Chapter One Hundred Sixteen

The said psalm is a continuation of the preceding two, 114 and 115: there the writer thanked and praised the Lord on behalf of the entire people in his prayer, which is the prayer of all Israel, here, struck and moved by the help shown to him from the Lord, he invites all the tribes of people, foreign nations, to take part in the praise and thanksgiving of God. This invitation of the writer, this his call to the nations, testifies to such a depth of his faith in the true Lord, to such clarity of his conception and understanding that the events occurring in life clearly testify to the action of His providence in the world, that for him there remained no doubt that the nations would not come to know Him and understand the falseness of their gods. This period of conversion to the true God, certain for the writer but undefined in time of fulfillment, he desires to hasten by his present appeal to them. For this reason the Apostle Paul (Rom 15:11) sees here a prophecy of the conversion of the nations.