Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the LORD.
Happy (is that) people that is in such a case; (yea), happy (is that) people whose God (is) the Lord. This is the Epiphonema. This blessed consummation is what Moses predicates of Israel when she shall realize her high calling of God in the last days. In the very last words of his last speech, after warnings and promises, he ends with "Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord" (Deuteronomy 33:29). The people who are so circumstanced are happy, and the source of their happiness is the Lord whom they have as their God. In the theocracy upon earth which Israel constituted, God promised all temporal mercies on the condition of obedience. These temporal blessings were the external sign of God's favour to them, and therefore of the far higher spiritual benefits which, walking in faith and obedience, they were partakers of: for the prominence of temporal rewards or punishments, as the sanctions of the Mosaic law, could never have been designed to teach that earthly blessings are the all which God would have His people to seek as the fruits of faith. Hebrews 11:10; Hebrews 11:14-16 teaches that the patriarchs looked for far higher blessings: the Law, which succeeded, cannot have been a step backwards, as if it were designed to teach Israel to cease to look for thy heavenly promises, and to look only for the earthly ones.