Psalms 147

Psalm 147

1 Praise the LORD! Because it is good to sing praise to our God! Because it is a pleasure to make beautiful praise!

2 The LORD rebuilds Jerusalem, gathering up Israel's exiles.

3 God heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds.

4 God counts the stars by number, giving each one a name.

5 Our Lord is great and so strong! God's knowledge can't be grasped!

6 The LORD helps the poor, but throws the wicked down on the dirt!

7 Sing to the LORD with thanks; sing praises to our God with a lyre!

8 God covers the skies with clouds; God makes rain for the earth; God makes the mountains sprout green grass.

9 God gives food to the animals— even to the baby ravens when they cry out.

10 God doesn't prize the strength of a horse; God doesn't treasure the legs of a runner.

11 No. The LORD treasures the people who honor him, the people who wait for his faithful love.

12 Worship the LORD, Jerusalem! Praise your God, Zion!

13 Because God secures the bars on your gates, God blesses the children you have there.

14 God establishes your borders peacefully. God fills you full with the very best wheat.

15 God issues his command to the earth— God's word speeds off fast!

16 God spreads snow like it was wool; God scatters frost like it was ashes;

17 God throws his hail down like crumbs— who can endure God's freezing cold?

18 Then God issues his word and melts it all away! God makes his winds blow; the water flows again.

19 God proclaims his word to Jacob; his statutes and rules to Israel.

20 God hasn't done that with any other nation; those nations have no knowledge of God's rules. Praise the LORD!

Psalms 147 Commentary

Chapter 147

The people of God are exhorted to praise him for his mercies and care. (1-11) For the salvation and prosperity of the church. (12-20)

Verses 1-11 Praising God is work that is its own wages. It is comely; it becomes us as reasonable creatures, much more as people in covenant with God. He gathers outcast sinners by his grace, and will bring them into his holy habitation. To those whom God heals with the consolations of his Spirit, he speaks peace, assures them their sins are pardoned. And for this, let others praise him also. Man's knowledge is soon ended; but God's knowledge is a dept that can never be fathomed. And while he telleth the number of the stars, he condescends to hear the broken-hearted sinner. While he feeds the young ravens, he will not leave his praying people destitute. Clouds look dull and melancholy, yet without them we could have no rain, therefore no fruit. Thus afflictions look black and unpleasant; but from clouds of affliction come showers that make the soul to yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness. The psalmist delights not in things wherein sinners trust and glory; but a serious and suitable regard to God is, in his sight, of very great price. We are not to be in doubt between hope and fear, but to act under the gracious influences of hope and fear united.

Verses 12-20 The church, like Jerusalem of old, built up and preserved by the wisdom, power, and goodness of God, is exhorted to praise him for all the benefits and blessings vouchsafed to her; and these are represented by his favours in the course of nature. The thawing word may represent the gospel of Christ, and the thawing wind the Spirit of Christ; for the Spirit is compared to the wind, ( John 3:8 ) . Converting grace softens the heart that was hard frozen, and melts it into tears of repentance, and makes good reflections to flow, which before were chilled and stopped up. The change which the thaw makes is very evident, yet how it is done no one can say. Such is the change wrought in the conversion of a soul, when God's word and Spirit are sent to melt it and restore it to itself.

Footnotes

• [a]. LXX, Tg, DSS (11QPs a) God hasn’t let those nations know his rules.

Chapter Summary

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 147

This psalm is thought to be written by David, and according to Theodoret predicts the return of the Jews from Babylon, and the rebuilding of Jerusalem by Zerubbabel, which seems to be grounded on Ps 147:2; though the words there agree well enough with the times of David; hence the title in the Septuagint, Ethiopic, Arabic, and Syriac versions, and Apollinarius, is as the preceding; the Syriac adds,

``concerning Zerubbabel and Joshua the priest, and Ezra, who were solicitous and diligent in building Jerusalem.''

Aben Ezra and other Jewish writers think it foretells the future rebuilding of Jerusalem, and the restoration of the Jews from their present captivity, and refer it to the times of the Messiah; and so far it may be right, that it respects Christ and the praise of him, on account of his nature and works; and may take in the conversion of the Jews. It seems to be written by the same person, and on the same account, as the preceding psalm.