Look down from thy holy habitation, from heaven, and bless thy people Israel, and the land which thou hast given us, as thou swarest unto our fathers, a land that floweth with milk and honey.
Look down from thy holy habitation ... and bless thy people Israel. In this passage God prescribes to the Israelites a form of glorying in their obedience to the Mosaic law, and of pleading upon that obedience for covenant blessings. Would He have directed them to glory in their observance of that law, if, in fact, the sincerest among them had not observed it? Yet, doubtless, that was the case, if its demands were the same as those of the law of nature. But the things enumerated in this form of glorying were only external performances, and it may be easily believed that many would truly boast of having done them all, who were strangers notwithstanding to charity flowing from a pure heart, a good conscience, and faith unfeigned (see Erskine, 'On the Nature of the Sinai Covenant;' see also Grave's 'Lectures on the Pentateuch,' 2:, p. 24).