"Praise the Lord!
Praise, O servants of the Lord,
praise the name of the Lord!
2 Blessed be the name of the Lord
from this time forth and for evermore!
3 From the rising of the sun to its setting,
the name of the Lord is to be praised!
4 The Lord is high above all nations,
and his glory above the heavens!
5 Who is like the Lord our God,
who is seated on high,
6 who looks far down
on the heavens and the earth?
7 He raises the poor from the dust
and lifts the needy from the ash heap,
8 to make them sit with princes,
with the princes of his people.
9 He gives the barren woman a home,
making her the joyous mother of children.
Praise the Lord!"
Psalm 113
This Psalm is the first of a number of Psalms (113-118) called the 'Hallel' Psalms - the Egyptian Hallel, so called because of the great song about deliverance from Egypt in Psalm 114 - which were sung by the people of God at the three great festivals of the Passover, Weeks (Pentecost) and Tabernacles. The first two Psalms (113, 114) were sung before the Passover meal, and the other four sung after it. There is little doubt that the 'hymn' referred to in Matthew 26:30 and Mark 14:26, as having been sung by Jesus and His disciples in the Upper Room, was one of these Hallel Psalms, and that this one was sung by them at the beginning of the Feast. What a glorious - and moving - light this throws on the message of the Psalm. The Lord is high, says the Psalmist (4); yet He is lowly - how lowly is expressed in 6 and 7. And our Saviour took these words upon His lips, words pregnant with meaning for Him. One inevitably thinks of John 13:1-5: He humbled Himself - like this. Supper being ended, He embodied and exemplified the Hallel theme of this Psalm in His own action, as a prophetic parallel of what He was about to do, when 'He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death on the cross', in order to raise the poor from the dust and lift the needy from the dunghill to set him with princes. It is not possible for us as Christians to study this Psalm without seeing it in the context of our Lord's singing of it, and acting it out in the events that were soon to take place for Him - a second exodus being effected, indeed, and the blood of the everlasting covenant being shed for men.