Psalm 147: Hallelujah—God Provides

Psalm 147 continues the Hallelujah psalms.

Praising God as Creator of all reality shows appreciation for His ongoing blessings (v. 1). The human family owes everything to God. He controls the mechanisms that give us life. He is the Great Physician to our soul (v. 3). The vast universe is known to Him (v. 4). He regulates the orbits of a myriad of stars and constellations (v. 4).

The farther we gaze into the heavens, the more systems appear beyond our view. God “made the night, marshaling the shining stars in the firmament. He calls them all by name. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork, showing man that this little world is but a jot in God’s creation.” All nature responds to God’s commands (vv. 8, 16–18). “God furnishes the matter and the properties with which to carry out his plans. He employs his agencies that vegetation may flourish. He sends the dew and the rain and the sunshine, that verdure may spring forth, and spread its carpet over the earth; that the shrubs and fruit-trees may bud and blossom and bring forth. It is not to be supposed that a law is set in motion for the seed to work itself, that the leaf appears because it must do so of itself. God has laws that he has instituted, but they are only the servants through which he effects results. It is through the immediate agency of God that every tiny seed breaks through the earth, and springs into life. Every leaf grows, every flower blooms, by the power of God.” Psalm 147 speaks of God covering the heavens with clouds, preparing the rain, and making the grass grow on the mountains (v. 8). He sends the snow and scatters the frost (v. 16). He casts forth hail (v. 17) and causes the winds to blow and the waters to flow (see v. 18). All creation is subject to His command.

“All things bright and beautiful, / All creatures great and small, / All things wise and wonderful, / The Lord God made them all.”