Psalm 103:8

“The LORD executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed.” The name is Yᵉhôvâh, the covenant name of God that the KJV prints as “the LORD”. It speaks of the self-existent, eternal One who keeps his promises to his people. The verb ʻâsâh is the everyday word for doing or making, used in the widest sense, so the verse speaks of what God actually carries out. He is righteous in himself, and he acts on it in the world.

Two words name what he does. Righteousness, tsᵉdâqâh, is rightness of every kind: uprightness of character, justice toward others, and God’s faithfulness to his covenant when he saves and vindicates the innocent. Judgment, mishpâṭ, is properly a verdict given by a judge, and from there it covers governing and setting wrongs right. For the oppressed, God’s verdict is the one that frees them and gives back what was taken. Joined together, the two words describe a single thing, a just God doing justice.

The oppressed are those under ʻâshaq, a word that means to press upon, and so to oppress, defraud or violate. It pictures people crushed by those stronger than they are, and the verse says “all” of them. In Israel the king was expected to defend such people, the widow, the orphan and the stranger, and Jeremiah told the kings of Judah, “Execute ye judgment and righteousness” (Jeremiah 22:3). Kings often failed at it, and the LORD is the King and Judge who does it perfectly. The Psalms say so again and again. He “executeth judgment for the oppressed” and “giveth food to the hungry” (Psalm 146:7), he is “a father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows” (Psalm 68:5), and he “will maintain the cause of the afflicted” (Psalm 140:12). Through Isaiah he says, “I the LORD love judgment” (Isaiah 61:8).

“He made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel.” The verb yâdaʻ is the ordinary word for knowing. It ranges from noticing something to knowing a person closely, and here God causes himself to be known. The word derek, way, comes from a root meaning to tread, so it is a road, and from that a manner of life or of acting. God’s ways are his character and the principles by which he governs, the how and why behind what he does. The word ʻălîylâh, acts, means deeds and exploits, the mighty works that anyone could see.

The verse takes us back to the Exodus and the wilderness. All Israel saw the plagues, the parting of the sea (Exodus 14), the manna, the water from the rock and the defeat of their enemies. Moses asked whether any god had ever taken a nation for himself “by temptations, by signs, and by wonders” as the LORD did in Egypt (Deuteronomy 4:34). In those deeds God kept the promise he made to Abraham, that his descendants would be afflicted in a strange land and come out with great substance (Genesis 15:13, 15:14). Yet Israel saw the works and often missed the God who did them. Another psalm says they “forgat his works, and his wonders that he had shewed them” (Psalm 78:11, 78:12).

Moses was given more. At Sinai he received the law (Exodus 19), and the LORD spoke with him “face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend” (Exodus 33:11). God said that he made himself known to other prophets in visions and dreams, and to Moses “mouth to mouth” (Numbers 12:6–8). After the golden calf, Moses prayed, “shew me now thy way, that I may know thee” (Exodus 33:13). God answered by passing before him and proclaiming his own name: “The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth” (Exodus 34:6–7). That is the “way” David goes on to praise in verse 8. Moses needed this knowledge to receive and pass on the law, to make the covenant and to lead the nation as God directed.

God wants to be known for who he is as well as for what he does. Through Jeremiah he says, “let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth” (Jeremiah 9:24). In Christ, what Moses was given is opened to all who believe. Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). God, who spoke in times past by the prophets, has spoken to us by his Son (Hebrews 1:1–3), and his divine power has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him (2 Peter 1:3–4).

“The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.” These are nearly the words God spoke when he proclaimed his name to Moses (Exodus 34:6), so David praises God in the terms God used of himself. Israel came back to these words in one generation after another. Moses pleaded them when the people refused to enter the land (Numbers 14:18). After the exile the Levites confessed, “thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness” (Nehemiah 9:17). Joel called the people to return to the LORD for this reason (Joel 2:13), and Jonah, angry that Nineveh had been spared, admitted that he had always known God was “a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness” (Jonah 4:2).

Each word adds something. Merciful, rachûwm, is related to rechem, the womb. It speaks of deep and tender compassion, like a mother’s for her child, a pity that moves God to act for those who suffer. Gracious, channûwn, is his favour freely given to the undeserving, at his own initiative, with a readiness to hear and answer when they call.

“Slow to anger” is ʼârêk ʼaph, literally “long of nostrils”. The first word means long, and ʼaph is the nose, which in Hebrew stands for anger, since the nostrils flare in rage. A God who is long of nostrils is slow to be roused. He bears with repeated provocation and gives time to repent, as Israel found all through the wilderness and the years that followed.

“Plenteous in mercy” is rab cheçed. The word rab means great, abundant or much, and cheçed is one of the richest words of the Old Testament, translated lovingkindness, steadfast love and covenant faithfulness. It is loyal love that keeps its promises and shows itself in action. God has it in abundance, enough for every failure of his people. That is why Jeremiah, among the ruins of Jerusalem, could write, “It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22–23).

We see this mercy in Jesus, who is “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person” (Hebrews 1:3). God “commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). God, “who is rich in mercy”, made us alive together with Christ when we were dead in sins (Ephesians 2:4–5). The Son of man came “to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10), and John the Baptist pointed to him as “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

“He will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger for ever.” To chide is rîyb, to contend, strive, rebuke or plead. It is often a word of the lawcourt, a formal complaint against someone, and it fits a parent correcting a child too. God does hold his people to account. To keep is nâṭar, to guard or reserve, and used of anger it means to bear a grudge. ʻÔwlâm, “for ever”, is time without end. Both halves of the verse say that God’s rebuke comes to an end and that he lets his anger go, so that it leads to reconciliation.

The prophets speak of God’s discipline in the same way. “For the Lord will not cast off for ever: But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies” (Lamentations 3:31–32). “For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee” (Isaiah 54:7–8). Micah says of God, “he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy” (Micah 7:18). Israel’s history in the days of the judges and of Jeremiah went round the same circle of turning away, judgment and restoration, and God’s patience held through all of it. The gods of the nations around Israel were pictured as fickle and vengeful, holding grudges until someone appeased them, and the LORD stands apart from them all.

“He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.” The verb for “dealt” is ʻâsâh again, the verb behind “executeth” in verse 6, so the God who does justice for the oppressed is the God who has chosen to treat us more kindly than our sins deserve. Sin, chêṭᵉʼ, comes from a root meaning to miss the mark, and it covers every fault, offence and crime. Iniquity, ʻâvôn, is a stronger word. It means perversity, a twisting of what is right, and it can carry the guilt and the punishment that go with the wrong. Together the two words take in every kind of wrongdoing, careless and deliberate. To reward is gâmal, to treat a person well or ill, and so to pay back what is due. God has held that payment back.

“For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.” The word gâbahh, high, means to soar or to be lofty. Heaven and earth together are Scripture’s way of naming the whole creation from its first verse (Genesis 1:1), and to people who knew the land around them, the height of the sky above it was beyond any measure they had. God’s cheçed is that great. It is more than enough to cover every sin and every need, and so Isaiah calls the wicked to return to the LORD, “for he will abundantly pardon” (Isaiah 55:7). Paul says the same in his own words: “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” (Romans 5:20–21).

The full measure of that mercy is seen at the cross. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16), and in Christ “we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace” (Ephesians 1:7).

“As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.” East is mizrâch, the sunrise, and west is maʻărâb, the region of the evening sun. The distance between them is beyond measuring and closing, and that is how far God has put our sins from us. To remove is râchaq, to widen or put far off, and the causative form used here makes God the one who does it. We contribute nothing to it. Transgression, peshaʻ, is the strongest of the words for sin in these verses. It comes from a root meaning to revolt, and it means rebellion, the wilful breaking of covenant with one’s rightful King. God takes away the root of our sin, our defiance of him, along with all that grows from it.

David knew this forgiveness from his own life, after his sin with Bathsheba and Nathan’s rebuke (2 Samuel 11–12). Israel saw a picture of it on the Day of Atonement, when the people’s sins were laid on a goat that carried them away into the wilderness (Leviticus 16), an offering that had to be made again every year. The prophets used other pictures for the same pardon. God says, “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins” (Isaiah 43:25), and Micah says, “thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19). What the yearly offerings pointed to, Christ accomplished once for all. He “his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24), and so “there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

“Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him.” To pity is râcham, the verb from the same family as rachûwm, “merciful”, in verse 8, both related to rechem, the womb. It is a deep, heartfelt tenderness toward someone weak, with a strong wish to relieve them. In Israel the father was the head of the household, who protected and provided for his children as well as corrected them, and everyone knew what it was to see a father’s heart go out to a child who was hurt or afraid. The covenant name Yᵉhôvâh stands in the second half of the verse, so it is the eternal, faithful God who feels this way toward his people, and his pity leads him to act.

God called himself Israel’s father long before: “is not he thy father that hath bought thee?” (Deuteronomy 32:6). Isaiah also speaks of a mother’s love: “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee” (Isaiah 49:15). He says of Israel, “In all their affliction he was afflicted” (Isaiah 63:9). Jesus drew this pity in the father of the prodigal son, who saw his son “a great way off” and “had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him” (Luke 15:20). Jesus himself, seeing the crowds, “was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd” (Mark 6:34), and he is the good shepherd who gives his life for the sheep (John 10:11). Through him God adopts us as his children (Ephesians 1:5), and by his Spirit we cry, “Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15).

“For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.” The “for” gives the reason for the father’s pity in verse 13. The verb yâdaʻ, which in verse 7 described God making his ways known, now says that God knows us through and through. Frame, yêtser, comes from the verb to form or fashion, as a potter shapes clay, so it is the thing God shaped, our whole make-up of body, mind and heart. Isaiah prays, “we are the clay, and thou our potter” (Isaiah 64:8), and Job pleads, “Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay” (Job 10:9). The Maker knows every strength and every weakness of what he made, and another psalm marvels at how completely he knows us (Psalm 139:1–6).

Dust, ʻâphâr, is powdered earth, the material God used when he “formed man of the dust of the ground” (Genesis 2:7), and the place we go back to: “for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Genesis 3:19, see also Ecclesiastes 3:20 and Psalm 90:3). To remember is zâkar, to mark something so as to recognise it. When God remembers, he acts on what he keeps in mind, so this is his steady attention to our frailty, and it shapes the way he deals with us. He asks of us what dust can bear. Another psalm says the same of Israel in the wilderness: “he remembered that they were but flesh” (Psalm 78:39).

In Christ, God took this frame on himself. The Son “was made in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:7), and “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). He knows our weakness from the inside: “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

“As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.” The word for man is ʼĕnôwsh, mortal man, a word that often stresses human weakness, where adam names humanity as God created it. Grass is châtsîyr, green herbage, and the flower is tsîyts, a blossom, here a wild flower of the field. In the land of Israel grass and wild flowers spring up quickly after the seasonal rains, bloom for a short time and dry up under the sun. “Flourisheth”, tsûwts, is life at its height of strength and beauty, which is also the moment before it fades.

“For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.” The word rûwach means wind, breath and spirit. Here it is the wind, such as the hot, dry winds from the desert that the people knew as the khamsin or sirocco, which could wither a green landscape. The word also calls to mind the breath that leaves the body at death. To pass over is ʻâbar, to cross or go through, a swift movement that leaves nothing standing. Then the psalm speaks of the place as if it could remember. The verb nâkar, know, means to look closely at and recognise, and the very ground where a person lived forgets they were ever there.

Scripture says this often. Job said that man “cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down” (Job 14:1–2). James asks what our life is and answers, “It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away” (James 4:14). Isaiah’s cry, “All flesh is grass”, ends with “but the word of our God shall stand for ever” (Isaiah 40:6–8), and Peter quotes it and says that this enduring word is the gospel preached to us (1 Peter 1:24–25).

“But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children’s children.” The “But” turns from the withering grass to God. Everlasting is ʻôwlâm, the word verse 9 used when it said God would keep his anger “for ever”, and now it is doubled for his mercy. It properly means what is concealed, the vanishing point, time out of mind in either direction, and “from everlasting to everlasting” means without beginning or end. Another psalm says it of God himself: “from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God” (Psalm 90:2). His cheçed lasts as long as he does, because he says, “I am the LORD, I change not” (Malachi 3:6). The flower lasts a season, and the mercy rests on those who fear him for ever.

His righteousness, tsᵉdâqâh as in verse 6, reaches “unto children’s children”, the generations still to come. In Israel the family line and the carrying on of a name mattered greatly, so this was a deep comfort. At Sinai God promised to show “mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments” (Exodus 20:6, Deuteronomy 5:9–10).

“To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them.” Covenant, bᵉrîyth, is said to come from a root meaning to cut, after the practice of cutting animals in covenant ceremonies, as in God’s covenant with Abram. A covenant was a solemn, binding agreement, and God was the one who made it. Here it is the covenant God made with Israel at Sinai, with blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience (Deuteronomy 28). To keep it was to stay loyal to Israel’s divine King and to worship him alone. He is “the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations” (Deuteronomy 7:9, and see Deuteronomy 5:10).

To remember is zâkar, the verb used of God in verse 14. God remembers that we are dust, and his people remember his commandments, and in both cases remembering leads to action, as the words “to do them” make plain. Israel’s decline began when a generation arose “which knew not the LORD” and served Baalim (Judges 2:10–13). Commandment, piqqûwd, comes from a root meaning to visit or appoint, so it is a precept God has appointed. His commandments express his character and his good design for his people. James says, “be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only” (James 1:22), and Jesus said, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me” (John 14:21, and see 1 John 2:3–5).

The God of these verses knows exactly what we are, and he is merciful toward us with that knowledge. When you fail, you can come to him as a child to a father, trusting that his anger toward you has an end and that your forgiven sins lie as far off as the sunset is from the sunrise. You can come to know his ways, his character as he showed it to Moses, as well as the things he does, and that knowledge holds when his acts are hard to understand.

His mercy also shapes the way we treat others. The God who does justice for the oppressed calls his people to stand with the weak. The God who holds no grudge against us teaches us to let go of bitterness and forgive those who wrong us. And since our days are as grass, each one is worth spending on what lasts: knowing God, loving our neighbours and handing on to our children and grandchildren the faith in a God whose mercy is from everlasting to everlasting.