Jehovah is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in loving-kindness.
Here Israel sings God's own description of Himself back to Him — the words He first spoke to Moses on the mountain, which they had proved true in their history. How can mercy and anger belong to the same God, and what does it mean that His anger is slow and not absent?
The line before this one says God made known His ways to Moses and His acts to Israel. This verse names those ways, and it echoes what God said about Himself on the mountain.
The ways of God, which He made known to Moses, will bring about the blessing of restored Israel. He showed His outward acts to Israel; to Moses He showed the principles on which He acted. These ways are now announced to the restored nation. In His ways God is merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. That is how He revealed Himself to Moses on the mountain (Ex. 34:6-7).
So what is the difference between God's "ways" and His "acts"?
God has both "ways" and "acts." "He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the people of Israel" (Ps. 103:7). His ways showed what He is like in Himself; His acts were more the displays of His power.
When God proclaimed His name to Moses, the words of mercy came joined to a solemn clause. The psalm quotes the mercy and stops there.
Now we have Jehovah Himself set before us: "merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love." This is exactly how He declared Himself to Moses — except that the shadow the law cast across it is removed here, the words "who will by no means clear the guilty" (Ex. 34:6-7). No, "He will not always chide, nor will He keep His anger forever." Israel has proved this in their history, and can say, "He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities." So He has shown who He is, and glorified Himself before their eyes.
"Slow to anger" can sound as if God does not mind evil much. One commentator says the opposite is true.
"Jehovah is slow to anger." Are we not all inclined to set these things against each other? But they do not really clash. The stronger God's feeling against whatever destroys His own glory, the more fitting it is that He should be slow to act on His anger — and we should be slow too, though for quite different reasons. Slowness to anger is usually the proof of moral greatness... This does not mean that slowness to feel belongs to God, or even to man; but acting on the feeling is another matter.
It matters who is singing these words. David was not describing mercy he had only heard about.
Think of David's words in Psalm 103:8: "The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love." Who knew the Lord's mercy better than David? David had been overtaken by a terrible fall, which led him to commit adultery and murder. No worse fall could have overtaken him; yet this is his testimony... Those of us who have fallen along the way learn to love these words. Mercy is what we need, and mercy is what we find in the heart of God.
This verse can be flattened into a vague sense that God is kind about everything. One writer marks the difference, and then turns it into a rule for our own ways and thoughts.
He is slow to anger, and abounding in mercy... So this is not vague goodness that deceives itself. We own the evil for what it is, and still know God in His goodness. This ought to shape our own ways and thoughts. We will still have to deal with evil, and if we go below the surface we meet it everywhere. But I ought to have gone to God about it in such a way that I bring Him back with me, according to what I have found Him to be above it all.
The same principle sets a boundary on correction. Discipline, one commentator notes, has limits that do not depend on how the person being corrected responds:
It should in its carrying out, bear the stamp of the God of all grace Who chastises "for our profit" (Heb. 12:10). He remembers how easily "the souls which he has made" (Isa. 57:16) may faint before Him.
- Revealed — this verse is not human guesswork about God. It repeats what He said of Himself to Moses, with the law's shadow lifted off it.
- Ways — Israel saw God's acts, the displays of His power. Moses learned His ways, the principles behind them, and this verse names those ways.
- Slow — His anger is slow, not shallow; delay in acting is the mark of moral greatness, not of weak feeling about evil.
- Proved — the man singing it had fallen as far as adultery and murder, so mercy here is testimony, not theory.
- Passed on — knowing God like this is not vague goodness that excuses sin. We still own the evil, and we meet it carrying the God we found above it.
He will not always chide, neither will he keep [his anger] for ever.
Psalm 103 praises God for what He is, and verse 9 sets a limit on His anger. It raises two questions: why does God contend with His people at all, and what ends that contending?
The verse sits in a section that describes God by the character He revealed to Moses. One commentator separates what Israel saw from what Moses learned.
The blessing of restored Israel will come through the ways of God that He made known to Moses. Israel saw His outward acts; God showed Moses the principles He acted on. God now declares these ways to the restored nation. In His ways God is merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and rich in mercy. This is how He revealed Himself to Moses on the mountain (Ex. 34:6-7), and He had always acted this way through the nation's long history. Because of their sins God had to chasten them, yet, "He will not always chide, nor will He keep His anger forever."
The word "chide" means to contend — to press a case against someone. One writer renders the line that way, and notes that the people who say these words have proved them in their own history.
Now we have Jehovah Himself set before us: "merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in loving-kindness." This is how He declared Himself to Moses, with only the law's dark shadow removed from it — the word that "He can by no means clear the guilty" (Ex. 34:6-7). No, "He will not always contend, nor will He keep it in mind forever." They have proved this now in their history, and can say, "He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor repaid us according to our iniquities." So He has shown Himself, and glorified Himself before their eyes.
A God who stops being angry could be mistaken for a God who never minded. The verses that follow rule that out.
Their sins and iniquities became the occasion for showing that His mercy and grace are greater than man's sin, even "as the heaven is high above the earth." So God is not indifferent to the sins of His people. He shows mercy to His people, but He deals with them because of their sins and removes their sins "as far as the east is from the west."
God does not set the limit on His anger by how fast the person improves. He sets it by what He Himself is, and by how fragile the person is.
People often forget that discipline has its limits. Those limits do not depend on the state of heart or conscience of the person being dealt with. When it is carried out, it should bear the stamp of the God of all grace, who disciplines us "for our profit" (Heb. 12:10). He remembers how easily "the souls which he has made" (Isa. 57:16) may faint before Him. The prophets are full of similar passages about restraining grace (Ps. 103:8-10).
The same principle reaches past Israel to believers now.
This is what confirms hope, and without hope there is no power to endure and no comfort either. His judicial chastenings of Israel are measured, and they will have an end. The same is true of His righteous government of us now.
If the anger is not permanent, there is a way out from under it — and the way is confession, not self-defence.
Thanks to a merciful God, blessing is not far away when the soul bends to the rod and confesses that the punishment is just. "He will not always chide, nor will He keep His anger forever." The surest way out from under God's governmental rod is to bow low in His presence and admit openly that the discipline was fully deserved.
Some have used this line to argue that no punishment from God can ever be final. Commentators answer that these words have a particular audience, and that audience sets their scope.
But this objection is easy to answer. Even those who know little of Scripture will see that God speaks these words to Israel. He loves this people dearly. Yet He has set them aside for a time, because they were unfaithful and firmly rejected the salvation offered to them in Christ. God's word testifies that He will restore them once more to these privileges as His earthly people.
Writing on the parallel words in Isaiah 57:16, another commentator gives the reader a rule of reading rather than an argument.
Let me advise the simple reader, when a quotation is made, always to read the context before he receives a new doctrine.
- Ways — Israel saw God's acts; God showed Moses the principles behind them. Verse 9 states one of those principles.
- Contend — to chide is to press a case. God will not press His case against His people without end, and Israel's history proves it.
- Limit — God's own character fixes the boundary on discipline, not the sufferer's progress. He knows how soon we faint.
- Measured — His chastenings have an end, and the same holds in His government of believers today.
- Release — the quickest way out from under the rod is to bow and admit the correction was deserved.
He hath not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
Psalm 103 counts up God's benefits one by one. Here the singer counts something God has not done. If He does not treat us as our sins deserve, has He simply ignored them? And how can a holy God do that?
One writer calls this line the psalm's high point, and points to what lies behind it.
Verse 10 is a climax of touching power. The soul that God has taught the meaning of the cross, as the true expression of His grace, understands it well. He had not dealt with them according to their sins. In return for their hatred, He showed them His priceless love. In Him whom the nation hated, He had found the one who could truly bear the nation's guilt (Isa. 53).
The psalm sets God's public acts beside what He explained to Moses, the leader who brought Israel out of Egypt.
God revealed His outward acts to Israel; to Moses He revealed the principles on which He acted. These ways are now declared to the restored nation. In His ways God is merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and plentiful in mercy. This is how He revealed Himself to Moses on the mountain (Ex. 34:6-7). God had always acted this way through the long history of the nation. Because of their sins God had to chasten them, yet, "He will not always chide; nor will He keep His anger forever."
The verse could sound as if God shrugs at sin. The same writer reads it the other way round.
Their sins and iniquities became the occasion for showing that His mercy and grace are greater than man's sin — as high as the heavens are above the earth. So we see that God is not indifferent to the sins of His people. He shows mercy to His people, but He deals with them because of their sins, and He removes their sins "as far as the east is from the west."
If God did not repay us for our sins, the debt did not simply vanish. One writer points to the cross, where judgment on sin fell in full.
The way He worked for us showed righteousness — yes, divine righteousness. The cross is the solemn declaration of righteous judgment on sin. So much every Christian bows to and delights in; and only here was propitiation possible for us. He bore our sins so that we would not have to bear them. Since He bore them for us, we cannot bear them ourselves. "Their sins and iniquities I will remember no more" is now God's unchangeable word. It is the word of the same righteousness that the cross has so fully shown and glorified.
Israel spent forty years in the desert as the fruit of their own conduct. One writer reads this verse into that story.
If God had dealt with them as they deserved, He might at least have left them to wander alone through the desert. But — blessed for ever be His great name — He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. His thoughts are not as our thoughts; nor are His ways as our ways.
One writer reads the psalm as Israel's future thanksgiving, and applies it to believers now too.
Israel will then fully acknowledge, as believers do today, that He has not dealt with them as they deserved. He has not punished them as their great guilt deserved (v. 10). They will be humbled, but adoring.
That guards the verse from misuse. The same writer says what forgiveness is for.
If God forgives, it is so that people may fear Him, not so that they may think lightly of their sin or of God's mercy. Grace does not lead to a careless walk; on the contrary, it teaches us to live soberly, righteously, and godly (Titus 2:12).
- Measure — The verse names a yardstick God refused to use: our own sins.
- Ways — Israel saw God's acts. God showed Moses the principles behind them, and here the people grasp what Moses knew.
- Not indifference — God is not casual about sin. Their sins became the occasion for showing mercy as high as the heavens.
- Ground — The debt was not waived; it was borne. The cross declares righteous judgment on sin, and so the sins are remembered no more.
- Response — The right reaction is worship from a humbled heart, not carelessness. God forgives so that people may fear Him.