Attributed commentary excerpt
Barnes' Notes on Zechariah 9:17
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Notes on the Whole Bible
Albert Barnes (1798–1870) · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
For how great is His goodness - For it is unutterable! As the Psalmist said, “O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Thy Name in all the earth!” Psalms 8:1, and Jacob, “How awful is this place!” Genesis 28:17, and the Psalmist, “How awful are Thy doings!” The goodness and the beauty are the goodness and beauty of God, whose great doings had been his theme throughout before. Of the goodness the sacred writers often speak , since of this we have extremest need. And this He showed to Moses, “I will cause all My goodness to pass before thy face” Exodus 33:19. Of this we know somewhat personally in this life; for beside the surpassing. amazingness of it in the work of our redemption, we are surrounded by it, immersed in it, as in a fathomless, shoreless ocean of infinite love, which finds entrance into our souls, whenever we bar it not out. Goodness is that attribute of God, whereby He loveth to communicate to all, who can or will receive it, all good; yea, Himself , “who is the fullness and universality of good, Creator of all good, not in one way, not in one kind of goodness only, but absolutely, without beginning, without limit, without measure, save that whereby without measurement He possesseth and embraceth all excellence, all perfection, all blessedness, all good.” This Good His Goodness bestoweth on all and each, according to the capacity of each to receive it, nor is there any limit to His giving, save His creature’s capacity of receiving, which also is a good gift from Him. “From Him all things sweet derive their sweetness; all things fair, their beauty; all things bright, their splendor; all things that live, their life; all things sentient, their sense; all that move, their vigor; all intelligences, their knowledge; all things perfect, their perfection; all things in any wise good, their goodness.” The beauty of God - Belongs rather to the beatific vision. Yet David speaks of the Beauty of Christ, “Thou art exceeding fairer then the children of men” Psalms 45:2; and Isaiah says, “Thine eyes shall behold the King in His beauty” Isaiah 33:17. But the Beauty of God “eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor can heart of man conceive.” Here, on earth, created beauty can, at least when suddenly seen, hold the frame motionless, pierce the soul, glue the heart to it, entrance the affections. Light from heaven kindles into beauty our dullest material substances; the soul in grace diffuses beauty over the dullest human countenance; the soul, ere it has passed from the body, has been known to catch, through the half-opened portals, such brilliancy of light, that the eye even for some time after death has retained a brightness, beyond anything of earth . “The earth’s form of beauty is a sort of voice of the dumb earth. Doth not, on considering the beauty of this universe, its very form answer thee with one voice, ‘Not I made myself, but God?’” Poets have said: “Old friends ... shall lovelier be, As more of heaven in each we see,” (Christian Year. Morning Hymn.) Or, “When he saw, “ - God within him light his face.” (Tennyson, In memoriam. T. has “The God.”) And Holy Scripture tells us that when Stephen, “full of faith and of the Holy Spirit,” was about to speak of Jesus to the council which arraigned him, “all that sat in the council, looking steadfastly at him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel” Acts 6:5, Acts 6:15. It has been said, that if we could see a soul in grace, its beauty would so pierce us, that we should die. But the nat…
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