Psalms 25:6

Remember, O Lord, thy tender mercies and thy loving kindnesses,....

An express petition for mercy, (1.) That he might be acquitted from guilt: " Remember not the sins of my youth; that is, remember them not against me, lay them not to my charge, enter not into judgment with me for them." When God pardons sin he is said to remember it no more, which denotes a plenary remission; he forgives and forgets.

Remember, O Lord, thy tender mercies and thy lovingkindnesses. We are usually tempted in seasons of affliction to fear that our God has forgotten us, or forgotten his usual kindness towards us; hence the soul doth as it were put the Lord in remembrance, and beseech him to recollect those deeds of love which once he wrought towards it. There is a holy boldness which ventures thus to deal with the Most High, let us cultivate it; but there is also an unholy unbelief which suggests our fears, let us strive against it with all our might. What gems are those two expressions, "tender mercies and lovingkindnesses!" They are the virgin honey of language; for sweetness no words can excel them; but as for the gracious favours which are intended by them, language fails to describe them. If the Lord will only do unto us in the future as in the past, we shall be well content. We seek no change in the divine action, we only crave that the river of grace may never cease to flow. For they have been ever of old. A more correct translation would be "from eternity. " David was a sound believer in the doctrine of God's eternal love. The Lord's lovingkindnesses are no novelties. When we plead with him to bestow them upon us, we can urge use and custom of the most ancient kind. In courts of law men make much of precedents, and we may plead them at the throne of grace. "Faith, "saith Dickson, "must make use of experiences and read them over unto God, out of the register of a sanctified memory, as a recorder to him who cannot forget. " With a unchangeable God it is a most effectual argument to remind him of his ancient mercies and his eternal love. By tracing all that we enjoy to the fountain head of everlasting love we shall greatly cheer our hearts, and those do us but sorry service who try to dissuade us from meditating upon election and its kindred topics.

Remember, O Lord, thy tender mercies, and thy loving-kindness - The word רחמים rachamim, means the commiseration that a man feels in his bowels at the sight of distress. The second word, חסדים chasadim, signifies those kindnesses which are the offspring of a profusion of benevolence. They have been ever of old - Thou wert ever wont to display thyself as a ceaseless fountain of good to all thy creatures.

Remember, O Lord - That is, In thy future treatment of me, bring to remembrance what thou hast done, and treat me in the same manner still. The language is that of one who felt that God had always been kind and gracious, and who asked for the future a continuance of the favors of the past. If we would recall, the goodness of God in the past, we should find enough to lay the foundation of prayer in reference to that which is to come. If we saw and fully understood all that has happened to us, we would need to offer no other prayer than that God might deal with us in the future as He has done in the past. Thy tender mercies - Margin, as in Hebrew: “thy bowels.” The Hebrew word means the “inner parts” regarded by the Hebrews as the seat of the affections. See the notes at Isa 16:11. And thy loving-kindnesses - Thy tokens of favor; thy acts of mercy and compassion. For they have been ever of old - “For from eternity are they.” The language is that of a heart deeply impressed with a sense of the goodness God. In looking over his own life, the author of the psalm saw that the mercies of God had been unceasing and constant toward him from his earliest years. In words expressive of warm love and gratitude, therefore, he says that those acts of mercy had never failed - had been from eternity. His thoughts rise from the acts of God toward himself to the character of God, and to His attributes of mercy and love; and his heart is full of the idea that God is “always” good; that it belongs to His very nature to do good.