Commentary on Psalms - Volume 3 - Bible Study Guides

Comm on Psalms (V3)John Calvinthat whatever nation men may belong to, they shall willingly renounce their own country, to beenrolled in the Register of the chosen people. When it is said, that they are born there, this doesnot mean that they are natives of the country, and have been brought up in it from their birth, butthat they are its citizens. What is added afterwards, The Most High himself will establish her, may,with equal propriety, be translated, will order her; it being the work of God specially to govern hisChurch by his word.5 And it shall be said of Zion, Man and man is born in her. It is asserted, in the 4th verse, Thatnew citizens shall be gathered into the Church of God from different parts of the world; and herethe same subject is prosecuted. Another figure is however employed, which is, that strangers bybirth shall be accounted among the holy people, just as if they were descended from Abraham. Ithad been stated in the preceding verse, that the Chaldeans and Egyptians would be added to thehousehold of the Church; and that the Ethiopians, Philistines, and Tyrians, would be enrolled amongher children. Now, it is added, by way of confirmation, that the number of the new progeny shallbe exceeding great, so that the city which had been for a time uninhabited, and afterwards only halffilled with a few people, shall be crowded with a vast population. The prophet Isaiah describesmore at length what is here promised, in a few words,“Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didstnot travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the marriedwife, saith the Lord. Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thinehabitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes: for thou shalt break forth onthe right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate citiesto be inhabited.” (Isaiah 54:1)Also,“Lift up thine eyes round about, and see; all they gather themselves together, they come to thee:thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side.”(Isaiah 60:4)And, in the 44th chapter, at the 5th verse, we meet with almost the same language as in thepassage before us, or at least what comes very near to it: “One shall say, I am the Lord’s; andanother shall call himself by the name of Jacob; and another shall subscribe with his hand unto theLord, and surname himself by the name of Israel.” Nor is the word born inappropriately employedto express the fact, that the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and such like, shall be of the flock of God’speople. Although Zion was not the place of their natural birth, but they were to be grafted into thebody of the holy people by adoption; yet as the way by which we enter into the Church is a secondbirth, this form of expression is used with great propriety. The condition upon which Christ espousesthe faithful to himself is, that they should forget their own people and their father’s house, (Psalm45:11,) and that, being formed into new creatures, and born again of incorruptible seed, they shouldbegin to be the children of God as well as of the Church, (Galatians 4:19.) And the ministry of theChurch, and it alone, is undoubtedly the means by which we are born again to a heavenly life. Bythe way, we should remember the difference which the Apostle sets forth as subsisting betweenthe earthly Jerusalem, — which, being herself a bondwoman, brings forth children also in bondage,— and the heavenly Jerusalem, which brings forth free children by the instrumentality of the Gospel.In the second part of the verse, there is expressed the stability and enduring character of Zion.It often happens, that in proportion to the rapidity with which cities rise to distinguished eminence,is the shortness of the continuance of their prosperity. That it may not be thought that the prosperity242