Psalm 136
26 verses · BSBPsalms book hub →
Speaks with:Psalms 78×4Genesis 1×3Psalms 104×3Psalms 135×3Psalms 105×31 Chronicles 16×2
Summary
Chapter summary
The Great Hallel, twenty-six verses, and after every line the congregation answers: 'for his lovingkindness endureth for ever.' Give thanks to the God of gods, who alone doeth great wonders; who made the heavens, the sun to rule by day, the moon and stars by night; who smote Egypt, divided the Red Sea, overthrew Pharaoh; who led his people through the wilderness, smote great kings, and gave their land for a heritage; 'who remembered us in our low estate… who giveth food to all flesh. Oh give thanks unto the God of heaven; for his lovingkindness endureth for ever.'
Context
Poetry · David, Asaph, Sons of Korah, others — Psalms overview
The world behind this chapter
Psalms 136The history
This is the clearest surviving example of how Israel actually sang. Twenty-six times a leader states a fact and the congregation answers with the same words: for his steadfast love endures forever. Chronicles and Ezra both record the people using exactly that response — at the dedication of Solomon's temple and again when the foundation of the second one was laid, when the crowd shouted it and the old men wept.
Known later as the Great Hallel, it was sung at Passover alongside the six-psalm Hallel, and its refrain made it the easiest song in Israel to join.
The list it recites runs in a deliberate order. First creation — the heavens, the earth spread on the waters, the sun to rule the day and the moon and stars the night. Then the exodus — the firstborn, the outstretched arm, the sea divided, Pharaoh's army overthrown. Then the desert, the kings east of the Jordan, and the land handed over as an inheritance.
Two lines at the end bring it home. He remembered us in our low estate, and he gives food to all flesh. After the cosmos and the conquest, the same refrain covers dinner.
What it meant to them
The design is teaching by repetition. A child in the congregation learned the nation's entire story while singing only one sentence, and the sentence he sang was the meaning of every event in it.
That was the argument: creation, rescue, land, and daily bread are not separate subjects. They are one loyalty, running on and on and not stopping.
Sources cited
- Alfred Edersheim, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services
- The Mishnah, tractate Pesahim (Danby translation)
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Psalms 136. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.