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Who remembered us in our low estate. This closing portion of the psalm proves its association with the restored exiles. That long time in Babylon was ever thought of and spoken of as the great time of national humiliation. Never before had the national life been broken up, the national capital been in the hands of the enemy, and laid in ruins, or the temple, as the center of the religious life of the nation, destroyed. Humiliation expresses precisely the experience through which the nation had been called to pass. But a condition of humiliation never puts either a man or a nation out of the Divine regard. Such conditions belong to the Divine discipline, and that means the immediate and direct Divine interest. And this the psalmist recognizes. God had remembered his people in their low estate; and how practical that remembrance was is seen in the fact that, in due time, he redeemed his people from out of the hands of the enemies that humiliated them.

I. THE DIVINE DEALING WITH THE HUMILIATED MAY BE AN ENDURANCE. He may let it continue. He may seem to hold aloof, and to restrain himself. But endurance is altogether different from lost interest or forsaking. Endurance means knowledge, watchfulness, and sympathy. It is only "biding his time," patiently waiting until the best time has come, and so supremely seeking the highest well-being of the humiliated, that no limitation of the stern discipline can be permitted. There are conditions of life - religious life - in which God can only carry out his purposes of grace by our humiliation. It is the marvel of his love that he will even do a thorough work of humiliation.

II. THE DIVINE DEALING WITH THE HUMILIATED IS SURE TO PASS INTO A REDEMPTION. God's endurings have no stamp of permanency. They are only agencies working with a view to some issue. And God's final issues are always redemptions. God's people cannot be humiliated forever in any Babylonian slavery. Man may humiliate his fellow, and never loosen the humiliation. The overruling God never does. There is always something good and gracious towards which the humiliation is moving. Sooner or later, the humiliated will be redeemed. - R.T.

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KJV: Who remembered us in our low estate: for his mercy endureth for ever:

WEB: Who remembered us in our low estate; for his loving kindness endures forever;