John Calvin Commentary Psalms 133:1

"Behold, how good and how pleasant it is For brethren to dwell together in unity!" — Psalms 133:1 (ASV)

Behold how good, etc. I have no doubt that David in this Psalm gives thanks to God for the peace and harmony that followed a long and melancholy state of confusion and division in the kingdom, and that he would exhort all individually to strive for the maintenance of peace.

This is the subject elaborated on, at least as far as the shortness of the Psalm allows. There was ample reason to praise the goodness of God in the highest terms for uniting into one a people that had been so deplorably divided. When he first came to the kingdom, the larger part of the nation considered him an enemy to the public good and were alienated from him.

Indeed, so deadly was the feud that existed, that nothing but the destruction of the opposing party seemed to offer the prospect of peace. The hand of God was wonderfully and most unexpectedly seen in the concord that followed among them, when those who had been inflamed with the most violent antipathy cordially coalesced.

This peculiarity in the circumstances that prompted the Psalm has unfortunately been overlooked by interpreters, who have considered that David merely offers a general commendation of brotherly union, without any such particular reference. The exclamation with which the Psalm opens, Behold! is particularly expressive, not only as it sets the state of things visibly before our eyes, but also as it suggests an implied contrast between the delightfulness of peace and those civil commotions that had almost torn the kingdom apart.

He proclaims the goodness of God in exalted terms, as the Jews, through long experience of internal feuds that had nearly ruined the nation, had learned the inestimable value of union. That this is the meaning of the passage is further shown by the particle gam, at the end of the verse.

It should not be understood, as some who have mistaken the Psalmist’s meaning do, as being a mere copulative, but as adding emphasis to the context. It is as if he had said: We, who were naturally brothers, had become so divided as to view one another with more bitter hatred than any foreign enemy; but now, how good it is that we should cultivate a spirit of brotherly concord!

At the same time, there can be no doubt that the Holy Spirit is commending in this passage the mutual harmony that should exist among all God’s children, and exhorting us to make every effort to maintain it. As long as animosities divide us and resentments prevail among us, we may undoubtedly still be brothers by our common relationship to God, but we cannot be considered one as long as we present the appearance of a broken and dismembered body.

As we are one in God the Father and in Christ, this union must be ratified among us by mutual harmony and fraternal love. If it should happen in God’s providence that the Papists should return to that holy concord from which they have apostatized, it would be in such terms that we would be called to give thanks to God. Meanwhile, we are bound to receive into our brotherly embrace all who cheerfully submit themselves to the Lord.

We are to set ourselves against those turbulent spirits that the devil will never fail to raise up in the Church, and be diligent to maintain fellowship with those who show a teachable and compliant disposition. But we cannot extend this fellowship to those who obstinately persist in error, since the condition for receiving them as brothers would be our renouncing Him who is Father of all, from whom all spiritual relationship originates.

The peace that David recommends is one that begins in the true head, and this is quite enough to refute the unfounded charge of schism and division that has been brought against us by the Papists, while we have given abundant evidence of our desire for them to coalesce with us in God’s truth, which is the only bond of holy union.