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The Lord preserveth the strangers - He regards them with interest; he defends and guides them. This is the ninth reason why those who trust in the Lord are happy. The stranger - away from home and friends; with no one to feel an interest in him or sympathy for him; with the feeling that he is forsaken; with no one on whom he can call for sympathy in distress - may find in God one who will regard his condition; who will sympathize with him; who is able to protect and befriend him. Compare Exodus 12:49; Exodus 22:21; Exodus 23:9; Leviticus 19:33; Deuteronomy 1:16; Deuteronomy 10:18-19; Isaiah 56:3, Isaiah 56:6.
He relieveth the fatherless and widow - He is their friend. This is the tenth reason why those who put their trust in the Lord are happy. It is that God is the Friend of those who have no earthly protector. See the notes at Psalm 68:5: “A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation.”
But the way of the wicked he turneth upside down - He overturns their plans; defeats their schemes; makes their purposes accomplish what they did not intend they should accomplish. The Hebrew word here means to bend, to curve, to make crooked, to distort; then, to overturn, to turn upside down. The same word is applied to the conduct of the wicked, in Psalm 119:78: “They dealt perversely with me.” The idea here is, that their path is not a straight path; that God makes it a crooked way; that they are diverted from their design; that through them he accomplishes purposes which they did not intend; that he prevents their accomplishing their own designs; and that he will make their plans subservient to a higher and better purpose than their own. This is the eleventh reason why those who put their trust in God are happy. It is that God is worthy of confidence and love, because he has all the plans of wicked men entirely under his control.
“Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God: which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is: which keepeth truth for ever: which executeth judgment for the oppressed: which giveth food to the hungry.... The Lord shall reign for ever, even thy God, O Zion, unto all generations. Praise ye the Lord” (Psalm 146:5-10).—Manuscript 51, August 1, 1895, “God to Control His Heritage.” UL 227.8
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