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Judah’s Song of Victory

On that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:

We have a strong city;

he sets up victory

like walls and bulwarks.

Open the gates,

so that the righteous nation that keeps faith

may enter in.

Those of steadfast mind you keep in peace—

in peace because they trust in you.

Trust in the L ord forever,

for in the L ord G od

you have an everlasting rock.

For he has brought low

the inhabitants of the height;

the lofty city he lays low.

He lays it low to the ground,

casts it to the dust.

The foot tramples it,

the feet of the poor,

the steps of the needy.

The way of the righteous is level;

O Just One, you make smooth the path of the righteous.

In the path of your judgments,

O L ord, we wait for you;

your name and your renown

are the soul’s desire.

My soul yearns for you in the night,

my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.

For when your judgments are in the earth,

the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.

If favor is shown to the wicked,

they do not learn righteousness;

in the land of uprightness they deal perversely

and do not see the majesty of the L ord.

O L ord, your hand is lifted up,

but they do not see it.

Let them see your zeal for your people, and be ashamed.

Let the fire for your adversaries consume them.

O L ord, you will ordain peace for us,

for indeed, all that we have done, you have done for us.

O L ord our God,

other lords besides you have ruled over us,

but we acknowledge your name alone.

The dead do not live;

shades do not rise—

because you have punished and destroyed them,

and wiped out all memory of them.

But you have increased the nation, O L ord,

you have increased the nation; you are glorified;

you have enlarged all the borders of the land.

O L ord, in distress they sought you,

they poured out a prayer

when your chastening was on them.

Like a woman with child,

who writhes and cries out in her pangs

when she is near her time,

so were we because of you, O L ord;

we were with child, we writhed,

but we gave birth only to wind.

We have won no victories on earth,

and no one is born to inhabit the world.

Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise.

O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy!

For your dew is a radiant dew,

and the earth will give birth to those long dead.

Come, my people, enter your chambers,

and shut your doors behind you;

hide yourselves for a little while

until the wrath is past.

For the L ord comes out from his place

to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity;

the earth will disclose the blood shed on it,

and will no longer cover its slain.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

4. Trust ye in Jehovah for ever. As to the words, some read in the second clause, “Trust in God, the strong Jehovah of ages;” but as צור (tzūr) is not always an adjective, but signifies strength, I reject that meaning as forced, besides that it has little relation to the subject, as will immediately appear. There is also little ground for the ingenuity of those who infer from this passage the divinity of Christ, as if the Prophet said, that “Jehovah is in Jah;” for the twofold name of God is given for the express purpose of magnifying his power.

He now exhorts the people to rest safely on God, and therefore, after the preceding doctrine, there is now room for exhortation. Besides, it would have been vain to say that our peace is in the hand of God, and that he is our faithful guardian, if we had not been taught and instructed on this subject, and at the same time urged by exhortations. Yet he exhorts us not only to earnest hope, but to perseverance; and this discourse applies properly to believers, who have already learned what it is to trust in the Lord, and who need to be strengthened, because they are still weak, and may often fall, in consequence of the various motives to distrust with which they are called to struggle. He therefore does not enjoin them merely to trust in the Lord, but to remain steadfastly in trust and confidence to the end.

For in Jah Jehovah is the strength of ages. ¹⁵⁷¹⁵⁷ {Bogus footnote} We ought to attend to the reason which is here assigned, namely, that as the power of God, which is the object of faith, is perpetual, so faith ought to be extended so as to be equally perpetual. When the Prophet speaks of the strength and power of God, he does not mean power which is unemployed, but power active and energetic, which is actually exerted on us, and which conducts to the end what he had begun. And this doctrine has a wider application, for it bids us truly believe that we ought to contemplate the nature of God; for, as soon as we turn aside from beholding it, nothing is seen but what is fleeting, and then we immediately faint. Thus ought faith to rise above the world by continual advances; for neither the truth, nor the justice, nor the goodness of God, is temporary and fading, but God continues always to be like himself.

¹⁵⁷ {Bogus footnote}