of the compassion of God; but even that would not so stir our hearts were it not that it is all based on righteousness. Man's great longing is for justice - right between man and man - but as yet he has never fully attained to it; and he never will until the righteous Lord, who loveth the righteous, is recognized and rejoiced in as our Lord and King. But even here and now God gives us to see his righteousness; for have we not read and heard of and seen, and that again and again, "the way of the wicked" turned "upside down"? Here, again, is another full-flowing fountain of praise.

V. HIS PERPETUAL REIGN. (Ver. 10.) Even could we attain, as one day we shall, to the joy of witnessing the Lord's righteous, loving, and holy rule thoroughly and universally established, his kingdom actually come, and his "will done on earth, even as," etc.; yet, if it were but a passing and temporary dominion, destined after a while to come to an end, how that would sadden all our hearts, and silence the praise that would otherwise rise perennially towards God the Lord! But "the Lord shall reign for ever... unto all generations." Well, therefore, may we, and will we, praise the Lord. - S.C.

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KJV: Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the LORD his God:

WEB: Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in Yahweh, his God: