Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? Selah.
Ver. 9. Hath God forgotten to be gracious?] So it seemeth sometimes to those that are long afflicted and short-spirited; but what saith the prophet? Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, they may prove unnatural, and grow out of kind, as Medea, and those Suevian women (Heyl. Geog.), who threw their young children at the Romans, under the conduct of Drusus, son-in-law to Augustus, instead of darts, yet God will not forget his people, Isaiah 49:15. Indeed, he can as soon forget himself, and change his nature.
Hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies?] These things the psalmist speaketh not as utterly despairing, but as one courageously, wrestling against an old manslayer, and a misgiving heart of his own. Homines vero securi, et voluptatibus ebrii, nihil horum intelllgunt. This is little understood by profane sensualists, who, therefore, reap no great benefit by the reading of these psalms.