Psalms 147:1-20
1 Praise ye the LORD: for it is good to sing praises unto our God; for it is pleasant; and praise is comely.
2 The LORD doth build up Jerusalem: he gathereth together the outcasts of Israel.
3 He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.a
4 He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.
5 Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.
6 The LORD lifteth up the meek: he casteth the wicked down to the ground.
7 Sing unto the LORD with thanksgiving; sing praise upon the harp unto our God:
8 Who covereth the heaven with clouds, who prepareth rain for the earth, who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains.
9 He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry.
10 He delighteth not in the strength of the horse: he taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man.
11 The LORD taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy.
12 Praise the LORD, O Jerusalem; praise thy God, O Zion.
13 For he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates; he hath blessed thy children within thee.
14 He maketh peace in thy borders, and filleth thee with the finest of the wheat.
15 He sendeth forth his commandment upon earth: his word runneth very swiftly.
16 He giveth snow like wool: he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes.
17 He casteth forth his ice like morsels: who can stand before his cold?
18 He sendeth out his word, and melteth them: he causeth his wind to blow, and the waters flow.
19 He sheweth his wordb unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel.
20 He hath not dealt so with any nation: and as for his judgments, they have not known them. Praise ye the LORD.
This psalm, like the preseding, is without title in the Hebrew or Chaldee; but is ascribed by the Versions to Haggai and Zechariah.
REFLECTIONS.
The people are here exhorted to praise God for all that he had done for Israel; the duty is pleasant to the grateful heart, and the sacrifice is comely in the eyes of God. He recalled the exiles of Israel to inheritance, to wealth, and to the service of his sanctuary. In this view, sinners owe much to redeeming love. God has made us a people who were aliens, and far from righteousness, and has given us an inheritance among all them that are sanctified.
They are called to praise him because of his perfections, and the wonders of his works. He telleth the number of the stars. At his fiat, ten thousand thousand suns shone forth, the image of his glory. Each became the centre of a sphere, surrounded with satellites or habitable worlds, to reflect the lustre, and to glorify the Creator in an eternal concert of praise. All these rolled off in orbits, balanced by gravity; and the harmony of all the spheres demonstrates the infinite perfections of the eternal God. And if he numbers the stars, and regulates their motions, he numbers his saints with more peculiar care, for they bear his image, and shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and as the stars for ever and ever.
Jerusalem is exhorted to praise the Lord, for what, in a national view, he has done for her and her children. He had strengthened her gates, filled her granaries with wheat, had sent snow to give repose to nature in winter, and then melted it with the warm zephyrs of the spring. So will the Lord supply the soul with good, and warm the affections after cold with comfort.
Israel is next reminded of what she owed to God for revelation. She did not walk in the darkness and vanity of the gentile world. She had not to grope her way to truth and righteousness, as in the darkness of men alienated from the covenant. The Lord had given her statutes and judgments, pure and uncorrupted; whereas the heathen had but the fragments of Noah's covenant, and these were varied in every nation, according to the humour of the people. What then shall the christian church render to God, who in these last days has spoken to us by his own Son.