Paraphrase Upon the Books of the Psalms, Book 5 · Psalm 149
The Hundred Fourty Ninth Psalm.
‖Hallelujah.Praise ye the Lord. The hundred fourty ninth is a solemn form of thanksgiving for Gods people, on any signal victory afforded them by him, and mystically conteins the eminent favour of God to his†So R. Saadiah Gaon and Kimchi interpret it of the dayes of the Messias. Church, and the conquest of the Christian faith over the hethen Potentates. It was intitled, as the former, Hallelujah.
1. SIng unto the Lord a new song,*let his praise be foreign and his praise in the congregation of saints.
2. Let Israel rejoyce in him that made him: let the children of Zion be joyfull in their King.
3. Let them praise his name in the dance: let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp.
Paraphrase. Let the whole Church of God through all ages constantly frequent his publick service, and therein for ever magnify the name of God for all his mercies vouchsafed so liberally to them. The people of Israel are signally obliged to this, in that the omnipotent Creator of heaven and earth is pleased immediately to preside among them, to give them laws by which to live, and to exhibite himself graciously to them in his Sanctuary, and to fight their battels for them against their enemies, having brought them out of the slavery of Aegypt into the plenty of Canaan. And the Christian Church are much more obliged to this, for the redemption by Christ, and the regal government to which by his resurrection he was installed, spiritual, exercised by his word and grace in the hearts of his faithfull people. O let us all with all possible exultation, with all the solemnest expressions of thankfull hearts, commemorate and celebrate these mercies of his.
4. For the Lord taketh pleasure in his people: he will‖or glorify beautify the meek with salvation.
For those that humbly and faithfully adhere to him, he will never cease to love, he will delight to doe them good, and, be they never so low, rescue and exalt them, and give them illustrious deliverances from all their temporal (and spiritual) enemies.
5. Let the saints be joyfull with glory: let them sing aloud in their beds.
And when they are thus rescued and injoy a quiet repose, they are in all reason obliged to praise and magnify their deliverer, (and so to anticipate the state of heavenly joyes, where being arived at our safe harbour, and rest from the pressures and sins of this life, we have nothing to doe but to bless and glorify God, to rejoyce and triumph in him.)
6. Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand,
7. To execute vengeance upon the hethen, and punishments upon the people;
8. To binde their Kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron;
9. To execute upon them the judgment written, This honour have all his saints. Praise ye the Lord.
And those that thus depend on God, and thankfully acknowledge his works of mercy toward them, shall he signally assisted by him, as Moses and Joshuah were, whilst one held up his hands to pray and the other to fight, Exod. xvii. 11. God will make use of such, imploy and assist and prosper them wonderfully in executing his judgments on sinfull people, when the measure of their iniquities is filled up, and Gods decree gone out against them, as it was against the seven nations whose lands the Israelites took, destroyed their Kings, put some of them in gyves, as Adonibezek Jud. i. 7. and eradicated the whole people. (And thus in a mystical sense hath the faith of Christ been assisted by God, and prospered and propagated wonderfully, till it subdued the greatest Princes and Empire of the world to the scepter of Christ.) And this certainly is a glorious prerogative of the people and beloved of God, for which they are obliged for ever to magnify him, and sing perpetual Hallelujahs to him.