Psalm 145:9

“The Lord is good to all; and his tender mercies are over all his works.”

John Calvin (1509-1564)

Truth here stated is of wider application than the former (verse), for the declaration of David is to the effect, that not only does God, with fatherly indulgence and clemency, forgive sin, but is good to all without discrimination, as he makes his sun to rise upon the good and the wicked (Matt. v. 45). Forgiveness of sin is a treasure from which the wicked are excluded, but their sin and depravity does not prevent God from showering down his goodness upon them, which they appropriate without being at all sensible of it. Meanwhile believers, and they only, know what it is to enjoy a reconciled God, as elsewhere it is said–“Come ye to him, and be ye enlightened, and your faces shall not be ashamed; taste and see that the Lord is good.” (Psalm xxxiv. 5, 8). When it is added that the mercy of God extends to all his works, this ought not to be considered as contrary to reason, or obscure. Our sins having involved the whole world in the curse of God, there is everywhere an opportunity for the exercise of God’s mercy, even in helping the brute creation.

(From: “Commentary”)

He then adds, from the Psalm, “The Lord is good to all” (cxlv. 9), from which he concludes that, therefore, all were ordained unto eternal life. Now, if this be true, the kingdom of heaven is open for dogs and asses! For the Psalmist is not magnifying that goodness of God only which He shews to man, but that also which He extends to all His works.

(From: “The Eternal Predestination of God”)

David Dickson (1583-1662)

The second reason for God’s praise is his bounty generally to all the creatures, and that for man’s sake. Whence learn, 1. The Lord is good and kind to all men, even the wicked not excepted: the Lord is good to all. 2. God’s mercy may be seen toward man in the continuation of the whole race of the creatures, which, being defiled by man’s sin, he might in justice have abolished, or made them either useless to man, or else instruments of his grief: his tender mercies are over all his works.

(From: “A Commentary on the Psalms”)

John Owen (1616-1683)

David, indeed, tells us that “the Lord is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy;” that “the Lord is good to all; and his tender mercies are over all his works,” Ps. 145:8,9: but he tells us withal whom he intends by the “all” in this place, even the “generations which praise his works and declare his mighty acts,” verse 4; those who “abundantly utter the memory of his great goodness, and sing of his righteousness,” verse 7; or his “saints,” as he expressly calls them, verse 10. The work he there mentions is the work of the kingdom of Christ over all, wherein the tender mercies of God are spread abroad in reference to them that do enjoy them. Not but that God is good to all, even to his whole creation, in the many unspeakable blessings of his providence, wherein he abounds towards them in all goodness, but that is not here intended. So that Mr. Biddle hath fruitlessly from these texts of Scripture endeavoured to prove a universality of love in God, inconsistent with his peculiar love, purpose, and intention of doing good, in the sense declared, to some only.

(From: “Works”)