Biblion Bible Commentary
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Praise Yahweh, All You Nations
Psalms 117:1-2
1 Praise Yahweh, all you nations! Extol him, all you peoples! · WEB
Two verses, the shortest chapter in the Bible, and it is addressed entirely to foreigners.
Praise Yahweh, all you nations! Extol him, all you peoples! Psalms 117:1.
The shortest chapter in Scripture, and every word of it is addressed to people outside Israel. There is no instruction here for the covenant nation at all.
For his loving kindness is great toward us. Yahweh's faithfulness endures forever Psalms 117:2.
The reason the nations are given for praising is what God has done for somebody else. The two covenant words appear in their usual pair, and both are said to have been shown toward us — and on that basis the whole world is told to join in.
The logic is the sixty-seventh psalm's compressed to a single verse. Israel's blessing was never meant to terminate on Israel; it is the evidence on which everyone else is invited.
Paul quotes this psalm in a chain of four passages assembled to prove that the nations were always in view, and that Christ became a servant to the circumcision that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy Romans 15:9–11. This is the third of the four, and it is the plainest: a command to the nations, in the imperative, in the middle of Israel's hymnbook.
Two verses, and the shortest chapter in the Bible turns out to be the one with the widest audience.
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