Give Thanks to the God of Heaven
Notes
Transcript
Psalm 136 - the last psalm in the collection known as the Great Hallel (if not the Great Hallel psalm itself). Hallel (Praise) psalms were designated to be sung at the festivals of Israel, especially the Passover. Some scholars who identify many of the psalms with the fall festival, naturally think that it was originally to be used at New Year’s or Tabernacles. The repeated liturgical response in this psalm may have been said or sung by a Levitical choir or the congregation. When we read this psalm, it may seem to be a monotonous repetition, but it is actually a forceful refrain.
The structure of the psalm follows the pattern of a hymn:
a call to praise (vs. 1–3),
a lengthy cause for the praise (vs. 4–25),
a concluding call for praise (v. 26).
I. The LORD should be praised for his everlasting love because he alone is the sovereign Lord God (1–3).
I. The LORD should be praised for his everlasting love because he alone is the sovereign Lord God (1–3).
“He (the LORD) is good.” This word embraces everything that is beneficial for life, pleasing to life, and harmonious with life. Here it is an attribute of God, so how would people see that He is good? Everything about the LORD and everything that He does is gracious and life-giving. The second cola, the refrain, links His goodness to His covenant faithfulness.
“Lovingkindness” is the covenant word, expressing God’s unwavering faithfulness to his covenant promises to his people (Exod. 34:7, 8; Deut. 7:9; 1 Sam. 20:8). God’s faithful covenant love is sufficient; that is why it is at the heart of all his dealings with his people, even when they are sinful and need discipline.
“Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments;
Moving to verses 2-3, the constructions here are superlative genitives, meaning that he is God over all, and he is the supreme Lord. Referring to other gods does not mean that the psalmist was acknowledging them as real gods; it is simply his way of saying that Yahweh is the one true God and Lord over all.
In these three verses, we see God declared to be the the Self-Existing, the Supremely Powerful, and the Supremely Authoritative God who keeps His covenant promises, worthy of our praise because is lovingkindness is everlasting.
What did the LORD do for his people that prompted them to sing praises for his faithful covenant love? Because of the emphasis on the LORD’s absolute sovereignty as well as his faithfulness to the covenant, it must have been written in celebration of some great deliverance. What is the cause for praise?
II. The LORD deserves praise for his everlasting love because of the mighty works he has done for His creation (4–25).
II. The LORD deserves praise for his everlasting love because of the mighty works he has done for His creation (4–25).
A. Because of His everlasting love He created the heavens and the earth (4–9).
A. Because of His everlasting love He created the heavens and the earth (4–9).
The heart of a hymn is the reason for the praise; it not only motivates the worshipers to praise but gives them the content of their praise. This is true of Psalm 136 as well.
Verse 4 reads like a general summary for the section: “(to Him who) alone does great wonders, for his lovingkindness.…” The following verses will recall many of these wonders, works that were surpassingly extraordinary—that were supernatural.
Gratitude goes to God because only He does “great wonders (wonderful acts)” (136:4). By means of the refrain, Psalm 136 focuses our attention on the underlying source of all of God’s mighty works: his faithful love that endures forever.
God created the heavens with the heavenly lights to rule the day and night and established the earth on the waters. The statement that he made the heavens by understanding recalls Proverbs 3:19.
The Lord by wisdom founded the earth, By understanding He established the heavens.
Creation is the result and evidence of the wisdom and understanding of God (see Prov. 8).
The LORD also spread out the earth above the waters.
The verb “spread out” (“to beat out”) suggests the image of a thin sheet of metal spread over the subterranean waters (compare Psalm 24:2)
The “great lights” in the heavens reminds the congregation of the creation account of Genesis. These lights are the sun to rule the day and the moon and stars to rule the night.
God alone created everything in all its wondrous glory as a display of his everlasting covenant love. Believers needed to be reminded that they entered into covenant with the sovereign creator of the universe—and this is true today as well. All God’s works are wonderful and purposeful.
We are told of God’s creative miracles so that we will give thanks in general and give thanks for his “faithful love” in particular. God’s creative work was motivated by his faithful love (see also 36:5–7; 145:13, 17). It is important for us to see that the Creator is the God of love and that the creation bears witness to this love.
Our understanding of who God is plays a determinative role in our understanding of ourselves.
As Creator, God acted in love.
As creatures made in His image, we are called to act in love.
We declare our gratitude by giving thanks to God.
We demonstrate our gratitude by loving as God loves.
B. Because of His everlasting love He redeemed His people from bondage (10–16).
B. Because of His everlasting love He redeemed His people from bondage (10–16).
The subject now changes to the LORD’s redemption of Israel out of bondage, the psalmist singling out the tenth plague, the exodus, and the conquest. The hymn is not designed to be complete; it is a poetic reflection on significant examples of God’s wonders.
The psalm recalls how the LORD struck down Egypt and its firstborn and brought Israel out from among them (vv. 10–11). This was done, verse 12 explains, “with a strong hand and an outstretched arm,” a frequent poetic description of the powerful intervention of the LORD (see for example Exod. 6:1, 6; and Deut. 4:34; 5:15, and 26:8); the figures (anthropomorphisms) are idiomatic of God’s powerful acts; it is as if He stretched out his hand to strike Egypt.
“Or has a god tried to go to take for himself a nation from within another nation by trials, by signs and wonders and by war and by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm and by great terrors, as the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?
Then we are to recall that He divided the sea and brought Israel through it (vv. 13–14). The word “divided” literally means “to cut,” and so the expression could be interpreted to say He cut the sea in pieces. This perhaps hints at a polemic against pagan beliefs concerning the sea god.
When the text says that He “swept” Pharaoh and his army into the sea (v. 15), the choice of words emphasizes how effortless this act was, for the verb means to “shake off.” The LORD was simply shaking off Pharaoh and his army—they were powerless before him. There was no real challenge from Pharaoh and his gods to the God of gods.
It is a plain statement of fact, but the people would remember the many events that made up that wilderness trek, notably how the LORD again and again provided for and protected his people.
C. Because of His everlasting love He provided an inheritance for His people (17–22).
C. Because of His everlasting love He provided an inheritance for His people (17–22).
Verses 17 and 18 simply report that the LORD destroyed many mighty kings. The historical texts describe how Israel fought the battles, but it was God who was enabling them to do this (for example, see Exod. 17:1–7).
The psalmist singles out Sihon, the king of the Amorites, and Og, the king of Bashan, the two powerful kings in Transjordan that represent the Canaanite kingdoms (vv. 19–20). Israel had to fight these kings to gain access to the land. Here the names are grammatically in apposition to the great kings that the LORD defeated, identifying significant kings.
The result of these victories was that God gave the land of Canaan to Israel as its inheritance (see Ps. 135:12).
Once he dispossessed the Canaanite kings, the LORD enabled Israel to possess their land.
It was an inheritance that came with responsibilities, for the nation is referred to here as “his servant Israel,” an expression used frequently for the nation in Isaiah 41.
At every point along the way the antiphon would affirm that every wonderful and amazing work that He did was a demonstration of His faithful love. The psalmist does not dwell on Israel’s failure to trust the LORD that led to the wilderness wandering, the open rebellions, the constant murmuring against the LORD, and the sin with the golden calf—the people knew all about those events.
Let me suggest that God’s mighty miracles, these demonstrations of His faithful love, can be viewed from two different perspectives, one negative and one positive.
Negatively, as difficult as it may be to fathom, God demonstrated His faithful love by striking down the Egyptians and other foreign kings.
Positively, He demonstrated His faithful love by bringing His people out of Egypt and granting them the Promised Land as their inheritance.
The latter required the former, because the Egyptians and the other nations chose to oppose God and what He was doing in redemptive history (ex. Ps 2).
Delivering Israel through the Red Sea entailed the death of the Egyptians (136:11–15).
Bringing Israel into the Promised Land entailed the death of those who opposed this action (136:17–22).
God certainly takes no delight in the death of those who oppose Him; He would rather have them submit to Him and live (Ezek. 33:11).
“Say to them, ‘As I live!’ declares the Lord God, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?’
Death is the inevitable outcome of standing in opposition to God’s redemptive work in the world.
It was God’s intention to bring Israel out of Egypt and to bring them into the Promised Land as part of the preparation for the coming of His Son to be the Savior of the world. Those who stood in opposition to God were struck down because of their rebellion. It was God’s love for His people and ultimately for the world (John 3:16) that motivated His actions in the history of redemption.
D. Because of His everlasting love He protects and provides for His people (23–25).
D. Because of His everlasting love He protects and provides for His people (23–25).
The last verses of this central section of the psalm convey how the LORD has demonstrated His faithful love to the nation in general. No longer does the psalmist provide historical examples; in these verses he actualizes the love of God for the immediate congregation.
It is the LORD “who remembered us in our low estate … and rescued us from our foes.” God acted on behalf of his people. The description “our low estate” could fit any number of occasions, for Israel was in many life-threatening difficulties, many of them of their own making.
This reference could be to one of them, possibly to the time of the Judges (since the historical sequence ends with the settlement in the land), or, as most commentators suggest, it could simply be a general reference covering from the time of the settlement in the land until the restoration from the exile. No matter what low estate the Israelites experienced, even exile, the covenant program of God continued for His lovingkindness endures forever.
To see evidence of God’s faithful love, the community that originally used Psalm 136 could not only look back to God’s past acts of salvation in the history of redemption, but they could also look to mighty miracles God had done in their own lives.
We do not know for sure what is referred to by “our weakness” (136:23), nor can we identify “our enemies” (136:24).
What we do know is that God’s unfailing love is not just demonstrated in the distant past: It is seen in our own experience. For God’s faithful love “endures forever.” As He saved in the past, He saves in the present. His love is not diminished by time. What He has done in the past and in our own lives bears witness to what He will do in the future as well, for He “is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb 13:8).
Then, corresponding to God’s mighty miracles in creation is His work of providence, referred to in terms of His provision of food for “every living thing.” God’s providential care for His creation is motivated by His love for the creation He has made (see 36:5–7; 145:13, 17). God’s provision of sunshine and rain and the food that grows as a result is a demonstration of His faithful love. And this love is extended to all, even to those who oppose God and His ways in the world (Matt 5:44–45).
“But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
As His children, we are called to love as He loves, even to the point of loving those who stand in opposition to us.
III. The Lord should be praised for His everlasting love (26).
III. The Lord should be praised for His everlasting love (26).
In verse 26, the psalm reiterates the call from verse 1: “Give thanks to the God of heaven, for His loyal love endures forever.” This is the only place in the Psalter that this designation is used, even though it occurs in other books (such as Jon. 1:9; Ezra 1:2; and Neh. 1:4). It reiterates the earlier description of the LORD as the sovereign God over all, Creator, Redeemer, and Provider, especially for His servant Israel.
Gratitude for God’s faithful love is to characterize our lives. That love was first seen in God’s creative work. It was then seen in the history of redemption. It has also been seen in our own lives. It is seen in God’s care for the entire creation He has made. This love endures forever, because it is the love of “the God of gods” (136:2), “the Lord of lords” (136:3), and “the God of heaven” (136:26). All of these titles point to God’s supremacy—His supremacy over the gods of the nations (see 135:15–18), His supremacy over the kings of the nations (see Ps 2), and His supremacy over the whole of his creation. How marvelous to know and to live in the light of the truth that this supremacy is not that of a despot but of the God who is characterized by “faithful love” that “endures forever.”
But a listing of God’s works can never be complete, and so a psalm like this should prompt us today to add more or form our own song of praise for antiphonal use. But the message still must remain clear: The LORD alone is to be praised for his marvelous works of creation, redemption and provision for his people.