Psalm 147
20 verses · BSBPsalms book hub →
Speaks with:Job 38×4Psalms 33×3Job 37×3Job 5×2Isaiah 40×2Psalms 148×2
Summary
Chapter summary
'For it is good to sing praises unto our God.' Jehovah doth build up Jerusalem; he gathereth together the outcasts of Israel. The same hands hold both scales: 'He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. He counteth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.' He delighteth not in the strength of the horse: 'Jehovah taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his lovingkindness.' He giveth snow like wool, scattereth the hoar-frost like ashes; 'he sendeth out his word, and melteth them.' He showeth his word unto Jacob: 'he hath not dealt so with any nation.'
Context
Poetry · David, Asaph, Sons of Korah, others — Psalms overview
The world behind this chapter
Psalms 147The history
The psalm names its occasion: the LORD builds up Jerusalem and gathers the scattered of Israel, and he has strengthened the bars of your gates. A city gate was closed with heavy wooden beams dropped into stone sockets, and until those bars were in place the city was not a city. That is the moment this song belongs to.
Its argument moves between the enormous and the small on purpose. The same God counts the stars and gives each one a name, and he binds up the brokenhearted and heals their wounds. The number of the stars was a byword for something no one could count.
The winter section is closely observed. Snow like wool, frost scattered like ashes, ice thrown down like crumbs — Jerusalem sits high enough that snow falls there in some years, and hoarfrost whitening the ground is a normal winter morning. Then a warm wind comes from the south and the water runs. Who can stand before his cold is the honest question of people in unheated stone houses.
The last comparison is military. God takes no pleasure in the strength of the horse or the legs of a man — that is, in chariot teams and in infantry, the two things every surrounding empire counted. What pleases him is those who fear him and hope in his mercy.
What it meant to them
The returned community was small, poor, and militarily defenseless. This psalm tells them that the things they lacked were never what God was impressed by.
And it points to what they did have that nobody else did: he declares his word to Jacob, his statutes to Israel; he has not done this for any other nation.
Sources cited
- Walton, Matthews and Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament , Psalms
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Psalms 147. 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.