Chapter One Hundred Forty-Nine

Let Israel sing to the Lord a new song with drums and harps for the manifestation to him of His favor (verses 1–5). Let the lips of Israel always be full of glorification to God, and let hands prepare the sword to carry out over the peoples “the judgment that is written” (verses 6–9).

Psalm 149:1. Sing to the Lord a new song; praise Him in the assembly of the saints. During the Babylonian captivity the songs of the Hebrews, corresponding to their repentant disposition and outwardly heavy and degraded position, bore a sad character. Now, however, after the return from captivity and the restoration of Jerusalem, their condition has changed; and their songs have changed as well – instead of sad ones, they became solemn hymns of praise and joyful. “Assembly of the saints” – an assembly of Hebrews in the temple.

Psalm 149:3. Let them praise His name with songs, let them sing to Him with the timbrel and the harp, “To praise... with songs” – to praise with a choir.

Psalm 149:4. For the Lord takes pleasure in His people, He adorns the humble with salvation. The “humble” are the Hebrews during captivity, which they endured in a repentant disposition, with a full understanding of its deservedness and in humility (see the book of the prophet Baruch), for which they were given by the Lord “salvation...” and deliverance.

Psalm 149:5. Let the saints exult in glory, let them sing for joy on their beds. Let the name of the Hebrews become glorious in the eyes of all nations; let the former triumph over the latter; let their life be peaceful and undisturbed, so that they could safely devote themselves to rest (“on their beds”).

Psalm 149:6. Let praise to God be in their mouths, and a two-edged sword in their hands, Psalm 149:7. To execute vengeance upon the nations, punishment upon the peoples, Psalm 149:8. To bind their kings in chains and their nobles in fetters of iron, Psalm 149:9. To execute upon them the judgment that is written. This honor is to all His saints. Alleluia. “Let praise to God be in their mouths,” i.e., let the Hebrews remain always the foremost worshippers of their Lord. In this lies the fundamental condition of their earthly greatness, strength, and invincibility. Then the sword in their hands will be terrible for their enemies, the pagan peoples, who will not stand before them, but will be defeated and turned into slaves. On the condition of faithfulness and devotion to the Lord, the Hebrews will appear as instruments in the hands of the Lord for the execution of that judgment upon the peoples which is written in the books of the law and proclaimed through Moses (Deut 32:35). This honor – to be judge over the pagans – belongs to all “His saints,” i.e., the Hebrews, under that condition. But, as is known, the Hebrew people did not preserve faithfulness to their Lord, by which they deprived themselves of this right and honor, which passed to and are now being fulfilled by the new Israel – Christians, and not in the form of crude, military predominance, but in the form of cutting off and destroying among the pagans their false beliefs and their coarse, sensuous way of life.