Psalm 86:9

All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord; and shall glorify thy name.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(9) For this wide prospect of Divine dominion see Psalm 22:31; Isaiah 43:7.

Benson Commentary

Psalm 86:9-10. All nations whom thou hast made — For, as thou hast made them, thou canst easily convince and convert them to thyself; shall come and worship before thee — Shall forsake their impotent idols, and shall worship thee alone: being enlightened by thy word and Spirit to see, and induced to own, that there is none like thee. This was, in part, fulfilled in the multitude of proselytes to the Jewish religion, in the days of David and Solomon, but it was to have its full accomplishment in the days of the Messiah, when some out of every kingdom and nation should be effectually brought to praise God, Revelation 7:9. It was by Christ that God made all nations, for without him was not any thing made that was made, and therefore, through Christ, and by the power of his gospel and grace, all nations shall be brought to worship before God, Isaiah 66:23. For thou art great — Therefore shall all nations worship before thee, because, as king of all nations, thou art great; thy sovereignty absolute and incontestable; thy majesty terrible and insupportable; thy power universal and irresistible; thy riches vast and inexhaustible; thy dominion boundless and unquestionable; and, as a proof of this, thou doest wondrous things — Which all nations admire, and from whence they may easily infer that thou art God alone, and that not only there is none like thee, but none besides thee. They shall see thy wonderful works, and hence shall be led to acknowledge both that thou art infinitely great, and that thou art the only true God. Or, this may be alleged as a reason why it was not incredible, that all nations should be converted from idolatry to the worship of the true God. As if he had said, God doth wondrous things, and he will do this among the rest: The idols he will utterly abolish, and he alone shall be exalted, as king over all the earth. In that day shall there be one Lord, and his name one.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

86:8-17 Our God alone possesses almighty power and infinite love. Christ is the way and the truth. And the believing soul will be more desirous to be taught the way and the truth. And the believing soul will be more desirous to be taught the way and the truth of God, in order to walk therein, than to be delivered out of earthly distress. Those who set not the Lord before them, seek after believers' souls; but the compassion, mercy, and truth of God, will be their refuge and consolation. And those whose parents were the servants of the Lord, may urge this as a plea why he should hear and help them. In considering David's experience, and that of the believer, we must not lose sight of Him, who though he was rich, for our sakes became poor, that we through his poverty might be rich.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

All nations whom thou hast made shall come ... - In this verse the psalmist expresses his belief that the conviction which he entertained about the ability of God to save - about his being the only true God - would yet pervade all the nations of the earth; that they all would yet be convinced that he was the true God, and would come and worship him alone. So clear to him seemed to be the evidence of the existence and perfections of God that he did not doubt that all people would come yet to see it also, and to acknowledge him. Compare Isaiah 2:2-3; Isaiah 60:3-14; Psalm 2:8; Psalm 72:17.

And shall glorify thy name - Shall honor thee as the true God. They will renounce their idols; they will come and worship thee. This belief - this hope - is held out through the entire volume of revealed truth. It cheered and encouraged the hearts of the saints of the Old Testament and the New; and it may and should cheer and encourage our hearts. It is not less certain because it seems to be long delayed. To the view of man this is all that is certain in the future. No man can predict what will occur in regard to any of the existing political institutions on the earth - either the monarchies of the old world, or the republics of the new. No man can tell in reference to the arts; to the sciences; to social life; to manners; to the cities and towns which now exist on the earth, what they will be in the far distant future. Only one thing is certain in that future - that the kingdom of God will be set up, and that the Redeemer's throne will be established over all the earth; that the time is to come when "all nations shall come and worship before God, and shall glorify his name."

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

9, 10. The pious Jews believed that God's common relation to all would be ultimately acknowledged by all men (Ps 45:12-16; 47:9).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

So true is that which I have now said of thee, Psalm 86:8, that the time is coming when all the nations of the earth shall acknowledge it, and, forsaking their impotent idol, shall worship thee alone; which being a work of thy power and grace, clearly proves that no God is like to thee and no works like thine. And those words,

whom thou hast made, are added to prevent or remove objections concerning the insuperable difficulty and incredibility of this work. The God, saith he, that made them can easily convince and convert them to himself.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

All nations whom thou hast made,.... All nations, or the inhabitants of all nations, are made by the Lord, and of the blood of one man, Acts 17:26, and which as it shows the obligation of all men to come and worship, as is said should be; so likewise that the Lord, who has made them, is able to make them come to do homage to him, as follows:

shall come and worship before thee, O Lord; "come", spiritually, by faith and repentance, to the Lord himself, being drawn by the power of his efficacious grace through the ministry of the word; and, locally, to the house and ordinances of God, to attend upon them, and wait on him in them; and "worship" both externally, according to his revealed will; and internally in the exercise of grace, in spirit and in truth: this is prophetically said of the conversion of the Gentiles in Gospel times, especially in the latter day; see Revelation 15:4. Kimchi and Arama say this will be in the time of the Messiah:

and shall glorify thy name; the Lord himself, with their bodies and spirits, which are his; and ascribe the glory of their salvation to him, and glorify him for his mercy towards them in their redemption and conversion; glorify that and every perfection of his, displayed in their salvation; and also his Gospel, which brings them the news of it; see Romans 15:9.

Geneva Study Bible

All nations whom thou hast made shall come and {g} worship before thee, O Lord; and shall glorify thy name.

(g) This proves that David prayed in the Name of Christ the Messiah of whose kingdom he here prophecies.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

9. Apparently a reminiscence of Psalm 22:27, combined possibly with Isaiah 24:15 (‘glorify ye … the name of Jehovah’) and other passages. But the verse is remarkable for the distinctness and fulness of its Messianic hope, and for the thought implied in the words whom thou hast made, that the nations cannot fail ultimately to fulfil the will of their Creator (Revelation 4:11). It is taken up and expanded in Revelation 15:3-4.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 9. - All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord (comp. Psalm 72:11, 17; Psalm 82:8, etc.). Since God had made all nations (Acts 17:26), it was safe to conclude that they would all one day worship him. The prophecy, however, still remains unfulfilled. And shall glorify thy Name. Either with their lips, or in their lives, or in both ways. Compare the anticipations of Isaiah (Isaiah 66:23), Zephaniah (Zephaniah 2:10), and Zechariah (Zechariah 14:9, 16). Psalm 86:9

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Here, too, almost everything is an echo of earlier language of the Psalms and of the Law; viz., Psalm 86:7 follows Psalm 17:6 and other passages; Psalm 86:8 is taken from Exodus 15:11, cf. Psalm 89:9, where, however, אלהים, gods, is avoided; Psalm 86:8 follows Deuteronomy 3:24; Psalm 86:9 follows Psalm 22:28; Psalm 86:11 is taken from Psalm 27:11; Psalm 86:11 from Psalm 26:3; Psalm 86:13, שׁאול תּחתּיּה from Deuteronomy 32:22, where instead of this it is תּחתּית, just as in Psalm 130:2 תּחנוּני (supplicatory prayer) instead of תּחנוּנותי (importunate supplications); and also Psalm 86:10 (cf. Psalm 72:18) is a doxological formula that was already in existence. The construction הקשׁיב בּ is the same as in Psalm 66:19. But although for the most part flowing on only in the language of prayer borrowed from earlier periods, this Psalm is, moreover, not without remarkable significance and beauty. With the confession of the incomparableness of the Lord is combined the prospect of the recognition of the incomparable One throughout the nations of the earth. This clear unallegorical prediction of the conversion of the heathen is the principal parallel to Revelation 15:4. "All nations, which Thou hast made" - they have their being from Thee; and although they have forgotten it (vid., Psalm 9:18), they will nevertheless at last come to recognise it. כּל־גּוים, since the article is wanting, are nations of all tribes (countries and nationalities); cf. Jeremiah 16:16 with Psalm 22:18; Tobit 13:11, ἔθνη πολλά, with ibid. Psalm 14:6, πάντα τὰ ἔθνη. And how weightily brief and charming is the petition in Psalm 86:11 : uni cor meum, ut timeat nomen tuum! Luther has rightly departed from the renderings of the lxx, Syriac, and Vulgate: laetetur (יחדּ from חדה). The meaning, however, is not so much "keep my heart near to the only thing," as "direct all its powers and concentrate them on the one thing." The following group shows us what is the meaning of the deliverance out of the hell beneath (שׁאול תּחתּיּה, like ארץ תּחתּית, the earth beneath, the inner parts of the earth, Ezekiel 31:14.), for which the poet promises beforehand to manifest his thankfulness (כּי, Psalm 86:13, as in Psalm 56:14).