Psalms 136:4

Psa 136:4 To him who alone doeth great wonders: for his mercy [endureth] for ever.

Ver. 4. To him who alone doeth great wonders] Wondrous things the creature may do, but not wonders; mira sed non miracula. God alone is the great Thaumaturgus, that is, wonder worker.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Psa_136:4-9

To Him who alone doeth great wonders.

God the wonder-worker

Altering a little the language of Coleridge, I would say, All true science begins with wonder, and ends with wonder, and the space between is filled up with admiration. If we turn to Providence, the history of the nations, the history of the Church, what centuries of wonders pass before us! It is said that wise men only wonder once, and that is always; fools never wonder, because they are fools. The story of the Church is a constellation of miracles. I cannot venture upon themes so vast as Creation and Providence. Shall we turn to the works of Grace, the wonders of Redemption? If we consider the glory of grace surrounding the Cross, which is the wonder of wonders, we are upon a boundless ocean.

I. God is working wonders of mercy now.

1. In the salvation of the lost.

2. In the preservation of believers.

3. By maintaining His Church and the cause of truth in the midst of the world.

II. These wonders are still great. Many apparent wonders can be explained, and, henceforth, the wonder is gone. Certain nations wonder at an eclipse, which to the astronomer is a very simple affair. Now, you cannot explain away redemption, regeneration, and the pardon of sin: these great wonders of almighty love are all the greater the more you know of them. Many wonders, also, are diminished by familiarity. The wonders of grace are such, that the more you see them the more your wonder grows. Those who are most familiar with the Lord think the most of Him and of His grace. The wonders of Divine grace are so great that they can never be eclipsed by any greater marvels.

III. These great wonders are wrought by God alone. When the Lord uses means in the salvation of a soul, He takes care that nobody shall praise the means or ascribe the salvation to the agent. He has many ways with His most useful servants of making them keep their places; and you will notice that as soon as ever any one of them begins to grow rather large in his own esteem, he is usually met with weakness and barrenness. We must keep self out of the way. We must put ourselves absolutely into Gods hands, that He may use us in the winning of souls, and then we must send the great I down, down, down, till it is buried out of all remembrance.

IV. For these wonders God is to be praised. Holy wonder is like sweet incense, but love must set it on a blaze with a burning coal of gratitude. If you will begin to praise the Lord for His great wonders of mercy, I will tell you what will happen to you.

1. First, we shall find His nature revealed to us. O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good. We shall begin to see the essential goodness of God, and then we shall the better understand the manifestations of it as seen in ten thousand ways.

2. Next, while praising for His wonders, thou wilt learn to adore His Godhead. Give thanks unto the God of gods. It is a grand thing to be deeply impressed that God is God.

3. If thou wilt keep on praising Him for His wonders, thou wilt come to know somewhat of His sovereignty. O give thanks unto the Lord of lords, for He rules over all things, both in heaven and in earth, and in all deep places. We can trust our God with unlimited power; and it is a part of our worship that we should never question whatever He may do. It is the Lord; let Him do what seemeth Him good.

4. Still, when thou praisest God for the wonders He has wrought for thee, and for others, let the climax of thy praise be this, that His mercy endureth for ever. Magnify with all thy faculties of mind and heart; with memory, and hope, and fear, and every emotion of which thou art capable, the changeless mercy of God. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Psa 136:4. Who alone doeth great wonders — He, and none else; or he, without the help of any other person, or thing: whereas no other being can do any thing alone, or without his help. “All the works of God are wonderful, and speak him alone to have been their author. The established course of the world is, in reality, no less admirable than are those extraordinary interpositions of omnipotence whereby it hath been sometimes interrupted and suspended; though the latter, on account of their novelty, are apt to affect us more than the former does, which is ever before our eyes, and therefore less regarded by us.”

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

4. (Psa 136:4) To (him) doing wondrous (things), great (things), alone for unto eternity (is) his mercy. Compare the expression doing wonders, Exo 15:11. Alone, not merely more than others, but to their exclusion. The for, in this and the following verses, has reference, not to what immediately precedes, but to the verb give thanks, to be supplied at the beginning of the sentence

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Psalms Translated and Explained (1850) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Verse 4. Who alone doeth great wonders] MIRACLES. No power but that which is almighty can work miracles, נפלאות niphlaoth, the inversion, or suspension, or destruction of the laws of nature.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

4. Who alone hath done great wonders Under this term he comprehends all God’s works from the least to the greatest, that he may awaken our admiration of them, for notwithstanding the signal marks of inconceivably great wisdom and divine power of God which are inscribed upon them we are apt through thoughtlessness to undervalue them. He declares that whatever is worthy of admiration is exclusively made and done by God, to teach us that we cannot transfer the smallest portion of the praise due to him without awful sacrilege, there being no vestige of divinity in the whole range of heaven and earth with which it is lawful to compare or equal him. He then proceeds to praise the wisdom of God, as particularly displayed in the skill with which the heavens are framed, giving evidence in a surprising degree of the fine discrimination with which they are adorned. “Les cieux sont composez d’un si excellent et bel artifice, qu’ils crient que c’est d’une facon admirable qu’ils ont este ornez d’une si plaisante distinction.” — Fr.

“De mettre ceci entre lents principes et maximes.” — Fr.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(4) Psa_72:18.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

4. O give thanks unto the former of all things (Jer_10:16), for &c.

4. Cp. Psa_72:18; Psa_86:10.

4–9. Jehovah the Creator.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

To him who alone doeth great wonders,.... As in the works of creation at first, having no help from angels or men; so in the works of providence, many of which are unsearchable, and past finding out, and in which he has no assistance from creatures; and in the works of grace, redemption, and salvation, which his own arm has wrought out; as well as what he did when here on earth in our nature; the miracles then wrought by his omnipotent arm alone; and even all the wonders which Moses and Elijah did under the Old Testament, and the apostles of Christ under the New, were done, not by their power, but by his alone; who will do still greater wonders, when he shall create all tidings new, raise the dead, and summon all nations before him, and render to everyone according to his works;

for his mercy endureth for ever: towards his people, for whose sake all these wonders are wrought.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

To him who alone doeth great wonders - Miracles; marvelous things; things which spring from his direct and absolute power; things lying beyond the range of natural laws. See the notes at Psa 72:18.

For his mercy ... - For all these mighty wonders are performed in carrying out purposes of mercy. So the wonders which were done in Egypt were for the deliverance of an oppressed people; so the miracles performed by the Saviour and his apostles were to remove disease and pain, and to establish a religion of mercy; so the divine interpositions among the nations are to assert the principles of righteousness, to secure the reign of order and love, and to promote the welfare of mankind.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Him who alone; he and none else. Or, he without the help of any other person or thing; whereas no other being can do any thing alone or without his help.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Ver. 4. To him who alone doeth great wonders. Jehovah is the great Thaumaturge, the unrivalled Wonder worker. None can be likened unto him, he is alone in wonderland, the Creator and Worker of true marvels, compared with which all other remarkable things are as child's play. His works are all great in wonder even when they are not great in size; in fact, in the minute objects of the microscope we behold as great wonders as even the telescope can reveal. All the works of his unrivalled skill are wrought by him alone and unaided, and to him, therefore, must be undivided honour. None of the gods or the lords helped Jehovah in creation, or in the redemption of his people: his own right hand and his holy arm have wrought for him these great deeds. What have the gods of the heathen done? If the question be settled by doings, Jehovah is indeed "alone." It is exceedingly wonderful that men should worship gods who can do nothing, and forget the Lord who alone doeth great wonders. Even when the Lord uses men as his instruments, yet the wonder of the work is his alone; therefore let us not trust in men, or idolize them, or tremble before them. Praise is to be rendered to Jehovah,

for his mercy endureth for ever. The mercy of the wonder is the wonder of the mercy; and the enduring nature of that mercy is the central wonder of that wonder. The Lord causes us often to sit down in amazement as we see what his mercy has wrought out and prepared for us: "wonders of grace to God belong", yea, great wonders and unsearchable. Oh the depth! Glory be to his name world without end!

Doing wondrous deeds alone,

Mercy sits upon his throne.

Ver. 4. To him who alone doeth great wonders. God hath preserved to himself the power of miracles, as his prerogative: for the devil does no miracles; the devil and his instruments do but hasten nature or hinder nature, antedate nature or postdate nature, bring things sooner to pass or retard them; and however they pretend to oppose nature, yet still it is but upon nature and by natural means that they work. Only God shakes the whole frame of nature in pieces, and in a miracle proceeds so, as if there were no creation yet accomplished, no course of nature yet established. Facit mirabilia magna solus, says David here. There are mirabilia parva, some lesser wonders, that the devil and his instruments, Pharaoh's sorcerers can do; but when it comes to mirabilias magna, great wonders, so great that they amount to the nature of a miracle, facit solus, God and God only does them. Abraham Wright.

Ver. 4. To him who alone doeth great wonders. Does he "alone" do great wonders? That means, he does so by himself, unaided, needing nothing from others, asking no help from his creatures. As the Nile from Nubia to the Mediterranean rolls on 1,300 miles in solitary grandeur, receiving not one tributary, but itself alone dispensing fertility and fatness wherever it comes; so our God "alone" does wonders. (See De 32:12 Ps 72:18, etc.) No prompter, no helper; spontaneously he goes forth to work, and all he works is worthy of God. Then we have no need of any other; we are independent of all others; all our springs are in him. Andrew A. Bonar.

Ver 4. Who alone doeth great wonders. There are three things here declared of God; that he doeth wonders, that the wonders he doeth are great; that he only doeth them. Augustine, in Neale and Littledale.

Ver. 4. Who alone doeth great wonders. Whatsoever instruments the Lord is pleased to use in any of his wonderful works, he alone is the worker, and will not share the glory of the work with any creature. David Dickson.

Ver. 4. It becomes the great God to grant great things. To him who alone doeth great wonders. When you ask great things, you ask such as it becomes God to give, "whose mercy is great above the heavens!" Nothing under heaven can be too great for him to give. The greater things he bestows, the greater glory redounds to his Name. David Clarkson, 1622-1686.

Ver. 4. Christians should not be ashamed of the mysteries and miracles of their religion. Sometimes of late years there has been manifested a disposition to recede from the defence of the supernatural in religion. This is a great mistake. Give up all that is miraculous in true religion and there is nothing left of power sufficient to move any heart to worship or adore; and without worship there is no piety. William Swan Plumer.

Ver. 4. The longer I live, O my God, the more do I wonder at all the works of thy hands. I see such admirable artifice in the very least and most despicable of all thy creatures, as doth every day more and more astonish my observation. I need not look so far as heaven for matter of marvel, though therein thou art infinitely glorious; while I have but a spider in my window, or a bee in my garden, or a worm under my foot: every one of these overcomes me with a just amazement: yet can I see no more than their very outsides; their inward form, which gives their being and operations, I cannot pierce into. The less I can know, O Lord, the more let me wonder; and the less I can satisfy myself with marvelling at thy works, the more let me adore the majesty and omnipotence of thee, that wroughtest them. Joseph Hall.

Ver. 4.

1. The Lord does great wonders of mercy.

2. He does them unaided.

3. He does them as none else can do.

4. He should have unique praise.

Ver. 4. The great lone Wonder worker.

1. God was alone in the wonderwork of Creation: Ge 1:1-31.

2. Alone in the wonderwork of Redemption: Isa 63:5.

3. Is alone in the wonderwork of Providence: Ps 104:27-28.

4. Alone in the wonderwork of Sanctification: 1Th 5:23-24.

5. Will be alone in the wonderwork of Universal Triumph: 1Co 15:25. C.A.D.

Ver. 4. The merciful in the wonderful. The wonderful in the merciful.

Psalms 136:5*

Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

4. Doeth great wonders—See Psa_72:18; Psa_135:6. The superior works of God declare him supreme. The phraseology shows that his works are above both comprehension and description.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

To him who alone doeth great wonders. (comp. Psa_72:18) For his mercy, etc.

The great wonders of God.

I WHAT ARE THEY? They are seen in nature; in providence; and especially in grace. The whole purpose, plan, and accomplishment of man"s salvation is full of them.

II GOD IS EVER DOING GREAT WONDERS. It is not that he once did them and has now ceased, but he is ever doing and will continue to do them. Hence we may expect them in regard to others and to ourselves.

III No ONE ELSE DOES THEM.

1. In Nature we see this plainly. No one thinks that he can do her works.

2. In providence we see this partly. Men are apt to think that they themselves are the authors of the good that comes to them.

3. In grace men are slow to see this at all. They persist in thinking they must bring something, do something, or else they cannot be saved. They haggle over God"s free gift.

IV AND THEY ARE GREAT WONDERS. Not common and ordinary.

1. It was to be expected that they would be. For they are the works of God.

2. It was necessary they should be. For how else was man to be saved?

3. They have all the conditions of greatness. Rarity; transcendent power; wisdom; grace.

V THEY DESERVE AND DEMAND OUR PRAISE. Of the heart, the lip, the life. S.C.

Wonders of creative power.

"Who alone doeth great wonders." "Jehovah is the great Thaumaturge, the unrivalled Wonder-worker. None can be likened unto him; he is alone in wonderland, the Creator and Worker of true marvels, compared with which all other remarkable things are as child"s play. None of the gods or the lords helped Jehovah in creation or in the redemption of his people." As the theme of this psalm is the Divine mercy, we must find the merciful in the wonderful. This psalm recalls to our minds the first chapter of Genesis, which declares the absolute Creatorship of God. It does not consist of a precise, definite, and detailed account of the processes of creation, but contains a series of distinct and repeated affirmations of God"s supreme relations to all forms of existence, in all their order, all their origin, all their growth, all their relations. It is designed to impress on us that the world was not created by chance, by self-regeneration, by impersonal powers of nature, or by many agents acting either in harmony or in antagonism. God is distinct from that he has made. God is the one primal Source of all things. God"s will is represented in all laws that rule. God"s good pleasure shapes all ends. This chapter impresses on mind and heart the existence, independence, and personality of one Divine Being, the universality of his rule, the omnipotence of his power, and the eternal persistence of his relationship to the world he has created.

1. The chapter declares God"s unique relation to every part of creation. We may conceive of no created thing, no existing thing, to which the assurance is not attached God made it, God ordained it, God arranged it. The chapter includes all the components of the earth"s crust; all the treasures of the mighty deep; all the elements of the atmosphere; all the hosts of heaven, from the ruling sun to the faintest distant star; all the multiplied forms of vegetable life; all the higher forms of animal life; and all the yet higher forms of human life. And the declaration of God"s creation includes all the natural laws and forces that act in creation. These things may be illustrated.

2. The relation of God as Cause and Arranger to all the changes of creation. One living God is at the beginning of all changes, designing all change, and presiding over all change.

3. The relation of God as Cause and Controller to the entire range of development in creation. Tell us of millions of bygone ages: God was there. Show us a thing: God made it. Describe a change: God ordered it. Talk of immeasurable distances, in which the stars swing free: God set them there. R.T.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

for his covenant faithfulness endures forever

The abstract noun "faithfulness" can be translated with an adjective. See how you translated this in Psalms 136:1. AT: "because he remains faithful to his covenant forever" (See: Abstract Nouns)

by wisdom

That is, because he is wise.

translationWords

miracle

wise

heaven

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

To Him Who performs great wonders alone In the beginning, no angel was created when He made the wonders: the heaven, the earth, the sun and the moon.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.