Psalm 111:5

Psalm 111 is an acrostic, an alphabet poem. In the Hebrew each half-line begins with the next letter of the alphabet, from aleph to tav. The form helped worshippers learn the psalm by heart, and by running through the whole alphabet it offers God praise that is complete and well ordered. Acrostics were used for teaching, and the poem on the virtuous woman at the end of Proverbs 31 is another. Psalm 111 also has a twin in Psalm 112, an acrostic of the same kind. Psalm 111 praises God for his character and his deeds, and Psalm 112 describes the blessing of the man who fears such a God, whose life comes to reflect the very qualities praised here.

The psalm was written for God’s people to sing together and to learn from. After the call to praise and the general praise of God’s works, it goes on to name his particular deeds of grace, justice and provision (Psalm 111:4–9).

“Praise ye the LORD” is the Hebrew Hallelujah. It joins hâlal, “to praise”, with Yah, the short form of the LORD’s name Yᵉhôvâh that is used in poetry and means the same. At its root hâlal has to do with shining and making a show, and from there it comes to mean boasting in someone and celebrating him. So this is glad, open, public praise of the LORD for who he is and what he has done.

The word is a command and a shout of worship at once. It calls everyone who hears to praise the God of Israel, and it marks the psalm as a song for worship, as it does in Psalm 113:1. The book of Psalms closes with the widest form of the same call: “Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD” (Psalm 150:6).

Then the psalmist speaks for himself: “I will praise the LORD.” Having called others to praise, he makes a firm, personal vow to do it himself, and the rest of the psalm is that praise being given.

The heart, lêbâb, is the inmost part of a person. Hebrew uses it for the mind, the understanding and the courage as well as the feelings, so the heart is the whole inner self: thought, will, conscience and affection together. To praise with the “whole heart” is to give God undivided and sincere praise, with every part of the inner person taking part in it.

This is the devotion God asked of Israel from the beginning. The great commandment tells his people to love him with all their heart, soul and might (Deuteronomy 6:5), and through Isaiah the LORD rebukes the lip service of a people whose hearts are far from him (Isaiah 29:13). Wholehearted praise set Israel’s worship apart from the empty rituals of the nations around them.

The psalmist will praise God in two settings. “The assembly of the upright” translates çôwd, a council: a company of people sitting together in close counsel. Here it is the circle of the upright, who share a close fellowship with God and with one another. “The congregation” translates ʻêdâh, a stated gathering, a word broad enough to mean a family or a crowd, which the KJV also renders “multitude” and even “swarm”. Here it is the whole people of God assembled. Between them the two words cover every gathering of God’s people, from the close fellowship of the devoted to the great assembly of the nation.

In Israel these gatherings met at the tabernacle and the temple, and later in the synagogues. There the people recounted God’s mighty acts in their history, offered sacrifices and worshipped together. Praise belongs in these gatherings as well as in private, because shared praise is made stronger, it encourages fellow believers, and it gives one united witness to the greatness of God. The letter to the Hebrews tells believers to keep assembling together (Hebrews 10:25), and the people of God gathered in Christ are built together into a dwelling place of God by his Spirit (Ephesians 2:21–22).

The word for works, maʻăseh, means deeds, products and workmanship, everything God has done and made. The KJV gives it in the plural, and God’s works are many and varied. They reach from creation, the moon and stars he has made (Psalm 8:3), to his acts in Israel’s history, which his people were called to remember (Psalm 105:5), and on to his daily care and his whole plan of redemption.

These works are gâdôwl, “great”, the ordinary Hebrew word for greatness in size, age, rank or strength. God’s deeds are great in every one of those ways. For Israel the words “the works of the LORD” would have called to mind the Passover and the way out of Egypt (Exodus 12), the giving of the law at Sinai (Exodus 19, Exodus 20), the conquest of Canaan and God’s constant care for his people. Creation tells of the same greatness: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork” (Psalm 19:1). Each of these works shows something of God himself, his power, wisdom, justice and steadfast love.

God’s works are “sought out of all them that have pleasure therein.” The verb dârash means to seek, to inquire, to look into something with care, and the form here is passive: the works are searched out and studied. The people who search them are those who have chêphets in them, which is pleasure, delight or desire. Their study is glad and willing, the fruit of loving the God whose works they are, and it turns the study of his deeds into worship.

The rest of Scripture speaks the same way. God promises, “And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13), and the blessed man of Psalm 1:2 delights in the law of the LORD. For us this searching happens above all in the Bible, where God’s works of redemption and his covenant faithfulness are written down. It happens as we look at the order and beauty of creation, and as we trace his faithful hand in our own lives, in hard times and in good ones. God’s works are meant to be understood, and those who come to them eagerly find them open.

God’s work is great, and it is beautiful too. “His work” is pôʻal, a deed or piece of work, the things God actually does in the world. It is “honourable”, hôwd, a word for grandeur, majesty, beauty and excellence, and “glorious”, hâdâr, which adds its own weight of splendour. Together the two words say that everything God does carries dignity and beauty and calls for reverence. His work is effective and powerful, and it is also perfect in the way it is done, because it comes from a God who is holy, wise and good. His creation of the world in Genesis 1 shows it, and so does his deliverance of his people at the Red Sea (Exodus 14).

The word for righteousness, tsᵉdâqâh, means rightness in every sense: uprightness in God himself, justice in what he does, and moral goodness. In God it means that he always acts as his own holy nature requires and that he keeps faith with his covenant promises. Moses’ song praises him as just and right (Deuteronomy 32:4). The verb ʻâmad, “endureth”, with ʻad, “for ever”, says that this righteousness lasts without end. His kingdom is everlasting (Psalm 145:13), his word stands for ever (Isaiah 40:8), and all his promises are yea in Christ (2 Corinthians 1:20).

This verse joins God’s deeds to his character. His work is glorious, and behind it stands a righteousness that stays the same in every generation, so his judgments are true and his promises can be relied on. For Israel, a people who went through times of faithfulness and of falling away, of exile and of return, this was a steady comfort, because their God stayed the same through all of it. Since his righteousness lasts for ever, his justice and his order will prevail in the end.

The “wonderful works” of verse 4 translate pâlâʼ, which speaks of acts beyond human power that fill those who see them with wonder. They are God’s own interventions, often to save, such as the miracles of the exodus, his provision in the wilderness and the creation itself.

God himself saw to it that these deeds would be remembered. He gave his people the means: the story told from parents to children, the written Scriptures (the Psalms among them), the feasts that marked his acts each year, and the words of the prophets. Moses told Israel to keep God’s words in their hearts and teach them to their children (Deuteronomy 6:6–7). Remembering fed their worship and their gratitude, it showed them his faithfulness to the covenant, it gave them good ground to trust him for the future, and it taught each new generation who their God was. Remembering kept his works at the centre of who his people were.

The second half of verse 4 gives the heart of the matter. God’s works are worth remembering because they show who he is, and “the LORD is gracious and full of compassion.” The name used here is Yᵉhôvâh, God’s covenant name, the name of the God who bound himself to Israel.

The word channûwn, “gracious”, describes a God who is kind and shows favour, who gives blessing even to the undeserving. The word rachûwm, “full of compassion”, speaks of tender mercy and pity, a love often compared to a parent’s love for a child, quick to relieve suffering. The two words are paired often in the Old Testament. They go back to the LORD’s own proclamation of his name to Moses at Sinai (Exodus 34:6–7), and the same confession of his mercy returns in Numbers 14:18 and Psalm 103:8. It became the cornerstone of how Israel knew their covenant God.

So the God whose works are great and glorious is gracious and compassionate at heart. His power and his love always work together, and his mighty deeds are the outflow of his goodness. That is why his works are remembered with joy, and why remembering them leads to trust.

Verse 5 brings God’s care down to the daily needs of life. “Meat” in the KJV means food. The Hebrew ṭereph can mean prey as well as food, so it carries a picture of provision actively secured, the way a hunter provides for his family. In Israel, food depended on harvest, rain and safety from enemies, and any of these could fail. The psalmist praises the God who has given his people what they needed. This God fed Israel with manna all through the wilderness years (Exodus 16:35) and brought water out of the rock (Exodus 17:6). Psalm 23 opens, “The LORD is my shepherd” (Psalm 23:1), and Jesus tells us that our Father knows what we need before we ask him (Matthew 6:8).

The ones he feeds are “them that fear him”. The word yârê describes one who fears, a reverent person. The fear of the LORD is deep reverence and awe before his holiness and power, joined with trust and love, and it leads to humble obedience. Proverbs calls it “the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10). God’s provision for those who fear him flows from his own faithfulness, and they receive it as a gift from his hand.

The word for covenant, bᵉrîyth, means a solemn, binding agreement, an alliance or treaty. Covenants were often made with oaths and sacrifices, with blessings for keeping them and curses for breaking them, and a covenant was said to be “cut”, a phrase tied to the old practice of cutting animals in two and the parties passing between the pieces. God’s covenants begin with him. He made them with Noah, with Abraham, with Israel through Moses and with David, and they shaped Israel’s identity, their hold on the land and their calling.

“He will ever be mindful of his covenant” means that God always keeps his promises in mind and keeps every one of them. Israel’s history showed it, for he stayed faithful to them even when they were unfaithful to him. The psalm that speaks of God making his works to be remembered by his people speaks here of God himself remembering. Provision and covenant belong together in this verse, because God feeds his people as part of keeping his word to them. The promise holds for us: “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5). And God promised a new covenant, with forgiveness, a new heart and a true knowledge of him (Jeremiah 31:31–34), which he has made in Christ.

Every theme of these verses comes to its fullest in Jesus Christ. The only begotten Son has declared the Father (John 1:18), and in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3), so those who delight in God’s works now seek them above all in him. All things were made by him (John 1:3), and in him all things were created and hold together (Colossians 1:16–17).

The greatest of God’s works is the redemption Christ accomplished, by which God has delivered us and given us forgiveness through his blood (Colossians 1:13–14). It is the clearest display of God’s righteousness, for at the cross God shows himself just and the justifier of the one who believes in Jesus (Romans 3:25–26). The righteousness that endures for ever is given to us in Christ, who is made unto us righteousness (1 Corinthians 1:30), because God made him to be sin for us so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (2 Corinthians 5:21).

In Jesus we see the LORD gracious and full of compassion. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), and he was moved with compassion for the crowds (Matthew 9:36), healing the sick and feeding the hungry. As God fed Israel in the wilderness, Jesus fed the multitude (Matthew 14:13–21), and he calls himself the bread of life (John 6:35). At his last supper he spoke of the new testament in his blood (Luke 22:20), and he gave his church a meal to keep in remembrance of him until he comes (1 Corinthians 11:23–26), so God’s wonderful works are still made to be remembered.

All who belong to Christ are heirs of the promise (Galatians 3:29), and through his blood we may draw near to God with a cleansed heart (Hebrews 10:19–22), which makes possible the wholehearted praise of verse 1. The Hallelujah of this psalm looks ahead to the praise of heaven, where honour and glory are given to the Lamb who was slain (Revelation 5:12–13), and to the coming he has promised (Revelation 22:20).

These verses give us reasons for praise that rest on God himself. His works are great, beautiful and lasting, and his people can search them with delight all their lives, in Scripture, in creation and in what he has done for them. His righteousness is the same in every generation, so his promises hold. He is gracious and full of compassion, and his strength is always moved by his love. He feeds those who fear him, and he holds to his covenant for ever.

The praise that answers this is whole and shared. The psalmist gives God his whole heart, and he gives it alongside God’s people, in the close fellowship of the upright and in the great congregation. When the church gathers to sing God’s praise and to remember Christ at his table, it takes up the same Hallelujah that opens this psalm.