Psalm 147 Hallelujah
1 Praise Yah! For it is good to sing praises to our God; for it is pleasant, and praise is beautiful. 2 Yahweh builds up Jerusalem; He gathers together the outcasts of Israel. 3 He is the Rophe (Healer) of the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. 4 He counts the number of the stars; He calls them all by name. 5 Great is our Adonay, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite. 6 Yahweh lifts up the humble; He casts the wicked down to the ground. 7 Sing to Yahweh with thanksgiving; sing praises on the harp to our God, 8 who covers the heavens with clouds, who prepares rain for the earth, who makes grass to grow on the mountains. 9 He gives to the beast its food, and to the young ravens that cry. 10 He does not delight in the strength of the horse; He takes no pleasure in the legs of a man. 11 Yahweh takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His mercy. 12 Praise Yahweh, O Jerusalem! Praise your God, O Zion! 13 For He has strengthened the bars of your gates; He has blessed your children within you. 14 He makes peace in your borders, and fills you with the finest wheat. 15 He sends out His command to the earth; His word runs very swiftly. 16 He gives snow like wool; He scatters the frost like ashes; 17 He casts out His hail like morsels; who can stand before His cold? 18 He sends out His word and melts them; He causes His wind to blow, and the waters flow. 19 He declares His word to Jacob, His statutes and His judgments to Israel. 20 He has not dealt thus with any nation; and as for His judgments, they have not known them. Praise Yah!
David speaks of "the greatness and the condescending goodness of the Lord… The God of Israel is set forth in His peculiarity of glory as caring for the sorrowing, the insignificant, and forgotten.” (C. H. Spurgeon)
“Praise Yah, For it is good to sing praises to our God; for it is pleasant, and praise is beautiful.’ (1) If you do not enter into the spirit and worship of heaven, how should the spirit and joy of heaven enter into you?” (John Pulsford)—> “’Yahweh builds up Jerusalem;’ (2a) — He “creates, and then fails not to supply. Analogically, the Lord buildeth Jerusalem, and provides for the wants of the inhabitants..” (John Lorinus) — He is the only architect of his Church. He layeth the foundation of it in election, and buildeth it progressively by faith and sanctification; and finisheth His work of grace and His people’s happiness in glorification.” (John Trapp)
“The building of Jerusalem is peculiarly the office of Christ. When the Lord promises to lift up an ensign to the people, it evidently refers to Christ. See those scriptures, Isaiah 11:12; whence Christ saith, John 12:32; hence also that sweet promise, Isaiah 27:13; and hence, if we accept this divine Psalm in this spiritual illustration of it all that follows may be interpreted with reference to Christ.“ (Robert Hawker) “And He will lift up a standard for the nations And assemble the banished ones of Israel, And will gather the dispersed of Judah From the four corners of the earth.” (Isaiah 11:12) "And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself." (John 12:3) “It will come about also in that day that a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were perishing in the land of Assyria and who were scattered in the land of Egypt will come and worship the LORD in the holy mountain at Jerusalem.”(Isaiah 27:13)
“’He gathers together the outcasts of Israel.’ (2b) - in consonance with the promise, Deuteronomy 30:3; Isaiah 11:12; Isaiah 56:8. The full gathering of Israel's outcasts is yet future (Ps 107:3).” (Jamieson, Faussett, Brown)—"So shall He, at the resurrection, 'gather together his elect from the four winds' (Matt 24:31), and ‘build up a Jerusalem’, in which they shall serve and praise him forever.” (Bp. Horne)
“He is the Healer of the brokenhearted;’ etc. (3) Christ is a physician; many are the diseases of His people; He heals them all by His blood, stripes, wounds.” (John Gill) “So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed too proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.’ (Is 61:1-2) Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, 'Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.'” (Luke 4:16-21)
“’He counts the number of the stars;’ In Genesis 13:16 when he was first promised an inheritance, Abraham was promised descendants as the dust of the earth, speaking of physical descendants only. But later when spirirtual seed was included Yahweh said: “Look now towards the stars of heaven, if thou canst tell them, so shall thy seed be.” (Gen 15:5; cp. Gen 26:4) referring to a spiritual seed. And calls them by name. (4)
"’Great is our Adonay, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite.’ (5) All Judgment has been committed to Jesus. (John 5:22) “’Yahweh lifts up the humble; He casts the wicked down to the ground.’ (6) to be destroyed with the earth. “For the more high that the wicked climb the greater is their fall in the end.” (Geneva Study Bible) “To exalt and reward the humble, penitent, believing, and obedient; and to depress and punish the proud, impenitent, unbelieving, and disobedient; these are the measures and ends of all the divine dispensations. And as a man ranks himself in one or other of these two divisions, he may expect from heaven storm or sunshine, mercy or judgment.” (Bishop Horne)
“’Sing to Yahweh with thanksgiving; sing praises on the harp to our God, who covers the heavens with clouds, who prepares rain for the earth, who makes grass to grow on the mountains. He gives to the beast its food, and to the young ravens that cry.’ (7-9) And surely this watchful care of the Divine Providence over all creatures, speaks the same language to us which God made use of to Joshua, and which the apostle hath applied to Christians; ‘I will never leave thee nor forsake thee,’Joshua 1:5; Hebrews 13:5. For ‘He who provides food for the wild beasts, will never leave the lambs of his flock destitute; and he who feeds the young of the unclean ravens when they cry, and, as it were, ask a supply of their wants from him, will not, in the day of dearth and calamity, forsake the meek and harmless dove that mourns continually in prayer before him.’ Horne.” (Benson)- “‘He does not delight in the strength of the horse; He takes no pleasure in the legs of a man. Yahweh takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His mercy.’ (10-11) Hope and fear are linked… They are like the cork in a fisherman's net, which keeps it from sinking, and the lead, which prevents it from floating.” (George Seaton Bowes)
“‘Praise Yahweh, O Jerusalem! Praise your God, O Zion!’ (12) The Psalmist recites four arguments from which he would have Zion sing praises: 1. Security. 2. Benediction. 3. Peace. 4. Abundance.” (William Nicholson) 1. Security. Jerusalem is a city secure, being defended by God: ‘For he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates.’ (13a) Blessed is the city whose gates God barreth up with His power, and openeth again with His mercy.” (Thomas Adams) 2. Benediction. Jerusalem is a happy city, for ‘he hath blessed thy children, within, thee,’ (13b) thy kings, princes, magistrates, etc., with wisdom, piety, etc.” (William Nicholson) 3. Peace. Jerusalem is a peaceable city. ‘He maketh peace in thy borders,’ (14a) How truly the believer under the gospel knows the inner spirit of the meaning here! The Lord Jesus Christ says, ‘My peace I give unto you.’ And when He sets us at rest and all is reconciliation and peace, then He feeds us with Himself —His body, the finest wheat, and His blood, the richest wine.” (Johannes Paulus Palanterius) 4. Abundance. Jerusalem is a city provided by God with necessary food and provision; for ‘He filleth thee with the finest of the wheat.’ (14b)” (William Nicholson) “How are they blessed within, with the fine wheat of the bread of life, and the peace of God in Christ! John 6:51; Ephesians 1:7.” (Robert Hawker)
“’He sends out His command to the earth;' etc. (15)- "a very active agent.” (Adam Clarke) “There is not a moment between the shooting out of the arrow and the fastening of it in the mark; both are done in the very same atom and point of time. Therefore we read in the Scripture of the immediate effects of the Word of Christ. Saith he to the leprous man; ‘Be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed:’ Mat 8:3. And to the blind man, ,Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he received his sight;’ Mark 10:52. No arrow makes so immediate an impression in the mark aimed at as the arrow of Christ's Word. No sooner doth Christ say to the soul, ‘Be enlightened, be quickened, be comforted,’ but the work is done.” (Ralph Robinson)
“He gives snow like wool;’- He covers the earth with snow, so that it seems to have a clothing of wool. Compare the notes at Job 37:6: ‘For he saith to the snow, Be thou on the earth.’— ‘He scatters the frost like ashes’ - As if ashes were strewed over the earth; or, as easily as one strews ashes.— ‘He casts out His hail like morsels- The word rendered morsels means properly a bit, a crumb, as of bread, Genesis 18:5; Judges 19:5. The allusion here would seem to be to hail, which God sends upon the earth as easily as one scatters crumbs of bread from the hand.— ‘who can stand before his cold?’-... The word is the same, except in pointing, as the preceding word rendered ice.” (Albert Barnes)
“’He sends out His word and melts them; He causes His wind to blow, and the waters flow.’(18) He gives a command: the south wind blows; the thaw takes place; and the ice and snow being liquefied, the waters flow, where before they were bound up by the ice.” (Clarke) He “melted it with the warm zephyrs of the spring.“ (Sutcliffe) "Till the Lord's time came, all the efforts of the Jews, to recover liberty or prosperity, were as unavailing, as the skill und power of man are, to prevent the effects of frost and snow: but when He gave the command, every heart was speedily disposed to favour them; as the snow and ice melt, and the waters flow, when He sends a thaw, warm sun-beams, and a southern breeze.” (Thomas Scott) “Converting grace softens the heart that was hard frozen, and melts it into tears of repentance, and makes good reflections to flow, which before were chilled and stopped up.” (Matthew Henry)
“‘He shows His Word unto Jacob, the Gospel of His salvation revealed in Law and prophecy, ‘His statutes and His judgments unto Israel,’ thereby separating and distinguishing this people as a peculiar nation, even as the spiritual Israel is holy to Him through the Gospel. ‘He hath not dealt so with any nation,’ that is, no heathen nation was chosen by Him in this same manner; ‘and as for His judgments,’ the precepts of His divine justice, as laid down in His written Word, ‘they have not known them’. It was Israel's privilege to possess the historical, written revelation of the one true God, to this people alone were entrusted the oracles of the Lord, whose gist are the Messianic promises.” (Paul E. Kretzmann)
“What then shall the christian church render to God, who in these last days has spoken to us by his own Son.” (Joseph Sutcliffe) “Surely every child of God can bear testimony to these things; and every child of God in the contemplation of discriminating grace will say, He hath not dealt so with any nation. Lord, how is it that thou hast manifested thyself to me and not unto the world? John 14:22. And, under a deep sense of these things, shall we not say, ‘Hallelujah’?” (Robert Hawker)