1 Hallelujah! Praise the name of Jehovah, Praise, ye servants of Jehovah, 2 Who stand in the house of Jehovah, In the courts of the house of our God. 3 Praise Jah, for Jehovah is good; Harp to His name, for it is pleasant. 4 For Jah has chosen Jacob for Himself, Israel for His own possession.
5 For I--I know that Jehovah is great, And [that] our Lord is above all gods. 6 Whatsoever Jehovah wills He has done, In the heaven and in the earth, In the seas and all depths; 7 Who makes the vapours go up from the end of the earth, He makes lightnings for the rain, Who brings forth wind from His storehouses.
8 Who smote the first-born of Egypt, Both of man and of cattle; 9 He sent signs and wonders into thy midst, O Egypt, On Pharaoh and all his servants.
10 Who smote many nations, And slew mighty kings; 11 Sihon, king of the Amorites, And Og, king of Bashan; 12 And gave their land [as] an inheritance, An inheritance to Israel His people.
13 Jehovah, Thy name [endures] for ever, Jehovah, Thy memorial [endures] to generation after generation. 14 For Jehovah will right His people, And will relent concerning His servants. 15 The idols of the nations are silver and gold, The work of the hands of men. 16 A mouth is theirs--and they cannot speak; Eyes are theirs--and they cannot see; 17 Ears are theirs--and they cannot give ear; Yea, there is no breath at all in their mouths. 18 Like them shall those who make them be, [Even] every one that trusts in them.
19 House of Israel, bless ye Jehovah; House of Aaron, bless ye Jehovah; 20 House of Levi, bless ye Jehovah; Ye who fear Jehovah, bless ye Jehovah. 21 Blessed be Jehovah from Zion, Who dwells in Jerusalem! Hallelujah!
Like Psalms xcvii. and xcviii., this is a cento, or piece of mosaic work, apparently intended as a call to worship Jehovah in the Temple. His greatness, as manifested in Nature, and especially in His planting Israel in its inheritance, is set forth as the reason for praise; and the contemptuous contrast of the nothingness of idols is repeated from Psalm cxv., and followed, as there, by an exhortation to Israel to cleave to Him. We have not here to do with a song which gushed fresh from the singer's heart, but with echoes of many strains which a devout and meditative soul had made its own. The flowers are arranged in a new bouquet, because the poet had long delighted in their fragrance. The ease with which he blends into a harmonious whole fragments from such diverse sources tells how familiar he was with these, and how well he loved them.
Vv. 1-4 are an invocation to praise Jehovah, and largely consist of quotations or allusions. Thus Psalm cxxxiv. 1 underlies vv. 1, 2. But here the reference to nightly praises is omitted, and the summons is addressed not only to those who stand in the house of Jehovah, but to those who stand in its _courts_. That expansion may mean that the call to worship is here directed to the people as well as to the priests (so in ver. 19). Ver. 3 closely resembles Psalm cxlvii. 1, but the question of priority may be left undecided. Since the act of praise is said to be "pleasant" in Psalm cxlvii. 1, it is best to refer the same word here to the same thing, and not, as some would do, to the Name, or to take it as an epithet of Jehovah. To a loving soul praise is a delight. The songs which are not winged by the singer's joy in singing will not rise high. True worship pours out its notes as birds do theirs--in order to express gladness which, unuttered, loads the heart. Ver. 4 somewhat passes beyond the bounds of the invocation proper, and anticipates the subsequent part of the psalm. Israel's prerogative is so great to this singer that it forces utterance at once, though "out of season," as correct critics would say. But the throbs of a grateful heart are not always regular. It is impossible to keep the reasons for praise out of the summons to praise. Ver. 4 joyfully and humbly accepts the wonderful title given in Deut. vii. 6.