Psalms 149
Psalm 149 is the fourth of the five great Hallelujah psalms that bring the book of Psalms to its close - each one opening and shutting with the same shout, Praise ye the LORD. It calls for a new song, sung not in solitude but in the gathered assembly: Sing unto the LORD a new song, and his praise in the congregation of saints (v. 1). What follows is a psalm of two halves that surprise anyone who reads it slowly - for it moves from the gentlest possible picture of God's delight in the lowly to the sharpest image of the saints in battle, and holds the two together in a single song.3
The first half is all rejoicing, and it is grounded in mercy. Let Israel rejoice in him that made him: let the children of Zion be joyful in their King (v. 2). The people are summoned to praise the One who made them and reigns over them - with dance, with timbrel and harp (v. 3). And then comes the reason, and it is tender beyond expectation: For the LORD taketh pleasure in his people: he will beautify the meek with salvation (v. 4). God does not merely tolerate His people; He takes pleasure in them. And the ones He clothes in beauty are not the mighty but the meek - the humble and the lowly, adorned with the very salvation He gives. So the saints are told to be joyful in glory and to sing aloud upon their beds (v. 5), praise rising even in the night.
Then the psalm turns, and the turn is startling: Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a twoedged sword in their hand (v. 6). The same lowly people who were beautified with salvation are now armed - praise in the mouth, a sword in the hand - to execute… the judgment written (vv. 7-9). These verses have troubled gentle readers, and they should be handled with care, for the New Testament does not leave the picture unchanged. The only sword the followers of Christ are ever handed is the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (Eph. 6:17); their warfare is not carnal (2 Cor. 10:4); and the judgment itself belongs to God, who alone doth judge and make war in righteousness (Rev. 19:11). The honour held out to all his saints (v. 9) is a strength given, not seized - and the psalm ends, as it began, with the one word that frames it: Praise ye the LORD.2
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Psalm 149:1-5Sing unto the LORD a New Song
1Praise ye the LORD. Sing unto the LORD a new song, and his praise in the congregation of saints. 2Let Israel rejoice in him that made him: let the children of Zion be joyful in their King. 3Let them praise his name in the dance: let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp. 4For the LORD taketh pleasure in his people: he will beautify the meek with salvation. 5Let the saints be joyful in glory: let them sing aloud upon their beds.
The psalm calls for a new song, and at once it gives the singers their two great reasons, packed into one verse: Let Israel rejoice in him that made him: let the children of Zion be joyful in their King (v. 2). First, God is named as Maker - him that made him. Israel is to rejoice not in itself, its history, or its achievements, but in the One who brought the nation into being. The people exist because God formed them; their very being is His gift, and so the most basic reason for joy is simply that He made them His. Second, God is named as King. The same God who made them also reigns over them - and the children of Zion are summoned to be joyful under that reign. Notice that the kingship is cause for gladness, not dread. To be ruled by this King is not bondage but the deepest security a people can know. The two titles belong together: the One who made them is the One who reigns over them, and there is no safer place to stand than under the rule of your own Maker. The new song rises from exactly there - from a people glad to be made, and glad to be ruled, by God.
Here is the hinge of the whole first half, and it is almost tender enough to stop the reader cold: For the LORD taketh pleasure in his people (v. 4). The praise commanded in the verses before is not a duty laid on a reluctant people by a distant ruler. It rises from a relationship in which the delight runs both ways - the people rejoicing in their King, and the King taking pleasure in His people. The word reaches past mere acceptance. It is not that God puts up with His people, or grades them and finds them barely adequate; He delights in them, takes genuine pleasure in them as a father delights in his own. And then the verse names what that pleasure does: he will beautify the meek with salvation. The ones He adorns are not the impressive or the strong but the meek - the humble, the lowly, the bowed-down. And what He clothes them with is not status or wealth but salvation itself, the rescue He alone can give. The poorest and the lowest, the ones the world overlooks, are the very ones God dresses in beauty. The joy of the first half of this psalm rests entirely here: God is not merely served by His people; He delights in them, and He makes the lowly lovely with His own saving help.
The first movement of the psalm closes with an image both glad and intimate: Let the saints be joyful in glory: let them sing aloud upon their beds (v. 5). The glory here is the honour God has put upon His own - the dignity of being His people, beautified with His salvation - and the saints are told to be joyful in it, to rejoice in what God has made them rather than in anything they have made of themselves. But it is the next phrase that lingers: let them sing aloud upon their beds. The bed is the most private place there is, the place of rest and of wakeful nights, where no audience watches and no performance is required. To sing aloud there is to let praise become the inmost tone of a life - not worship staged for others, but a gladness that rises when one is utterly alone, even in the dark. The earlier verses summoned public praise, the dance and the timbrel and the gathered congregation; this verse follows the worshipper home and shows the same song still sounding in the quiet. There is something deeply reassuring in it. The joy of God's people is not only for the assembly and the daylight; it can fill the lonely hours and the sleepless night, sung aloud upon the bed, where only God is listening - and that, the psalm implies, is enough.
Psalm 149:6-9The High Praises of God
6Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a twoedged sword in their hand; 7To execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people; 8To bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; 9To execute upon them the judgment written: this honour have all his saints. Praise ye the LORD.
The psalm now turns, and the turn can jolt a careful reader: Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a twoedged sword in their hand (v. 6). The same lowly people who, a verse earlier, were beautified with salvation and singing on their beds are suddenly pictured with praise in one hand and a blade in the other. But notice what is named first, and how the two are paired. The leading thing is the high praises of God - literally the exaltations of God, the lifting up of His name in the throat. The sword comes second, and it comes joined to that praise, not in place of it. This is not a call to set worship aside and take up arms; it is a picture of a people whose mouths are full of God's praise even as they are caught up in His cause. Across the Scriptures, the placing of praise first is itself the key - when Jehoshaphat's people went out against an enemy, the singers went before the army, and the battle was the LORD'S (2 Chr. 20:21-22). The order of verse 6 is the whole point: the praise of God in the mouth is the primary thing, and whatever follows is to be carried out under that praise, in God's cause and not the saints' own. The exaltation of God leads; everything else serves it.
Verses 7 and 8 spell out what the sword of verse 6 is for, in the stark language of the ancient world: To execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people; to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron.3 These are hard words, and they should not be softened into something they are not - but neither should they be misread. Two things hold them in place. First, this is the language of God's judgment on the nations that have set themselves against Him, the settling of accounts that belongs to the righteous Judge. The kings bound with chains and nobles in fetters of iron are the proud powers of the earth brought low - not private enemies of the worshipper, but the arrogant might that exalts itself against God. Second, and crucially, the very next verse will name this as the judgment written - a judgment already decreed by God, not invented by the ones who carry it. The saints do not appoint the sentence; they are caught up in the execution of a verdict God has already pronounced. The Old Testament looked for the day when God would put down every proud power; the New Testament will show that the weapons of that warfare, for the people of Christ, are not of the flesh at all - but the certainty that God will finally bring every arrogant kingdom to account remains, and it is His doing.
The psalm closes by naming the whole thing a gift: To execute upon them the judgment written: this honour have all his saints. Praise ye the LORD (v. 9). Two phrases carry the weight. First, the judgment written. The judgment is not improvised; it is written - settled, decreed, recorded beforehand by God. Whatever the saints share in, they share in something God has already determined; the verdict is His, fixed in advance, and they do not author it. Second, this honour have all his saints. The saints' part in God's triumph is called an honour - a dignity conferred, a privilege bestowed - and it belongs to all of them, not a powerful few. The word is striking: what looks at first like a grim duty is named a gift, a share in the King's own victory granted to the lowliest of His people. And then the psalm ends where it began, with the single word that frames it: Praise ye the LORD. The sword, the judgment, the honour - all of it is folded back, in the end, into praise. The arming of the saints does not lead away from worship; it returns to it. The first word and the last word of the psalm are the same, and they are not conquest but Hallelujah.
Further study
- The Hebrew text of Psalm 149 with Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and other classical commentators side by side - useful for shir chadash (v. 1, the “new song”), for anavim (v. 4, the “meek” whom God beautifies), and for yeshuah (v. 4, the “salvation” with which He adorns them), as well as the long Jewish discussion of the twoedged sword of verse 6.
- Psalm 149 ↔ Matthew 5 · Matthew 21 · Ephesians 6 · Revelation 19Intertextual BibleTraces the threads tying Psalm 149 to the New Testament - the King in whom Zion rejoices and the meek He beautifies (vv. 2-4) answered in the King who comes meek (Matt. 21:5) and the blessing on the meek (Matt. 5:5), the twoedged sword of verse 6 read through the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (Eph. 6:17), and the judgment written of verse 9 as the act of the One who doth judge and make war in righteousness (Rev. 19:11).
- Psalm 149 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Psalm 149 - the force of the new song in verse 1, the sense of God taking pleasure in His people and beautifying the meek (v. 4), the difficult imagery of the twoedged sword and the execution of vengeance in verses 6-9, and the meaning of the judgment written reserved for God's saints.
Where this echoes in Scripture
Sing unto the LORD a New Song
- Matthew 21:5Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass.The King in whom Zion rejoices (v. 2), come at last - and come meek.
- Matthew 5:5Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.The meek of verse 4, whom God beautifies with salvation, named blessed by the Lord Himself.
- Psalm 96:1O sing unto the LORD a new song: sing unto the LORD, all the earth.The same call for a new song (v. 1) - a fresh song for the ever-fresh mercies of God.
- Revelation 5:9And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy... for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us.The new song of verse 1 become the song of the redeemed before the throne.
- Zephaniah 3:17The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty... he will rejoice over thee with joy.The pleasure God takes in His people (v. 4) - a delight that runs from God toward the lowly.
The High Praises of God
- 2 Corinthians 10:4For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds.The sword of verse 6 read aright - the saints’ warfare is not fought with weapons of the flesh.
- Ephesians 6:17And take... the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.The one sword the followers of Christ are handed - the word of God, the true twoedged blade of verse 6.
- Hebrews 4:12For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword.The very phrase of verse 6 - the twoedged sword named as the living word of God.
- Revelation 19:11-15in righteousness he doth judge and make war... out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword.The judgment written (v. 9) as God’s own act - the reckoning with the nations kept in His hands.
- 1 Corinthians 6:2Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world?The honour of verse 9 - the saints’ share in God’s judgment, a gift bestowed, not seized.