Psalms 67:6

Then shall the earth yield her increase,....

Then shall the earth yield her increase. Sin first laid a curse on the soil, and grace alone can remove it. Under tyrannical governments lands become unproductive; even the land which flowed with milk and honey is almost a wilderness under Turkish rule; but, when the principles of true religion shall have elevated mankind, and the dominion of Jesus shall be universally acknowledged, the science of tillage shall be perfected, men shall be encouraged to labour, industry shall banish penury, and the soil shall be restored to more than its highest condition of fertility.

Then shall the earth yield her increase. Sin first laid a curse on the soil, and grace alone can remove it. Under tyrannical governments lands become unproductive; even the land which flowed with milk and honey is almost a wilderness under Turkish rule; but, when the principles of true religion shall have elevated mankind, and the dominion of Jesus shall be universally acknowledged, the science of tillage shall be perfected, men shall be encouraged to labour, industry shall banish penury, and the soil shall be restored to more than its highest condition of fertility. We read that the Lord turneth "a fruitful land into barrenness, "for the wickedness of them that dwell therein, and observation confirms the truth of the divine threatening; but even under the law it was promised, "The Lord shall make thee plenteous in every work of thine hand, in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy land for good." There is certainly an intimate relation between moral and physical evil, and between spiritual and physical good. Alexander notes that the Hebrew is in the past tense, and he concludes that it is ungrammatical to render it in the future; but to us it seems that the prophet bard, hearing the nations praise the Lord, speaks of the bounteous harvest as already given in consequence. On the supposition that all the people praise Jehovah, the earth has yielded her increase. The future in the English appears to be the clearest rendering of the Hebrew. And God, even our own God, shall bless us. He will make earth's increase to be a real blessing. Men shall see in his gifts the hand of that same God whom Israel of old adored, and Israel, especially, shall rejoice in the blessing, and exult in her own God. We never love God aright till we know him to be ours, and the more we love him the more we long to be fully assured that he is ours.

Whether it is a land of brown heath and shaggy wood, or a far extended plain, all men love their own fatherland and in exile they are smitten with homesickness for their own country. It is so with regard to the house in which we were reared. That old roof tree, that ancient homestead—it may have been covered with thatch and have been one of a group of poor cottages, but still it was our own home and a thousand kindly thoughts gather around the fireside where we, in childhood, nestled beneath a parent's wing. "Our own!" Why, all our relatives are endeared to us by the fact that they are our own! "Father" is a silver word at all times. But, "our father," "our own father"—how the name grows richer and turns to a golden word! "Our own child." "Our own brother." "Our own husband." "Our own wife"—the words are most melodious. We even feel the Bible to be all the dearer to us because we can speak of it as "our own old English Bible." As the Jew's book, coming from God in Hebrew. As a book for the Greek, coming in its latter half to the Gentile in the Greek tongue, it was a priceless treasure. But translated into our own familiar Saxon tongue, and, on the whole, translated so well, our own English Bible is doubly dear to us. The sweetness of the words, "our own" led me to call the hymn-book from which you sing, "Our Own Hymn-Book," hoping that, perchance, the very name might help to weave your affections round about it.

Whether it is a land of brown heath and shaggy wood, or a far extended plain, all men love their own fatherland and in exile they are smitten with homesickness for their own country. It is so with regard to the house in which we were reared. That old roof tree, that ancient homestead—it may have been covered with thatch and have been one of a group of poor cottages, but still it was our own home and a thousand kindly thoughts gather around the fireside where we, in childhood, nestled beneath a parent's wing. "Our own!"

The earth yield her increase - As the ground was cursed for the sin of man, and the curse was to be removed by Jesus Christ, the fertility of the ground should be influenced by the preaching of the Gospel; for as the people’s minds would become enlightened by the truth, they would, in consequence, become capable of making the most beneficial discoveries in arts and sciences, and there should be an especial blessing on the toil of the pious husbandman. Whenever true religion prevails, every thing partakes of its beneficent influence.

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 Lev 26:4, Lev 26:20; Deu 32:22; Jdg 6:4; Job 20:28; Psa 78:46; Psa 85:12; Eze 34:27; Zec 8:12; and fruit, in Deu 11:17; Hab 3:17; Hag 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, Psa 67:2; to the desire that the nations might praise him, Psa 67:3-5; and to the fact that God would bless the people, Psa 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. […]