Psalm 149

The celebration described is a real Israelite form. After a victory the women came out with hand drums and danced, singing responses — Miriam did it at the sea, Jephthah's daughter met her father that way, and the women greeted Saul and David with the song that started all the trouble between them.

Singing aloud on their beds is a domestic detail. Ordinary houses had no separate bedrooms; the family slept on mats in the main room, and praise going on there meant the celebration had followed people home.

Then the song puts a sword in the same hands. The two-edged weapon named is a short straight blade used at close quarters, not a cavalry sabre. Binding kings with chains and nobles with iron fetters is what conquerors actually did — Assyrian palace reliefs show captive rulers led on cords, and the last king of Judah was blinded and taken to Babylon in bronze shackles.

The phrase that governs the whole scene is the judgment written. The prophets had already recorded God's sentences against the nations, and this psalm is about carrying out a verdict that has already been handed down rather than starting a war of choice. On the traditional understanding of prophecy that execution is still ahead — a judgment carried out when the King reigns from Zion — which is why the psalm calls it an honor granted to all his faithful people rather than a campaign anyone launches now.