Bible Commentaries
Psalms 117

Verses 1-2

Psalms 117:0

The Psalm sung by Cromwell and his army after the victory of Dunbar, 3 September, 1650, and known afterwards by the Puritans as the Dunbar Psalm. As the Scottish army left their strong position on the heights to offer their raw soldiers to Cromwell's veterans, he pointed to the sun, whose disc was rising over the German Ocean, with the words, 'Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered'.

It was the custom of Philip Henry to sing the 117th Psalm every Sabbath after the first sermon as the fullest expression of thanksgiving. He used to say that the more singing of Psalms there is in our families and congregations on Sabbath, the more like they are to heaven; and that he preferred singing whole Psalms to pieces of them.

References. CXVIII. 10. J. M. Neale, Sermons on Passages of the Psalms, p. 254. CXVIII. 15. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, A Year's Plain Sermons, p. 137.