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Psalm 149

Praise for God’s Goodness to Israel

1

Praise the L ord!

Sing to the L ord a new song,

his praise in the assembly of the faithful.

2

Let Israel be glad in its Maker;

let the children of Zion rejoice in their King.

3

Let them praise his name with dancing,

making melody to him with tambourine and lyre.

4

For the L ord takes pleasure in his people;

he adorns the humble with victory.

5

Let the faithful exult in glory;

let them sing for joy on their couches.

6

Let the high praises of God be in their throats

and two-edged swords in their hands,

7

to execute vengeance on the nations

and punishment on the peoples,

8

to bind their kings with fetters

and their nobles with chains of iron,

9

to execute on them the judgment decreed.

This is glory for all his faithful ones.

Praise the L ord!


4. For God hath taken pleasure in his people. We have spoken elsewhere of the verb רצה, ratsah here it means free favor, the Psalmist saying that it was entirely of his good pleasure that God had chosen this people to himself. From this source flows what is added in the second clause, that God would give a new glory of deliverance to the afflicted. In the Hebrew ענוים, anavim, means poor and afflicted ones, but the term came afterwards to be applied to merciful persons, as bodily afflictions have a tendency to subdue pride, while abundance begets cruelty. The Psalmist accordingly mitigates the sadness of present evils by administering seasonable consolation, that God’s people, when oppressed by troubles, might look forward with hope to the glorious deliverance which was yet unseen. The sum of the passage is — that God, who had fixed his love upon his chosen people, could not possibly abandon them to such miseries as they now suffered under.


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