Psalm 24:5

He shall receive the blessing from the LORD, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(5) Righteousness.—This is the real blessing that comes from God. That virtue is her own reward, is the moral statement of the truth. The highest religious statement must be looked for in Christ’s “Beatitudes.”

Benson Commentary

Psalm 24:5. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord — That is, the blessings which God hath promised to his people, namely, grace and glory, and all other good things, Psalm 84:11. He, and only he, shall be truly blessed. And righteousness — The fruit or reward of his righteousness, the work being often put for the reward of it: or kindness, or mercy, and those benefits which flow therefrom.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

24:1-6 We ourselves are not our own; our bodies, our souls, are not. Even those of the children of men are God's, who know him not, nor own their relation to him. A soul that knows and considers its own nature, and that it must live for ever, when it has viewed the earth and the fulness thereof, will sit down unsatisfied. It will think of ascending toward God, and will ask, What shall I do, that I may abide in that happy, holy place, where he makes his people holy and happy? We make nothing of religion, if we do not make heart-work of it. We can only be cleansed from our sins, and renewed unto holiness, by the blood of Christ and the washing of the Holy Ghost. Thus we become his people; thus we receive blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of our salvation. God's peculiar people shall be made truly and for ever happy. Where God gives righteousness, he designs salvation. Those that are made meet for heaven, shall be brought safe to heaven, and will find what they have been seeking.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

He shall receive the blessing from the Lord - literally, "He shall bear away a blessing from Yahweh." The blessing here referred to means His favor and friendship. He shall be recognized and treated as His. In other words, God bestows His favor on those who possess the character here referred to.

And righteousness from the God of his salvation - He shall be regarded and treated as righteous. Or, he shall obtain the divine approval as a righteous person. The idea of the psalmist would seem to be, not that he would obtain this as if it were a gift, but that he would obtain the divine "approval" of his character as righteous; he would be recognized and dealt with as a righteous man. He would come to God with "clean hands and a pure heart" Psalm 24:4, and would be welcomed and treated as a friend of God. The wicked and the impure could not hope to obtain this; but he who was thus righteous would be treated according to his real character, and would meet with the assurances of the divine favor. It is as true now as it was in the days of the psalmist, that it is only the man who is in fact upright and holy that can obtain the evidences of the divine approval. God will not regard one who is living in wickedness as a righteous man, nor will he admit such a man to His favor here, or to His dwelling-place hereafter.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

5. righteousness—the rewards which God bestows on His people, or the grace to secure those rewards as well as the result.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The blessing, i.e. the blessings which God hath promised to his church and people, to wit, grace and glory, and all other good things, as they are summed up, Psalm 84:11. He and he only shall be truly blessed. From the Lord; which is added significantly, by way of opposition to the blessings which men received, either from the priests or from other men, which were oftentimes given unto unworthy persons, and in that case were without any effect or benefit; whereas God’s blessings are given only to good men, and are always effectual for their good.

Righteousness, i.e. the blessed fruit or reward of his righteousness, as the work is oft put for the reward of it, as Leviticus 19:13 Job 7:2 Psalm 109:20. Or, kindness or mercy, and those benefits which flow from it, which are oft called by the name of righteousness, as Judges 5:11 1 Samuel 12:7 Psalm 48:10 112:9.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

He shall receive the blessing from the Lord,.... Or "who receives" (l); the future for the present; and so is a continuation of the description of a person proper to enter and abide in the church of God, as Psalm 24:6 seems to require; even one who has received every spiritual blessing in Christ in general, special grace out of his fulness; particularly the blessing of pardon, as also adoption, and a right to eternal life; though it may be that the following clause is explanative of this;

and righteousness from the God of his salvation; from Christ, who is God his Saviour, the author of salvation; and who has brought in an everlasting righteousness, which is in him, and is a gift of his grace, and is received from him by faith, and is a great blessing indeed; it secures from condemnation and death, and entitles to eternal life.

(l) "qui accipit", Cocceius.

Geneva Study Bible

He shall receive the blessing from the LORD, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

5. the blessing] R.V. rightly, a blessing.

righteousness] ‘Righteousness’ is blessing in another aspect. Jehovah manifests Himself to the godly man, as ‘the God of his salvation’ (Psalm 25:5; Psalm 27:9); and this ‘salvation’ is the witness to and reward for his upright conduct. See 1 Samuel 26:23; Psalm 18:20; Psalm 18:24; Psalm 58:11. In the light of N.T. revelation the words receive a deeper meaning. See Matthew 5:6.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 5. - He shall receive the blessing from the Lord; rather, blessing, without the article. On the pure in thought, word, and act, God's blessing is sure to rest (see Matthew 5:8). And righteousness from the God of his salvation. To the man who comes to God with an honest and true heart, God will give additional graces, such as justification, assurance, perseverance, unwavering hope, perfect charity. Psalm 24:5

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Jahve, whose throne of grace is now set upon Zion, has not a limited dominion, like the heathen deities: His right to sovereignty embraces the earth and its fulness (Psalm 50:12; Psalm 89:12), i.e., everything that is to be found upon it and in it.

(Note: In 1 Corinthians 10:26, Paul founds on this verse (cf. Psalm 50:12) the doctrine that a Christian (apart from a charitable regard for the weak) may eat whatever is sold in the shambles, without troubling himself to enquire whether it has been offered to idols or not. A Talmudic teacher, B. Berachoth 35a, infers from this passage the duty of prayer before meat: He who eats without giving thanks is like one who lays hands upon קדשׁי שׁמים (the sacred things of God); the right to eat is only obtained by prayer.)

For He, הוא, is the owner of the world, because its Creator. He has founded it upon seas, i.e., the ocean and its streams, נהרות, ῥέεθρα (Jonah 2:4); for the waters existed before the dry land, and this has been cast up out of them at God's word, so that consequently the solid land, - which indeed also conceals in its interior a תּהום רבּה (Genesis 7:11), - rising above the surface of the sea, has the waters, as it were, for its foundation (Psalm 136:6), although it would more readily sink down into them than keep itself above them, if it were not in itself upheld by the creative power of God. Hereupon arises the question, who may ascend the mountain of Jahve, and stand above in His holy place? The futures have a potential signification: who can have courage to do it? what, therefore, must he be, whom Jahve receives into His fellowship, and with whose worship He is well-pleased? Answer: he must be one innocent in his actions and pure in mind, one who does not lift up his soul to that which is vain (לשּׁוא, according to the Masora with Waw minusculum). (ל) נשׂא נפשׁ אל, to direct one's soul, Psalm 25:1, or longing and striving, towards anything, Deuteronomy 24:15; Proverbs 19:18; Hosea 4:8. The Ker נפשׁי is old and acknowledged by the oldest authorities.

(Note: The reading נפשׁי is adopted by Saadia (in Enumoth ii., where נפשׁי is equivalent to שׁמי), Juda ha-Levi (Cuzari iii. 27), Abulwalid (Rikma p. 180), Rashi, Kimchi, the Sohar, the Codices (and among others by that of the year 1294) and most editions (among which, the Complutensis has נפשׁי in the text). Nor does Aben-Ezra, whom Norzi has misunderstood, by any means reverse the relation of the Chethb and Ker; to him נפשׁי is the Ker, and he explains it as a metaphor (an anthropomorphism): וכתוב נפשי דוך כנוי. Elias Levita is the only one who rejects the Ker נפשׁי; but he does so though misunderstanding a Masora (vid., Baer's Psalterium p. 130) and not without admitting Masoretic testimony in favour of it (וכן ראיתי ברוב נוסחאות המסורת). He is the only textual critic who rejects it. For Jacob b. Chajim is merely astonished that נפשׁו is not to be found in the Masoreth register of words written with Waw and to be read with Jod. And even Norzi does not reject this Ker, which he is obliged to admit has greatly preponderating testimony in its favour, and he would only too gladly get rid of it.)

Even the lxx Cod. Alex. translates: τὴν ψυχὴν μου; whereas Cod. Vat. (Eus., Apollin., Theodor., et al.): τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ. Critically it is just as intangible, as it is exegetically incomprehensible; נפשׁי might then be equivalent to שׁמי. Exodus 20:7, an explanation, however, which does not seem possible even from Amos 6:8; Jeremiah 51:14. We let this Kerמ alone to its undisturbed critical rights. But that the poet did actually write thus, is incredible.

In Psalm 24:5 (just as at the close of Psalm 15:1-5), in continued predicates, we are told the character of the man, who is worthy of this privilege, to whom the question in Psalm 24:3 refers. Such an one shall bear away, or acquire (נשׁא, as e.g., Esther 2:17) blessing from Jahve and righteousness from the God of his salvation (Psalm 25:5; Psalm 27:9). Righteousness, i.e., conformity to God and that which is well-pleasing to God, appears here as a gift, and in this sense it is used interchangeably with ישׁע (e.g., Psalm 132:9, Psalm 132:16). It is the righteousness of God after which the righteous, but not the self-righteous, man hungers and thirsts; that moral perfection which is the likeness of God restored to him and at the same time brought about by his own endeavours; it is the being changed, or transfigured, into the image of the Holy One Himself. With Psalm 24:5 the answer to the question of Psalm 24:3 is at an end; Psalm 24:6 adds that those thus qualified, who may accordingly expect to receive God's gifts of salvation, are the true church of Jahve, the Israel of God. דּור (lit., a revolution, Arabic dahr, root דר, to turn, revolve) is used here, as in Psalm 14:5; Psalm 73:15; Psalm 112:2, of a collective whole, whose bond of union is not contemporaneousness, but similarity of disposition; and it is an alliteration with the דּרשׁיו (Chethb דרשו, without the Jod plur.) which follows. מבקשׁי פּניך is a second genitive depending on דּור, as in Psalm 27:8. Here at the close the predication passes into the form of invocation (Thy face). And יעקב is a summarising predicate: in short, these are Jacob, not merely after the flesh, but after the spirit, and thus in truth (Isaiah 44:2, cf. Romans 9:6; Galatians 6:16). By interpolating אלהי, as is done in the lxx and Peshto, and adopted by Ewald, Olshausen, Hupfeld, and Bttcher, the nerve, as it were, of the assertion is cut through. The predicate, which has been expressed in different ways, is concentrated intelligibly enough in the one word יעקב, towards which it all along tends. And here the music becomes forte. The first part of this double Psalm dies away amidst the playing of the instruments of the Levitical priests; for the Ark was brought in בּכל־עז וּבשׁירים, as 2 Samuel 6:5 (cf. 2 Samuel 6:14) is to be read.