Thou hast visited the earth, thou hast watered it; thou greatly enrichest it the river of God is full of water; thou providest their corn, when thou hast so prepared it
God comes down to the soil itself. He visits it, waters it, and enriches it until it gives grain. Two questions follow: which land does He visit, and what is meant by "the river of God."
One writer ties the verse to God's plan to gather His people around His dwelling-place. He reads "the earth" as one particular land, and the verb as past tense: God has already come.
God's purpose is to gather His earthly people around His dwelling-place... Their God is able to do this, because He is the Creator, who makes the earth fruitful. They now speak of Him in that character — the One who has restored fertility to the land (9-13). For the words may be, and probably should be, read in verse 9, "You have visited the earth" — that is, the land of Israel.
Where does this river start, and how far does it run? One writer answers from two other passages of Scripture.
The Lord will water it in just the way that will enrich its fruitfulness most fully (v. 9). The curse will be largely removed and "the river of God" will be full of water. Psalm 46:4 refers to this river, which makes glad the city of God. Ezekiel 47:1 shows the river beginning "under the threshold of the temple." Its volume keeps growing till it reaches the Dead Sea and heals the waters of the seas, so that "a great multitude" of fish are found there. At present no fish can live in those very salty waters. God will also provide grain that will flourish through the benefit of the waters.
One writer takes the word full and puts a modern fear beside it: can the earth feed everyone alive?
God's river supplies and refreshes mankind, and its fullness has no limit, for it is full of water. That tells of His unfailing resources to sustain the wide creation. Men may have their troubles and fears about whether the earth's supplies are enough to keep the human race alive. But with God there is resource in abundance, and He will display it in the coming day, when "the meadows clothe themselves with flocks, the valleys deck themselves with grain, they shout and sing together for joy" (Ps. 65:13).
Watering a land is farm work. One writer stops at the thought of God stooping to do it.
How perfectly beautiful! Only think of God watering the ridges, and settling the furrows! Think of His stooping down to do the work of a farmer for His people! Yes, and delighting to do it! It was the joy of His heart to pour His sunbeams and His refreshing showers upon the "hills and valleys" of His beloved people.
Why should a people who have waited for generations believe the promise will come in their lifetime? One writer answers: they can see the ground bearing fruit again.
Ages have passed since these words were written. Generations have come and gone, yet these promises are unfulfilled. How, then, can they feel sure it will be fulfilled to them, in their day? This they go on to explain: "You have visited the earth and watered it." Their eyes see this. They are in the land as the restored remnant, though outside Jerusalem. There they have seen the soil grow fertile again. It had lain, relatively speaking, uncultivated for so long, keeping its sabbath. Now it yields its fruit richly once more.
One writer traces the river from Israel's land, to the present day, and on. The water that once soaked a country now runs through people.
When Israel was settled in the land of promise, the Lord's dwelling-place was there, and He watered the land "with the rain of heaven." But by the time we reach John 7, the moment had come for leaving Canaan a dry land — spiritually — and the river of God is not found there any more. From now on, as Jesus tells us there, it would take its rise in the glorified Son of Man in heaven, and flowing down through altogether new channels — the bodies of His believing people on earth — should refresh the spiritually thirsty... When the Church has been taken up to heaven... the River of God will find other channels, and earth again be blessed.
- Visit — God comes down to the ground Himself. One writer reads this as a visit already made to the land of Israel. Its returning fertility convinces a waiting people that the rest of the promise will follow.
- River — "the river of God" is the stream that gladdens the city of God, and the water that flows from under the temple threshold. It grows as it goes, until even the Dead Sea is healed.
- Full — its fullness speaks of resources that never run out. That answers the fear that the earth cannot feed the people on it.
- Stoop — the God who fills rivers also waters ridges and settles furrows. He does a farmer's work for His people, and delights in it.
- Flow — the same water runs from a watered land, to believers who carry it to the thirsty, and on to a day when the earth is blessed again and the valleys sing for joy.
Thou dost satiate its furrows, thou smoothest its clods, thou makest it soft with showers; thou blessest the springing thereof.
God visits His land like a farmer walking His own fields — watering, levelling, softening, and blessing what comes up. Commentators ask two things about this picture: whose work is it, and when will the earth ever look like this?
The striking thing is not the rain but who is sending it. One writer reads Moses' description of the promised land. He is struck by how low God stoops in the work He takes on.
How perfectly beautiful! Only think of God watering the ridges, and settling the furrows! Think of His stooping down to do the work of a farmer for His people! Yes, and delighting to do it! It was the joy of His heart to pour His sunbeams and His refreshing showers upon the "hills and valleys" of His beloved people.
Furrows and ridges are watering words. That is the contrast between the land Israel left and the land they entered. Egypt watered its fields by human effort. Canaan waited for rain from heaven.
What a vivid contrast between Egypt and Canaan! Egypt had no rain from heaven. It was all human effort there. Not so in the Lord's land. The human foot could do nothing there, and there was no need. The blessed rain from heaven fell on it. The LORD Himself cared for it and watered it with the early and latter rain. The land of Egypt depended on its own resources. The land of Canaan depended wholly on God — on what came down from heaven. "My river is mine own," was the language of Egypt. "The river of God" was the hope of Canaan.
The verse does not just say rain falls. It says the rain softens the ground. The difference between a downpour and a soaking matters to a seed.
The river is a blessing, and there is more. Even the highest ridges will get all the moisture they need, through showers that soften the ground. This is not a pelting rain, but gentle showers that promote growth (v. 10).
A rendering of the Hebrew fills out each verb in turn, including the levelling of the raised earth between the furrows:
Its furrows You water, You break down its ridges; with showers You will soften it; its springing You will bless.
(Kelly numbers the psalm by the Hebrew text, so this is his verse 11; in the ESV it is verse 10, which reads: "You water its furrows abundantly, settling its ridges, softening it with showers, and blessing its growth.")
The verse opens an order that runs to the end of the psalm: soil first, then seasons, then even the wasteland, then the harvest. One writer follows that order, and then turns to how we treat nature.
The following verses trace this more closely. First comes the influence upon the land itself (v. 10). Then come the seasons of the year, arranged with generous care (11). Then the wilderness receives its bounty (12). And then we have the result everywhere, in flocks and crops, where nature with its lavish beauty sings and rejoices (13). Ah, how we, in our sinful independence of God, have stopped this song in nature! And then we have declared it lifeless, joyless, godless!
after_note: none
Commentators read these closing verses as more than a harvest song for one good year. They place the scene after God's judgment on evil, when the curse on the ground is gone or held back.
The closing verses present a beautiful picture of the millennial blessing of the earth, when all evil has been dealt with in judgment. The curse removed, or held in check, God will visit the earth in blessing. He will give the grain, and prepare the land to yield its increase, and command the seasons to pursue their course.
Yet people sing this psalm before that day arrives. It belongs to those who are not yet in the blessing:
In Psalms 65-67 we have the bright side. Here is the bright and joyful confidence of the believer who knows God hears him. He is not yet in the blessing, but he counts on it.
Rain only enriches soil that takes it in. Writing on God's watering of the earth, one commentator separates two kinds of ground: ground that resists the water, and ground that gives way to it.
The ground that takes in the water and bears fruit is the ground that does not resist. Rock and sand resist the force that would break them up. This ground does the opposite. It yields and crumbles, as the humble and contrite heart yields to the divine Husbandman.
- Stooping — God takes the farmer's work on Himself. He waters the ridges, settles the furrows, and delights to do it.
- Softening — God measures the rain for growth. He sends gentle showers to open the ground, not a pelting downpour.
- Sequence — soil, then seasons, then wilderness, then harvest. The blessing moves outward in order, and the ground is only the first step.
- Song — we call nature lifeless and godless, and that is our own sinful independence. The psalm hears creation sing.
- Soil — the ground that bears fruit is the ground that yields instead of resisting, like a humble and contrite heart in God's hands.
Thou crownest the year with thy goodness, and thy paths drop fatness
Psalm 65 moves from answered prayer and forgiveness to the land itself, watered and made to yield. Verse 11 sits at the top of that picture: God sets a crown on the year.
The word for "crown" is not only about honour placed on a head. It also means to encircle, and the older wording quoted below shows that.
The word "crownest" might be rendered "encircled for protection" or "compassed about." It is given that way in Psalm 5:12: "For you, Lord, will bless the righteous; with favour you will surround him as with a shield." The same word appears again in Psalm 103. There the psalmist breaks out: "Bless the LORD, O my soul... Who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy; who satisfies you with good."
The verses just before this one describe ridges watered and furrows settled. Those are a farmer's jobs, and God does them Himself.
How perfectly beautiful! Only think of God watering the ridges, and settling the furrows! Think of His stooping down to do the work of a farmer for His people! Yes, and delighting to do it! It was the joy of His heart to pour His sunbeams and His refreshing showers upon the "hills and valleys" of His beloved people.
Older translations call this crown God's "goodness" where the ESV says "bounty." That word does not measure how much He gave.
Human terms cannot measure the "goodness of God." It holds what is bountiful, joyful and loving. It expresses what He Himself is — for God is good. God meant to bring His people of old into an inheritance. It was a land on which His eyes rested "from the beginning of the year to the end of the year" (Deuteronomy 11:12). In the same way our portion is centred in One who is always the Object of God's pleasure and delight. The psalmist spoke of Him beforehand: "You have met Him with the blessings of goodness; You have set a crown of pure gold on His head" (Psalm 21:3).
The second half of the verse pictures God on the move. Older translations read "your paths drop fatness" — richness drips wherever He goes. One writer finds the same dripping in a spice used in Israel's holy incense, and then in Christ Himself.
The name of the spice stacte comes from a word meaning "to drop." It was a sweet spice that dropped by itself from the tree that produced it. Here is another emblem of the grace of the Lord Jesus, the Son of Man. Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. His paths dropped fatness. Wherever He went, true love, sympathy and pity flowed from His heart towards the weak, the weary and the afflicted.
Israel's harvest law told reapers to leave the corners of the field and the last grapes unpicked. One writer ties that law straight back to this verse.
A spirit of grasping greed was not to govern the reaper and the grape-gatherer. Such a spirit would strip the corners of the field and empty the branches of the vine. They were to act instead in a spirit of large-hearted, genuine kindness, which would leave a sheaf and a cluster "for the poor and the stranger." Then they too might rejoice in the unbounded goodness of Him whose paths drop fatness, and on whose open hand all who are in want may wait with confidence.
One writer reads these verses as a picture of the coming reign of Christ on earth. On that reading the crowned year is not one good season but a settled pattern.
"You crown the year with Your goodness" (v. 11). This clearly refers to the blessing of every year during the millennium. So there will be continual reason for thanksgiving. Rain will revive the wilderness, dry and desolate... Contented flocks will fill the pastures, and the valleys will prosper with growing grain. In that sense the land will "shout for joy" and sing praise to God.
The verse also invites a backward look over twelve months that were not all easy.
Our hearts must overflow in praise and thanks to our God for His gracious, continuing care through a year marked by growing lawlessness and danger on every hand. We cannot, and would not, ignore those conditions. But it is a real blessing to prove the encircling, protecting hand of our God day by day.
- Source. God does the whole work. He waters the ridges, settles the furrows and stoops to a farmer's job for His people — and delights in it.
- Circle. "Crown" also means to encircle for protection. The same word surrounds the righteous with favour like a shield, and crowns the soul with steadfast love.
- Overflow. His paths drip as He goes, like a spice dripping from its own tree. One writer sees Christ here: love and pity flowed from Him towards the weak wherever He went.
- Reach. The overflow was to spill past the harvester. Reapers left the corners of the field unreaped, so the poor and the stranger could rejoice in the same goodness.
- Return. In the coming kingdom every year will be crowned, and thanksgiving will never run out. Look back now over a hard year, and you can still trace that encircling hand, and answer, "Bless the LORD, O my soul."
They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness, and the hills are girded with gladness.
Psalm 65 ends with a picture of the earth under God's hand — watered, enriched, crowned. Verse 12 is where the blessing runs off the farmland into open country that no one sows. How far does God's goodness travel? When will the wild places break into this joy?
Psalm 65 sits between a plea for rescue and a song of praise after trouble.
Psalm 64 anticipates that God will intervene for the deliverance of His people. Psalm 65 speaks of the blessing that will visit the earth when God has stilled the tumult of the nations. Psalm 66 expresses the joy of the godly when brought through fire and water they can praise His Name in His house.
Verses 9 to 13 are not one blur of plenty. They move outward in stages, and verse 12 is the stage where the untilled land gets its share — with a sharp comment on why we no longer hear the earth singing.
This is traced in more detail in the verses that follow. First, the influence upon the land itself (v. 10). Then the seasons of the year, arranged with generous care (11). Then the wilderness receives its bounty (12). Then we have the result everywhere in flocks and crops, in which nature with its lavish beauty sings and rejoices (13). How we, with our sinful independence of God, have stopped this song in nature, and then declared it lifeless, joyless, godless! It is never this; and the day is coming in which such a divorce of God from His works will no longer be permitted — will no longer be possible.
One writer looks past the scenery. He reads the smaller heights as smaller governments, glad in that day instead of blamed.
The wilderness, dry and desolate, will be revived by rain. "The little hills" speak of lesser governments, rejoicing then rather than being criticized as they are today. Contented flocks will fill the pastures. The valleys will prosper with growing grain. So the land will, in a figure, "shout for joy" and sing praise to God.
Everything in this verse falls from above. Two lands show what that means in practice.
What a vivid contrast between Egypt and Canaan! Egypt had no rain from heaven. It was all human effort there. Not so in the Lord's land; the human foot could do nothing there, nor was there any need, for the blessed rain from heaven dropped upon it, and the Lord Himself cared for it, watering it with the early and the later rains. The land of Egypt was dependent upon its own resources; the land of Canaan was wholly dependent upon God — upon what came down from heaven. "My river is my own," was the language of Egypt. "The river of God" was the hope of Canaan. The habit in Egypt was to water with the foot; the habit in Canaan was to look up to heaven.
That dependence is not a burden to God. He takes up the farmer's work Himself, and enjoys it.
Only think of God watering the ridges, and settling the furrows! Think of His stooping down to do the work of a farmer for His people! Yes, and delighting to do it! It was the joy of His heart to pour His sunbeams and His refreshing showers upon the "hills and valleys" of His beloved people. It refreshed His spirit, and brought praise to His Name, to see the vine, the fig tree and the olive flourishing, the valleys covered with golden grain, and the rich pastures covered with flocks of sheep.
The overflowing pastures point to a coming day, when the ground itself will be free.
Now notice what is going to happen in that day. God will remove the curse entirely. It was partly eased in the day of Noah, but in Messiah's day it will be abolished altogether. Isaiah 35 states this plainly: "The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus… For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert." In that day the Lord puts His hand upon the face of creation.
- Stilled first. Blessing arrives after God has quieted the uproar of the nations. Peace comes before plenty.
- Given, not earned. Egypt lived by human effort; Canaan lived by rain from heaven. The whole supply in this verse still drops from above.
- Reaching furthest. The blessing moves out in stages: tilled soil, then the seasons, then the wilderness. It does not stop where farming stops.
- Answered in joy. The hills answer what they receive. Creation has its own song, and our independence from God silenced it.
- Coming fully. In Messiah's day the curse goes completely. Then nothing will keep God and His works apart.
The meadows are clothed with flocks, and the valleys are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, yea, they sing.
The psalm ends where it has been heading all along: God waters the ground, and the ground answers Him with a shout. Two questions sit under the closing line. Whose work is this harvest? And when do the fields truly break into song?
Why does a psalm that ends in song begin with praise that is silent? The answer is a matter of timing.
Psalm 65 shows praise waiting there. When He has accomplished the victory, praise will flow out. All nations shall be blessed. Their faith had reached that point. Trusting, when circumstances are against us, is real faith. But once God has brought the great deliverance, praise knows no limit.
The silence had a reason, and the psalm names it early on.
The godly confess the cause of the silence in Zion. Their iniquities have prevailed against them. Still, they are confident that God will purge those iniquities away. They know that the godly are the objects of sovereign grace.
The shout of verse 13 belongs to a changed earth.
The closing verses present a beautiful picture of the millennial blessing of the earth, when all evil has been dealt with in judgment. The curse removed, or held in check, God will visit the earth in blessing. He will give the grain, prepare the land to yield its increase, and command the seasons to run their course. The wilderness will become pastures for the flocks. Fields of grain will cover the valleys. Over all will rise the song of praise and joy.
The flocks and the grain are not the work of good weather. A few verses earlier, God Himself is doing the muddy jobs of a farmer.
How perfectly beautiful! Only think of God watering the ridges, and settling the furrows! Think of Him stooping down to do a farmer's work for His people! Yes, and delighting to do it! It was the joy of His heart to pour His sunbeams and His refreshing showers upon the "hills and valleys" of His beloved people. It refreshed His spirit, and it was to the praise of His Name, to see the vine, the fig tree and the olive flourishing. It refreshed Him to see the valleys covered with golden grain, and the rich pastures full of flocks of sheep.
The verse gives fields a voice. That song was never absent. Our own independence from God deafened us to it.
Fully it is traced here to Him, the power working everywhere, first preparing the land, then preparing the grain. This is traced in more detail in the verses that follow. First, the influence on the land itself (v. 10). Then the seasons of the year arranged with generous care (11). Then the wilderness receives its bounty (12). Then comes the result everywhere: flocks and crops in which nature, with its lavish beauty, sings and rejoices (13). Ah, how we, with our sinful independence of God, have stopped this song in nature, and then proclaimed it lifeless, joyless, godless! It is never this. The day is coming when such a divorce of God from His works will no longer be permitted — it will no longer be possible.
The same picture answers a modern fear. Can the earth feed everyone?
God's river, for the supply and refreshment of mankind, has infinite fullness. It is full of water, and it tells of His unfailing resources to sustain the wide creation. Men may have their difficulties and anxieties about whether the earth's supplies are enough to maintain the human race. But there is abundance of resource with God, and God will display this in the coming day.
The psalm puts the shout of joy in the valleys. One writer applies that to the valleys people walk through.
Refreshment, support and a joy that cannot be restrained belong to those passing through the valleys of God.
- Silence — praise waits in Zion while the godly confess their sin. The song of verse 13 breaks out after God has purged iniquity and won the victory.
- Stooping — the harvest is God's own farming. He waters the ridges and settles the furrows, and He delights to do it for His people.
- Song — creation's praise is real, not decoration. Our own independence from God silenced it in our ears.
- Supply — the river of God is full. Fear that the earth will run short meets a God of unfailing resource.
- Scope — one day God removes the curse, and flocks, fields and valleys all sing. Until then, the valleys you walk through are still where He grows the crop.