Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy paths drop fatness.
Thou crownest the year with thy goodness means God crowns the whole year with His goodness and makes His paths overflow with rich abundance and plenty. His care is seen in making morning and evening rejoice, and in filling the land with fruitfulness through rain that softens and waters the fields to bring abundant crops and pasture. He does this by guiding the land, watching over it day and night, and sending sun and rain to soften and water the fields, so that orchard and field yield abundant harvests of grain, olives and oil, palms, dates and grapes. Beyond the harvest, the verse reveals God as the trust of all the ends of the earth and of those far off at sea, who by strength fixes the mountains, quiets the roaring seas and the turmoil of peoples, and makes morning and evening rejoice.
It describes the constant invisible work of Christ as man's servant to answer prayer for daily bread and to fulfill the promise of clothing. An invisible power is continually at work to feed and clothe man, employing many agencies to turn seed that seems thrown away into a living plant, and supplying everything required in due proportion to bring the harvest to perfection and crown the year with goodness. The yearly physical provision represents and is always joined with spiritual blessings, for God employs symbols of the natural world to teach divine truth about spiritual and invisible things. All success and good things come from God as the bountiful Giver and Creator of heaven and earth, not from nature itself, while heathen credit them to their gods and those with the Bible are blameworthy if they fail to trace them to Him.
In connection with the verse, Jesus as the living Saviour bought people from the hand of the enemy and tenderly unites all who receive and believe in Him closely with Himself. The verse warns of a future harvest that will be terrible for those who depend on a harvest yet never sow themselves. It is celebrated and fulfilled in Israel's harvest festival, the Feast of Tabernacles, the closing seven-day gathering of the year, when gratitude for the yearly provision was expressed with gifts and tributes of thanksgiving. That thanksgiving gathering brought people from far and near to Jerusalem, old and young, rich and poor, with rejoicing and offerings, dwelling a week in leafy booths with social reunion and sacred remembrance. They brought tokens and green boughs from the woods until the city looked like a beautiful forest, and showed generous hospitality to Levites, strangers and the poor.
With Christ received as an abiding guest, the verse becomes a personal song of praise and thanksgiving learned by going into the fields with Christ in the heart. It is learned by opening the heart to God's great spiritual teaching, holding communion with nature's God, and resting in His love while the things of nature take up the parables of Christ and minister His counsels.
Thou crownest the year with thy goodness means God crowns the whole year with His goodness and makes His paths overflow with rich abundance and plenty. His care is seen in making morning and evening rejoice, and in filling the land with fruitfulness through rain that softens and waters the fields to bring abundant crops and pasture. He does this by guiding the land, watching over it day and night, and sending sun and rain to soften and water the fields, so that orchard and field yield abundant harvests of grain, olives and oil, palms, dates and grapes. Beyond the harvest, the verse reveals God as the trust of all the ends of the earth and of those far off at sea, who by strength fixes the mountains, quiets the roaring seas and the turmoil of peoples, and makes morning and evening rejoice.
It describes the constant invisible work of Christ as man's servant to answer prayer for daily bread and to fulfill the promise of clothing. An invisible power is continually at work to feed and clothe man, employing many agencies to turn seed that seems thrown away into a living plant, and supplying everything required in due proportion to bring the harvest to perfection and crown the year with goodness. The yearly physical provision represents and is always joined with spiritual blessings, for God employs symbols of the natural world to teach divine truth about spiritual and invisible things. All success and good things come from God as the bountiful Giver and Creator of heaven and earth, not from nature itself, while heathen credit them to their gods and those with the Bible are blameworthy if they fail to trace them to Him.
In connection with the verse, Jesus as the living Saviour bought people from the hand of the enemy and tenderly unites all who receive and believe in Him closely with Himself. The verse warns of a future harvest that will be terrible for those who depend on a harvest yet never sow themselves. It is celebrated and fulfilled in Israel's harvest festival, the Feast of Tabernacles, the closing seven-day gathering of the year, when gratitude for the yearly provision was expressed with gifts and tributes of thanksgiving. That thanksgiving gathering brought people from far and near to Jerusalem, old and young, rich and poor, with rejoicing and offerings, dwelling a week in leafy booths with social reunion and sacred remembrance. They brought tokens and green boughs from the woods until the city looked like a beautiful forest, and showed generous hospitality to Levites, strangers and the poor.
With Christ received as an abiding guest, the verse becomes a personal song of praise and thanksgiving learned by going into the fields with Christ in the heart. It is learned by opening the heart to God's great spiritual teaching, holding communion with nature's God, and resting in His love while the things of nature take up the parables of Christ and minister His counsels.