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Psalm 149


Alleluia!

Sing a new song to the Lord,
his praise in the assembly of the faithful.
Let Israel rejoice in its Maker,
let Sion’s sons exult in their king.
Let them praise his name with dancing
and make music with timbrel and harp.

For the Lord takes delight in his people.
He crowns the poor with salvation.
Let the faithful rejoice in their glory,
shout for joy and take their rest.
Let the praise of God be on their lips
and a two-edged sword in their hand,

to deal out vengeance to the nations
and punishment on all the peoples;
to bind their kings in chains
and their nobles in fetters of iron;
to carry out the sentence preordained;
this honour is for all his faithful.

Alleluia!

Commentary

This is the fourth of the Halleluia psalms which complete the Psalter. It is similar in form to the others, except for the presence of enemies, and the talk of judgement. There may be a verbal connection with Psalm 148:14; this ended with the call to Israel to praise God as the chosen people, but only after the whole of creation had been harnessed to the same wonderful work. The present psalm concentrates on the praises of Israel, and on the wonder that God’s presence becomes more manifest when His people praise Him, and His power to rule and execute judgement on the godless is released into the world in a special way also.

Taken together these two psalms praise God as creator and redeemer, for here we join Israel in celebrating another victory over her many enemies. This psalm declares abundance of joy for God’s people when they are really united with Him and, by the same token, abundance of terror to their enemies.

Alleluia!

Sing a new song to the Lord,
his praise in the assembly of the faithful.
Let Israel rejoice in its Maker,
let Sion’s sons exult in their king.
Let them praise his name with dancing
and make music with timbrel and harp.

For the Lord takes delight in his people.
He crowns the poor with salvation.
Let the faithful rejoice in their glory,
shout for joy and take their rest.
Let the praise of God be on their lips
and a two-edged sword in their hand,

to deal out vengeance to the nations
and punishment on all the peoples;
to bind their kings in chains
and their nobles in fetters of iron;
to carry out the sentence preordained;
this honour is for all his faithful.

Alleluia!
                                    (vv. 1-9).

The previous psalm called upon all creation to praise God, but here the call goes out to God’s own people alone. This is a church celebration, where the new situation calls for a new song of praise, given to God with the time-honoured accompaniment of dancing, singing, and the playing of musical instruments. It is public praise that is called for, not only in the sense that the whole congregation is involved, but, as we shall see in verse7, the whole world is affected in its scope and power. Praise such as this presumes a living relationship with God, one where real conversion has taken place. The “old man” in us sees no reason to praise God for anything (see Ephesians 4:22), but the man who has experienced the saving grace of God will sing praise, and not only in public.

The note of joy dominates this final group of psalms, and prepares the way for the revelation of true joy in the New Testament, where it is one of the fruits of the spirit (see Galatians 5:22), and with peace is one of the characteristic signs of the presence of the Kingdom of God in the individual (see Romans 14:17). Joy and peace may describe the normal Christian life, but unfortunately not the normal life of many Christians.

The joy is not one-sided, for the Lord delights in His people too, most especially when they open their hearts to His redeeming grace. He is like a father delighting in the happiness and fulfilment of His children, after He has poured out the necessities of life upon them, realizing that their destiny depends entirely on His love. This two-way joy describes the deep sense of fulfilment and rest for the heart brought about by the life-giving and grace-filled relationship with God our Father which is so well expressed by praise (vv. 1-5).

Joy and peace, praise and rest, do not express the total experience of relationship with God. The shadow side is the spiritual warfare which we would rather not have; we often ask that this chalice be removed from us, even though there is no spiritual victory without the battle which must precede it. For Israel, “holy war” was synonymous with her relationship with God. Here, as elsewhere in the Bible, we see that God taught her through her historical experience the principles that we, in the New Testament, need to learn for our spiritual walk with God. Like it or not, praise and spiritual warfare go hand in hand. The song and the sword work together, because the Kingdom of God can only be established with the defeat of the kingdom of darkness.

For Israel the song and the sword were understood literally, because she was used by God to punish the Canaanites on her first entry into the Promised Land: her orders were to wipe them out, and she did (see Genesis 15:13-16; Numbers 33:52). For us who live in the fullness of time, in the full brilliance of revelation, it is different, even though history demonstrates that many a Christian army marched forth literally to destroy other peoples, taking this psalm as their justification. If they did, they had not read in 2 Corinthians 10:4 that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, yet they are powerful enough to bring down the strongholds of human philosophy and arguments of unbelief that fight against the true knowledge of God. The two-edged sword we hold in our hands is the Word of God, which is the bulwark against all untruth (see the Letter to the Hebrews 4:12).

For us, the battle is spiritual, but our need to be militant for God is just as real and urgent. Paul told his disciple Timothy to “fight the good fight of the faith”, and to hold out against all the opposition that the early Church was experiencing from the pagan philosophers of the day (see 1 Timothy 6:12). He instructed his converts to arm themselves for the battle, using the image of a Roman soldier, except that the “whole armour” was spiritual (see Ephesians 6:12-18). The warfare we wage is double: internal, against evil within ourselves, where “every thought must be captured and put under obedience to Christ” (see 2 Corinthians 10:5), and external, where we oppose the destructive powers of evil which are bent on destroying the individual, society and the world.

The punishment of the nations who are at enmity with the Kingdom of God is left to the Lord Jesus Himself, in the Book of Revelation, which describes the end of human history. As the true Word of God incarnate, all judgement was given to Him by the Father (see John 5:22), and He will come with His angelic hosts to execute judgement on the whole world according to the infinite just goodness of God. It will be done in such a way that all nations will bend the knee and confess that Jesus is Lord, to the great glory of God, who is creator, redeemer, father, friend, lover or judge, as we choose to relate to him, both individually and nationally.

The true victory of the individual is described in Revelation in the following wonderful words: “Now have the salvation and power come, the reign of our God and the authority of His Anointed One. For the accuser of our brothers is cast out, who night and day accused them before our God. They defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony; love for life did not deter them from death. So rejoice, you heavens, and you that dwell therein” Revelation 12:10-12a).

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