You crown the year with your bounty; your wagon tracks overflow with abundance.
Psalm 65 moves from answered prayer and forgiveness to the land itself, watered and made to yield. Verse 11 sits at the top of that picture: God sets a crown on the year.
What "crown" means
The word for "crown" is not only about honour placed on a head. It also means to encircle, and the older wording quoted below shows that.
F. A. HughesThe word "crownest" might be rendered "encircled for protection" or "compassed about." It is given that way in Psalm 5:12: "For you, Lord, will bless the righteous; with favour you will surround him as with a shield." The same word appears again in Psalm 103. There the psalmist breaks out: "Bless the LORD, O my soul... Who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy; who satisfies you with good."
God at work like a farmer
The verses just before this one describe ridges watered and furrows settled. Those are a farmer's jobs, and God does them Himself.
C. H. MackintoshHow perfectly beautiful! Only think of God watering the ridges, and settling the furrows! Think of His stooping down to do the work of a farmer for His people! Yes, and delighting to do it! It was the joy of His heart to pour His sunbeams and His refreshing showers upon the "hills and valleys" of His beloved people.
The goodness that crowns it
Older translations call this crown God's "goodness" where the ESV says "bounty." That word does not measure how much He gave.
F. A. HughesHuman terms cannot measure the "goodness of God." It holds what is bountiful, joyful and loving. It expresses what He Himself is — for God is good. God meant to bring His people of old into an inheritance. It was a land on which His eyes rested "from the beginning of the year to the end of the year" (Deuteronomy 11:12). In the same way our portion is centred in One who is always the Object of God's pleasure and delight. The psalmist spoke of Him beforehand: "You have met Him with the blessings of goodness; You have set a crown of pure gold on His head" (Psalm 21:3).
Paths that leave a trail
The second half of the verse pictures God on the move. Older translations read "your paths drop fatness" — richness drips wherever He goes. One writer finds the same dripping in a spice used in Israel's holy incense, and then in Christ Himself.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinThe name of the spice stacte comes from a word meaning "to drop." It was a sweet spice that dropped by itself from the tree that produced it. Here is another emblem of the grace of the Lord Jesus, the Son of Man. Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. His paths dropped fatness. Wherever He went, true love, sympathy and pity flowed from His heart towards the weak, the weary and the afflicted.
Overflow meant to be shared
Israel's harvest law told reapers to leave the corners of the field and the last grapes unpicked. One writer ties that law straight back to this verse.
C. H. MackintoshA spirit of grasping greed was not to govern the reaper and the grape-gatherer. Such a spirit would strip the corners of the field and empty the branches of the vine. They were to act instead in a spirit of large-hearted, genuine kindness, which would leave a sheaf and a cluster "for the poor and the stranger." Then they too might rejoice in the unbounded goodness of Him whose paths drop fatness, and on whose open hand all who are in want may wait with confidence.
A year, and then every year
One writer reads these verses as a picture of the coming reign of Christ on earth. On that reading the crowned year is not one good season but a settled pattern.
L M Grant"You crown the year with Your goodness" (v. 11). This clearly refers to the blessing of every year during the millennium. So there will be continual reason for thanksgiving. Rain will revive the wilderness, dry and desolate... Contented flocks will fill the pastures, and the valleys will prosper with growing grain. In that sense the land will "shout for joy" and sing praise to God.
Reading your own year by it
The verse also invites a backward look over twelve months that were not all easy.
F. A. HughesOur hearts must overflow in praise and thanks to our God for His gracious, continuing care through a year marked by growing lawlessness and danger on every hand. We cannot, and would not, ignore those conditions. But it is a real blessing to prove the encircling, protecting hand of our God day by day.
Summary
- Source. God does the whole work. He waters the ridges, settles the furrows and stoops to a farmer's job for His people — and delights in it.
- Circle. "Crown" also means to encircle for protection. The same word surrounds the righteous with favour like a shield, and crowns the soul with steadfast love.
- Overflow. His paths drip as He goes, like a spice dripping from its own tree. One writer sees Christ here: love and pity flowed from Him towards the weak wherever He went.
- Reach. The overflow was to spill past the harvester. Reapers left the corners of the field unreaped, so the poor and the stranger could rejoice in the same goodness.
- Return. In the coming kingdom every year will be crowned, and thanksgiving will never run out. Look back now over a hard year, and you can still trace that encircling hand, and answer, "Bless the LORD, O my soul."