Psalm 136

Psalms 136:1-3

Every verse of this psalm ends for his mercy endureth for ever, twenty-six times, and the form is the meaning: a leader recites the acts, the congregation answers with the one refrain, so the whole history of the world is antiphonal, deed and mercy, deed and mercy. Jewish liturgy names it the Great Hallel, sung at Passover, a placement the commentators carry. The opening triad rises through the titles, the Lord, the God of gods, the Lord of lords, before a single act is named: who he is comes before what he did.

Psalms 136:4-9

The recital begins where Genesis begins: the heavens by wisdom, the earth stretched out above the waters, the great lights, the sun to rule by day and the moon and stars by night, each line close to the language of Genesis 1 with rule carrying the fourth day's vocabulary. To him who ALONE doeth great wonders stands guard over the whole list against every rival claim. Henry notes what the refrain is doing here: creation itself, before any fall or rescue, is already filed under mercy, the sun's daily government an act of covenant kindness.

Psalms 136:10-15

The exodus movement holds the psalm's hard edge without blinking: the smiting of the firstborn, the Red sea divided into parts, and Pharaoh and his host overthrown, each answered by the same refrain as the sunrise. The strong hand and stretched out arm is Exodus's own formula for the deliverance (Deut 4:34 gathers it up), kept here word for word. That judgment on Egypt is sung as mercy to Israel is the psalm's theology stated by its structure, and the commentators note it rather than soften it: the same act is wrath on one side of the sea and rescue on the other.

Psalms 136:16-22

led his people through the wilderness: One verse carries forty years, to him which led his people through the wilderness, and then the conquest names its two exhibits, Sihon king of the Amorites and Og the king of Bashan, the same pair the recital psalms and Deuteronomy keep returning to as the first victories east of Jordan. Their land became an heritage, even an heritage unto Israel his servant, the word that ties the gift to the promise made to Abraham. The restraint of the selection is the note worth making: of all the conquest, two kings and one heritage stand for the whole, because the psalm is a liturgy and not a chronicle.

Psalms 136:23-26

remembered us in our low estate: The recital arrives at the singers themselves: who remembered US in our low estate, the history suddenly first person, and hath redeemed us from our enemies. Then the widest line in the psalm, who giveth food to all flesh, mercy stretched past Israel to every creature that eats, which Spurgeon marks as the refrain's largest claim, daily bread for the world filed beside the Red sea. The psalm closes as it opened, O give thanks, now unto the God of heaven, the frame shut with the same word so that the whole recital sits inside thanksgiving.