Psalms 67:6

67:1-7 A prayer for the enlargement of Christ's kingdom. - All our happiness comes from God's mercy; therefore the first thing prayed for is, God be merciful to us, to us sinners, and pardon our sins. Pardon is conveyed by God's blessing, and secured in that. If we, by faith, walk with God, we may hope that his face will shine on us. The psalmist passes on to a prayer for the conversion of the Gentiles, which shows that the Old Testament saints desired that their advantages might also be enjoyed by others. And many Scripture prophecies and promises are wrapped up in prayers: the answer to the prayer of the church is as sure as the performance of God's promises. The joy wished to the nations, is holy joy. Let them be glad that by his providence the Lord will overrule the affairs of kingdoms; that even the kingdoms of this world shall became the kingdom of the Lord, and of his Christ. Then is declared a joyful prospect of all good when God shall do this. The success of the gospel brings outward mercies with it; righteousness exalts a nation. The blessing of the Lord sweetens all our creature-comforts to us, and makes them comforts indeed. All the world shall be brought to worship Him. When the gospel begins to spread, it shall go forward more and more, till it reaches to the ends of the earth. It is good to cast in our lot with those that are the blessed of the Lord.

If nothing had been spoken in Scripture respecting the conversion of the heathen, we might think it vain to attempt so hopeless a work. But when we see with what confidence it is declared in the Scriptures, we may engage in missionary labours, assured that God will fulfil his own word. And shall we be backward to make known to the heathen the knowledge with which we are favoured, and the salvation we profess to glory in? They cannot learn unless they are taught. Then let us go forward in the strength of the Lord, and look to him to accompany the word the Holy Ghost; then Satan's kingdom shall be destroyed, and the kingdom of our Redeemer established.

Psalm 67:6-7 . Then shall the earth yield her increase — When the inhabitants of the earth shall be converted to the worship and service of the true God, he will take away his curse from the earth, and cause it to yield them abundance of all sorts of fruits. Under which one blessing all other blessings, both temporal and spiritual, are comprehended. And God, even our own God — Who is Israel’s God, in a peculiar manner, by that covenant which he hath made with us; shall bless us — Confer still further and greater blessings upon us at the coming of the Messiah, when all the ends of the earth shall fear him — Shall remember and turn unto the Lord, and worship before him, Psalm 22:27 .

Verse 6. - Then shall the earth yield her increase; literally, the land hath given her increase - a quotation from Leviticus 26:4 , but probably in a metaphorical sense. An abundant spiritual harvest is seen by the psalmist as the result of the entrance of the Gentiles into the Church - an immense "increase" in the fruits of righteousness hitherto yielded - and this is spoken of as a result already obtained, through the perfect assurance of the writer that his prayers are granted and the result determined on in the Divine counsels. And God, even our own God, shall bless us. "Our own God" must certainly be Jehovah; but the writer, in his broad universalism, will not use the expression. Psalm 67:6

When the people of the earth shall be converted to the worship and service of the true God, God will take away his curse from the earth, and cause it to yield them abundance of all sorts of fruits; under which one blessing promised under the law to them that obey God, all other blessings both temporal and spiritual are comprehended, as is very usual in the Old Testament. Our own God; he who is Israel’s God in a peculiar manner, by that everlasting covenant which he hath made with us.

6 . Then shall the earth &c.] Render, The land hath yielded her increase, according to the promise of Leviticus 26:4 ; cp. Psalm 85:12 ; Psalm 65:9 ff. God, our God , is the Elohistic editor’s substitution for Jehovah our God . shall bless us ] Here and in the following verse the verbs might be taken as a prayer: may God bless us . But it is better to render doth or shall bless us. Pointing to the abundant harvest ( Psalm 67:6 a ), the thankful people declare that God is blessing them, and express their faith that He will continue to bless them, with the result that the remotest nations of the world will become ‘fearers of God,’ worshippers of the only true God, the God of Israel ( Psalm 66:16 ).

Then shall the earth yield her increase - The word rendered "increase" - יבול yebûl - means properly produce, or that which the earth produces when properly cultivated. It is rendered "increase," as here, in Leviticus 26:4 , Leviticus 26:20 ; Deuteronomy 32:22 ; Judges 6:4 ; Job 20:28 ; Psalm 78:46 ; Psalm 85:12 ; Ezekiel 34:27 ; Zechariah 8:12 ; and fruit, in Deuteronomy 11:17 ; Habakkuk 3:17 ; Haggai 1:10 . It does not elsewhere cccur. The Hebrew verb here is in the past tense - "has yielded her increase," but the connection seems to demand that it shall be rendered in the future, as the entire psalm pertains to the future - to the diffusion of the knowledge of the way of God, Psalm 67:2 ; to the desire that the nations might praise him, Psalm 67:3-5 ; and to the fact that God would bless the people, Psalm 67:6-7 . Thus understood, the idea is, that the prevalence of true religion in the world would be connected with prosperity, or that it would tend greatly to increase the productions of the earth.

This, it would do, (a) as such an acknowledgment of God would tend to secure the divine favor and blessing on those who cultivate the earth, preventing the necessity, by way of judgment, of cutting off its harvests by blight, and drought, and mildew, by frost, and storm, and destructive insects, caterpillars, and locusts; (b) as it would lead to a much more extensive and general cultivation of the soil, bringing into the field multitudes, as laborers, to occupy its waste places, who are now idle, or intemperate, or who are cut down by vice and consigned to an early grave. If all who are now idle were made industrious - as they would be by the influence of true religion; if all who by intemperance are rendered worthless, improvident, and wasteful, were made sober and working people; if all who are withdrawn from cultivating the earth by wars - who are kept in standing armies, consumers and not producers - or who are cut down in battle, should be occupied in tilling the soil, or should become producers in any way; and if all who are now slaves, and whose labor is not worth half as much as that of freemen, should be restored to their equal rights, - the productions of the earth would at once be increased many times beyond the present amount.