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Psalms 135: What the Passage Says

55 claims across 21 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Psalms 135 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

This psalm calls the people who serve at the LORD's house to praise him. It gives reasons: he chose Jacob and Israel as his own, he does whatever he pleases in the heavens, the earth, and the seas, and he controls clouds, lightning, and wind. It recalls the killing of Egypt's firstborn, the defeat of Sihon, Og, and the kingdoms of Canaan, and the gift of their land to Israel. It then contrasts the LORD with idols of silver and gold, which cannot speak, see, hear, or breathe, and it ends by calling Israel, the house of Aaron, the house of Levi, and all who fear the LORD to bless him.

Claim by Claim

  1. 135:1
    • The hearers are called to praise the LORD.
    • The hearers are called to praise the name of the LORD.
    • The servants of the LORD are called to praise him.
  2. 135:2
    • The ones addressed are those who stand in the house of the LORD.
    • They stand in the courts of the house of our God.
  3. 135:3
    • The hearers are called to praise the LORD.
    • The LORD is good.
    • The hearers are called to sing praises to the name of the LORD.
    • It is pleasant.
  4. 135:4
    • The LORD has chosen Jacob for himself.
    • The LORD has chosen Israel as his special possession.
  5. 135:5
    • The speaker knows that the LORD is great.
    • Our Lord is above all gods.
  6. 135:6
    • Whatever the LORD desired, he did.
    • He did it in the heavens.
    • He did it in the earth.
    • He did it in the seas.
    • He did it in all the deeps.
  7. 135:7
    • He causes clouds to rise from the end of the earth.
    • He makes lightnings for the rain.
    • He brings the wind out of his storehouses.
  8. 135:8
    • He struck down the firstborn of Egypt.
    • The firstborn struck down included both man and beast.
  9. 135:9
    • He sent signs and wonders into the midst of Egypt.
    • The signs and wonders were sent against Pharaoh.
    • The signs and wonders were sent against all Pharaoh's servants.
  10. 135:10
    • He struck down many nations.
    • He killed mighty kings.
  11. 135:11
    • Among the kings killed was Sihon king of the Amorites.
    • Among the kings killed was Og king of Bashan.
    • He struck down all the kingdoms of Canaan.
  12. 135:12
    • He gave their land as an inheritance.
    • He gave it as an inheritance to Israel his people.
  13. 135:13
    • The LORD's name endures forever.
    • The LORD's memorial endures throughout all generations.
  14. 135:14
    • The LORD will judge his people.
    • The LORD will relent concerning his servants.
  15. 135:15
    • The idols of the nations are silver and gold.
    • The idols are the work of human hands.
  16. 135:16
    • The idols have mouths.
    • The idols do not speak.
    • The idols have eyes.
    • The idols do not see.
  17. 135:17
    • The idols have ears.
    • The idols do not hear.
    • There is no breath in the idols' mouths.
  18. 135:18
    • Those who make the idols become like them.
    • Everyone who trusts in the idols becomes like them.
  19. 135:19
    • The house of Israel is called to bless the LORD.
    • The house of Aaron is called to bless the LORD.
  20. 135:20
    • The house of Levi is called to bless the LORD.
    • Those who fear the LORD are called to bless the LORD.
  21. 135:21
    • Blessed be the LORD out of Zion.
    • The LORD dwells at Jerusalem.
    • The hearers are called to praise the LORD.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

135:1
"Praise ye the LORD" translates the single Hebrew word *hallelu-yah*, literally "praise Yah," Yah being a short form of the divine name. It is the word that comes into English as "hallelujah." It opens and closes this psalm, a frame used for a group of psalms in this part of the book. Where the King James prints LORD in capital letters, it is standing in for that personal name of Israel's God (the four Hebrew letters usually written YHWH), which Jewish readers did not pronounce aloud; "Lord" in ordinary lower case translates a different word meaning "master." The "servants of the LORD" here are most likely those on duty in the temple, not servants in the household sense.
135:2
"The house of the LORD" is the temple in Jerusalem. Its "courts" were the walled open-air courtyards surrounding the building itself; ordinary worshipers gathered there, since only priests entered the inner rooms. To "stand" in them is close to "be stationed there", the language of taking up a post for service.
135:3
"For it is pleasant" is deliberately unanchored in the Hebrew: the "it" may be the LORD himself, his name, or the act of singing praise. Translators divide on which, and the sentence works with any of them.
135:4
"Jacob" and "Israel" are both names for the same ancestor (Jacob was renamed Israel) and both are used as names for the whole nation descended from him. "Peculiar treasure" has nothing to do with strangeness; in 1611 "peculiar" meant "belonging to one person alone." The Hebrew word behind it, *segullah*, was used of a king's private hoard, the personal property he kept apart from the state treasury.
135:5
"Our Lord" translates a different Hebrew word from the LORD in capitals earlier in the verse: *adon*, meaning master or owner. "Above all gods" is a comparison with the gods worshiped by surrounding nations; the psalm does not pause to say whether they exist, only where they rank.
135:6
"All deep places" refers to the deep waters, the seas and, in the picture of the world assumed here, the waters believed to lie beneath the land.
135:7
"Treasuries" are storehouses, the sort of locked chambers where a king kept grain, gold, or weapons. The image is of weather kept in stock and issued when wanted. "Maketh lightnings for the rain" pictures lightning as what opens or accompanies a rainstorm.
135:8
The killing of Egypt's firstborn was the last of the ten disasters that, in the exodus story, forced Pharaoh to release the Israelites from slavery. "Both of man and beast" means firstborn humans and firstborn livestock alike.
135:9
"Tokens" here means signs, the King James uses the word for a mark or proof, not a keepsake. "Signs and wonders" is the standard phrase for the plagues sent on Egypt. "Pharaoh" is a title for the king of Egypt, not a personal name, and "his servants" means his court officials.
135:11
Sihon and Og were kings east of the Jordan whom Israel defeated on the way to Canaan; the story is told in Numbers 21. The Amorites were one of the peoples living in the region, and Bashan was the fertile upland east of the Sea of Galilee. Canaan is the land west of the Jordan, divided at the time among many small city-kingdoms. Listing these three together is a compressed way of naming the whole conquest.
135:12
"Heritage" translates a word for land held permanently by a family and passed from parents to children, not something bought or won afresh each generation. In Israelite law such land was not supposed to leave the family line.
135:13
"Memorial" in 1611 English meant the name or reputation by which someone is remembered, not a monument. The line pairs "name" and "memorial" as near-synonyms.
135:14
"Judge his people" here means take up their case and decide it in their favor, the sense is closer to "vindicate" than to "put on trial." "Repent himself" is the old English for changing course or relenting; it carries no suggestion of wrongdoing being confessed. The Hebrew word can shade toward "have compassion," and both this verse and verse 13 echo the wording of Deuteronomy 32:36.
135:15
"The heathen" simply means the other nations, the peoples outside Israel, and in the King James it is not primarily an insult. The idols described are wooden or metal figures overlaid with silver and gold.
135:17
"Breath" is the Hebrew word for the air of life; a thing with no breath in it is not alive. Ancient readers would also hear the contrast with statues that were ritually "opened" at the mouth in some neighboring religions so the god could eat, speak, and breathe through them.
135:19
"House of" means family or descent line. The house of Israel is the nation as a whole; the house of Aaron is the priests, who traced their descent from Moses' brother Aaron and alone could serve at the altar.
135:20
The house of Levi is the wider tribe from which the priests came; Levites who were not priests handled the rest of the temple's work, music, gatekeeping, transport, maintenance. "Ye that fear the LORD" is a set phrase for worshipers; "fear" here means reverence rather than terror, and the phrase was sometimes used for non-Israelites who worshiped Israel's God. The verse thus works outward from priests to Levites to everyone else.
135:21
Zion was originally the ridge captured by David in Jerusalem, and the name came to stand for the temple hill and then for the city itself. "Which dwelleth at Jerusalem" refers to the LORD, understood as present in the temple there. The psalm ends with the same "hallelujah" it began with.

Read Psalms 135