Psalm 113 explained: The High God Who Bends Down

Praise from everyone, always (vv. 1-3)

The song calls God's servants to praise the LORD's name, meaning God himself as he has made himself known, at every time and in every place from east to west. This psalm opens a group (Psalms 113 to 118) that Jewish families have long sung at Passover and other festivals.

Higher than everything (vv. 4-5)

God is pictured as ruling over all nations and even above the sky, with no one to compare with him. The question about who is like the LORD is not asking for an answer; it is an expression of amazement.

God bends down to look (v. 6)

The image is striking: God is so high that he must stoop even to see the heavens, let alone the earth. Yet he chooses to look, and the next lines show what he does once he sees.

The poor lifted up (vv. 7-8)

The poor are pictured sitting in the dust and on the town's heap of refuse, where the destitute often begged, and God raises them to sit among leaders. These lines closely echo Hannah's song in 1 Samuel 2, and Christians hear them again in Mary's song in Luke 1, reading God's stooping down as pointing toward Jesus.

The childless woman given a family (v. 9)

In that world a woman without children often faced shame and an insecure future, as the stories of Sarah, Rachel and Hannah show. The psalm ends with her settled at home as a happy mother, one more picture of someone lifted from their lowest place.

Key verse: Psalm 113:7

Something to think about

When you picture power that bends down toward people at the bottom rather than away from them, what does that stir up in you: hope, doubt, or something else?