Psalms 136: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This psalm calls people to thank the LORD, and every line answers with the same refrain: his faithful love lasts forever. It moves from God's goodness and his making of the sky, sun, moon, and stars, to the rescue of Israel from Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea, the journey through the desert, and the defeat of Sihon and Og, whose land Israel received. It closes with God remembering his people when they were brought low, freeing them from their enemies, and giving food to every living thing.

Claim by Claim

1. 136:1
   • Give thanks to the LORD.
   • The LORD is good.
   • His steadfast love endures forever.
2. 136:2
   • Give thanks to the God of gods.
   • His steadfast love endures forever.
3. 136:3
   • Give thanks to the Lord of lords.
   • His steadfast love endures forever.
4. 136:4
   • Give thanks to him who alone does great wonders.
   • His steadfast love endures forever.
5. 136:5
   • Give thanks to him who made the heavens by understanding.
   • His steadfast love endures forever.
6. 136:6
   • Give thanks to him who spread out the earth upon the waters.
   • His steadfast love endures forever.
7. 136:7
   • Give thanks to him who made great lights.
   • His steadfast love endures forever.
8. 136:8
   • He made the sun to rule by day.
   • His steadfast love endures forever.
9. 136:9
   • He made the moon and stars to rule by night.
   • His steadfast love endures forever.
10. 136:10
    • Give thanks to him who struck Egypt in their firstborn.
    • His steadfast love endures forever.
11. 136:11
    • He brought Israel out from among them.
    • His steadfast love endures forever.
12. 136:12
    • He did so with a strong hand.
    • He did so with an outstretched arm.
    • His steadfast love endures forever.
13. 136:13
    • Give thanks to him who divided the Red Sea into parts.
    • His steadfast love endures forever.
14. 136:14
    • He made Israel pass through the midst of it.
    • His steadfast love endures forever.
15. 136:15
    • He shook off Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea.
    • His steadfast love endures forever.
16. 136:16
    • Give thanks to him who led his people through the wilderness.
    • His steadfast love endures forever.
17. 136:17
    • Give thanks to him who struck great kings.
    • His steadfast love endures forever.
18. 136:18
    • He killed mighty kings.
    • His steadfast love endures forever.
19. 136:19
    • Among them was Sihon king of the Amorites.
    • His steadfast love endures forever.
20. 136:20
    • Among them was Og king of Bashan.
    • His steadfast love endures forever.
21. 136:21
    • He gave their land as an inheritance.
    • His steadfast love endures forever.
22. 136:22
    • He gave it as an inheritance to Israel his servant.
    • His steadfast love endures forever.
23. 136:23
    • He remembered us in our low estate.
    • His steadfast love endures forever.
24. 136:24
    • He tore us away from our enemies.
    • His steadfast love endures forever.
25. 136:25
    • He gives food to all flesh.
    • His steadfast love endures forever.
26. 136:26
    • Give thanks to the God of heaven.
    • His steadfast love endures forever.

Words Worth Explaining

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

136:1

"LORD" in capitals stands for the Hebrew personal name of God, YHWH, which later readers avoided pronouncing and replaced aloud with the ordinary word for "lord." The second half of every verse is a refrain: this psalm was built to be performed with a leader singing the first line and the congregation answering the same words back, twenty-six times. "Faithful love" translates the Hebrew word hesed, which covers loyalty, kindness and steady commitment inside a binding relationship all at once; the King James "mercy" is narrower than the Hebrew.

136:2

"God of gods" is a standard Hebrew way of making a superlative, the same pattern as "song of songs" or "king of kings." It means the highest of the whole class.

136:3

"Lord" here is a different Hebrew word from the name in verse 1: it is the everyday word for a master or owner, the person a servant answers to. "Lord of lords" is again the superlative pattern: the master over every master.

136:5

The Hebrew word behind "skill and understanding" is the term for a craftsman's practical know-how, the competence of someone who builds well, rather than abstract cleverness.

136:6

This reflects the picture of the world assumed throughout the ancient Near East: dry land as a flat platform laid out over a great body of water underneath it. Verses 5–9 walk through the creation account of Genesis 1 in its own order and largely its own vocabulary.

136:7

"The great lights" is the exact phrase used in Genesis 1:16. The Hebrew verb translated "rule" in the next two verses is the one used of a king governing a territory, not merely of shining on it.

136:8

To rule the day means the sun is in charge of daytime.

136:10

The firstborn son held the leading position in a household and inherited a double share of the estate, so the firstborn of a nation stood for its strength and its future. This is the last of the ten plagues in the Exodus story.

136:11

Israel was a big family of people. They all came from one man named Jacob, also called Israel.

136:12

"A strong hand and an arm reached out" is a fixed formula repeated throughout the Exodus story for God's power in action. Egyptian royal inscriptions described the pharaoh's own might in almost identical terms.

136:13

The Hebrew name is yam suph, literally "sea of reeds"; which body of water it refers to has been debated since ancient times, and the traditional English "Red Sea" comes through the Greek translation. "Into two parts" renders a word for cutting something into pieces.

136:15

"Pharaoh" is a title rather than a personal name: it means roughly "the great house," and was the ordinary way of referring to the king of Egypt. The Hebrew verb translated "swept in" means to shake something off, the way you shake dirt out of a garment.

136:16

The Hebrew word covers dry, unsettled grazing country rather than sand dunes. It refers here to the forty years Israel spent between leaving Egypt and entering Canaan.

136:17

The old word "smote" means struck down in battle.

136:18

In 1611 "famous" meant mighty or formidable, not merely well known. The Hebrew word means majestic or powerful.

136:19

Sihon ruled a kingdom east of the Jordan River; the story of his defeat is in Numbers 21. "Amorites" was a broad term for the peoples living in the region before Israel settled there.

136:20

Og's defeat follows immediately in Numbers 21. Bashan was the fertile high plateau east of the Sea of Galilee, proverbial in Hebrew for its cattle and its oak trees.

136:21

The Hebrew word is nahalah, a family's permanent allotted share of land, handed down to heirs and, under Israelite law, not meant to be sold off for good. It is a legal term about property tenure, not a general word for a gift.

136:22

"Servant" translates a word for someone in a great king's employ. Applied to an official or a whole people, it functioned as a title of standing rather than an insult.

136:23

The Hebrew is literally "in our lowness", the condition of having been brought down, humiliated or reduced in circumstances. It does not specify which episode is meant.

136:24

The Hebrew verb here means to tear or break something away, as one breaks off a yoke. It is not the usual redemption word, which pictures buying a person or a possession back.

136:25

"All flesh" is a Hebrew idiom for every living creature that breathes, animals included, not just human beings.

136:26

"The God of heaven" was a formal title that came into common use in the Persian period; it appears frequently in Ezra, Nehemiah and Daniel, often in dealings with foreign officials.