Psalm 117: God’s Merciful Kindness for All Nations

Psalm 117 – NKJV

Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles!
Laud Him, all you peoples!

For His merciful kindness is great toward us,
And the truth of the Lord endures forever.

Praise the Lord!

My Thoughts

Reverend Spurgeon says that this psalm “calls upon all mankind to praise the name of the Lord. In all probability, it was frequently used as a brief hymn suitable for almost every occasion, and especially when the time for worship was short. The same divine Spirit which expounds in the 119th, here condenses his utterances into two short verses, but yet the same infinite fullness is present and perceptible. It may be worth noting that this is at once the shortest chapter of the Scriptures and the central portion of the whole Bible.”

Spurgeon also cited another bible scholar named Dickson who said “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.”

Psalm 117 calls on all nations and peoples to praise the Lord, highlighting that His merciful kindness is vast and His truth endures forever. The commentaries below emphasize this psalm’s universal message, suggesting it reflects God’s desire for all humanity, not just Israel, to worship Him. The psalm’s brevity serves as a reminder that heartfelt worship does not require lengthy expressions. It reinforces the Gospel’s mission to extend God’s grace beyond racial and national boundaries, inviting everyone to glorify Him…..Bill

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Commentaries:

Charles Spurgeon

“O praise the LORD, all ye nations.” This is an exhortation to the Gentiles to glorify Jehovah, and a clear proof that the Old Testament spirit differed widely from that narrow and contracted national bigotry with which the Jews of our Lord’s day became so inveterately diseased. The nations could not be expected to join in the praise of Jehovah unless they were also to be partakers of the benefits which Israel enjoyed; and hence the Psalm was an intimation to Israel that the grace and mercy of their God were not to be confined to one nation, but would in happier days be extended to all the race of man, even as Moses had prophesied when he said, “Rejoice. O ye nations, his people” (Deu 32:43), for so the Hebrew has it. The nations were to be his people. He would call them a people that were not a people, and her beloved that was not beloved. We know and believe that no one tribe of men shall be unrepresented in the universal song which shall ascend unto the Lord of all. Individuals have already been gathered out of every kindred and people and tongue by the preaching of the gospel, and these have right heartily joined in magnifying the grace which sought them out, and brought them to know the Savior. These are but the advance guard of a number which no man can number who will come ere long to worship the all glorious One.

“Praise him, all ye people.” Having done it once, do it again, and do it still more fervently, daily increasing in the reverence and zeal with which you extol the Most High. Not only praise him nationally by your rulers, but popularly in your masses. The multitude of the common folk shall bless the Lord. Inasmuch as the matter is spoken of twice, its certainty is confirmed, and the Gentiles must and shall extol Jehovah—all of them, without exception. Under the gospel dispensation, we worship no new god, but the God of Abraham is our God forever and ever; the God of the whole earth shall he be called.

“For his merciful kindness is great toward us.” By which is meant not only his great love toward the Jewish people, but towards the whole family of man. The Lord is kind to us as his creatures, and merciful to us as sinners, hence his merciful kindness to us as sinful creatures. This mercy has been very great or powerful. The mighty grace of God has prevailed even as the waters of the flood prevailed over the earth: breaking over all bounds, it has flowed towards all portions of the multiplied race of man. In Christ Jesus, God has shown mercy mixed with kindness, and that to the very highest degree. We can all join in this grateful acknowledgment, and in the praise which is therefore due.

“And the truth of the LORD endureth for ever.” He has kept his covenant promise that in the seed of Abraham should all nations of the earth be blessed, and he will eternally keep every single promise of that covenant to all those who put their trust in him. This should be a cause of constant and grateful praise, wherefore the Psalm concludes as it began, with another Hallelujah, “Praise ye the LORD.”

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Enduring Word

Praise the LORD: Previous psalms called on Israel to give praise to Yahweh, but here all the Gentiles are called to praise Him. This showed a largeness of heart that God intended Israel to have from the beginning, pointing to the truth that in Abraham all the peoples of the world were to be blessed (Genesis 12:3). (Guzik)

i. “For the most part, the Jews looked with little sympathy on their Gentile neighbors, and had no desire that they should laud Jehovah, save as they became proselytes of Judaism. But where the love of God is strong in the heart, it overleaps the bounds of custom and racial prejudice, and yearns that all the world should know and love the Saviour.” (Meyer)

ii. “The Psalm was an intimation to Israel that the grace and mercy of their God were not to be confined to one nation, but would in happier days be extended to all the race of man.” (Spurgeon)

iii. Since this is one of the six Egyptian Hallel Psalms (113-118), sung as part of the Passover service, Jesus would have sung Psalm 117 with His disciples (Matthew 26:30, Mark 14:26). Therefore, on the eve of His crucifixion, we know that Jesus had all the peoples, all the Gentiles in mind. Through His work on the cross and victory over death at the empty tomb, God would call a people to Himself from every tribe and tongue. (Guzik)

iv. “The historical limitations of God’s manifestation to a special nation were means to its universal diffusion. The fire was gathered in a grate, that it might warm the whole house. All men have a share in what God does for Israel.” (Maclaren)

Laud Him, all you peoples: To laud is to say praiseworthy things about a person. The psalmist called upon all peoples to praise God intelligently, and he provided reasons why He is worthy of worship. (Guzik)

i. “Inasmuch as the matter is spoken of twice, its certainty is confirmed, and the Gentiles must and shall extol Jehovah.” (Spurgeon)

ii. Some suggest that all you peoples refers to the Jewish people, but Paul’s quotation of Psalm 117:1 in Romans 15:11 leads us to believe that this is a call to the nations.

iii. The word for peoples suggests all the tribes of the earth. “The very diversity of God’s subjects comes out in the expressions all nations…all tribes.” (Kidner)

iv. “Here then is a true Christian universalism, not that all people will be saved regardless of the god they believe in, but rather that all people may be saved through Jesus Christ.” (Boice)

v. The call to all you peoples makes this a strong missionary psalm. “Are we doing all we can to kindle the nations to praise? They cannot praise Him whom they do not know. It is mere hypocrisy to bid them praise Him, if we have never sought to spread, by lip or gift, the mercy and truth revealed in Jesus our Lord.” (Meyer)

For His merciful kindness is great: In thinking of reasons to praise God, the psalmist first lists His great hesed (merciful kindness). The Hebrew actually says His hesed hesed is great, with the idea of God’s loyal, covenant love repeated twice for emphasis. (Guzik)

i. Is great: The Hebrew word doesn’t have the thought of exceedingly large, but as something that is mighty and prevails. “Gabar is strong: it is not only great in bulk or number, but it is powerful; it prevails over sin, Satan, death, and hell.” (Clarke)

ii. “…lovingkindness is ‘mighty over us’ – the word used for being mighty has the sense of prevailing, and so ‘where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.’” (Maclaren)

Great toward us: This is further reason for praise; not only does God have great lovingkindness, but that merciful kindness is toward us. By us the psalmist has in mind Israel and all peoples as mentioned in the previous verse. (Guzik)

i. “Towards all of us, all the children of Abraham, whether carnal or spiritual, who were to be incorporated together, and made one body and one fold by and under the Messias, John 10:16, Ephesians 2:14, which mystery seems to be insinuated by this manner of expression.” (Poole)

ii. “It may also be that the ‘us’ of verse 2 has already found room for the ‘you’ implied in verse 1, by seeing Israelites and Gentiles as one people under God.” (Kidner)

The truth of the LORD endures forever: God is to be praised not only for His loyal love, but also for His truth. His ever-enduring truth means that He will not change in His love and goodness to us. (Guzik)

i. When mercy and truth are praised together like this, it reminds us that the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (John 1:17).

ii. “If God stood for truth alone, there would be no hope for us. On the other hand, if the grace of God could act apart from truth, we should equally be without hope.” (Morgan)

iii. “Once again we can imagine with what perfect joy our Lord sang this song, as He moved to the uttermost in His sorrows; for He did so in full and perfect apprehension of the union of lovingkindness and truth in God.” (Morgan)

iv. Endures forever: “Not only is his love so great in depth and height (cf. Rom 5:20; 1 Tim 1:14), it is also lasting (‘endures forever’).” (VanGemeren)

Praise the LORD: Once again, all peoples are called to say, Hallelujah!

i. “By the union of grace and truth, in and through Jesus, the call to praise went out to all nations and peoples.” (Morgan)

ii. “Let the hallelujahs of the redeemed be suitable to that ‘mercy,’ and co-eternal with that ‘truth.’” (Horne)

iii. “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.” (Dickson, cited in Spurgeon)

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Albert Barnes

O praise the Lord, all ye nations – The idea is that God has a claim to universal worship, and that all the nations of the earth are under obligations to adore him as the true God. He is not the God of the Hebrew people only, but of all people; his praise should be celebrated not merely by one nation, but by all. This is one of the passages in the Old Testament, anticipating what is more fully disclosed in the New Testament, in which the sacred writer extends his vision beyond the narrow boundaries of Judea, and looks to the world, the whole world, as the theater on which the true religion was to be displayed, and for which it was designed. It is language such as would be indited by the Spirit of inspiration on the supposition that the time would come when the barrier between Jews and Gentiles would be broken down, and when all the nations of the earth would be in the possession of the true religion, and would unite in the worship of the same God. This doctrine, however, was not fully made known until the coming of the Redeemer. The announcement of this was made by the Redeemer himself (compare Matthew 8:11; Matthew 12:21; Matthew 28:19); it was the occasion of no small part of the trouble which the Apostle Paul had with his countrymen (compare Acts 13:46; Acts 18:6; Acts 21:21; Acts 22:21; Acts 26:20, Acts 26:23); it was one of the doctrines which Paul especially endeavored to establish, as a great truth of Christianity, that all the barriers between the nations were to be broken down, and the Gospel proclaimed to all people alike, Romans 3:29; Romans 9:24, Romans 9:30; Romans 11:11; Romans 15:9-11, Romans 15:16, Romans 15:18; Galatians 2:2; Ephesians 2:11-18; Ephesians 3:1-9. It is under the gospel that this language becomes especially appropriate.

Praise him, all ye people – People of all lands. The word here rendered “praise” – שׁבח shâbach – means properly to soothe, to still, to restrain – as, for example, billows Psalms 89:9; and then, to praise, as if to soothe with praises – mulcere laudibus, Pacuv. The idea of soothing or mitigating, however, is not necessarily in the word, but it may be understood in the general sense of praise. We may in fact often soothe or appease people – angry, jealous, suspicious people – by skillful flattery or praise – for there are few, even when under the influence of anger or hatred, who may not thus be approached, or who do not value praise and commendation more than they do the indulgence of passion; but we cannot hope thus to appease the anger of God. We approach him to utter our deep sense of his goodness, and our veneration for his character; we do not expect to turn him from anger to love, to make him forget his justice or our sins by soothing flattery.

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Matthew Henry

There is a great deal of gospel in this psalm. The apostle has furnished us with a key to it (Rom. 15:11), where he quotes it as a proof that the gospel was to be preached to, and would be entertained by, the Gentile nations, which yet was so great a stumbling-block to the Jews. Why should that offend them when it is said, and they themselves had often sung it, Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and laud him, all you people. Some of the Jewish writers confess that this psalm refers to the kingdom of the Messiah; nay, one of them has a fancy that it consists of two verses to signify that in the days of the Messiah God should be glorified by two sorts of people, by the Jews, according to the law of Moses, and by the Gentiles, according to the seven precepts of the sons of Noah, which yet should make one church, as these two verses make one psalm.

The unsearchable riches of gospel-grace, which are to be the matter or our praise, v. 2. In the gospel, those celebrated attributes of God, his mercy and his truth, shine most brightly in themselves and most comfortably to us; and the apostle, where he quotes this psalm, takes notice of these as the two great things for which the Gentiles should glorify God (Rom. 15:8, 9), for the truth of God and for his mercy. We that enjoy the gospel have reason to praise the Lord.

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Cross-References

Psalm 103:11 (KJV )

¹¹ For as the heaven is high above the earth,

So great is his mercy toward them that fear him.

Exodus 34:6 (KJV )

⁶And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,

Psalm 85:10 (KJV )

¹⁰ Mercy and truth are met together;

Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.

Psalm 98:4 (KJV )

⁴ Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth:

Make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.

John 14:6 (KJV )

⁶Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

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Geneva Bible 1560

Psalm 117:1-2

1 All (*)nations, praise ye the Lord: all ye people, praise him.

2 For his loving kindness is great toward us, and the (a) trueth of the Lord endureth for ever. Praise ye the Lord.

(*)Rom. 15.11. (a) That is, the most certain and continual testimonies of his Fatherly grace

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Closing Thoughts

You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You. Trust in the Lord forever, For in Yah, the Lord, is everlasting strength. Isaiah 26:3-4 NKJV

My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; Keep them in the midst of your heart; For they are life to those who find them, And health to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life. Proverbs 4:20-23 NKJV