Today’s Passage: Psalm 113
This psalm throws the doors open and calls us straight into praise, and it does not let up. It lifts the name of the LORD from the rising of the sun all the way to its setting, and then it asks the one question the whole song turns on: who is like the LORD our God? He is enthroned on high, higher than all the nations, higher than the heavens themselves, and yet this is the very God who stoops all the way down to raise the poor up out of the dust.
As you read, hold this: Who is like the LORD our God?
Context Hallel
This song opens the Egyptian Hallel, the little cluster of psalms running from 113 to 118 that Israel sang together at Passover. It is worth pausing over one thing: when Matthew tells us that Jesus and His disciples sang a hymn after the supper and went out to the Mount of Olives, these are the very songs that were on their lips. So the last praise Jesus sang before the cross may well have begun right here, with this call to bless the name of the LORD.
Psalm 113:1-4 (BSB)
Hallelujah! ¹ Give praise, O servants of the LORD; praise the name of the LORD. ² Blessed be the name of the LORD both now and forevermore. ³ From where the sun rises to where it sets, the name of the LORD is praised. ⁴ The LORD is exalted over all the nations, His glory above the heavens.
So the call goes out to praise Him, now and forevermore. From the place where the sun first rises to the place where it finally sets, His name is lifted up in praise, for He is exalted over all the nations and His glory is higher than the heavens.
Psalm 113:5-6 (BSB)
⁵ Who is like the LORD our God, the One enthroned on high? ⁶ He humbles Himself to behold the heavens and the earth.
Who is like the LORD our God? He is enthroned so high that He must shaphel, pronounced mash-pee-LEE. Strong's H8213, to bring low, to stoop down, to humble. This is not weakness in Him but the measure of His greatness, for it shows us both how high His throne is set and how far down He is still willing to look. even to look upon the heavens, and lower still to look upon the earth.
Psalm 113:7-9 (BSB)
⁷ He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the dump ⁸ to seat them with nobles, with the princes of His people. ⁹ He settles the barren woman in her home as a joyful mother to her children. Hallelujah!
He reaches down to the poor in the dust and to the needy on the ash heap, and He raises them up to be seated among princes, among the nobles of His own people. He takes the barren woman, whose arms have ached to be full, and settles her in a home of her own as the joyful mother of children. Hannah’s story still sits quietly under that last line. Hallelujah.
Study notes Mary sings the same logic
When Mary is told that she will bear the Messiah, she breaks into a song that carries this very same stooping down and this very same lifting up.
"He has brought down rulers from their thrones, but has exalted the humble." Luke 1:52 (BSB)
It is the same truth set to a new tune: the mighty are brought down from their thrones, and the humble are lifted high. Who is like the LORD our God?
Who is like the LORD our God?