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147. Psalm 147

¹ Praise the LORD. Hebrew Hallelu Yah; also in verse 20

How good it is to sing praises to our God,
how pleasant and fitting to praise him!

    ² The LORD builds up Jerusalem;
   he gathers the exiles of Israel.
³ He heals the brokenhearted
   and binds up their wounds.
⁴ He determines the number of the stars
   and calls them each by name.
⁵ Great is our Lord and mighty in power;
   his understanding has no limit.
⁶ The LORD sustains the humble
   but casts the wicked to the ground.

⁷ Sing to the LORD with grateful praise;
make music to our God on the harp.

    ⁸ He covers the sky with clouds;
   he supplies the earth with rain
   and makes grass grow on the hills.
⁹ He provides food for the cattle
   and for the young ravens when they call.

    ¹⁰ His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse,
   nor his delight in the legs of the warrior;
¹¹ the LORD delights in those who fear him,
   who put their hope in his unfailing love.

¹² Extol the LORD, Jerusalem;
praise your God, Zion.

    ¹³ He strengthens the bars of your gates
   and blesses your people within you.
¹⁴ He grants peace to your borders
   and satisfies you with the finest of wheat.

    ¹⁵ He sends his command to the earth;
   his word runs swiftly.
¹⁶ He spreads the snow like wool
   and scatters the frost like ashes.
¹⁷ He hurls down his hail like pebbles.
   Who can withstand his icy blast?
¹⁸ He sends his word and melts them;
   he stirs up his breezes, and the waters flow.

    ¹⁹ He has revealed his word to Jacob,
   his laws and decrees to Israel.
²⁰ He has done this for no other nation;
   they do not know his laws. Masoretic Text; Dead Sea Scrolls and Septuagint nation; / he has not made his laws known to them

Praise the LORD.

4. Numbering the multitude, etc. As the gathering together of the people of whom the Psalmist spoke might appear to be an impossibility, there seems some ground for the opinion of those who think that he confirms it in this verse. The connection they give to the Psalmist’s words is this — that as it is at least not more difficult to gather men together who are outcast and scattered, than to number the stars, there was no reason why the wandering exile Israelites should despair of their return, provided they should resort with one consent to God as their only head. There is some probability, too, in the conjecture that the Psalmist may allude to that promise —

“Look now towards the stars of heaven, if thou canst tell them,
so shall thy seed be.” (Genesis 15:5.)

But as the Psalmist immediately afterwards treats of the order of things in nature generally, the simplest rendering, I think, is to understand this verse with reference to the admirable work of God to be seen in the heavens, where we behold his matchless wisdom, in regulating, without one degree of aberration, the manifold, complex, winding courses of the stars. To each of them he assigns its fixed and distinct office, and in all the multitude there is no confusion. He therefore exclaims immediately — Great is God, and boundless, both in power and understanding. We learn from this that there cannot be greater folly than to make our judgment the measure of God’s works, displaying in these, as he often does, his incomprehensible power and wisdom.