Psalms 135 — NETB

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135Praise the Lord!
Praise the name of the Lord!
Offer praise, you servants of the Lord,
^{Verse 2}who serve in the Lord’s temple,
in the courts of the temple of our God.
^{Verse 3}Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good!
Sing praises to his name, for it is pleasant!
^{Verse 4}Indeed, the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself,
Israel to be his special possession.
^{Verse 5}Yes, I know the Lord is great,
and our Lord is superior to all gods.
^{Verse 6}He does whatever he pleases
in heaven and on earth,
in the seas and all the ocean depths.
^{Verse 7}He causes the clouds to arise from the end of the earth,
makes lightning bolts accompany the rain,
and brings the wind out of his storehouses.
^{Verse 8}He struck down the firstborn of Egypt,
including both men and animals.
^{Verse 9}He performed awesome deeds and acts of judgment
in your midst, O Egypt,
against Pharaoh and all his servants.
^{Verse 10}He defeated many nations,
and killed mighty kings –
^{Verse 11}Sihon, king of the Amorites,
and Og, king of Bashan,
and all the kingdoms of Canaan.
^{Verse 12}He gave their land as an inheritance,
as an inheritance to Israel his people.
^{Verse 13}O Lord, your name endures,
your reputation, O Lord, lasts.
^{Verse 14}For the Lord vindicates his people,
and has compassion on his servants.
^{Verse 15}The nations’ idols are made of silver and gold,
they are man-made.
^{Verse 16}They have mouths, but cannot speak,
eyes, but cannot see,
^{Verse 17}and ears, but cannot hear.
Indeed, they cannot breathe.
^{Verse 18}Those who make them will end up like them,
as will everyone who trusts in them.
^{Verse 19}O family of Israel, praise the Lord!
O family of Aaron, praise the Lord!
^{Verse 20}O family of Levi, praise the Lord!
You loyal followers of the Lord, praise the Lord!
^{Verse 21}The Lord deserves praise in Zion –
he who dwells in Jerusalem.
Praise the Lord!

Commentary

The beginning is taken from Psa 134:1; Psa 135:2 recalls Psa 116:19 (cf. Psa 92:14); and Psa 135:4 is an echo of Deu 7:6. The servants of Jahve to whom the summons is addressed, are not, as in Psa 134:1., His official servants in particular, but according to Psa 135:2, where the courts, in the plural, are allotted to them as their standing-place, and according to Psa 135:19-20, those who fear Him as a body. The threefold Jahve at the beginning is then repeated in Jāh (הללוּ־יהּ, cf. note 1 to PsPsa 104:35), Jahve, and Jāh. The subject of כּי נעים is by no means Jahve (Hupfeld), whom they did not dare to call נעים in the Old Testament, but either the Name, according to Ps 54:8 (Luther, Hitzig), or, which is favoured by Psa 147:1 (cf. Pro 22:18), the praising of His Name (Appolinaris: ἐπεὶ τόδε καλὸν ἀείδειν): His Name to praise is a delightful employ, which is incumbent on Israel as the people of His choice and of His possession.

The praise itself now begins. כּי in Psa 135:4 set forth the ground of the pleasant duty, and the כי that begins this strophe confirms that which warrants the summons out of the riches of the material existing for such a hymn of praise. Worthy is He to be praised, for Israel knows full well that He who hath chosen it is the God of gods. The beginning is taken from Psa 115:3, and Psa 135:7 from Jer 10:13 (Psa 51:16). Heaven, earth, and water are the three kingdoms of created things, as in Exo 20:4. נשׂיא signifies that which is lifted up, ascended; here, as in Jeremiah, a cloud. The meaning of בּרקים למּטר עשׂה is not: He makes lightnings into rain, i.e., resolves them as it were into rain, which is unnatural; but either according to Zac 10:1 : He produces lightnings in behalf of rain, in order that the rain may pour down in consequence of the thunder and lightning, or poetically: He makes lightnings for the rain, so that the rain is announced (Apollinaris) and accompanied by them. Instead of מוצא (cf. Psa 78:16; Psa 105:43), which does not admit of the retreating of the tone, the expression is מוצא, the ground-form of the part. Hiph. for plurals like מחצרים, מחלמים, מעזרים, perhaps not without being influenced by the ויּוצא in Jeremiah, for it is not מוצא from מצא that signifies "producing," but מוציא = מפיק. The metaphor of the treasuries is like Job 38:22. What is intended is the fulness of divine power, in which lie the grounds of the origin and the impulses of all things in nature.

Worthy is He to be praised, for He is the Redeemer out of Egypt. בּתוככי as in Psa 116:19, cf. Psa 105:27.

Worthy is He to be praised, for He is the Conqueror of the Land of Promise. in connection with Psa 135:10 one is reminded of Deu 4:38; Deu 7:1; Deu 9:1; Deu 11:23; Jos 23:9. גּוים רבּים are here not many, but great peoples (cf. גּדלים in Psa 136:17), since the parallel word עצוּמים is by no means intended of a powerful number, but of powerful might (cf. Isa 53:12). As to the rest also, the poet follows the Book of Deuteronomy: viz., לכל ממלכות as in Deu 3:21, and נתן נחלה as in Deu 4:38 and other passages. It is all Deuteronomic with the exception of the שׁ, and the ל e in Psa 135:11 as the nota accus. (as in Psa 136:19., cf. Psa 69:6; Psa 116:16; Psa 129:3); the construction of הרג is just as Aramaizing in Job 5:2; Sa2 3:30 (where Sa2 3:30-31, like Sa2 3:36-37, are a later explanatory addition). The הרג alternating with הכּה is, next to the two kings, also referred to the kingdoms of Canaan, viz., their inhabitants. Og was also an Amoritish king, Deu 3:8.

This God who rules so praiseworthily in the universe and in the history of Israel is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. Just as Psa 135:13 (cf. Psa 102:13) is taken from Exo 3:15, so Psa 135:14 is taken from Deu 32:36, cf. Psa 90:13, and vid., on Heb 10:30-31.

For the good of His proved church He ever proves Himself to be the Living God, whereas idols and idol-worshippers are vain - throughout following Psa 115:4-8, but with some abridgments. Here only the אף used as a particle recalls what is said there of the organ of smell (אף) of the idols that smells not, just as the רוּח which is here (as in Jer 10:14) denied to the idols recalls the הריח denied to them there. It is to be rendered: also there is not a being of breath, i.e., there is no breath at all, not a trace thereof, in their mouth. It is different in Sa1 21:9, where אין ישׁ (not אין) is meant to be equivalent to the Aramaic אין אית, num (an) est; אין is North-Palestinian, and equivalent to the interrogatory אם (after which the Targum renders אלּוּ אית).

A call to the praise of Jahve, who is exalted above the gods of the nations, addressed to Israel as a whole, rounds off the Psalm by recurring to its beginning. The threefold call in Psa 115:9-11; Psa 118:2-4, is rendered fourfold here by the introduction of the house of the Levites, and the wishing of a blessing in Psa 134:3 is turned into an ascription of praise. Zion, whence Jahve's self-attestation, so rich in power and loving-kindness, is spread abroad, is also to be the place whence His glorious attestation by the mouth of men is spread abroad. History has realized this.

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