13 He strengthens the bars of your gates and blesses your people within you.
13 For he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates; he hath blessed thy children within thee.
13 For he strengthens the bars of your gates; he blesses your children within you.
13 He made your city secure, he blessed your children among you.
13 For He has strengthened the bars of your gates; He has blessed your children within you.
13 For he has strengthened the bars of your gates and blessed your children within your walls.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Psalm 147:13
Commentary on Psalm 147:12-20
(Read Psalm 147:12-20)
The church, like Jerusalem of old, built up and preserved by the wisdom, power, and goodness of God, is exhorted to praise him for all the benefits and blessings vouchsafed to her; and these are represented by his favours in the course of nature. The thawing word may represent the gospel of Christ, and the thawing wind the Spirit of Christ; for the Spirit is compared to the wind, John 3:8. Converting grace softens the heart that was hard frozen, and melts it into tears of repentance, and makes good reflections to flow, which before were chilled and stopped up. The change which the thaw makes is very evident, yet how it is done no one can say. Such is the change wrought in the conversion of a soul, when God's word and Spirit are sent to melt it and restore it to itself.