Bible Commentaries
Psalms 117

Verses 1-2

Psalms 117:1-2

O praise the Lord, all ye nations: praise Him, all ye people.

An exhortation to praise God for His goodness

1. In God’s worship it is not always necessary to be long; few words sometimes say what is sufficient, as this short psalm giveth us to understand.

2. The conversion of the Gentiles was foreseen and foretold long before the Jews were rejected, as this exhortation directed unto them, and prophesying of their praising God doth give evidence.

3. Invitation of any to the fellowship of God’s worship, and in special unto praise and thanksgiving, is an invitation to them to renounce their sinful course, and to subject themselves unto God in Christ, and to embrace the offer of His grace, that so they may join with the Church in the song of praises.

4. Yea, this invitation to all the nations to praise God, set down in Scripture, is a prophecy which was to take effect in all the elect Gentiles in all nations, for so reasoneth the apostle (Romans 15:11) from this place.

5. Albeit there be matter of praise unto God in Himself, though we should not be partakers of any benefit from Him, yet the Lord doth give His people cause to praise Him for favours to them in their own particular.

6. There is no less reason to praise God for what He hath promised, than for what He hath given already.

7. As God’s kindness and truth are the pillars of our salvation, so also are they the matter of our praise, which always go together, and run in the same channel toward the same persons, and do run abundantly and for ever together.

8. All they who hear of God are bound to praise God. (D. Dickson.)

Worship the duty of all peoples

I. All peoples are to worship the same god.

1. All are identical in spiritual condition. They all have a capacity to form a conception of the same God, and the same tendency to reverence and adore.

2. All have identical moral relationships. "In Him all live and move and have their being."

3. All should have identical controlling sympathies. Thus true worship becomes the unifying force of the race.

II. All peoples are to worship the same God for the same reason.

1. His kindness to all.

2. His faithfulness to all. God is truth, hence He never alters. Error is like the clouds, never shifting; truth, like the sun, continues the same from age to age. (D. Thomas, D.D.)

Universal adaptability of Christianity

Christianity alone, of all so-called faiths, overleaps all geographical limits and lives in all centuries. It alone wins its trophies and bestows its gifts on all sorts and conditions of men. Other plants which the "Heavenly Father hath not planted," have their zones of vegetation and die outside certain degrees of latitude; but the seed of the kingdom is like corn, an exotic nowhere, for wherever man lives it will grow, and yet an exotic everywhere, for it came down from Heaven. Other food requires an educated palate for its appreciation, but any hungry man in any land will relish bread. For every soul on earth this living, dying love of the Lord Jesus Christ addresses itself to and satisfies his deepest wants. It is the bread which gives life to the world. (A. Maclaren, D.D.)

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Psalms 118:1-29