Psalm 113
Praise Jehovah; praise the LORD;
ye his servants, praise accord;
blessèd be Jehovah’s name;
evermore his praise proclaim.
From the dawn to setting sun,
praise the LORD, the Mighty One.
O’er all nations he is high
yea, his glory crowns the sky.
Who is like the LORD our God?
High in heav’n is his abode,
who himself doth humble low
things in heav’n and earth to know.
He the lowly makes to rise
from the dust in which he lies,
that exalted he may stand
with the princes of the land.
He the childless women takes
and a joyful mother makes;
keeping house she finds reward
Praise Jehovah; Praise the LORD
At the three great annual festivals in Israel, God’s people would sing Psalms 113-118. Therefore Ps 113 would have been one of the psalms that the Lord Jesus would have sung in the upper room at the Passover meal on the night before His crucifixion. What is there in this Psalm that would have helped our Lord in facing up to what lay before Him?
1. Reminded of A Glorious Future
In verses 1-3, the Lord Jesus would have been reminded of what lay beyond the cross. He could see Himself as the LORD that is spoken of in these verses. Soon He would be given the name that is above every name. His name would be praised and blessed forevermore and that would be the case throughout the world – from where the sun rises to where it goes down. It was for the joy set before Him that the Lord Jesus endured the cross, despising the shame, and that joy was set before Him partly by these words which He sang at the start of Ps 113.
2. Reminded of A Great Come Down
In verses 4-6, the Lord Jesus would have been reminded of His great dignity and also of how low He would have to humble Himself. He had come down to earth from on high. He was none other than “the LORD our God”. On the cross, that would not be how things would look. On the cross the Lord Jesus would humble Himself to the very lowest point – dying the most humiliating of deaths. Verse 6 which He sang reminded Him of the self-humbling that was involved in His work of saving sinners.
3. Reminded of A Packed Palace
If the opening three verses spoke to the Lord Jesus of what His death would result in for Himself, the closing three verses focus instead on what His death would mean for those who would be saved by it. Part of the joy that was set before Jesus was seeing the difference His salvation would mean in people’s lives, both now and forever. What a blessing it is to be lifted out of the dust and out of the ash heap. Those who are so raised are given a right to sit with the princes in the palace – not just for a moment, but to belong with them there forever – given the right to become the children of God. It is a rags to royalty salvation that the Lord Jesus brings about. The final verse is a picture of salvation as being like the provision of a home, the entering into the joy of motherhood, the feeling of belonging, of usefulness and of being part of a family. These things become ours in Christ.
In the singing of these words the Lord Jesus would have been strengthened for facing His death. He would have seen it as His ultimate act of self-humbling, by which He would raise others up wonderfully and in doing so He would be praised for evermore by His saved people from one end of the earth to the other. No one understood the Psalms better than Jesus did and in the Psalms He sang before His death, He surely saw these things and drew strength from them.