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149. Psalm 149

¹ Praise the LORD. Hebrew Hallelu Yah; also in verse 9

Sing to the LORD a new song,
his praise in the assembly of his faithful people.

    ² Let Israel rejoice in their Maker;
   let the people of Zion be glad in their King.
³ Let them praise his name with dancing
   and make music to him with timbrel and harp.
⁴ For the LORD takes delight in his people;
   he crowns the humble with victory.
⁵ Let his faithful people rejoice in this honor
   and sing for joy on their beds.

    ⁶ May the praise of God be in their mouths
   and a double-edged sword in their hands,
⁷ to inflict vengeance on the nations
   and punishment on the peoples,
⁸ to bind their kings with fetters,
   their nobles with shackles of iron,
⁹ to carry out the sentence written against them—
   this is the glory of all his faithful people.

Praise the LORD.

4. For God hath taken pleasure in his people. We have spoken elsewhere of the verb רצה, ratsah here it means free favor, the Psalmist saying that it was entirely of his good pleasure that God had chosen this people to himself. From this source flows what is added in the second clause, that God would give a new glory of deliverance to the afflicted. In the Hebrew ענוים, anavim, means poor and afflicted ones, but the term came afterwards to be applied to merciful persons, as bodily afflictions have a tendency to subdue pride, while abundance begets cruelty. The Psalmist accordingly mitigates the sadness of present evils by administering seasonable consolation, that God’s people, when oppressed by troubles, might look forward with hope to the glorious deliverance which was yet unseen. The sum of the passage is — that God, who had fixed his love upon his chosen people, could not possibly abandon them to such miseries as they now suffered under.