John Calvin Commentary Psalms 68:9

"Thou, O God, didst send a plentiful rain, Thou didst confirm thine inheritance, when it was weary." — Psalms 68:9 (ASV)

You, O God! shall make a liberal rain to fall upon your inheritance. Mention is made here of the continued course of favor that had been extended to the people from the time when they first entered the promised land. It is called the inheritance of God, as having been assigned to his own children.

Others understand by the inheritance spoken of in the verse, the Church, but this is not correct, for it is afterwards stated as being the place where the Church dwelt. The title is appropriately given to the land of Canaan, which God made over to them by right of inheritance.

David notes that, from the first settlement of the seed of Abraham in it, God had never ceased to make the kindest fatherly provision for them, sending his rain in due season to prepare their food. The words translated a liberal rain, read literally in the Hebrew a rain of freenesses, and I agree with interpreters in thinking that he alludes to the blessing as having come in the exercise of free favor, and to God, as having of his own unprompted goodness provided for all the needs of his people.

Some read a desirable rain; others, a rain flowing without violence, or gentle; but neither of these renderings seems suitable. Others read a copious or plentiful rain; but I have already stated what appears to me to be the preferable sense. It was a proof, then, of his divine liberality, that God watered the land seasonably with showers.

There is clearly a reference to the land of Judea, which owed its fertility to dews and the rains of heaven. In allusion to the same circumstance, he speaks of its being refreshed when weary. The reason is assigned—because it had been given to his chosen people to dwell in.

On no other account was it blessed than as being the habitation of God’s Church and people. The more to impress upon the minds of the Jews their obligations to divine goodness, he represents them as pensioners depending upon God for their daily food. He fed them with the finest of the wheat, giving them wine, honey, and oil in abundance—still he proportioned the bestowal of his kindness so as to keep them always expectantly dependent on himself.

Some, instead of reading, You will prepare with your goodness, etc., render it, You will prepare with rich food; but, without absolutely objecting to this translation, I rather think that he refers to the circumstance of God's being moved to provide for his people entirely by his own good pleasure.