Text -- Psalms 113:1-9 (NET)

Psalm 113

113:1 Praise the Lord! Praise, you servants of the Lord, praise the name of the Lord! 113:2 May the Lord’s name be praised now and forevermore! 113:3 From east to west the Lord’s name is deserving of praise. 113:4 The Lord is exalted over all the nations; his splendor reaches beyond the sky. 113:5 Who can compare to the Lord our God, who sits on a high throne? 113:6 He bends down to look at the sky and the earth. 113:7 He raises the poor from the dirt, and lifts up the needy from the garbage pile, 113:8 that he might seat him with princes, with the princes of his people. 113:9 He makes the barren woman of the family a happy mother of children. Praise the Lord!

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Psa 113:1

¹ sn Psalm 113. The psalmist praises God as the sovereign king of the world who reaches down to help the needy.

NET Notes: Psa 113:3

¹ tn Heb “from the rising of the sun to its setting.” The extent is not temporal (“from sunrise to sunset”) but spatial (“from the place where the sun rises [the east] to the place where it sets [the west].” In the phenomenological language of OT cosmology, the sun was described as rising in the east and setting in the west.

NET Notes: Psa 113:4

¹ tn Heb “above the sky [is] his splendor.”

NET Notes: Psa 113:5

¹ tn Heb “the one who makes high to sit.”

NET Notes: Psa 113:6

¹ tn Heb “the one who makes low to see.”

NET Notes: Psa 113:7

¹ sn The language of v. 7 is almost identical to that of 1 Sam 2:8.

NET Notes: Psa 113:9

¹ tn Heb “of the house.”

² tn Heb “sons.”