1 Hallelujah!
For it is good to harp unto our God,
For it is pleasant: praise is comely.
2 Jehovah is the builder up of Jerusalem,
The outcasts of Israel He gathers together;
3 The healer of the broken-hearted,
And He binds their wounds;
4 Counting a number for the stars,
He calls them all by names.
5 Great is our Lord and of vast might,
To His understanding there is no number.
6 Jehovah helps up the afflicted,
Laying low the wicked to the ground.
7 Sing to Jehovah with thanksgiving,
Harp to our God on the lyre,
8 Covering heaven with clouds,
Preparing rain for the earth;
Making the mountains shoot forth grass,
9 Giving to the beast its food,
To the brood of the raven which croak.
10 Not in the strength of the horse does He delight,
Not in the legs of a man does He take pleasure.
11 Jehovah takes pleasure in them that fear Him,
Them that wait for His loving-kindness.
12 Extol Jehovah, O Jerusalem,
Praise thy God, O Zion.
13 For He has strengthened the bars of thy gates,
He has blessed thy children in thy midst.
14 Setting thy borders in peace,
With the fat of wheat He satisfies thee;
15 Sending forth His commandment on the earth,
Swiftly runs His word;
16 Giving snow like wool,
Hoar frost He scatters like ashes;
17 Flinging forth His ice like morsels,
Before His cold who can stand?
18 He sends forth His word and melts them,
He causes His wind to blow--the waters flow;
19 Declaring His word to Jacob,
His statutes and judgments to Israel.
20 He has not dealt thus to any nation;
And His judgments--they have not known them.
The threefold calls to praise Jehovah (vv. 1, 7, 12) divide
this psalm into three parts, the two former of which are closely
connected, inasmuch as the first part is mainly occupied with
celebrating God's mercy to the restored Israel, and the second takes
a wider outlook, embracing His beneficence to all living things. Both
these points of view are repeated in the same order in the third part
(vv. 12-20), which the LXX. makes a separate psalm. The allusions to
Jerusalem as rebuilt, to the gathering of the scattered Israelites,
and to the fortifications of the city naturally point to the epoch
of the Restoration, whether or not, with Delitzsch and others, we
suppose that the psalm was sung at the feast of the dedication of the
new walls. In any case, it is a hymn of the restored people, which
starts from the special mercy shown to them, and rejoices in the
thought that "Our God" fills the earth with good and reigns to bless,
in the realm of Nature as in that of special Revelation. The emphasis
placed on God's working in nature, in this and others of these
closing psalms, is probably in part a polemic against the idolatry
which Israel had learned to abhor, by being brought face to face with
it in Babylon, and in part a result of the widening of conceptions as
to His relation to the world outside Israel which the Exile had also
effected. The two truths of His special relation to His people and of
His universal loving-kindness have often been divorced, both by His
people and by their enemies. This psalm teaches a more excellent way.
The main theme of vv. 1-6 is God's manifestation of transcendent
power and incalculable wisdom, as well as infinite kindness, in
building up the ruined Jerusalem and collecting into a happy band
of citizens the lonely wanderers of Israel. For such blessings
praise is due, and the psalm summons all who share them to swell the
song. Ver. 1 is somewhat differently construed by some, as Hupfeld,
who would change one letter in the word rendered above "to harp,"
and, making it an imperative, would refer "good" and "pleasant"
to God, thus making the whole to read, "Praise Jehovah, for He is
good; harp to our God, for He is pleasant: praise is comely." This
change simplifies some points of construction, but labours under
the objection that it is contrary to usage to apply the adjective
"pleasant" to God; and the usual rendering is quite intelligible and
appropriate. The reason for the fittingness and delightsomeness of
praise is the great mercy shown to Israel in the Restoration, which
mercy is in the psalmist's thoughts throughout this part. He has the
same fondness for using participles as the author of the previous
psalm, and begins vv. 2, 3, 4, and 6 with them. Possibly their use
is intended to imply that the acts described by them are regarded as
continuous, not merely done once for all. Jehovah is ever building
up Jerusalem, and, in like manner, uninterruptedly energising in
providence and nature. The collocation of Divine acts in ver. 2
bears upon the great theme that fills the singer's heart and lips.
It is the outcasts of Israel of whom he thinks, while he sings of
binding up the broken-hearted. It is they who are the "afflicted,"
helped up by that strong, gentle clasp; while their oppressors are
the wicked, flung prone by the very wind of God's hand. The beautiful
and profound juxtaposition of gentle healing and omnipotence in vv.
3, 4, is meant to signalise the work of restoring Israel as no less
wondrous than that of marshalling the stars, and to hearten faith by
pledging that incalculable Power to perfect its restoring work. He
who stands beside the sick-bed of the broken-hearted, like a gentle
physician, with balm and bandage, and lays a tender hand on their
wounds, is He who sets the stars in their places and tells them as a
shepherd his flock or a commander his army. The psalmist borrows from
Isa. xl. 26-29, where several of his expressions occur. "Counting a
number for the stars" is scarcely equivalent to numbering them as
they shine. It rather means determining how many of them there shall
be. Calling them all by names (lit., He calls names to them all) is
not giving them designations, but summoning them as a captain reading
the muster-roll of his band. It may also imply full knowledge of
each individual in their countless hosts. Ver. 5 is taken from the
passage in Isaiah already referred to, with the change of "no number"
for "no searching," a change which is suggested by the preceding
reference to the number of the stars. These have a number, though it
surpasses human arithmetic; but His wisdom is measureless. And all
this magnificence of power, this minute particularising knowledge,
this abyss of wisdom, are guarantees for the healing of the
broken-hearted. The thought goes further than Israel's deliverance
from bondage. It has a strong voice of cheer for all sad hearts, who
will let Him probe their wounds that He may bind them up. The mighty
God of Creation is the tender God of Providence and of Redemption.
Therefore "praise is comely," and fear and faltering are unbefitting.
The second part of the psalm (ver. 7-11) passes out from the special
field of mercy to Israel, and comes down from the glories of the
heavens, to magnify God's universal goodness manifested in physical
changes, by which lowly creatures are provided for. The point of time
selected is that of the November rains. The verbs in vv. 8, 9, 11,
are again participles, expressive of continuous action. The yearly
miracle which brings from some invisible storehouse the clouds to
fill the sky and drop down fatness, the answer of the brown earth
which mysteriously shoots forth the tender green spikelets away up on
the mountain flanks, where no man has sown and no man will reap, the
loving care which thereby provides food for the wild creatures, owned
by no one, and answers the hoarse croak of the callow fledgelings
in the ravens' nests--these are manifestations of God's power and
revelations of His character worthy to be woven into a hymn which
celebrates His restoring grace, and to be set beside the apocalypse
of His greatness in the nightly heavens. But what has ver. 10 to do
here? The connection of it is difficult to trace. Apparently, the
psalmist would draw from the previous verses, which exhibit God's
universal goodness and the creatures' dependence on Him, the lesson
that reliance on one's own resources or might is sure to be smitten
with confusion, while humble trust in God, which man alone of earth's
creatures can exercise, is for him the condition of his receiving
needed gifts. The beast gets its food, and it is enough that the
young ravens should croak, but man has to "fear Him" and to wait on
His "loving-kindness." Ver. 10 is a reminiscence of Psalm xxxiii. 16,
17, and ver. 11 of the next verse of the same psalm.
The third part (vv. 12-20) travels over substantially the same ground
as the two former, beginning with the mercy shown to the restored
Israel, and passing on to wider manifestations of God's goodness. But
there is a difference in this repeated setting forth of both these
themes. The fortifications of Jerusalem are now complete, and their
strength gives security to the people gathered into the city. Over
all the land once devastated by war peace broods, and the fields that
lay desolate now have yielded harvest. The ancient promise (Psalm
lxxxi. 16) has been fulfilled, its condition having been complied
with, and Israel having hearkened to Jehovah. Protection, blessing,
tranquillity, abundance, are the results of obedience, God's gifts
to them that fear Him. So it was in the psalmist's experience; so,
in higher form, it is still. These Divine acts are continuous, and
as long as there are men who trust, there will be a God who builds
defences around them, and satisfies them with good.
Again the psalmist turns to the realm of nature; but it is nature
at a different season which now yields witness to God's universal
power and care. The phenomena of a sharp winter were more striking
to the psalmist than to us. But his poet's eye and his devout heart
recognise even in the cold, before which his Eastern constitution
cowered shivering, the working of God's Will. His "commandment" or
Word is personified, and compared to a swift-footed messenger. As
ever, power over material things is attributed to the Divine word,
and as ever, in the Biblical view of nature, all intermediate links
are neglected, and the Almighty cause at one end of the chain and the
physical effect at the other are brought together. There is between
these two clauses room enough for all that meteorology has to say.
The winter-piece in vv. 16, 17, dashes off the dreary scene with a few
bold strokes. The air is full of flakes like floating wool, or the
white mantle covers the ground like a cloth; rime lies everywhere, as
if ashes were powdered over trees and stones. Hail-stones fall, as if
He flung them down from above. They are like "morsels" of bread, a
comparison which strikes us as violent, but which may possibly describe
the more severe storms, in which flat pieces of ice fall. As by magic,
all is changed when He again sends forth His word. It but needs that He
should let a warm wind steal gently across the desolation, and every
sealed and silent brook begins to tinkle along its course. And will not
He who thus changes the face of the earth in like manner breathe upon
frost-bound lives and hearts,
"And every winter merge in spring"?
But the psalm cannot end with contemplation of God's universal
beneficence, however gracious that is. There is a higher mode of
activity for His word than that exercised on material things. God
sends His commandment forth and earth unconsciously obeys, and
all creatures, men included, are fed and blessed. But the noblest
utterance of His word is in the shape of statutes and judgments,
and these are Israel's prerogative. The psalmist is not rejoicing
that other nations have not received these, but that Israel has.
Its privilege is its responsibility. It has received them that it
may obey them, and then that it may make them known. If the God
who scatters lower blessings broad-cast, not forgetting beasts
and ravens, has restricted His highest gift to His people, the
restriction is a clear call to them to spread the knowledge of the
treasure entrusted to them. To glory in privilege is sin; to learn
that it means responsibility is wisdom. The lesson is needed by
those who to-day have been served as heirs to Israel's prerogative,
forfeited by it because it clutched it for itself, and forgot its
obligation to carry it as widely as God had diffused His lower gifts.