John Calvin Commentary Psalms 135:4

"For Jehovah hath chosen Jacob unto himself, [And] Israel for his own possession." — Psalms 135:4 (ASV)

For God has chosen Jacob. Other reasons are given later why they should praise God, drawn from His government of the world. But as it was only the children of Abraham who were favored with the knowledge of God at that time, and were capable of praising Him, the Psalmist directs them to the fact of their having been chosen by God to be His peculiar people, as giving them cause for thanksgiving. The mercy was surely one of incomparable value, and which might well stir them up to fervent gratitude and praise, adopted as they were into favor with God, while the whole Gentile world was passed by.

The praise of their election is given by the Psalmist to God—a clear proof that they owed the distinction not to any excellence of their own, but to the free mercy of God the Father which had been extended to them. He has laid all without exception under obligation to His service, for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good (Matthew 5:45).

But He bound the posterity of Abraham to Himself by a closer tie, such as that by which He now adopts people generally into His Church, and unites them with the body of His only-begotten Son.