God’s Mercy in Psalm 113: Elevating the Lowly

He raises the poor out of the dust,
And lifts the needy out of the ash heap,

That He may seat him with princes—
With the princes of His people.

My Thoughts

This passage emphasizes God’s transformative power, as He elevates the poor and needy from destitution to honor. Commentators like Matthew Henry and Charles Spurgeon highlight how God often chooses the unlikely to fulfill His purposes, showcasing His wisdom and grace. Through divine intervention, individuals like Joseph, David, and the apostles exemplify this elevation. God’s merciful actions reward the faithful, reflecting His commitment to raise believers from spiritual despondency and seat them alongside His chosen people, affirming their inherent worth and significance. If you are a believer saved by the blood and sacrifice of Christ Jesus, you are special to our Abba Father, nothing can separate His love from us…….Bill

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Commentaries:

Matthew Henry

Those that have been long despicable are sometimes, on a sudden, made honorable (v. 7, 8): He raises up the poor out of the dust, that he may set him with princes.

First, Thus God does sometimes magnify himself, and his own wisdom, power, and sovereignty. When he has some great work to do he chooses to employ those in it that were least likely, and least thought of for it by themselves or others, to the highest post of honor: Gideon is fetched from threshing, Saul from seeking the asses, and David from keeping the sheep; the apostles are sent from fishing to be fishers of men. The treasure of the gospel is put into earthen vessels, and the weak and foolish ones of the world are pitched upon to be preachers of it, to confound the wise and mighty (1 Co. 1:27, 28), that the excellency of the power may be of God, and all may see that promotion comes from him.

Secondly, Thus God does sometimes reward the eminent piety and patience of his people who have long groaned under the burden of poverty and disgrace. When Joseph’s virtue was tried and manifested he was raised from the prison dust and set with princes. Those that are wise will observe such returns of Providence and will understand by them the loving-kindness of the Lord. Some have applied this to the work of redemption by Jesus Christ, and not unfitly; for through him poor fallen men are raised out of the dust (one of the Jewish rabbis applies it to the resurrection of the dead), nay, out of the dunghill of sin, and set among princes, among angels, those princes of his people. Hannah had sung to this purport, 1 Sa. 2:6-8.

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Charles Spurgeon

“He raiseth up the poor out of the dust.” This is an instance of his gracious stoop of love: he frequently lifts the lowest of mankind out of their poverty and degradation and places them in positions of power and honor. His good Spirit is continually visiting the downtrodden, giving beauty for ashes to those who are cast down, and elevating the hearts of his mourners till they shout for joy. These upliftings of grace are here ascribed directly to the divine hand, and truly those who have experienced them will not doubt the fact that it is the Lord alone who brings his people up from the dust of sorrow and death. When no hand but his can help he interposes, and the work is done. It is worthwhile to be cast down to be so divinely raised from the dust.

“And lifteth the needy out of the dunghill, whereon they lay like worthless refuse, cast off and cast out, left as they thought to rot into destruction, and to be everlastingly forgotten. How great a stoop from the height of his throne to a dunghill! How wonderful that power which occupies itself in lifting up beggars, all befouled with the filthiness in which they lay! For he lifts them out of the dunghill, not disdaining to search them out from amidst the base things of the earth that he may by their means bring to naught the great ones, and pour contempt upon all human glorying. What a dunghill was that upon which we lay by nature! What a mass of corruption is our original estate! What a heap of loathsomeness we have accumulated by our sinful lives! What reeking abominations surround us in the society of our fellow men! We could never have risen out of all this by our own efforts, it was a sepulcher in which we saw corruption, and were as dead men. Almighty were the arms which lifted us, which are still lifting us, and will lift us into the perfection of heaven itself. Praise ye the Lord.

“That he may set him with princes.” The Lord does nothing by halves: when he raises men from the dust he is not content till he places them among the peers of his kingdom. We are made kings and priests unto God, and we shall reign forever and ever. Instead of poverty, he gives us the wealth of princes; and instead of dishonor, he gives us a more exalted rank than that of the great ones of the earth.

“Even with the princes of his people.” All his people are princes, and so the text teaches us that God places needy souls whom he favors among the princes of princes. He often enables those who have been most despairing to rise to the greatest heights of spirituality and gracious attainment, for those who once were last shall be first. Paul, though less than the least of all saints was, nevertheless, made to be not a whit behind the very chief of the apostles; and in our own times, Bunyan, the blaspheming tinker, was raised into another John, whose dream almost rivals the visions of the Apocalypse.

Wonders of grace to God belong,
Repeat his mercies in your song.

Such verses as these should give great encouragement to those who are lowest in their own esteem. The Lord poureth contempt upon princes; but as for those who are in the dust and on the dunghill, he looks upon them with compassion, acts towards them in grace, and in their case displays the riches of his glory by Christ Jesus. Those who have experienced such amazing favor should sing continual hallelujahs to the God of their salvation.

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Enduring Word

He raises the poor out of the dust: When God in heaven beholds the things on earth (Psalm 113:6), He sees the poor down in the dust and the needy in the ash heap – and He raises them up. (Guzik)

i. When Jesus sang these words on the night of His betrayal and arrest, it must have occurred to Him that in a sense He was the one who would be lifted from the dust of the grave to the highest place. (Guzik)

b. That He may seat him with princes: God lifts the poor and needy from the depths up to the heights. In light of the new covenant, we can make the connection with God’s work in the life of the believer as described in Ephesians 2:5-6: …even when we were dead in trespasses, [He] made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. (Guzik)

i. While these words look forward to Ephesians 2:5-6, they also look back. “Consciously, however, these verses look back to the song of Hannah, which they quote almost exactly (cf. 7, 8a with 1 Sam. 2:8). Hence the sudden reference to the childless woman who becomes a mother (9), for this was Hannah’s theme.” (Kidner)

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Albert Barnes

He raiseth up the poor out of the dust – From the most humble condition in life. He exalts them to conditions of wealth, rank, and honor. He has power to do this; he actually does it. This is not intended to be affirmed as a universal truth or to assert that it is always done, but that it is among the things which show his majesty, his power, and his goodness, and which lay the foundation for praise.

And lifteth the needy out of the dunghill – From the condition of lowest poverty. Instances are sufficiently abundant in which this is done, to justify such an assertion, and to show that it is a proper foundation of praise to God.

That he may set him with princes – May give him a rank – a position – with nobles and great people upon the earth. Many instances of this nature have occurred in the history of the world. Not a few of the nobles of England, including several of its lord chancellors, have been raised thus from very humble life; and in every nation, God shows that he has power to give to those of humblest rank a name and place which no hereditary titles and honors can bestow: thus Shakespeare was the son of a glover and woolstapler. God has power to come into the humblest cottage of poverty, and to bring forth those who shall stand foremost in their generation as people of genius and power. Nothing is more absolute than the power which God thus holds over the nations of the earth, and it is meet that a Being who has this power, and who exercises it, should be praised and honored.

Even with the princes of his people – Among those who are selected to preside over the people whom he has chosen for himself. It is implied here that this would be a higher honor than to be exalted to power among a pagan people – a people ignorant of the true God. It is a higher honor to be counted worthy to rule a Christian nation than a pagan people; it is a higher honor to be a ruler in the church – over those whom God has redeemed for himself – than it is to administer a secular government.

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John Gill

He raiseth up the poor out of the dust,…. Persons of mean extraction and in low life are sometimes raised by him to great honor and dignity, as Saul, David, and others; and is true of many who are spiritually poor and needy, as all men are, but all are not sensible of it; some are, and these are called poor “in spirit,” and are pronounced “blessed,” for “theirs is the kingdom of heaven”: they are raised out of a low and mean estate, out of the dust of sin, and self-abhorrence for it, in which they lie when convicted of it.

And lifteth the needy out of the dunghill; which denotes a mean condition; so one born in a mean place, and brought up in a mean manner, is sometimes represented as taken out of a dunghill: and also it is expressive of a filthy one; men by sin are not only brought into a low estate, but into a loathsome one, and are justly abominable in the sight of God, and yet he lifts them out of it: the phrases of “raising up” and “lifting out” suppose them to be fallen, as men are in Adam, fallen from a state of honor and glory, in which he was created, into a state of sin and misery, and out of which they cannot deliver themselves; it is Christ’s work, and his only, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to help or lift up his servant Israel, Isaiah 49:6.

That he may set [him] with princes,…. As all the saints are by birth, being the sons of God, the King of kings; born of him, and not of the will of man; and are of a princely spirit, have a free spirit, and offer themselves and services willingly to the Lord; have the spirit of adoption, in opposition to a spirit of bondage; and, as princes, have power with God and prevail; and are also heirs of God, heirs of salvation, heirs of a kingdom, as princes be; now such as are raised by Christ and his grace from a low estate and condition are set among those princes here; they are brought to Zion, and have a place and a name in the house of God, better than that of sons and daughters; and become fellow citizens with the saints, and they are set among princes hereafter in the kingdom of heaven.

Even with the princes of his people; the more eminent among the people of God, such as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with whom they shall sit down in the kingdom of heaven; and with the prophets of the Old Testament, and the apostles of the New; and even with all the saints, who are made kings and priests unto God; see Psalm 45:16.

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The Pulpit Commentaries

He raiseth up the poor out of the dust. Heaven is full of his glory, earth of his mercy and loving-kindness. The words of 1 Samuel 2:8 are, consciously or unconsciously, quoted. And lifteth the needy out of the dunghill; rather, from the dunghill (Revised Version).

That he may set him with princes. The words of 1 Samuel 2:8 are still followed. (For the sentiment, see also Job 36:7.) Historically, the statement is illustrated by the examples of Joseph, Saul, David, Daniel, Mordecai. Even with the princes of his people. Not merely with heathen princes, but with those who exercise sovereignty over Israel, as Joseph with Pharaoh, Daniel with Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus, Mordecai with Ahasuerus or Xerxes.

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Cross References

1 Samuel 2:8 (KJV)

⁸ He raiseth up the poor out of the dust,

And lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill,

To set them among princes,

And to make them inherit the throne of glory:

For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s,

And he hath set the world upon them.

Job 36:7 (KJV)

⁷ He withdraweth not his eyes from the righteous:

But with kings are they on the throne;

Yea, he doth establish them for ever, and they are exalted.

Luke 1:52 (KJV)

⁵² He hath put down the mighty from their seats,

And exalted them of low degree.

Psalm 107:41 (KJV)

⁴¹ Yet setteth he the poor on high from affliction,

And maketh him families like a flock.

Job 5:11 (KJV)

¹¹ To set up on high those that be low;

That those which mourn may be exalted to safety.

James 2:5 (KJV)

⁵Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?

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KJV W/Strongs Bible

113:7 He raiseth up 6965 8688 the poor 1800 out of the dust 6083, [and] lifteth 7311 8686 the needy 34 out of the dunghill 830;

113:8 That he may set 3427 8687 [him] with princes 5081, [even] with the princes 5081 of his people 5971.

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Geneva Bible 1560

Psalm 113:7-8

7 He raiseth the needy out of the dust, and lifteth up the (c) poor out of the dung,

8 That he may set him with the princes, even with the princes of his people.

(c) By preferring the poor to high honor, and giving the barren children, he shows that God works not only in his Church by ordinary means, but also by miracles.

Final Thoughts:

Incline your ear and hear the words of the wise, And apply your heart to my knowledge; For it is a pleasant thing if you keep them within you; Let them all be fixed upon your lips, So that your trust may be in the Lord; I have instructed you today, even you. Have I not written to you excellent things Of counsels and knowledge, That I may make you know the certainty of the words of truth, That you may answer words of truth To those who send to you? Proverbs 22:17-21 NKJV