1Hallelujah.
His praise in the faithfuls’ assembly.
2Let Israel rejoice in its Maker,
Zion’s sons exult in their king.
3Let them praise His name in dance,
on the timbrel and lyre let them hymn to Him.
4For the LORD looks with favor on His people,
He adorns the lowly with victory.
5Let the faithful delight in glory,
6Exultations of God in their throat
and a double-edged sword in their hand,
7to wreak vengeance upon the nations,
punishment on the peoples,
8to bind their kings in fetters,
and their nobles in iron chains,
9to exact from them justice as written—
it is grandeur for all His faithful.
Hallelujah.
PSALM 149 NOTES
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1. Sing to the LORD a new song. The idea of a “new song” is highlighted in several psalms. In a sense, this is a kind of self-advertisement of the psalmist, as if to say “here is a fresh and vibrant psalm that you have never heard before.” In this case, the newness of the song is manifested chiefly in the strong emphasis of this psalm of praise on a glorious military victory.
2. its Maker. The Masoretic Text oddly has a plural noun here.
4. He adorns the lowly with victory. The “lowly” in this poem does not refer to an abject social class, as it usually does elsewhere, but to the people of Israel, once brought low by its powerful enemies but now granted victory through God’s favor. Yeshuʿah, which is regularly represented in this translation as “rescue,” here seems to carry the triumphalist nuance of “victory” because of the lines that follow.
5. sing gladly on their couches. The “couches” have bothered some interpreters, but the proposed emendations are unpersuasive. It might mean that the daytime celebrations of God’s greatness through dance and song and musical instruments will continue into the night. If this psalm is late (the dating is a little uncertain), the couches could conceivably refer to the couches on which revelers reclined at feasts, as reflected in the Book of Esther.
6. Exaltations of God in their throat / and a double-edged sword in their hand. This line vividly carries over the idea of a temple celebration of God with song and dance to an image of warriors going out to battle joyfully praising God. There is a punning link between the two versets in the Hebrew because the term for “double-edged sword” is literally “a sword of mouths,” so the line moves from throat to mouth.
7. to wreak vengeance upon the nations. Attempts to anchor this prospective vision of a great military triumph in a particular historical context have been unavailing. Indeed, some interpreters have proposed that the victory evoked is intended for an eschatological future.
8. fetters, / . . . iron chains. The “fetters” (ziqim, a shortened form of the more usual ʾaziqim) are handcuffs. The “chains” would be for the feet or to bind prisoners in a line by their necks. Both possibilities are depicted in Mesopotamian bas-reliefs.
9. to exact from them justice as written. The reference could be to a canonical text, such as the promise of victory over the nations if Israel is loyal to its covenant that one finds in Deuteronomy. It could also refer to some notion of a divine book of destiny, an idea that occurs in several ancient cultures.