Psalm 149:4

Psalm 149 stands among the last five psalms of the Psalter (Psalms 146–150), often called the Hallelujah Psalms for their repeated cry “Praise ye the LORD”. They rise together to the end of the book. Psalm 148 calls the whole creation to praise, Psalm 149 turns to God’s own people, his saints, and Psalm 150 closes the Psalter in a last great chorus.

“Praise ye the LORD” is a single cry in Hebrew, Hallelujah, “Praise Yah”, built on the verb hâlal. Its root carries the ideas of being clear and of shining, and from there of making a show and of boasting. Turned toward God it means to celebrate him, gladly and in public, so that his excellence shines out in the praise of his people. The same verb returns in verse 3, “Let them praise his name”.

The praise is to take the form of “a new song”. The word for new, châdâsh, means new or fresh, and it is used of what has just been made or of what differs from what came before. A new song in Scripture often follows something God has newly done, such as bringing Israel out of Egypt or home from exile in Babylon, or a fresh showing of who he is. Each mercy gives his people a new reason to sing, and their worship stays as fresh as his work. The call comes again and again: “Sing unto him a new song; play skilfully with a loud noise” (Psalm 33:3), “O sing unto the LORD a new song: sing unto the LORD, all the earth” (Psalm 96:1), and in Isaiah, “Sing unto the LORD a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth” (Isaiah 42:10).

The second half of the verse names the place: “his praise in the congregation of saints”. This is the praise of God’s people gathered together, the assembly of his covenant people, where the song is shared and each voice joins the others. The New Testament keeps the same concern for the church: “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is” (Hebrews 10:25).

Verse 2 gives the first reasons for the song: “Let Israel rejoice in him that made him: let the children of Zion be joyful in their King.” The two lines say one thing twice in different words, as Hebrew poetry often does. Israel and the children of Zion are the same people, Zion being Jerusalem, the city where God dwelt among them, and “him that made him” and “their King” are the same God.

The verb for “made”, ʻâsâh, is the ordinary word for doing or making, used in the broadest way. Here it means that God made Israel, as a nation and in each person who belonged to it. Their very existence as a people came from him, and the psalms say so plainly: “it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture” (Psalm 100:3). Isaiah joins making and redeeming in one breath: “But now thus saith the LORD that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine” (Isaiah 43:1).

The second line calls God their King. Among the nations a king led in war, gave justice and kept his people safe, and Israel’s King had done all of this and had brought them out of slavery besides. Moses’ song by the Red Sea ends, “The LORD shall reign for ever and ever” (Exodus 15:18), and the psalms come back to it often: “The LORD reigneth; let the people tremble” (Psalm 99:1), and “The LORD reigneth; let the earth rejoice” (Psalm 97:1). His rule is his people’s security, and so it is the ground of their joy.

The verse uses two verbs for joy. “Rejoice” is sâmach, to be glad, to feel great joy and show it. “Be joyful” is gîyl, which also means to rejoice or be glad, and Strong’s traces it to a root meaning to spin round under strong feeling. Set side by side, the two make the call to gladness whole-hearted, a joy that is felt within and shown without.

Verse 3 shows what this joy looks like: “Let them praise his name in the dance: let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp.” “Praise” is hâlal again, the verb of the opening Hallelujah, and what is praised is his name, shêm. In Scripture a name stands for the whole person, his character, his reputation and his authority. To praise God’s name is to praise all that he is and all that he has done: his holiness, love, power and faithfulness, and his works of creation, redemption and judgment. “O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!” (Psalm 8:1).

The dance, mâchôwl, is a round dance, people moving together in a ring. In Israel dancing was a natural way to show great joy, at festivals, after victories and in times of deliverance. After the crossing of the Red Sea, “Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances” (Exodus 15:20). When the ark was brought up to Jerusalem, “David danced before the LORD with all his might” (2 Samuel 6:14).

“Sing praises” is zâmar, to sing, here with instruments. The timbrel, tôph, was a hand drum something like a tambourine, and the harp, kinnôwr, was a stringed instrument, probably a lyre. Both were common in Israel, at feasts and in worship alike, and between them they gave the song its beat and its tune. Voice, body and instrument come together here, so that the whole person and the whole people praise him at once. The last psalm takes up the same picture: “Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs” (Psalm 150:4). And gladness is the heart of it: “Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing” (Psalm 100:2).

Verse 4 begins with “For”, and it gives the reason behind every call in the psalm: “For the LORD taketh pleasure in his people: he will beautify the meek with salvation.” The singing, dancing and music of verses 1 to 3 answer what God already is toward his people.

The verb râtsâh means to be pleased with, to accept, to delight in. God accepts his people and delights in them, and his delight comes from his own covenant love and faithfulness, the same faithfulness he kept toward Israel through all their failures. It is his free gift, the way a loving parent delights in a child. He chose them for himself: “the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself” (Deuteronomy 7:6). Zephaniah says it in the warmest words in Scripture: “he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17). His people sing to him because he first rejoices over them.

Then the verse says what his pleasure does. To beautify, pâʼar, is to make something gleam, to adorn it or give it glory. The ones he adorns are the meek, ʻânâv, people brought low, whether in mind, so that they are gentle, or in circumstances, so that they are poor and needy. In the Psalms and the prophets the meek are often the afflicted and oppressed who go on trusting God, the very people to whom good news is sent: “he hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek” (Isaiah 61:1). Proverbs gives the rule, “Surely he scorneth the scorners: but he giveth grace unto the lowly” (Proverbs 3:34), and Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5).

God adorns them with salvation, yᵉshûwʻâh. In Israel salvation meant rescue from enemies and also the well-being and flourishing that God gives, and here it is pictured as something put on, like a fine garment or an ornament. Isaiah uses the same picture: “he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness” (Isaiah 61:10). The people the world overlooks are the people God dresses in honour, and their beauty is his saving work upon them.

Verse 5 returns to the saints of verse 1: “Let the saints be joyful in glory: let them sing aloud upon their beds.” “Be joyful” here is ʻâlaz, to jump for joy, to exult, to triumph. It shares the English words with the “be joyful” of verse 2, which is gîyl. “Glory” is kâbôwd, a word for glory, honour and splendour. The glory may be God’s own splendour and presence, which the saints rejoice in, or the honour he gives them, the beauty of salvation that verse 4 has just described, which they rejoice because of. Both are true of them, since the honour they have comes from the glorious God who gives it.

To sing aloud, rânan, is to give a ringing cry or shout, usually of joy, the sound of a feast or a victory. The psalm calls for it “upon their beds”. A bed, mishkâb, is a place of lying down, from shâkab, to lie. It is where people rest and sleep, alone and unguarded. Verse 1 put God’s praise in the assembly, and verse 5 carries it into private life, into rest and the quiet of the night, so that the joy of the saints goes home with them.

Other psalms speak of the night in the same way: “When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches” (Psalm 63:6), and of the righteous man, “his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night” (Psalm 1:2). David found gladness and rest together: “Thou hast put gladness in my heart … I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety” (Psalm 4:7–8). Paul writes, “Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice” (Philippians 4:4).

From the beds the psalm turns, in Psalm 149:6–9, to the saints carrying out God’s judgment upon the nations. The salvation of verse 4 and the private joy of verse 5 lead straight into that public work, and the saints who praise him in the night are the people he gives a part in it.

The New Testament shows where this praise reaches its fullest. The Maker Israel rejoices in made all things through his Son: “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3), and Christ is the image of the invisible God, by whom all things were created and in whom they hold together (Colossians 1:15–17). The King the children of Zion rejoice in is Jesus, the Son of David, for “God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36). At the last trumpet heaven proclaims, “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever” (Revelation 11:15).

The newest reason for a new song is the redemption won by “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). In heaven a new song is sung to him: “Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood” (Revelation 5:9). A great multitude cries, “Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth” (Revelation 19:6). When the church gathers, Jew and Gentile together, its song joins that one.

Christ fulfils verse 4 as well. He is the meek one above all, who “humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:6–8), and the Father said of him, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). In him God takes pleasure in his people, and in him the meek are beautified with salvation. God “hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Those baptized into Christ “have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27), and we are “changed into the same image from glory to glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

The saints of verse 5 are all whom God chose in Christ “that we should be holy” (Ephesians 1:4), and the glory they rejoice in shines in the Son, “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person” (Hebrews 1:3). Believers are “joint-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17), and the God of hope fills them “with all joy and peace in believing” (Romans 15:13). They worship the Father in spirit and in truth (John 4:23–24), offering “the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name” (Hebrews 13:15), and they look to the day when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:10–11). The song upon the bed belongs here too. Our whole life is offered to God as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1), and “whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s” (Romans 14:8).

This psalm gives God’s people a song with their Maker and King at its centre. It shows us a God who takes pleasure in his people and who dresses the lowly in his salvation, and it makes his delight in us the reason for our delight in him. The praise it calls for takes in the whole person, voice, body and instrument, and the whole of life, from the congregation of saints to the bed at night. Every fresh mercy is a fresh reason to sing, and the greatest of them is the Lamb who was slain. Whether we stand with the church on the Lord’s day or lie awake in the dark, this new song is ours.