Psalm 113:
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Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 Job Proverbs
Psalm 113
Complete Concise
This psalm begins and ends with "Hallelujah;" for, as
many others, it is designed to promote the great and good work of praising God.
I. We are here called upon and urged to praise God (v. 1-3). II. We are here
furnished with matter for praise, and words are put into our mouths, in singing
which we must with holy fear and love give to God the glory of, 1. The
elevations of his glory and greatness (v. 4, 5). 2. The condescensions of his
grace and goodness (v. 6-9), which very much illustrate one another, that we may
be duly affected with both.
Verses 1-9
In this psalm,
I. We are extorted to give glory to God, to give him the glory
due to his name.
1. The invitation is very pressing:
praise you the Lord,
and again and again,
Praise him, praise him; blessed be his name, for it
is to be praised, v. 1-3. This intimates, (1.) That it is a necessary and most
excellent duty, greatly pleasing to God, and has a large room in religion. (2.)
That it is a duty we should much abound in, in which we should be frequently
employed and greatly enlarged. (3.) That it is work which we are very backward
to, and which we need to be engaged and excited to by precept upon precept and
line upon line. (4.) That those who are much in praising God themselves will
court others to it, both because they find the weight of the work, and that
there is need of all the help they can fetch in (there is employment for all
hearts, all hands, and all little enough), and because they find the pleasure of
it, which they wish all their friends may share in.
2. The invitation is very extensive. Observe, (1.) From whom God
has praise—from his own people; they are here called upon to praise God, as
those that will answer the call:
Praise, O you servants of the Lord! They
have most reason to praise him; for those that attend him as his servants know
him best and receive most of his favours. And it is their business to praise
him; that is the work required of them as his servants: it is easy pleasant work
to speak well of their Master, and do him what honour they can; if they do not,
who should? Some understand it of the Levites; but, if so, all Christians are a
royal priesthood,
to show forth the praises of him that has called them,
1 Pt. 2:9. The angels are the servants of the Lord; they need not be called upon
by us to praise God, yet it is a comfort to us that they do praise him, and that
they praise him better than we can. (2.) From whom he ought to have praise. [1.]
From all ages (v. 2)—
from this time forth for evermore. Let not this
work die with us, but let us be doing it in a better world, and let those that
come after us be doing it in this. Let not our seed degenerate, but let God be
praised through all the generations of time, and not in this only. We must bless
the Lord in our day, by saying, with the psalmist,
Blessed be his name now
and always. [2.] From all places—
from the rising of the sun to the
going down of the same, that is, throughout the habitable world. Let all
that enjoy the benefit of the sun rising (and those that do so must count upon
it that the sun will set) give thanks for that light to the Father of lights.
God's
name is to be praised; it ought to be praised by all nations; for
in every place, from east to west, there appear the manifest proofs and products
of his wisdom, power, and goodness; and it is to be lamented that so great a
part of mankind are ignorant of him, and give that praise to others which is due
to him alone. But perhaps there is more in it; as the former verse gave us a
glimpse of the kingdom of glory, intimating that God's name shall be
blessed
for ever (when time shall be no more that praise shall be the work of
heaven), so this verse gives us a glimpse of the kingdom of grace in the
gospel-dispensation of it. When the church shall no longer be confined to the
Jewish nation, but shall spread itself all the world over, when in
every
place spiritual
incense shall be offered to our God (Mal. 1:11), then
from
the rising to the setting of the sun the Lord's name shall be praised
by some in all countries.
II. We are here directed what to give him the glory of.
1. Let us look up with an eye of faith, and see how high his
glory is in the upper world, and mention that to his praise, v. 4, 5. We are, in
our praises, to exalt his name, for he is high, his glory is high. (1.)
High
above all nations, their kings though ever so pompous, their people though
ever so numerous. Whether it be true of an earthly king or no that though he is
major
singulis—greater than individuals, he is
minor universis—less than
the whole, we will not dispute; but we are sure it is not true of the King
of kings. Put all the nations together, and he is above them all; they are
before him as the
drop of the bucket and the small dust of the balance,
Isa. 60:15, 17. Let all nations think and speak highly of God, for he is high
above them all. (2.) High
above the heavens; the throne of his glory is
in the highest heavens, which should raise our hearts in praising him, Lam.
3:41.
His glory is above the heavens, that is, above the angels; he is
above what they are, for their brightness is nothing to his,—above what they
do, for they are under his command and do his pleasure,—and above what even
they can speak him to be. He is exalted above
all blessing and praise,
not only all ours, but all theirs. We must therefore say, with holy admiration,
Who
is like unto the Lord our God? who of all the princes and potentates of the
earth? who of all the bright and blessed spirits above? None can equal him, none
dare compare with him. God is to be praised as transcendently, incomparably, and
infinitely great; for he
dwells on high, and from on high sees all, and
rules all, and justly attracts all praise to himself.
2. Let us look around with an eye of observation, and see how
extensive his goodness is in the lower world, and mention that to his praise. He
is a God
who exalts himself to dwell, who humbles himself in heaven, and in
earth. Some think there is a transposition,
He exalts himself to dwell in
heaven, he
humbles himself to behold on earth; but the sense is plain
enough as we take it, only observe, God is said to
exalt himself and to
humble
himself, both are his own act and deed; as he is self-existent, so he is
both the fountain of his own honour and the spring of his own grace; God's
condescending goodness appears,
(1.) In the cognizance he takes of the world below him. His
glory is
above the nations and
above the heavens, and yet neither
is neglected by him.
God is great, yet
he despises not any, Job
36:5.
He humbles himself to behold all his creatures, all his subjects,
though he is infinitely above them. Considering the infinite perfection,
sufficiency, and felicity of the divine nature, it must be acknowledged as an
act of wonderful condescension that God is pleased to take into the thoughts of
his eternal counsel, and into the hand of his universal Providence, both the
armies of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth (Dan. 4:35); even in this
dominion he humbles himself. [1.] It is condescension in him to behold the
things in heaven, to support the beings, direct the motions, and accept the
praises and services, of the angels themselves; for he needs them not, nor is
benefited by them. [2.] Much more is it condescension in him to
behold the
things that are in the earth, to visit the sons of men, and regard them, to
order and overrule their affairs, and to take notice of what they say and do,
that he may fill the earth with his goodness, and so set us an example of
stooping to do good, of taking notice of, and concerning ourselves about, our
inferiors. If it be such condescension for God to behold things in heaven and
earth, what an amazing condescension was it for the Son of God to come from
heaven to earth and take our nature upon him, that he might
seek and save
those that were lost! Herein indeed he humbled himself.
(2.) In the particular favour he sometimes shows to the least
and lowest of the inhabitants of this meaner lower world. He not only beholds
the great things in the earth, but the meanest, and those things which great men
commonly overlook. Not does he merely behold them, but does wonders for them,
and things that are very surprising, out of the common road of providence and
chain of causes, which shows that the world is governed, not by a course of
nature, for that would always run in the same channel, but by a God of nature,
who delights in doing things we looked not for. [1.] Those that have been long
despicable are sometimes, on a sudden, made honourable (v. 7, 8):
He raises
up the poor out of the dust, that he may set him with princes. First, Thus
God does sometimes magnify himself, and his own wisdom, power, and sovereignty.
When he has some great work to do he chooses to employ those in it that were
least likely, and least thought of for it by themselves or others, to the
highest post of honour: Gideon is fetched from threshing, Saul from seeking the
asses, and David from keeping the sheep; the apostles are sent from fishing to
be
fishers of men. The treasure of the gospel is put into earthen
vessels, and the weak and foolish ones of the world are pitched upon to be
preachers of it, to confound the
wise and mighty (1 Co. 1:27, 28), that
the excellency of the power may be of God, and all may see that promotion comes
from him.
Secondly, Thus God does sometimes reward the eminent piety and
patience of his people who have long groaned under the burden of poverty and
disgrace. When Joseph's virtue was tried and manifested he was raised from the
prison-dust and
set with princes. Those that are wise will observe such
returns of Providence, and will understand by them
the loving-kindness of the
Lord. Some have applied this to the work of redemption by Jesus Christ, and
not unfitly; for through him poor fallen men are raised out of the dust (one of
the Jewish rabbies applies it to the resurrection of the dead), nay, out of the
dunghill of sin, and
set among princes, among angels, those princes of
his people. Hannah had sung to this purport, 1 Sa. 2:6-8. [2.] Those that have
been long barren are sometimes, on a sudden, made fruitful, v. 9. This may look
back to Sarah and Rebecca, Rachel, Hannah, and Samson's mother, or forward to
Elizabeth; and many such instances there have been, in which God has looked on
the affliction of his handmaids and taken away their reproach.
He makes the
barren woman to keep house, not only builds up the family, but thereby finds
the heads of the family something to do. Note, Those that have the comfort of a
family must take the care of it;
bearing children and
guiding the
house are put together, 1 Tim. 5:14. When God
sets the barren in a family
he expects that she should
look well to the ways of her household, Prov.
31:27. She is said to
be a joyful mother of children, not only because,
even in common cases, the pain is forgotten,
for joy that a man-child is born
into the world, but there is particular joy when a child is born to those
that have been long childless (as Lu. 1:14) and therefore there ought to be
particular thanksgiving.
Praise you the Lord. Yet, in this case,
rejoice
with trembling; for, though the sorrowful mother be made joyful, the joyful
mother may be made sorrowful again, if the children be either removed from her
or embittered to her. This, therefore, may be applied to the gospel-church among
the Gentiles (the building of which is illustrated by this similitude, Isa.
54:1,
Sing, O barren! thou that didst not bear, and Gal. 4:27), for which
we, who, being sinners of the Gentiles, are children of the desolate, have
reason to say,
Praise you the Lord.
Psalm 113:
| Darby
| Geneva
| Gill
| Jamieson Faussett Brown
| Matthew Henry
| Matthew Henry Concise
| Spurgeon
| Wesley
| Index
| Bible Gateway |
Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 Job Proverbs
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