1 Chronicles 16:34

Psalm 136 celebrates a blessed principle tied to Zion, the place of sovereign grace in power. We have our place of praise and thanksgiving because of this: His mercy endures for ever. Ichabod had been written on Israel. The ark was where the blood was to be placed on the day of atonement, so that Israel might have a place with God. And that ark was taken — as far as Israel went, lost. But God's mercy endures for ever, and David, as soon as he sets the ark on Zion, establishes this song there.

David brings back the ark from Kirjath-Jearim. But he does not put it back in the tabernacle, where the outward form of worship went on. He puts it on Mount Zion, which God had chosen to be the seat of the kingship. Here it was grace, and grace exercised in power. So then, for the first time, David sets up the singing of the hymn: "For His mercy endures for ever."

Next comes this form of words: "His mercy endures for ever." It declares that despite all the faults, all the sins and all the unfaithfulness of Israel, Jehovah's mercy has stood firm. This will be shown in full when the Lamb — the true ark of the covenant and the real David — stands on Mount Zion, even before He takes the character of Solomon.

The third section of our chapter (vv. 34-36) is a citation from Psalm 106:1, 47-48. Its first verse suits the character of Chronicles and the moment when David gave his "first" psalm. Our passage deals only with the setting up of the ark in Zion, and leaves out all the rest of the psalm. That is because the psalm tells the history of the people under responsibility, and their complete failure in every situation they passed through — in Egypt, in the wilderness, and in Canaan.

That chorus had been sung in the bright day of David's success: when he brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite to Jerusalem (1 Chron. 16:41). It sounded again in the days of Solomon, when the cloud and glory of His manifest presence filled the house of the Lord at Jerusalem (2 Chron. 5:13). Then the glory and brightness and successes of those days passed away, and the failure and ruin of Israel was complete. Even so, the returned remnant could raise the very same old note of praise… They had been faithless, but He was faithful.

This song will be sung during the millennium. But it could already be sung at the dawn of the reign of David and of the reign of Solomon (2 Chron. 5:13). That was the moment when God, in a foreshadowing picture, fulfilled His purposes of grace for the kingship.

From first to last, and during all the time between, it is and will be nothing but mercy. Mercy in creation — and we can go further back still, even to God's purposes of grace in Christ before the foundation of the world. Mercy in our redemption, in our guidance through the wilderness, in our deliverance from our enemies, and in God putting us in possession of all that He has secured for us in Christ, whether now or when we are for ever with the Lord. So we may take up Israel's song and cry without ceasing, "O give thanks to the Lord; for He is good, for His mercy endures for ever."