Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1285
“To Him which smote great kings: for His mercy endures fore ver: and slew famous kings: for His mercy endures forever: Sihon king of the Amorites: for His mercy endures forever: and Og the king of Bashan: for His mercy endures forever: and ga ve their land for a heritage: for His mercy endures forever: even a heritage unto Israel His servant: for His mercy endures forever.” Psalm 136:17-22.
THESE six verses iterate and reiterate the same fact. They rehearse and repeat the same reflection. Is the tautology tedious? Do the chimes weary you with their monotony? No. And this is a veritable charm in poetry. When the poet touches upon some important theme which illuminates his soul and kindles his nobler passions to a flame, he is very apt to dwell upon it with enthusiasm, inclined to pursue it with eagerness, to follow it up with feeling and echo it over and over again with strong and yet stronger emotion. Nobody feels that repetition is out of place in poetry, because in weal or woe, with pleasure or with pathos, we dwell on the theme which awakens our sympathy.
This Psalm, of which the refrain is always the same—“His mercy endures forever,” has in it several instances of this repetition. “To Him that made great lights,” is followed by, “The sun to rule by day,” and by the next, “The moon and stars to rule by night: for His mercy endures forever.” The repetition is natural and secures attention. The words are musical as they strike on our ears and the style is not only allowable, but acceptable as a beautiful license of the poetic school. For my part, I like a repetition in the tune of a Psalm as well as in its language. There has sprung up a fashion in music, now, to quibble at repeats. I must confess, I do not feel of the same mind as some who, when the Psalm or hymn is given out, seem to say, “Now, let us go through it as quickly as ever we can, from beginning to end.”
I prefer to chew some of the words—to have them come over again—to get the flavor of them in my mouth, or rather, in my soul. For instance, an old tune like the one we have sung is none the worse because it gives us the repeat of “His loving kindness.” Such a word as that you would like to keep on repeating, if it were necessary, a dozen times—
“His loving kindness, His loving kindness, Oh, how good!”
A repeat ought to be considered a beauty rather than a blemish in music. There is, moreover, a reason for every repetition in Scripture, for we may say of the ornaments of poetry, when we find them in the sacred Volume, that they are never mere ornaments. The repetitions, though elegant, are not merely flowers of rhetoric—they have a design. The Holy Spirit dwells upon a theme because He has an intention in doing so.
My present purpose is to endeavor to show you why there should be six verses here when one verse might have sufficed. It is clear one might have been quite sufficient. Suppose it had run thus—“Who slew famous kings, Sihon king of the Amorites and Og king of Bashan, and gave their land for a heritage to His people: for His mercy endures forever.” That would have comprehended all the sense, but the Holy Spirit did not judge that to be the best way of speaking, and so He divided it into six parts. He repeated it that there might be heard six times the refrain—“His mercy endures forever.” Not, I think, merely for the sake of repeating that beautiful Truth of God so often, but for other reasons connected with the Truth of which He was writing. It is well to dwell long and to dwell deliberately, upon some of God’s dealings with us. This is the theme on which I want to thread a few ideas.
I. And, first, IT IS WELL TO DELIBERATE LONG OVER THE MERCIFUL SIDE OF GOD’S JUDGMENTS. One does not always see mercy in, He “slew mighty kings: for His mercy endures forever: and smote famous kings: for His mercy endures forever.” It would have read more naturally if He had said, “Who smote mighty kings: for His justice endures forever: and slew famous kings: for His vengeance endures forever.” The point to be brought out, however, was
that there was mercy in these judgments. The Holy Spirit would have us know that there is mercy abroad in the world even—
“When God’s right arm is bared for war, And thunder clothes His mighty bar.”
The removal from the earth of these great oppressive kings, though it was terrible for them, was a great blessing! When tyrants die, nations have time to breathe. When great oppressors are cut off, it is as when a lion falls, or as when wolves are slain and the deer and sheep have time to rest. Who knows how often, in answer to the tear of the slave, God has been pleased to smite his tyrant master? Mercy, herself, had brushed the tear from her eye, and said, “Smite, O God!” Sometimes when we have read stories of oppression and tyranny, wrong and violence, the gentlest among us, who would not have hurt a hair of a man’s head, have been the very first to express indignation and to marvel that God kept back the thunderbolt—that He did not pour vengeance on the adversary and deliver the injured and down-trodden.