An Everlasting Kingdom with an Open Hand

The heading, “David’s Psalm of praise”, is the only psalm title to use tehillah, the word whose plural, Tehillim, became the Hebrew name of the whole book. It is also the last psalm headed with David’s name. “Extol” is aromimcha, “I will lift thee high”, and the king is addressed with the article: the King.

“Every day” is bekhol yom. Jewish prayer took the words literally: prefaced with two “happy” lines from 84:4 and 144:15, this psalm is recited in the daily services under the name Ashrei. The second half repeats the closing phrase of verse 1, “for ever and ever”, so the two opening lines end alike.

The first half is word for word the opening of Psalm 48, “Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised”, a line the worshippers already knew. “Unsearchable” is literally “there is no searching”, the phrase Isaiah 40:28 uses of God’s understanding and Job 5:9 of his doings.

“Praise” is shabach, a verb more at home in Aramaic and late Hebrew, which returns in 147:12. “Declare” is higgid, to tell openly, the verb of Exodus 13:8, “thou shalt shew thy son”, from which the Passover telling, the Haggadah, takes its name. The elder generation does the telling.

Three nouns are stacked in the Hebrew, “the splendour of the glory of thy majesty”, as though one word for grandeur could not carry it. “Speak” is asichah, a verb for musing half aloud, the “I will meditate” of 119:15. After the big nouns the singer turns to ponder particulars, the “wondrous works”.

In 1611 “terrible” meant what inspires dread or awe, not what is bad; the Hebrew nora’ot is the word Deuteronomy 10:21 uses for the “great and terrible things” done in Egypt and at the sea. The voices alternate: others tell of his might, and the singer answers, “I will declare”.

“Abundantly utter” is one Hebrew verb, yabbi’u, to bubble up like a spring; Proverbs 18:4 uses its root for the “flowing brook” of wisdom. Memory is what overflows. “Sing” is ranan, a ringing shout, so the line runs from a spring welling over to a cry.

The line is Exodus 34:6 with its first two words swapped. Exodus has rachum vechannun, “merciful and gracious”; the psalm puts channun, “gracious”, first because this line of the alphabet must begin with the letter chet. “Of great mercy” is gedol chased, great in loyal love.

“Tender mercies” is rachamim, built on rechem, the womb, so the word carries the feeling of a mother for the child she carried. “His works” reaches past Israel and past humanity to everything made, the creatures that will be fed in verses 15 and 16.

A pairing runs through the verse: the works “praise”, yoducha, give thanks, and the saints “bless”. The saints are chasidim, people defined by chesed, the loyal love of verse 8, so their very name says they answer mercy in kind.

Verses 11, 12 and 13 all speak of the kingdom, and the Hebrew letters that begin them, kaf, lamed and mem, read backwards spell melech, king. Whether designed or not, the alphabet at this point carries the word the lines are about. “Talk” is dibber, plain speech, beside the loftier “glory”.

The address shifts from “thy” to “his”: the singers stop speaking to God and speak about him, because this line is aimed at “the sons of men”, literally the sons of Adam, who do not yet know. “Make known” is lehodia, the causative of knowing. The saints are teaching, not only admiring.

Nebuchadnezzar, of all people, echoes the line in Aramaic after his madness: “his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion is from generation to generation” (Daniel 4:3, 4:34). After this verse the line for the letter nun is absent; the Greek and a Dead Sea Psalms scroll supply it: “Faithful is the Lord in his words, and holy in all his works.”

The line after the gap, for the letter samekh, begins with somech, “upholdeth”, a verb for bracing something with the hand. “Raiseth up” is zoqef, to straighten what is bent over; in the whole Hebrew Bible it occurs only here and in 146:8, where the next psalm repeats the phrase.

“Meat” in 1611 meant food of any kind, not flesh. Verses 15 and 16 became a grace before meals, in Jewish use and in Lutheran homes, where Luther’s Small Catechism sets them for the table. “In due season” is “in its time”: food that comes when it is needed, not all at once.

“Openest thine hand” is pote’ach et yadecha, the line the Talmud singles out as a reason to prize this psalm (Berakhot 4b). “Desire” is ratson, goodwill or favour, so the Hebrew can be read two ways: every living thing receives what it wants, or is filled with God’s favour.

“Holy” translates chasid, the same word as the “saints” of verse 10. God is described with the word given to his faithful ones: loyal, kind. Jeremiah 3:12 uses it of God the same way, “for I am merciful, saith the LORD”.

“Nigh” is qarov, and the verse says it twice, near to all who call, to all who call in truth. “In truth” is be’emet, with integrity, the opposite of the people in Isaiah 29:13 who “draw near me with their mouth” while their heart is far away.

The word “desire” returns from verse 16: there every living thing is satisfied; here God will “fulfil”, literally “do”, the ratson of those who fear him. “Cry” is shav’ah, a cry for rescue, the word of Exodus 2:23, when Israel’s cry in Egypt “came up unto God”.

“Preserveth” is shomer, the keeper of Psalm 121 who neither slumbers nor sleeps. The only dark clause in the psalm arrives one line from the end and takes half a line; the wicked are not described, only named and removed.

The last line begins with tehillat, “the praise of”, the word of the heading, so the psalm closes on its own title. “All flesh” is kol basar, the phrase Genesis 6 to 9 uses for every living creature in the flood account, men and beasts alike, a wider company than Israel.