Psalms 136

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. The KJV renders chesed as 'mercy,' which captures only one dimension of the word. Chesed includes mercy but also encompasses loyalty, commitment, kindness, and covenant faithfulness. It is the word used when Ruth clings to Naomi, when David shows kindness to Jonathan's son, when God remembers His covenant with Abraham. We render it 'faithful love' throughout this psalm to hold together the love and the faithfulness.

Translator Notes

1. The title Elohei ha-Elohim ('God of gods') uses the superlative construction common in Hebrew: the ultimate among all that could be called divine. It does not necessarily affirm the existence of other gods but asserts YHWH's supremacy over every possible claimant to divine status.

Translator Notes

1. Adonei ha-Adonim ('Lord of lords') parallels the previous verse's 'God of gods.' Together they form a double superlative: supreme God, supreme ruler. The three opening verses (vv. 1-3) establish the recipient of thanks before the reasons begin in verse 4.

Translator Notes

1. The word levaddo ('alone, by Himself') is theologically significant: no other being participates in God's wonder-working. The niflaot gedolot ('great wonders') encompasses everything that follows — creation, Exodus, conquest — all performed by God alone.

Translator Notes

1. The word tevunah ('understanding, insight, intelligence') attributes the creation to divine wisdom, not raw power. The heavens are not brute-forced into existence but crafted with intelligence. This echoes Proverbs 3:19: 'The LORD by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding He established the heavens.'

Translator Notes

1. The verb roqa ('to spread out, to beat out, to flatten') is a metalworking term — like hammering gold into thin sheets. The image is of God flattening the earth and laying it over the primordial waters, reflecting the ancient cosmology of Genesis 1:9-10 where dry land emerges from the waters.

Translator Notes

1. The 'great lights' (orim gedolim) echoes Genesis 1:16 exactly — the same phrase used for the sun and moon on the fourth day of creation. The psalm follows the Genesis creation order, treating the creation narrative as a liturgical script.

Translator Notes

1. The verb memsheleth ('to rule, to govern') assigns the sun a political role — it governs the day as a regent governs territory. In a world where surrounding cultures worshiped the sun as a god, the psalm reduces it to a servant assigned a shift by the true sovereign.

Translator Notes

1. The moon and stars together govern the night. The plural memshelot ('rules, governances') distributes the authority — the night has multiple governors, not one. This completes the creation section (vv. 4-9) before the psalm shifts to the Exodus in verse 10.

Translator Notes

1. The transition from creation to Exodus is seamless — the God who made the sun is the God who struck Egypt. The phrase bi-vekhoreihem ('through their firstborn') concentrates the tenth plague into a single word: the firstborn are both the target and the means of the blow. Declaring 'His faithful love endures forever' after an act of destruction is theologically challenging — the psalm insists that even judgment is an expression of chesed toward those being delivered.

Translator Notes

1. The verb vayyotse ('and He brought out') is the Exodus verb — the hiphil of yatsa, the root of the entire Exodus narrative. God is the subject; Israel is the object. The deliverance is entirely God's act.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase be-yad chazaqah u-vi-zeroa netuyah ('with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm') is the Deuteronomic formula for the Exodus (Deuteronomy 4:34, 5:15, 7:19, 11:2, 26:8). It is one of the most formulaic phrases in the Hebrew Bible — an Israelite hearing these words would immediately think 'Exodus.' The hand and arm are anthropomorphisms for God's direct, personal intervention.

Translator Notes

1. The verb gozer ('to cut, split, divide') is graphic — God cut the sea into gezarim ('sections, pieces'), as one cuts meat or cloth. The Yam Suf ('Sea of Reeds') is the traditional body of water crossed during the Exodus. We render it 'Sea of Reeds' rather than 'Red Sea' because suf means 'reed, rush' (as in Exodus 2:3, where baby Moses is placed among the reeds).

Translator Notes

1. The hiphil verb he'evir ('He caused to pass through') emphasizes God's agency — Israel did not swim or wade; God caused them to cross. The preposition be-tokho ('through its midst') places Israel in the center of the divided sea, surrounded by walls of water on both sides.

Translator Notes

1. The verb ni'er is more dismissive than 'overthrew' (KJV). It contains the idea of shaking something loose — like shaking insects off a garment. Applied to Pharaoh and his entire army, it reduces Egypt's military might to something God brushes away without effort.

Translator Notes

1. The participle molikhi ('the one leading') describes ongoing guidance — not a single act but forty years of sustained direction through the desert. The wilderness (midbar) was not merely a transit zone but the place where Israel was formed as a covenant people. God's faithful love endures even through the barren places.

Translator Notes

1. The conquest section begins (vv. 17-22), moving from the wilderness to the Transjordanian victories. The 'great kings' (melakhim gedolim) are specified in the following verses — Sihon and Og, the same pair memorialized in Psalm 135:10-11.

Translator Notes

1. The word addirim ('mighty, majestic, powerful') elevates the defeated kings — these were not petty chieftains but formidable rulers. Their might makes their defeat more impressive and God's chesed more visible.

Translator Notes

1. Sihon ruled the territory between the Arnon and Jabbok rivers in Transjordan. His defeat is narrated in Numbers 21:21-31 and became one of the most frequently cited events in Israel's liturgical memory of the conquest.

Translator Notes

1. Og ruled the fertile region of Bashan in the northern Transjordan. Deuteronomy 3:11 notes that his iron bed was nine cubits long — he was remembered as a giant. His defeat, narrated in Numbers 21:33-35, opened the way to the northern approaches to the promised land.

Translator Notes

1. The word nachalah ('inheritance') reappears from Psalm 135:12. The conquered land is not plunder but inheritance — a divinely granted portion held in trust.

Translator Notes

1. Israel is called avdo ('His servant') — a title of honor, not degradation. In the ancient Near East, the king's servant was his trusted agent. Israel serves the cosmic sovereign as His representative on earth. The land is the servant's portion, granted by the master.

Translator Notes

1. The verb zakhar ('remembered') in Hebrew does not mean 'recalled to mind' (as if God had forgotten) but 'turned His attention to with intent to act.' Divine remembering is always the prelude to divine intervention.

Translator Notes

1. The verb vayyifreqeinu (from paraq, 'to tear away, to rescue by force, to snatch free') is more violent than 'redeemed.' It describes a forceful extraction — God ripped Israel from the grip of enemies the way one tears prey from a predator's jaws. The word tsareinu ('our enemies,' literally 'our adversaries, our distressers') comes from the root tsarar ('to bind, to press, to distress').

Translator Notes

1. The phrase kol basar ('all flesh') encompasses not just all humans but all living creatures — animals, birds, sea life. The psalm's movement from Israel-specific salvation (vv. 10-24) to universal provision (v. 25) prevents the theology from becoming exclusively national. God's chesed has a particular expression (Israel's history) but a universal scope (all living things eat because of Him).

Translator Notes

1. The title El ha-shamayim ('God of heaven') appears in Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel as a way of identifying Israel's God to non-Israelite audiences. Its use here universalizes the psalm's closing: this is not merely Israel's tribal deity but the God of heaven itself — the creator, liberator, and sustainer of all.