Psalms 113

Psalms 113:1-9

The glory of Jehovah’s Name.

1. And now the third Hallelujah celebrates Jehovah’s Name, now to be one, according to the testimony of the prophet, over all the earth. All servants of Jehovah are exhorted to praise it: to show thus that their obedience springs out of joyful adoration; the only service which can have value for Him. And the answer rings out joyfully: “Blessed be Jehovah’s Name! from this time even for ever.” The full worship, too, is seen coming in: “from the rising of the sun to the going down of it, Jehovah’s Name shall be praised.”
2. Well may it be! for the whole scene of this praise is His creation. “He is high above all nations:” yea, “Jehovah’s glory is above the heavens.” The Incomparable One! He has placed His dwelling on high; but He sees, and with tender interest, all that is in heaven and on earth. This leads to the next verse in which we see how deep this interest goes, and how wonderful are the results of it.
3. For He is Abraham’s God, the God of resurrection: this still told in Old Testament style, and to which the Christian revelation only has given its full glory. Yet the features of it can be still discerned and have been from the beginning. For He “raiseth the exhausted from the dust; He lifteth up the needy from the dunghill:” “an emblem of the deepest poverty and desertion; for in Syria and Palestine, the man who is shut out from society lies upon the mezbele (the dunghill or heap of ashes,) by day calling the passers-by for alms, and by night hiding himself in the ashes that have been warmed by the sun” (Delitzsch). Out of this misery and degradation God yet raises up, to put a wretch like this among the nobles (nedibhim; the men of princely liberality) -yea, the nobles of his people. This is a repetition of Hannah’s words; and Hannah’s own case is before the psalmist’s mind, that case so memorable indeed for Israel: “He maketh the barren to keep house, a joyful mother of sons.” Mary’s song, at the beginning of the New Testament, reminds us, could we ever forget it, that one birth, impossible but for the stooping of God to man, has filled here for us the place of all others. And herewith has come for every recipient of divine grace now, the promise and the power of a resurrection; by which those worse degraded than the dwellers on the dunghill are raised to higher place than that of princes! Hallelujah!