Biblion Bible Commentary
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Who Humbles Himself to Behold
Psalms 113:1-9
1 Praise Yah! Praise, you servants of Yahweh, praise Yahweh’s name. · WEB
God is described as too high to see the heavens without stooping, and what he stoops for is a rubbish heap.
Praise Yah! Praise, you servants of Yahweh, praise Yahweh's name Psalms 113:1.
The first of the six psalms sung at Passover, and the ones Jesus and the disciples would have sung before going out to the Mount of Olives Matthew 26:30.
From the rising of the sun to its going down, Yahweh's name is to be praised Psalms 113:3.
All the daylight there is, and every longitude it crosses.
Yahweh is high above all nations, his glory above the heavens. Who is like Yahweh, our God, who has his seat on high, who stoops down to see in heaven and on the earth? Psalms 113:4–6.
The psalm's central claim, and the phrasing is exact. He stoops to look at heaven as well as at earth. The heavens themselves are below him, so that inspecting them requires bending. Everything that follows is measured against that height.
He raises up the poor out of the dust, and lifts up the needy from the ash heap, that he may set him with princes Psalms 113:7–8.
The ash heap is the village rubbish tip, where the destitute slept because it was warm. That is what the stooping was for. The one who has to bend to see the sky is looking at a man on a midden, and the destination named is a seat among princes.
He settles the barren woman in her home as a joyful mother of children Psalms 113:9.
The one specific case the psalm gives, and in that society it was the most complete reversal of status available. Hannah's song makes the identical connection between the ash heap and the barren woman 1 Samuel 2:8, and Mary's takes up the same lines Luke 1:52.
Nine verses that begin above the heavens and end in a house with children in it.
settled What this mark means