Remember, O Lord - That is, In thy future treatment of me, bring to remembrance what thou hast done, and treat me in the same manner still. The language is that of one who felt that God had always been kind and gracious, and who asked for the future a continuance of the favors of the past. If we would recall, the goodness of God in the past, we should find enough to lay the foundation of prayer in reference to that which is to come. If we saw and fully understood all that has happened to us, we would need to offer no other prayer than that God might deal with us in the future as He has done in the past.

Thy tender mercies - Margin, as in Hebrew: "thy bowels." The Hebrew word means the "inner parts" regarded by the Hebrews as the seat of the affections. See the notes at Isaiah 16:11.

And thy loving-kindnesses - Thy tokens of favor; thy acts of mercy and compassion.

For they have been ever of old - "For from eternity are they." The language is that of a heart deeply impressed with a sense of the goodness God. In looking over his own life, the author of the psalm saw that the mercies of God had been unceasing and constant toward him from his earliest years. In words expressive of warm love and gratitude, therefore, he says that those acts of mercy had never failed - had been from eternity. His thoughts rise from the acts of God toward himself to the character of God, and to His attributes of mercy and love; and his heart is full of the idea that God is "always" good; that it belongs to His very nature to do good.

Remember, O Lord, thy tender mercies, and thy loving-kindness - The word רחמים rachamim, means the commiseration that a man feels in his bowels at the sight of distress. The second word, חסדים chasadim, signifies those kindnesses which are the offspring of a profusion of benevolence.

They have been ever of old - Thou wert ever wont to display thyself as a ceaseless fountain of good to all thy creatures.

Remember, O Lord, thy tender mercies and thy loving kindnesses,.... Not the providential mercy and kindness of God, in the care of him in his mother's womb, at the time of his birth, in his nurture and education, and in the preservation of him to the present time; but the special mercy, grace, and love of God in Christ: the sense of the petition is the same with that of Psalm 106:4; which are expressed in the plural number, because of the largeness and abundance of it, and because of the various acts and instances of it; the Lord is rich and plenteous in mercy, abundant in goodness; his love is exceeding great, and numerous are the ways and methods in which it is declared, both in eternity and in time; and though he can never forget his love, nor the people whom he loves, for they are engraven on his hand, and set as a seal on his heart; yet he sometimes seems, by the conduct of his providence, as if he did not remember it, and had no tender affection for them; and their unbelief is ready to say, the Lord has forgotten to be gracious; and the design of such a petition as this is to entreat a fresh discovery and application of the grace, mercy, and loving kindness of God, and which he allows his people to put him in remembrance of;

for they have been ever of old: meaning not only from the time of his birth, and in after appearances of God for him, nor the favours shown to the people of Israel in former times at the Red sea, and in the wilderness and elsewhere, and to the patriarchs from the beginning of the world; but the love of God from everlasting, which appears in the choice of his people in Christ, before the foundation of the world, in the everlasting covenant of grace made with him, and in the setting of him up as the Mediator of it, and in putting his people into his hands, with all grace and spiritual blessings for them before the world began; and which love as it is from everlasting it is to everlasting, and remains invariably the same.

The supplicatory reminiscere means, may God never forget to exercise His pity and grace towards him, which are (as the plurals imply) so rich and superabundant. The ground on which the prayer is based is introduced with כּי (nam, or even quoniam). God's compassion and grace are as old in their operation and efficacy as man's feebleness and sin; in their counsels they are eternal, and therefore have also in themselves the pledge of eternal duration (Psalm 100:5; Psalm 103:17).

Remember, O LORD, thy tender mercies and thy lovingkindnesses; for they have been ever of old.

tender...: Heb. bowels

6, 7. Confessing past and present sins, he pleads for mercy, not on palliations of sin, but on God's well-known benevolence.

25:1-7 In worshipping God, we must lift up our souls to him. It is certain that none who, by a believing attendance, wait on God, and, by a believing hope, wait for him, shall be ashamed of it. The most advanced believer both needs and desires to be taught of God. If we sincerely desire to know our duty, with resolution to do it, we may be sure that God will direct us in it. The psalmist is earnest for the pardon of his sins. When God pardons sin, he is said to remember it no more, which denotes full remission. It is God's goodness, and not ours, his mercy, and not our merit, that must be our plea for the pardon of sin, and all the good we need. This plea we must rely upon, feeling our own unworthiness, and satisfied of the riches of God's mercy and grace. How boundless is that mercy which covers for ever the sins and follies of a youth spent without God and without hope! Blessed be the Lord, the blood of the great Sacrifice can wash away every stain.