abundant (in quantity · conjunction + adjective, masculine singular construct
mercy
חָֽסֶדCha.sed
H2617
kindness · noun, common masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 86:15 But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth.
Joel 2:13 And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great ki…
Exodus 34:6-7 And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness an…
Psalms 145:8 The LORD is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy.
Nahum 1:3 The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the stor…
Psalms 86:5 For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee.
Numbers 14:18 The LORD is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniqu…
Jonah 4:2 And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before un…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 103:6-18
Hitherto the psalmist had only looked back upon his own experiences and thence fetched matter for praise; here he looks abroad and takes notice of his favour to others also; for in them we should rejoice and give thanks for them, all the saints being fed at a common table and sharing in the same blessings.
I. Truly God is good to all (Psa 103:6): He executes righteousness and judgment, not only for his own people, but for all that are oppressed; for even in common providence he is the patron of wronged innocency, and, one way or other, will plead the cause of those that are injured against their oppressors. It is his honour to humble the proud and help the helpless.
II. He is in a special ma…
The Lord is merciful and gracious,.... So he made himself known to Moses, Exodus 34:6, and so David found him to be, and therefore calls upon his soul to bless his name. God is "merciful" in the most tender and affectionate manner; he has bowels of mercy, which yearn towards his people, as those of a tender parent to its child, as the word signifies; his mercy is free, without any motive or merit in men to engage it; he delights in showing it; he constantly bestows it; it is the source of all good things; it is communicated through Christ; all mercies temporal and spiritual come by him; and this lays a foundation for faith and hope: and he is gracious, as appears in the eternal choice of his…
Psalm 103:6-8
6. Jehovah executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed. 7. He made known his ways to Moses, his doings to the children of Israel. 8. Jehovah is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in goodness.
6. Jehovah executeth righteousness David having recounted the Divine benefits bestowed upon himself, now passes from this personal consideration to take a wider view of the subject. There is, however, no doubt that when he declares God to be the succorer of the oppressed, he includes himself among the number, for he had enjoyed the Divine help under many persecutions; and, from his own experience, he describes the character in which God is accustomed t…
The Church Fathers
He is the one about whom the psalm says, "The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always accuse, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins or repay us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are far above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion for his children, so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him." In all of these great, good things that the Lord gives to the wicked, what else is being sung than undeserved mercy? What else other than free piety is being proclaimed? For in this, that "he does not deal with us according to our sins or repay us according to our iniquities," the free justification of the impious is displayed. And in this that "as a father has compassion for his children, so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him," the free adoption of children shines through by the same justification by faith. For not as a father has compassion on his children unless becoming our father through grace, he deigned to make us his children. "To those who did accept him, he gave power to become children of God."
"The Lord is full of compassion and mercy: long-suffering, and of great mercy" [Psalm 103:8]. Why so long-suffering? Why so great in mercy? Men sin and live; sins are added on, life continueth: men blaspheme daily, and "He maketh His sun to rise over the good and the wicked." [Matthew 5:45] On all sides He calleth to amendment, on all sides He calleth to repentance, He calleth by the blessings of creation, He calleth by giving time for life, He calleth through the reader, He calleth through the preacher, He calleth through the innermost thought by the rod of correction, He calleth by the mercy of consolation: "He is long-suffering, and of great mercy." But take heed lest by ill using the length of God's mercy, thou treasure up for thyself, as the Apostle saith, wrath in the day of wrath. ...For some there are who prepare to turn, and yet put it off, and in them crieth out the raven's voice, "Cras! Cras!" The raven which was sent from the ark, never returned. God seeketh not procrastination in the raven's voice, but confession in the wailing of the dove. The dove, when sent forth, returned. How long, To-morrow! To-morrow!? Look to thy last morrow: since thou knowest not what is thy last morrow, let it suffice that thou hast lived up to this day a sinner. Thou hast heard, often thou art wont to hear, thou hast heard to-day also; daily thou hearest, and daily thou amendest not. ...
Dictionary and topics
Anger Of God, The · Is slow — Is slow
Mercy Of God, The · Described as: Plenteous — Described as: Plenteous
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
His range of vision being widened from himself, the poet now in Psa 103:6 describes God's gracious and fatherly conduct towards sinful and perishing men, and that as it shines forth from the history of Israel and is known and recognised in the light of revelation. What Psa 103:6 says is a common-place drawn from the history of Israel. משׁפּטים is an accusative governed by the עשׂה that is to be borrowed out of עשׂה (so Baer after the Masora). And because Psa 103:6 is the result of an historical retrospect and survey, יודיע in Psa 103:7 can affirm that which happened in the past (cf. Psa 96:6.); for the supposition of Hengstenberg and Hitzig, that Moses here represents Israel like Jacob, Isaa…
The Lord revealed himself to Moses in distinctive ways that ensured his relationship with his people (see Exod 34:6-7; Num 14:18).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 103:8
The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.
The Lord is merciful and gracious. Those with whom he deals are sinners. However much he favours them they are guilty and need mercy at his hands, nor is he slow to compassionate their lost estate, or reluctant by his grace to lift them out of it. Mercy pardons sin, grace bestows favour: in both the Lord abounds. This is that way of his which he made known to Moses (Ex 34:6), and in that way he will abide as long as the age of grace shall last, and men are yet in this life. He who "executeth righteousness and judgment, " yet delighteth in mercy. Slow to anger. He can be angry, and can deal out righteous indignation up…
God is not an expression, and he does not have his essence in voice or utterance. God is of himself what also he is believed to be. He is named by those who call on him, not what he is essentially (for the nature of him who alone is unspeakable), but he receives his names from what are believed to be his works in regard to our life. To take an instance ready at hand, when we speak of him as God, we so name him from his overlooking and surveying all things and seeing through the things that are hidden. But if his essence is prior to his works, and if we understand his works by our senses and express them in words as we are best able, why should we be afraid of calling things by words of later origin than themselves? For if we stop interpreting any of the attributes of God until we understand them, and if we understand them only by what his works teach us, and if his power precedes its exercise and depends on the will of God, while his will resides in the spontaneity of the divine nature, are we not clearly taught that the words that represent things are of later origin than the things themselves and that the words that are framed to express the operations of things are reflections of the things themselves? And that this is so, we are clearly taught by holy Scripture, by the mouth of great David, when, as by certain peculiar and appropriate names, derived from his contemplation of the works of God, he thus speaks of the divine nature: "The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, long-suffering, and of great goodness." Now what do these words tell us? Do they indicate his operations or his nature? No one will say that they indicate anything but his operations. At what time, then, after showing mercy and pity, did God acquire his name from the display of his works? Was it before a person's life began? But who was there to be the object of pity? Was it, then, after sin entered into the world? But sin entered after humankind. The exercise, therefore, of pity, and the name itself, came after humanity. What then? Will our adversary [Eunomius], wise as he is above the prophets, convict David of error in applying names to God derived from his opportunities of knowing him? Or, in contending with him, will he use against him the pretense in his stately passage as out of a tragedy, saying that "he glories in the most blessed life of God with names drawn from human…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
