◄ Psalm 136:3 ►














Pulpit Commentary Homiletics
God And Other Gods
Psalm 136:2
R. Tuck
Oh give thanks unto the God of gods. This expression appears to recognize other gods in order to make comparison with them of the One only, living, and true God. It is necessary to keep in mind that there are gods for whom their worshippers claim that they are verily and indeed gods. True, "the gods of the nations are idols (helpless vanities), but the Lord (Jehovah) made the heavens;" but that is the view which the worshippers of Jehovah take, not the view which the nations that serve these gods take. For us there is no comparison between God and the gods. And yet Scripture invites us to make comparisons. Some freshness may be gained by taking one point of view; but it must be regarded as a point of view, and in no sense a complete setting of truth in relation to this subject. Gods, as distinct from God, are always wrongly treated when they are regarded as distinct and independent deities. It may be the fact of history that to the mass of the people they become such; but that is their delusion. They never really are such; they are always either incarnations of God, in order to bear direct relation to human and earthly things, or they are guardian angels or patron saints. This may be clearly illustrated from the Hindu religion. Brahma is the one living god; but there are five cults of Brahma, according as he is presented incarnate in Vishnoo, 'Siva, 'Sakti, Gane'sa, or Surya. It might be said that these are gods, but the deeper truth is that they are no more than sensible helps to the apprehension of Brahma, and to right relations with him. This suggests interesting points of reflection.

I. THE SPIRITUALITY OF GOD IS OF SUPREME IMPORTANCE FOR MAN. Leave man alone, and anywhere and everywhere he will inevitably materialize God and give him some formal shape, either in act or thought. And then man deteriorates, because he puts the stamp of superiority on his bodily investiture instead of on his spiritual self. His god becomes a body, with passions to be indulged. Therefore God so jealously guards for the Israelites his unseen, spiritual Being, and forbids every attempt to make a likeness of him.

II. THE SPIRITUALITY OF GOD IS PRESERVED IN THE ONE INCARNATION IN WHICH HE HAS SHOWN HIMSELF. The "Man Christ Jesus" is the One and only true incarnation of God. It was a simple and genuine man's life, which soon gave place to a presence spiritually realized. The Christ we worship is no figure of a God. It is the God who was unseen passing by us and for a moment removing his hand and letting us see, and then passing into the unseen again. - R.T.

Biblical Illustrator
Who remembered us in our low estate.
Psalm 136:23, 24
Raised from low estate
Isaac Mann.
I. BY APOSTASY FROM GOD WE ARE REDUCED TO A CONDITION OF GREAT DEGRADATION.

1. By sinning we have lost all moral excellence.

2. All sources of supply are forfeited.

II. GOD REMEMBERED US IN THIS OUR LOW ESTATE.

1. He devised a way of escape from our thraldom.

2. He remembered us in the day of our conversion.

3. Since our conversion to Himself, how many have been the seasons of distress in which God has remembered us!

III. SUCH REMEMBRANCE COULD ONLY ARISE FROM THE MERCY OF GOD.

(Isaac Mann.).

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept.
Psalm 137
The tears of memory and the cry for vengeance
Homilist.
I. THE TEARS OF MEMORY (vers. 1-6).

1. Their sorrow had reference to the loss of the highest blessing — Zion, where their nation met their God to worship Him, etc.

2. Their sorrow was deliberate and all-absorbing. Now these tears of memory —(1) Reveal one of the most wonderful faculties of our nature, the faculty of memory.(2) Reveal a view of retribution opposed to modern scepticism. Modern sceptics say we pay our moral debts as we go on, that retribution for sin is prompt and adequate here. Not so, memory brings up the sufferings of the past.(3) Reveal a view of our mortal life terribly solemn. We do not, as the brute does, finish with life as we go on; we are bound by memory to re-visit the past, and to re-live our yesterdays.(4) Reveal a futurity which must reverse our present calculations. How different do things appear to the eye of memory to what they do to the eye of sense.

II. A CRY FOR VENGEANCE (vers. 7-9).

(Homilist.)

The patriot's psalm
A. Whyte, D. D.
This psalm celebrates the splendid constancy of the Jews amid the oppressions of the Babylonian captivity, and is the production of some son of Korah or Asaph. The knowledge and love of music was widespread among the Sews; and it was most natural that the Babylonians, who were great musicians themselves, should ask their captives to sing them a song of Judaea. Whether they did it in scorn and mockery, or from genuine interest, the thought of singing of home was none the less painful to the exiles. The whole of the later books of the Old Testament are full of this consuming fire of Israelitish patriotism, a patriotism which burns in every nation under heaven, and in no nation more strongly than our own. Where it is trampled on, it breaks the oppressor like a potter's vessel; where it is respected, it binds nations together in the strongest of bonds. So deep, so strong is the divine passion for fatherland in every human breast. Yet, loyal as you are, and lovers of old Caledonia, with heart and hand ever open to a "brither Scot," you are free-born subjects of another country, owning another sovereign, like Andrew Melville, and fellow-citizens with the saints. Henceforth heaven is our home, our true and only home, and hero we are strangers and pilgrims. Many of the younger Jews had been born in captivity, but none the less did they love far-off Jerusalem, for their fathers talked of nothing else. The very fact that they had never seen it made them dream about it the more. So we often in imagination cross the Jordan and the wilderness, and enter one of the many mansions. We read and read again Revelation 21., 22.; the "Pilgrim's Progress," and the "Paradise," and call curses on ourselves if we ever forget what we read there. The Jews sat down by the rivers of Babylon with a set purpose to weep. They deliberately intended to weep, and they had a never-failing specific for bringing tears to their eyes. It was deep, silent, solemnized, and deliberate weeping, reserved for a time when the Babylonians were not by. Nor do we intrude with our weeping into your feasts and dancing, nor hang our heads like bulrushes over the wine-cup; but never for one moment do we forget Jerusalem. Materially, the Jews lost little or nothing by having to migrate to Babylon. They were not slaves as they had been in Egypt, but prosperous colonists, and some of them were so well to do, so contented, that they let Zion and Jerusalem slip from their minds. Yet there was ever a remnant (or elect) whom no material prosperity could ever satisfy, who said, better a cottage in a vineyard in Jerusalem than a palace here. Asaph did not sell his harp nor tear its strings to pieces; he only hanged it on a willow-tree against the time he knew was coming. Then he struck it to some purpose, as we know in this far-off island of the sea. Not till her golden gates have closed and all her glorious children have gone in, will Jerusalem awake to her own full joy, and then will be heard the voice of mirth, and gladness, and feasting, the sound as of many waters, and the harpers harping with their harps.

(A. Whyte, D. D.)

Injurious retrospection
W. E. Barnes, D. D.
The psalm opens with words of which the melancholy sweetness blinds us from seeing the evil tendencies which lie hid in them. "By the rivers of Babylon," etc. Are the words so sweet? Is there not suppressed bitterness in them? What right had these exiles to sit down and weep, when it was God who had brought them to Babylon? What right had they to fold their hands and hang up their harps when God had told them by His prophet Jeremiah to build houses, and seek the peace of the city to which they were led captive (Jeremiah 29:5-7)? God sends trouble to make men look forward, not backward. Living back in an irrevocable past is worse than mere waste of time. So it proved with the captives by the waters of Babylon. They thought upon the wrongs, but not upon the wrongful dealings of Zion. Zedekiah's broken oath to the king of Babylon (Ezekiel 17:16), and their own intrigues with the enemies of Nebuchadnezzar were forgotten; the destruction of Jerusalem and the joys of their neighbours on the day of destruction were remembered too well.

(W. E. Barnes, D. D.)

People
Amorites, Egyptians, Og, Pharaoh, Psalmist, Sihon
Places
Jerusalem
Topics
Age, Endures, Endureth, Everlasting, Forever, Kindness, Lords, Love, Loving, Lovingkindness, Loving-kindness, Mercy, O, Oh, Praise, Steadfast, Thanks, Unchanging
Outline
1. An exhortation to give thanks to God for particular mercies.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Psalm 136:3

     1230   God, the Lord

Psalm 136:1-10

     4963   past, the

Psalm 136:1-20

     1035   God, faithfulness

Psalm 136:1-26

     1085   God, love of
     8352   thankfulness

Library
Pilgrim Song
Gerhard Ter Steegen Ps. cxxxvi. 16 Come, children, on and forward! With us the Father goes; He leads us, and He guards us Through thousands of our foes: The sweetness and the glory, The sunlight of His eyes, Make all the desert places To glow as paradise. Lo! through the pathless midnight The fiery pillar leads, And onward goes the Shepherd Before the flock He feeds; Unquestioning, unfearing, The lambs may follow on, In quietness and confidence, Their eyes on Him alone. Come, children, on and …
Frances Bevan—Hymns of Ter Steegen, Suso, and Others

The Last Discourses of Christ - the Prayer of Consecration.
THE new Institution of the Lord's Supper did not finally close what passed at that Paschal Table. According to the Jewish Ritual, the Cup is filled a fourth time, and the remaining part of the Hallel [5717] repeated. Then follow, besides Ps. cxxxvi., a number of prayers and hymns, of which the comparatively late origin is not doubtful. The same remark applies even more strongly to what follows after the fourth Cup. But, so far as we can judge, the Institution of the Holy Supper was followed by the …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

The Minstrel
ELISHA needed that the Holy Spirit should come upon him to inspire him with prophetic utterances. "Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." We need that the hand of the Lord should be laid upon us, for we can never open our mouths in wisdom except we are under the divine touch. Now, the Spirit of God works according to his own will. "The wind bloweth where it listeth," and the Spirit of God operates as he chooseth. Elisha could not prophesy just when he liked; he must wait until …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 27: 1881

Gethsemane
We turn once more to follow the steps of Christ, now among the last He trod upon earth. The hymn,' with which the Paschal Supper ended, had been sung. Probably we are to understand this of the second portion of the Hallel, [5818] sung some time after the third Cup, or else of Psalm cxxxvi., which, in the present Ritual, stands near the end of the service. The last Discourses had been spoken, the last Prayer, that of Consecration, had been offered, and Jesus prepared to go forth out of the City, to …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

Psalms
The piety of the Old Testament Church is reflected with more clearness and variety in the Psalter than in any other book of the Old Testament. It constitutes the response of the Church to the divine demands of prophecy, and, in a less degree, of law; or, rather, it expresses those emotions and aspirations of the universal heart which lie deeper than any formal demand. It is the speech of the soul face to face with God. Its words are as simple and unaffected as human words can be, for it is the genius …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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