He settles the barren woman in her home as a joyful mother to her children. Hallelujah! Sermons
I. CHILDREN ARE SENT TO CULTURE CHARACTER. This is the other side of the truth with which we are familiar - that children have characters which we must culture. There is a good sense in which children are sent into the world to "train their parents." What they can do is seen in the immediate effect their coming has upon their mothers. It changes them from thoughtless, self-centered maidens into thoughtful, self-denying women. And an equal influence, though not quite so evident, is seen in the father. Family life cultures all the graces, the stronger ones no less than the milder; and it lays the burden of personal example upon the parents; for a child makes demand of father and mother that they will show him the ideal goodness. Each element of refined and Christly character may be dealt with, and special stress may be laid upon "patience" and "charity" in the sense of going outside ourselves for our interests. II. CHILDREN ARE SENT TO KEEP UP OUR INTEREST IN MORALS. This point is seldom dwelt on. Yet it is evident that the children come just at the time in our lives when material interests - business, society - become so absorbing. Moral and religious interests would pass out of our thought if it were not that every day brings to us concern for the children, and that must be a moral concern. The children break into the monotony of material middle-life associations. Everyday morals for every parent, and morals and religion for most parents, are brought closely to mind. The children are God's voice reminding man of eternal things. - R.T.
He makoth the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children. The psalmist must have been thinking surely of the many modes in which the powers are called out and the affections exercised. The guidance of the household, the care of children, — these are certainly the commonest ways in which the affections and the powers of one half the human race are brought into free and full play. But there may be no house to guide, and no children to love and tend and educate; and yet the words may be made true, "He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children." I take the words, then, as telling us, first of all, this: That no powers and no affections were intended by the Giver of all to lie fallow and waste. He, from whom these, as well as all other good and perfect gifts, come, has, we may be sure, in His view also a field for their exercise — a field, into which He is prepared, by His providence and His Spirit, to guide the owner. There is room and need, depend upon it, for every power and every affection that the Creator has implanted in us. Now, I may be speaking to some who have not yet found their place in the world, and who suffer from the heartache and the restlessness which come of unused faculties and dormant affections. It is to such cases as these that the words of the psalmist should come home with a special message to rouse and comfort and invigorate. The matter is really in their own hands. They have but to look around them, and they will soon perceive that the literal meaning of the psalmist's words is not the only, nor in many ways the most satisfying, meaning. It will be strange if they cannot find, within the circle of their own acquaintance, more than one life which looks at the first glance very lonely, very dull, very uninviting; in which the nearest and dearest ties of husband, wife, and children have no place; and yet which on closer inspection turns out to be full of interests, full of affections, full of duties, full of good works and heavenly charities. It may be the life of some poor widow living amidst a crowd of neighbours as poor as herself, of whom she is the loved and trusted friend, counsellor, and comforter. Or it may be the life of some daughter and sister at home, who is the link between all the widely-scattered members of the old household. Or it may be the life of some poor helpless and hopeless sufferer on a sick-bed, whose couch of pain is the meeting-point of many hearts, which are cheered and elevated by the sight of Christian endurance, and soothed and softened by the warm tide of Christian affection.(D. J. Vaughan, M.A.). When Israel went out of Egypt. Homilist. God has a will. He doeth all things after the "counsel of His own will." The universe is but His will in form and action. It is the primordial, the propelling and presiding force of all forces and motions. The psalm leads us to look at this Eternal will in two aspects —I. As acting on MORAL MIND. In the deliverance of the Jews from Egyptian bondage, it acted both on the Egyptian mind and on the Hebrew mind. 1. This will acted on the Egyptian mind disastrously. Whose fault was this? Not God's.(1) Man can resist the Divine will. Herein is his distinguishing power. This binds him to moral government, and renders him accountable for his conduct.(2) His resistance is his ruin. To go against the Eternal will is to go against the laws of nature, the current of the universe, the eternal conditions of well-being. Acquiescence to the Divine will is heaven, resistance to the Divine will is hell. 2. This will acted on the Hebrew mind remedially.(1) It brought Israel out of Egypt,(2) Into blessed relationship with God. II. As acting on MATERIAL NATURE. 1. Its action on matter is always effective. God has only to will a material phenomenon, and it occurs. "He spake, and it was done." Nothing in material nature comes between His will and the result purposed. Not so in moral mind. 2. Its action on matter is philosophically exciting (vers. 5, 6). The motions of matter are constantly exciting the philosophic inquiry. Would that philosophy would not pause in its inquiries until it traced all the forms and motions of matter to the Eternal will! It was that will that.was now working in the mountains, in the hills, and the rocks. 3. Its action on matter is sometimes terrific (ver. 7). (Homilist.) People PsalmistPlaces JerusalemTopics Abide, Barren, Causing, Dwell, Family, Gives, Hallelujah, Happy, Home, Jah, Joyful, Joyous, Makes, Maketh, Making, Praise, Settles, Sit, Sons, Unfertile, YahOutline 1. An exhortation to praise God for his excellence6. For his mercy Dictionary of Bible Themes Psalm 113:9 5061 sanctity of life 6688 mercy, demonstration of God's Library Boniface, Apostle of the Germans. BONIFACE, or Winfried, as they called him in Anglo-Saxon, born at Crediton in Devonshire, in 680, deserves to be honoured as the father of the German Church, although he was by no means the first who brought the seeds of the Gospel to Germany. Many had already laboured before him; but the efforts which had been made here and there did not suffice to secure the endurance of Christianity amongst the many perils to which it was exposed. Christianity needs to be linked with firm ecclesiastical institutions, … Augustus Neander—Light in the Dark Places The Consecration of Joy In the Last, the Great Day of the Feast' The Sermon on the Mount - the Kingdom of Christ and Rabbinic Teaching. Vehicles of Revelation; Scripture, the Church, Tradition. Letter xix (A. D. 1127) to Suger, Abbot of S. Denis Messiah's Easy Yoke King of Kings and Lord of Lords Psalms Links Psalm 113:9 NIVPsalm 113:9 NLT Psalm 113:9 ESV Psalm 113:9 NASB Psalm 113:9 KJV Psalm 113:9 Bible Apps Psalm 113:9 Parallel Psalm 113:9 Biblia Paralela Psalm 113:9 Chinese Bible Psalm 113:9 French Bible Psalm 113:9 German Bible Psalm 113:9 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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