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That from which the psalmist has borrowed his lessons in all probability lay before him as he mused. We imagine him at the time a fugitive from Saul. From the wickedness and craft of men, he turns to the goodness and faithfulness of God.

I. GOD'S MERCY. He declares that it is throned in the heavens. These suggest —

1. Its height. Climb the loftiest mountain, and yet they look down upon you. And so with the mercy of our God. It is the one all-enfolding, all-transcending fact in God's moral universe. It is high; we cannot attain unto it.

2. Its age and changelessness. The earth which the sky overshadows has seen many mutations. Beneath there is nothing but flux, restlessness, change. But the sky has looked down on it all, serene and unvarying, amidst all the overturning and mutations of the countless years. Time writes no wrinkles on its stedfast blue.

3. Akin to this is another thought — the heavens are all-embracing, ever-present, and ever-free. "The noblest scenes of earth," it has been said, "can be seen and known but by few. The sky is for all," Be your dwelling-place on the bleakest and dreariest swamp, without a tree or a hill to diversify its surface, you have still overhead a picture of loveliness and of mystery as often as you choose to look up. Thread the narrowest thoroughfare of a crowded town, and far above the filth and squalor, between the eaves of the tall and tottering tenements that enclose you, there are strips of clear blue sky, reminding you that, whatsoever be the restlessness, the sorrow, and the vice below, there is nothing above but beauty, purity, and peace. So again with the mercy of our God; it is exceeding broad. It is the attribute of all attributes that is ever engirdling the world. Mercy is the very sphere in which we live and move.

II. GOD'S FAITHFULNESS. Faithfulness has its close connection with mercy. Mercy is that which gives the promise, faithfulness is that which keeps it. Mercy determines the character of God's dealing with a helpless and sin-stricken world, faithfulness secures their continuance. Mercy defines the nature and the terms of the covenant of grace, faithfulness provides for its stedfastness, and carries it out to its final completion. Faithfulness is mercy bonded and pledged.

III. GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS. The element is one that cannot be spared from the picture. A God may be merciful, He may be faithful, too, but what avails it if both attributes do not rest upon justice? Yonder vault of God's house, curtained with clouds and fretted with innumerable fires, is raised on its pillars. The everlasting hills bear it up, and their columns support the overarching dome. So with God's righteousness. It lies at the base of His other attributes. It is as the mountains.

1. Stable. Nothing — storm or tempest — can move them.

2. Conspicuous. Long after the city's spires have disappeared, and wood and river, field and vineyard have been lost in the distant blue, the outline of the sentinel hills may remain, massive and majestic as ever — every summit and jag cut clear against the sky. So again with the Divine righteousness. There is much that will pass away, but this, never.

3. The mountains are the sources of many blessings. To them we owe the moisture that laves and that gladdens the thirsty earth. If the waters go "down by the valleys," they "go up by the mountains" first, and the rivers that fertilize our fields, turn our mills, and give drink to man and to beast, have their springs in green nooks and cool stony caverns on their distant slopes. Thus with the righteousness of God. So do "the mountains bring peace to the people, and the little hills by righteousness."

IV. GOD'S JUDGMENTS. From the sky, the clouds and the mountains, the psalmist now turned to the floods. Those, perhaps, of "the great and wide sea." What are all God's attributes that we have considered without wisdom to direct the whole? "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom," etc. We can see but little, but that is enough. Let us thank God.

(W. A. Gray.)

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KJV: Thy mercy, O LORD, is in the heavens; and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.

WEB: Your loving kindness, Yahweh, is in the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches to the skies.