Psalms 113

The call, not limited by any addition as in Psa 134:1, or eve, after the manner of Psa 103:20., extended over the earth, is given to the whole of the true Israel that corresponds to its election by grace and is faithful to its mission; and its designation by "servants of Jahve" (Ps 69:37, cf. Ps 34:23), or even "servant of Jahve" (Psa 136:22), has come into vogue more especially through the second part of Isaiah. This Israel is called upon to praise Jahve; for the praise and celebration of His Name, i.e., of His nature, which is disclosed by means of its manifestation, is a principal element, yea, the proper ground and aim, of the service, and shall finally become that which fills all time and all space. מהלּל laudatum (est), is equivalent to ἀινετόν, laudabile (lxx, Vulgate), and this does not differ greatly from laudetur. The predictive interpretation laudabitur is opposed to the context (cf. moreover Kφhler on Mal 1:11).

This praiseworthiness is now confirmed. The opening reminds one of Psa 99:2. Pasek stands between גוים and יהוה in order to keep them apart. The totality of the nations is great, but Jahve is raised above it; the heavens are glorious, but Jahve's glory is exalted above them. It is not to be explained according to Psa 148:13; but according to Psa 57:6, 12, רם belongs to Psa 113:4 too as predicate. He is the incomparable One who has set up His throne in the height, but at the same time directs His gaze deep downwards (expression according to Ges. ֗142, rem. 1) in the heavens and upon earth, i.e., nothing in all the realm of the creatures that are beneath Him escapes His sight, and nothing is so low that it remains unnoticed by Him; on the contrary, it is just that which is lowly, as the following strophe presents to us in a series of portraits so to speak, that is the special object of His regard. The structure of Psa 113:5-6 militates against the construction of "in the heavens and upon the earth" with the interrogatory "who is like unto Jahve our God?" after Deu 3:24.

The thoughts of Psa 113:7 and Psa 113:8 are transplanted from the song of Hannah. עפר, according to Kg1 16:2, cf. Psa 14:7, is an emblem of lowly estate (Hitzig), and אשׁפּת (from שׁפת) an emblem of the deepest poverty and desertion; for in Syria and Palestine the man who is shut out from society lies upon the mezbele (the dunghill or heap of ashes), by day calling upon the passers-by for alms, and by night hiding himself in the ashes that have been warmed by the sun (Job, ii. 152). The movement of the thoughts in Psa 113:8, as in Psa 113:1, follows the model of the epizeuxis. Together with the song of Hannah the poet has before his eye Hannah's exaltation out of sorrow and reproach. He does not, however, repeat the words of her song which have reference to this (Sa1 2:5), but clothes his generalization of her experience in his own language. If he intended that עקרת should be understood out of the genitival relation after the form עטרת, why did he not write מושׁיבי הבּית עקרה? הבּית would then be equivalent to בּיתה, Psa 68:7. עקרת הבּית is the expression for a woman who is a wife, and therefore housewife, הבּית (בּעלת) נות, but yet not a mother. Such an one has no settled position in the house of the husband, the firm bond is wanting in her relationship to her husband. If God gives her children, He thereby makes her then thoroughly at home and rooted-in in her position. In the predicate notion אם הבּנים שׂמחה the definiteness attaches to the second member of the string of words, as in Gen 48:19; Sa2 12:30 (cf. the reverse instance in Jer 23:26, נבּאי השּׁקר, those prophesying that which is false), therefore: a mother of the children. The poet brings the matter so vividly before him, that he points as it were with his finger to the children with which God blesses her.