Praise the LORD

DEVOTION

PSALMS

PRAISE THE LORD

  Ps 117

Praise the LORD, all you nations; extol him, all you peoples. 2 For great is his love toward us, and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever.

Praise the LORD.  

NIV

This has to be the shortest of all the psalms, yet it says everything that is important. It is an exhortation to praise the Lord, to lift him up. It is interesting the Hebrew word praise carries the meaning of to shine, to make a show, to boast and thus be foolish, rave, to celebrate. This is praise and sets aside all our human inhibitions and concerns what others would think of us. In all reality it is a rare thing to see the Lord praised in this manner in church, which should be the one place we would think this praise would happen. Have we become too sophisticated to truly praise him in that manner this Hebrew word means? When we think of David dancing before the returning Ark of the Covenant, he was in full praise. The king of Israel wearing only a linen ephod dancing with all his might before everyone. That may not have seemed kingly, or a kingly manner, but he did not care, he was praising the Lord with all his might. Then we have this word translated here as extol. It is another Hebrew word which is also translated praise the Lord, but it carries a meaning to address in a loud voice, specifically loud, but figuratively, to pacify(as if by words). Then we have the nations and the peoples. These two words encompass all mankind. The word translated nations implies Gentiles, while the word translated peoples implies a community or persons, which could be seen as the Jews, since this song was written for them. So then we all should be giving praise to the Lord loudly and with all our might, looking foolish even about how involved we are in praising God. This means no sitting on our hands and muttering the words of some praise song. The whole reason for all this praise is God. How great is his love toward us and how faithful he is regarding us. There are not enough words in our language to express just how great his love is toward us. There are not enough words to explain his faithfulness that endures forever. We do not fully comprehend forever, much less how faithful he is. What we are left with is simply to Praise the LORD and all that it means to Praise the LORD.