The turn of the year offers an annual opportunity for reflection on what is past, and hopeful consideration of the future. Many people set new goals for weight loss, physical fitness, or an expanded circle of friends. For Christians, it is an optimal time to point themselves toward a closer relationship with God.

Psalm 147 is an appropriate text to guide that thinking. It declares an amazing belief that the Creator of the universe has offered to live in personal relationship with people of the earth, and that calls for a healthy dose of daily praise. [DD]

Psalm 147 was probably written at some point after many former Hebrew exiles returned from Babylon to Jerusalem. After the Persian king Cyrus had defeated their Babylonian captors. he not only gave permission for their return, but authorized the rebuilding of the temple, and even provided some funding.

The early years of the return, beginning after 537 BCE, were not as joyful as expected.  The returnees found the city in ruins and surrounded by hostile neighbors. A time of famine made it difficult to survive, much less to prosper.

The excitement of the return soon faded. The appointed governor Sheshbazaar had struggled. He ordered workers to clear the temple site, and priests built an altar so they could again offer sacrifices. Neighboring provinces opposed the rebuilding efforts, however, and times were hard. Residents focused on building houses and establishing farms for themselves, leaving the temple unfinished. [DD]

When the prophets Haggai and Zechariah arrived with another wave of exiles around 520 BCE, they were appalled by the lack of progress and lambasted the early returnees for not having rebuilt the temple. Haggai claimed that the famine was Yahweh’s punishment for their failure to make the temple their first priority (Haggai 1). [DD]

Before they could restart the process, Zerubbabel, the new governor, had to petition the Persian authorities to throw out legal challenges from neighboring provinces that had halted rebuilding efforts. That initiated a five-year construction effort that culminated with the dedication of the new temple in 515 BCE. [DD]

Psalm 147 was probably written during this tumultuous period, and it reinforces the importance of offering praise to God—an activity typically associated with the temple, where a professional order of temple singers led in worship. After the opening “Hallelujah,” a call to worship that literally means “Praise Yahweh,” the psalmist declares that singing praises to God is a good and proper response to God’s ongoing display of grace (v. 1).

As evidence of Yahweh’s beneficence, the psalmist praises Yahweh for building up Jerusalem and gathering those who had been exiled from their home, healing their broken hearts and bandaging their wounds (vv. 2-3). [DD]

With v. 4 the psalmist changes gears, amazed that the same God who could count and name every star also cared for the hard-pressed people of Jerusalem (v. 4). One might expect a God of such immense power and immeasurable wisdom to be unconcerned with human struggles, but not so: Yahweh had intervened to lift up the downtrodden exiles and to cast down wicked folk such as the neighboring officials who had interfered with the rebuilding of the temple (vv. 5-6).

When you think of your own life and perhaps your church, do similar thoughts ever occur to you? How amazing it is to look up on a clear night and ponder the stars in their number and magnitude, while imagining that the same God who created the universe also cares for humankind and desires to live in a relationship of covenant love with us.

The second strophe of Psalm 147 begins with a renewed call to praise God with song. The word translated as “sing” in the NRSV usually means “to answer” or “to respond.” In this way, the psalmist reminds us that our prayers and songs of praise are a human response of gratitude for God’s goodness to us (v. 7).

And how has God been good? The psalmist considers the gifts of clouds and rain that make the grass to grow on Israel’s fertile hills (v. 8). Like other ancients, he did not think wind and rain resulted from natural meteorological phenomena, but that the seasonal showers were a gift of God’s sustaining grace not just to humans, but to all life on earth (v. 9).

The psalmist imagined God looking upon the earth and considering its inhabitants. What aspect of creation would bring God pleasure? It would not be the impressive beauty of a muscled horse in full gallop or the efficient stride of a human runner (v. 10), the psalmist says, but the response of “those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love” (v. 11).

Some writers think the reference to strong horses and swift runners could be a military reference to chariots and infantry, but that is an unnecessary assumption: it’s unlikely that the people of Judah had either horses or chariots at the time. The point is that God may find some satisfaction in gazing upon the wonders of creation, but is most pleased by the grateful response of those who have put their hope in the promise of God’s love.

The injunction to “fear the LORD” is especially common in Israel’s Wisdom literature, which insists that “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Prov. 1:7, 9:10; see also Ps. 111:10 and Prov. 4:7). In this context, “fear” does not suggest fright, but a sense of reverence and respect for God that goes deep enough to motivate someone to live faithfully in relationship with God.

With each section, the psalm goes a little deeper into the joys and challenges of an ongoing relationship with God. As in the first two stanzas, the third section begins with a call to praise Yahweh. Here it utilizes two different words for “praise,” two different terms for God, and two different names for Jerusalem: “Praise (shavchi) the LORD (Yahweh), O Jerusalem,” the psalmist called. “Praise (haleli) your God (Elohim), O Zion” (v. 12).

Again, the call to praise God is followed by reasons for why adoration is due. The first cause for praise addresses the renewed Jerusalem specifically: under God the city’s gates have been reinforced so children can find safety and people can live in peace, enjoying the earth’s bounty that God provides (vv. 13-14). [DD]

But God’s work extends beyond Jerusalem to all of nature, including the ability to control the seasons by divine command. With delightful imagery, the psalmist declares that “his word runs swiftly” to bring snow, frost, hail, and cold (vv. 15-17). But winter ends: as God’s word brings on the frozen precipitation of winter, so God also “sends out his word, and melts them; he makes his wind to blow, and the waters flow” (v. 18). Many residents of ancient Jerusalem had farms and family members living outside the city. They understood the importance of the alternating seasons for growing needed crops.

But divine care goes beyond the physical: God has provided both a covenant of relationship and the instructions needed to follow it: “He declares his word to Jacob, his statutes and ordinances to Israel” (v. 19; see “The Hardest Question” online for more on this).

In drawing to a close, the psalmist highlighted Israel’s unique place in God’s order: no other nation had been granted the opportunity to live in such a relationship with God, whose ordinances were not demands as much as they were gifts, keys that could open the door to lives of peace and of praise (v. 20).

The psalm is impressive, but can it speak to people who aren’t Israelites, who don’t live in Jerusalem, at a time when the temple no longer exists?

The answer, of course, is yes. Followers of Jesus live under a new and different covenant, but it is rooted in the same God who loved and blessed and disciplined and forgave the people of Israel. Our relationship is not based on keeping the law, but in trusting the One who fulfilled the law and did for us what we could not do for ourselves, in Jesus who offers grace beyond measure.

This is not to say that our relationship is devoid of demand: as Israel was called to love God and keep the commandments, Jesus challenged his followers to love God and keep his commandments—namely, to love one another as we love ourselves. Every commandment is bound up in this: when we are guided by love, positive actions will follow.

Followers of Jesus are not promised that the faithful will always prosper or that hardships will not come our way: good behavior is no guarantee of financial freedom, and wrongdoing will not automatically bring punishment. Our motivation in following Jesus goes beyond the selfish desire for personal prosperity: it is a longing to see the world with Christlike compassion and to do our part to bring peace and wholeness to others.

Praising God with our voices and songs is one response to the grace we have received: offering praise through our love and our lives is even better.