He Heals the Broken in Heart
1 Praise Yah, for it is good to sing praises to our God; for it is pleasant and fitting to praise him. 2 Yahweh builds up Jerusalem. He gathers together the outcasts of Israel. 3 He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds. 4 He counts the number of the stars. He calls them all by their names. 5 Great is our Lord, and mighty in power. His understanding is infinite. 6 Yahweh upholds the humble. He brings the wicked down to the ground. 7 Sing to Yahweh with thanksgiving. Sing praises on the harp to our God, 8 who covers the sky with clouds, who prepares rain for the earth, who makes grass grow on the mountains. 9 He provides food for the livestock, and for the young ravens when they call. 10 He doesn’t delight in the strength of the horse. He takes no pleasure in the legs of a man. 11 Yahweh takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his loving kindness. 12 Praise Yahweh, Jerusalem! Praise your God, Zion! 13 For he has strengthened the bars of your gates. He has blessed your children within you. 14 He makes peace in your borders. He fills you with the finest of the wheat. 15 He sends out his commandment to the earth. His word runs very swiftly. 16 He gives snow like wool, and scatters frost like ashes. 17 He hurls down his hail like pebbles. Who can stand before his cold? 18 He sends out his word, and melts them. He causes his wind to blow, and the waters flow. 19 He shows his word to Jacob, his statutes and his ordinances to Israel. 20 He has not done this for just any nation. They don’t know his ordinances. Praise Yah!
The one who counts the stars and names them is described, in the next breath, as binding up wounds.
Yahweh builds up Jerusalem. He gathers together the outcasts of Israel.
A psalm from after the return, when the city was being rebuilt and the scattered were coming back.
3 He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds. 4 He counts the number of the stars. He calls them all by their names.
The two verses are the psalm's whole argument and they are placed in this order deliberately. Bandaging one person's wounds, and cataloguing the stars — and the same attention is claimed for both. He does not merely count them; he knows each one's name, which is what a shepherd does with sheep.
Set together, the verses say that the scale of the second is the reason to believe the first. Great is our Lord, and mighty in power. His understanding is infinite Psalms 147:5, and the immediately preceding sentence was about a broken heart.
He provides food for the livestock, and for the young ravens when they call.
Ravens were unclean birds and their young were proverbially neglected. The psalm names them as an example of what God feeds.
He doesn’t delight in the strength of the horse. He takes no pleasure in the legs of a man.
The two fastest things in that world — cavalry and a runner — and neither impresses him. What does is stated next: those who fear him, in those who hope in his loving kindness Psalms 147:11. Hope, rather than achievement.
He makes peace in your borders. He fills you with the finest of the wheat.
The offer of the eighty-first psalm, which Israel declined there, delivered here.
16 He gives snow like wool, and scatters frost like ashes. 17 He hurls down his hail like pebbles. Who can stand before his cold?
Three domestic comparisons for weather — wool, ashes from a hearth, pebbles — and then a question that anyone who has been outside in it has asked.
He sends out his word, and melts them. He causes his wind to blow, and the waters flow.
19 He shows his word to Jacob, his statutes and his ordinances to Israel. 20 He has not done this for just any nation. They don’t know his ordinances. Praise Yah!
The same word that melts the frost is the one given to Israel, and the psalm ends by naming the gift it regards as the largest — not the wheat or the peace, but having been told what God wants.
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