"Praise the Lord!
I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart,
in the company of the upright, in the congregation.
2 Great are the works of the Lord,
studied by all who delight in them.
3 Full of splendour and majesty is his work,
and his righteousness endures for ever.
4 He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered;
the Lord is gracious and merciful.
5 He provides food for those who fear him;
he remembers his covenant for ever.
6 He has shown his people the power of his works,
in giving them the inheritance of the nations.
7 The works of his hands are faithful and just;
all his precepts are trustworthy;
8 they are established for ever and ever,
to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness.
9 He sent redemption to his people;
he has commanded his covenant for ever.
Holy and awesome is his name!
10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
all those who practise it have a good understanding.
His praise endures for ever!"
Psalm 111
The phrase in the opening verse of this Psalm - 'with my whole heart' - gives us a clue as to how to look at it. This is how we should worship and praise God (it corresponds with Psalm 103:1 'all that is within me bless His holy Name') and this is what wholehearted praise should be like as to its content. The Psalm is strangely and impressively similar in content and message to the Christmas songs in Luke 1/2, and especially to the Benedictus (Luke 1:68ff) - one has only to read this to see the common emphasis, the visitation, the redemption, the mercy promised to our fathers, and above all, the covenant and the grace and compassion of the God of the covenant. The Psalmist first of all extols the 'works' of the Lord (2). This occupies 2a-4a. He is giving voice to the truth that God is known by what He does. In both the Old and the New Testaments, God is always the God of action. What is more, it is not so much the works of creation that are in view as those of redemption and power, as we see in 4bff. God is the God of history, and it is His works in the history of His people that the Psalmist extols. A good deal is said about these works before they are specified and elaborated: first of all, they are 'great' (2), and sought out and explored by those who have pleasure in them. This seems to mean that it is to the eye of faith that the works of God become apparent. They become a study to those who love God, in the sense that the saints see ever more deeply into His ways. This is just as true if we take the 'works' to refer to the creation, for it is the man whose eyes have been opened by grace who can see God's glory in nature. As the hymn says 'something lives in every hue, Christless eyes have never seen'.