Psalm 147:6

Psalm 147 belongs to the last five psalms of the Psalter, Psalm 146 through Psalm 150, often called the Hallelujah Psalms because of their repeated call “Praise ye the LORD”. Together they bring the book to its close in a rising chorus of worship that ends, “Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD” (Psalm 150:6). This psalm weaves together two great themes, God’s rule over creation, down to the snow, frost and wind (Psalm 147:16–18), and his tender care for his people, and verse 1 calls us to celebrate both.

“Praise ye the LORD” is the Hebrew Hallelû Yah, the word we know as Hallelujah. Its verb, hâlal, means to celebrate, to commend, to make someone renowned, and its root carries the sense of shining and making a show. This is glad, open praise, spoken aloud for others to hear. Yah is the LORD, God’s personal covenant name, and the “ye” of the KJV shows that the call goes out to all his people together.

Three reasons follow. The first is that “it is good to sing praises unto our God”. To sing praises, zâmar, is to sing or make music in praise of God, with instruments or with the voice alone. The word for good, ṭôwb, is the broadest Hebrew word for good, covering what is excellent, beneficial, pleasant and right. Praise is right because God deserves it, and it is good for the one who sings, because it turns the heart from itself to him. Another psalm says the same: “It is a good thing to give thanks unto the LORD, and to sing praises unto thy name, O most High” (Psalm 92:1). “Our God” is ʼĕlôhîym, plural in form and read as a plural of majesty when it names the true God, and the word “our” speaks of a people who belong to him.

The second reason is that “it is pleasant”. The Hebrew nâʻîym means delightful, agreeable, lovely. Worship offered from a sincere heart is a joy to the one who offers it, and it delights God.

The third is that “praise is comely”. Here praise is the noun tᵉhillâh, praise or a hymn of praise, and comely is nâʼveh, suitable, beautiful, becoming, seemly. Praise suits God as a fine garment suits the one who wears it. It is the fitting answer of the creature to the Creator, and it adorns the worshipper too.

The first reason the psalm gives for praise is something God has done for his people. “The LORD doth build up Jerusalem”. The verb bânâh means to build, and also to repair and to make, in a literal sense and a figurative one. Human hands laid the stones, but the psalmist gives the rebuilding, its success and its very possibility, to the LORD. His work takes in the walls and houses of the city and also its community, its worship and its life under his law.

“He gathereth together the outcasts of Israel”. The verb kânaç means to collect or gather together, and it can also mean to enfold or wrap. The word behind “outcasts”, dâchâh, means to push down, to drive away, to thrust out. These are people who had been driven from their land, and God’s gathering undoes their scattering and brings them back to belong among his people.

This is what the prophets had promised. Jeremiah told the nations, “He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock” (Jeremiah 31:10), and Isaiah pictured the LORD as a shepherd who will “gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom” (Isaiah 40:11). In Ezekiel God says that he himself will search for his sheep, seek them out and bring them back (Ezekiel 34:11–16). Isaiah also speaks of God assembling the outcasts of Israel from the four corners of the earth (Isaiah 11:12), and through Jeremiah he promised to gather his people from all the places where he had driven them (Jeremiah 29:14). Nehemiah prayed that very promise back to God, that though his people were cast out to the uttermost part of the heaven, he would gather them from there (Nehemiah 1:9). The psalm before this one praises the LORD for the same kind of care, for the oppressed, the hungry, the prisoner, the stranger, the fatherless and the widow (Psalm 146:7–9).

Israel had gone into exile because of its own disobedience, and still God kept his word to restore them. That covenant faithfulness, holding firm through judgment, is the heart of this verse.

From the city the psalm turns to the people in it. “He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.” The verb râphâʼ means to mend or cure, to make whole. Scripture uses it of human physicians as well as of God, and that is the picture here: the LORD as the physician of his people.

“Broken” is shâbar, to break or shatter, and it is joined to the heart, lêb, which in Hebrew is the whole inner person, mind, will and feelings together. A broken heart is one crushed by grief, despair, loss or sin. The same verse that names the break also has God healing it, so the word describes damage he can mend.

“Bindeth up” is châbash, to wrap, bind or bandage. The same word is used of tying on a turban or saddling an animal, and figuratively of governing. “Wounds” is ʻatstsebeth, a word for a pain or wound and also for sorrow. The two halves of the verse say the same thing twice, the second as a picture of the first: God dresses the hurts of the heart the way a physician binds an injury.

These words would have reached deep for a people coming home after generations of exile, with all its loss, displacement and grief. They reach just as deep for anyone today. “Broken in heart” covers every inner suffering that shatters a person’s sense of wholeness: grief, despair, spiritual brokenness over sin or disappointment, the trauma of abuse or loss, and the weariness of a long struggle. Another psalm says, “The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart” (Psalm 34:18). Isaiah’s Anointed One is sent “to bind up the brokenhearted” (Isaiah 61:1–2), and Jesus calls, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

From the wounded heart the psalm lifts its eyes to the night sky. “He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.” To tell the number is mânâh, to count or number, and also to allot or appoint. The stars are kôwkâb, the ordinary Hebrew word for a star. Their number is far beyond any human count, and God knows it.

He also calls them by name. A name, shêm, is a mark of individuality, and with it come honour, authority and character. In Israel, to name something showed authority over it, ownership of it and knowledge of it. So God knows every star, owns every star and rules every star. Each one has its place and purpose in his design. Isaiah says the same: “Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might” (Isaiah 40:26). Job speaks of the God who seals up the stars and made Arcturus, Orion and Pleiades (Job 9:7–9), and Genesis tells how he made the stars in the beginning (Genesis 1).

This mattered in a world where the nations around Israel linked the stars with gods, with fate and with astrology, and worshipped them. The psalm places every star under the command of the LORD, who made them, so the life of a believer rests in God’s hand and lies beyond the reach of any star.

Verse 5 gathers up everything the psalm has said so far. “Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.” Great is gâdôwl, great in size, rank and importance, and our Lord is ʼâdôwn, a master, sovereign or owner. The word is used of human masters too, and here it names the one who owns and rules all things. “Of great power” joins rab, much or great, to kôach, strength, might, the ability to act. God’s power is great enough to accomplish all his will, in creation, in judgment and in redemption.

“His understanding is infinite” is literally “of his understanding there is no number”. Understanding is tâbûwn, insight and discernment, the power to grasp and judge things as they are. Infinite is miçpâr, a number, with the word ʾên in front of it, so God’s understanding is past numbering. The stars of verse 4 have a number, and God knows it. His understanding is beyond any count at all. He knows all things, past, present and future, every thought, every event and every heart, for “God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things” (1 John 3:20). Isaiah says, “there is no searching of his understanding” (Isaiah 40:28), and the LORD says through him, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8–9). Paul can only cry, “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” (Romans 11:33).

These are the attributes behind every deed in the psalm. Because he is great in power and understanding, he can build up Jerusalem, gather the outcasts, heal the brokenhearted, number the stars, and later in the psalm send snow, frost and wind (Psalm 147:15–18). His power and his understanding go together. God’s power is always guided by his perfect wisdom, so every act of it is purposeful, rightly timed, just and good. Job confessed, “I know that thou canst do every thing” (Job 42:2), and Jeremiah prayed, “Ah Lord GOD! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee” (Jeremiah 32:17). For a small people living among empires that rose and fell, whose kings had limited strength and limited wisdom, this was solid ground to stand on.

The opening section of the psalm ends with God’s justice. “The LORD lifteth up the meek: he casteth the wicked down to the ground.” The LORD here is Yᵉhôvâh, God’s covenant name, the self-existent and unchanging God who keeps his promises. What he does to the meek and the wicked flows from who he is.

The meek, ʻânâv (the plural is anawim), are the humble, the lowly, the poor and the afflicted, people who rely on God more than on themselves or on worldly power. Meekness in Scripture is dependence on the LORD, often learned through hardship, and it can also be chosen. The LORD lifts them up, and that lifting takes in vindication, restoration and provision. The wicked he casts down. The verb shâphêl means to bring low, to humble, to abase, and “down to the ground” shows how far: their pride, influence and false security are stripped away.

The two halves of the verse stand in deliberate contrast, and together they show God turning human fortunes around. For the returned exiles, the meek would have been people like themselves, humbled by adversity and trusting God’s faithfulness more than their own diminished strength. The wicked could be the enemies who opposed the rebuilding of the walls (Nehemiah 4), or more broadly those who prospered by injustice, for “The curse of the LORD is in the house of the wicked: but he blesseth the habitation of the just” (Proverbs 3:33). The verses that follow carry the theme on, praising God’s provision and his displeasure with those who trust in mere strength (Psalm 147:7–11).

Scripture says this again and again. “A man’s pride shall bring him low: but honour shall uphold the humble in spirit” (Proverbs 29:23). “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble” (James 4:6). Jesus says, “whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted” (Matthew 23:12), and “many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first” (Matthew 19:30). Through Isaiah the LORD says that he looks to the one “that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word” (Isaiah 66:2).

Every verse of this passage finds its fullest meaning in Jesus Christ. Through him we know God, draw near to him and praise him. Jesus glorified the Father perfectly on earth (John 17:4), and through his sacrifice we may offer the sacrifice of praise that pleases God (Hebrews 13:15). He is himself worthy of all praise: “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain” (Revelation 5:12), and one day every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:10–11). Our praise is comely because it is offered through the one who is “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person” (Hebrews 1:3).

As the LORD built up Jerusalem, Christ builds his church: “upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). As he gathered Israel’s outcasts, Christ gathers the lost. He has broken down the middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile (Ephesians 2:14), he redeems people “out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation” (Revelation 5:9), and as the Good Shepherd he brings in his other sheep so that there is one fold and one shepherd (John 10:16). His people are built together into a holy temple, with Jesus Christ himself the chief corner stone (Ephesians 2:19–22).

The healer of the brokenhearted came in person. Jesus read Isaiah’s words about the one sent to bind up the brokenhearted and proclaim liberty to the captives, and he declared them fulfilled in himself (Isaiah 61:1–2, Luke 4:18–19). Through his own wounds he heals us, for “with his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). He is a high priest who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities (Hebrews 4:15), and he brings us to the day when “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes” (Revelation 21:4).

The God who numbers the stars made them through the Son, for by him all things were created, in heaven and in earth (Colossians 1:16), and he upholds “all things by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3). The God who calls the stars by name calls us by name into salvation through the Lamb of God, “which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Christ shares the great power and understanding of verse 5. All things were created by him and by him all things hold together (Colossians 1:16–17), he calmed storms, healed the sick and raised the dead, and he “knew what was in man” (John 2:25). Paul calls him “the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24).

Christ is also the meek one whom the LORD lifted up. He “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:7), and he humbled himself to death on a cross (Philippians 2:8). He taught that whoever humbles himself as a little child is greatest in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 18:4). Then “God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name” (Philippians 2:9). By his victory over sin, death and Satan, all that opposes God’s rule is cast down to the ground.

This passage gives you reasons to praise that do not depend on how the day is going. The God you sing to rebuilt a ruined city, brought scattered people home, and still heals broken hearts with a physician’s care. He knows the number of the stars and the name of each one, and his understanding is past all counting, so nothing about your life is hidden from him or too hard for him.

So praise is good for you and right for him. It turns your eyes from yourself to the one who holds the heavens, and it lets you bring your wounds to him as well as your thanks. And the last verse of the passage holds out a sure hope. The LORD lifts up the humble who lean on him, and in his time he will bring every wrong to the ground.