1Praise the LORD! How good it is to sing praises to our God! How delightful and how right!2The LORD is rebuilding Jerusalem and bringing the exiles back to Israel.3He heals the brokenhearted, binding up their wounds.4He counts the stars and calls them all by name.5How great is our Lord! His power is absolute! His understanding is beyond comprehension!6The LORD supports the humble, but he brings the wicked down into the dust.7Sing out your thanks to the LORD; sing praises to our God, accompanied by harps.8He covers the heavens with clouds, provides rain for the earth, and makes the green grass grow in mountain pastures.9He feeds the wild animals, and the young ravens cry to him for food.10The strength of a horse does not impress him; how puny in his sight is the strength of a man.11Rather, the LORD's delight is in those who honor him, those who put their hope in his unfailing love.12Praise the LORD, O Jerusalem! Praise your God, O Zion!13For he has fortified the bars of your gates and blessed your children within you.14He sends peace across your nation and satisfies you with plenty of the finest wheat.15He sends his orders to the world -- how swiftly his word flies!16He sends the snow like white wool; he scatters frost upon the ground like ashes.17He hurls the hail like stones. Who can stand against his freezing cold?18Then, at his command, it all melts. He sends his winds, and the ice thaws.19He has revealed his words to Jacob, his principles and laws to Israel.20He has not done this with any other nation; they do not know his laws. Praise the LORD!
(the following is from Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary -- www.christnotes.org)
"Chapter Contents
The people of God are exhorted to praise him for his mercies and care. (1-11) For the salvation and prosperity of the church. (12-20)
Commentary on Psalm 147:1-11
Praising God is work that is its own wages. It is comely; it becomes us as reasonable creatures, much more as people in covenant with God. He gathers outcast sinners by his grace, and will bring them into his holy habitation. To those whom God heals with the consolations of his Spirit, he speaks peace, assures them their sins are pardoned. And for this, let others praise him also. Man's knowledge is soon ended; but God's knowledge is a dept that can never be fathomed. And while he telleth the number of the stars, he condescends to hear the broken-hearted sinner. While he feeds the young ravens, he will not leave his praying people destitute. Clouds look dull and melancholy, yet without them we could have no rain, therefore no fruit. Thus afflictions look black and unpleasant; but from clouds of affliction come showers that make the soul to yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness. The psalmist delights not in things wherein sinners trust and glory; but a serious and suitable regard to God is, in his sight, of very great price. We are not to be in doubt between hope and fear, but to act under the gracious influences of hope and fear united.
Commentary on Psalm 147:12-20
The church, like Jerusalem of old, built up and preserved by the wisdom, power, and goodness of God, is exhorted to praise him for all the benefits and blessings vouchsafed to her; and these are represented by his favours in the course of nature. The thawing word may represent the gospel of Christ, and the thawing wind the Spirit of Christ; for the Spirit is compared to the wind, John 3:8. Converting grace softens the heart that was hard frozen, and melts it into tears of repentance, and makes good reflections to flow, which before were chilled and stopped up. The change which the thaw makes is very evident, yet how it is done no one can say. Such is the change wrought in the conversion of a soul, when God's word and Spirit are sent to melt it and restore it to itself."
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