O continue thy lovingkindness unto them that know thee; and thy righteousness to the upright in heart.
Ver. 10. O continue thy lovingkindness] Heb. Draw it out at full length, extend and exercise it, lengthen and perpetuate it. Thus the godly, greatly taken with the sweetness of God's house, and rapt in the admiration of his transcendant goodness towards them, pray for a continuance thereof; intimating also by the manner of expression that God's peculiar mercies to his are a continued series; there is a connection between them, yea, a concatenation. And as in a chain one link draweth on another, so doth one mercy another, unless we break the chain by our unthankfulness.
Unto them that know thee … to the upright in heart] Here we have a just description of the heirs of God's promises, and of the partakers of his peculiar mercies. First, They must be knowing persons; know they must God and his will, themselves and their duties. Secondly, They must be upright in heart; for knowledge without practice is like Rachel, beautiful, but barren; or like rain in the middle region, where it doth no good. "A good understanding have all they that do his precepts," Psalms 111:10, and such only are upright in heart.