Daily Psalms - Classical Psalms Every Day

Psalm 149: The New Song and the Two-Edged Sword
This is the psalm that makes comfortable readers uncomfortable, and it should. It begins in pure delight — sing a new song, praise his name in the dance, take up the timbrel and harp — and then, without so much as a breath, puts a two-edged sword in the hands of the saints. The high praises of God in their mouth and a blade in their hand. We want these to be metaphors, and perhaps they are, but the psalmist does not seem to think the combination strange. He sees no contradiction between joy and justice, between dancing and the binding of kings with chains. The key, I think, is in that small phrase tucked into the middle: "For the Lord taketh pleasure in his people: he will beautify the meek with salvation." Beautify the meek. Not arm the powerful, not reward the ambitious, but adorn the lowly with rescue. The sword is not given to the proud but to the meek — and that changes everything about what kind of weapon it is. This is the honour given to all his saints, says the psalmist, and one suspects it is an honour most of us are not yet ready to receive.
00:00 A New Song in the Congregation
01:00 The Honour of the Saints

Psalm 148: The Roll Call of Everything
This psalm reads like a conductor tapping his baton on the podium and then pointing, one by one, at every section of the orchestra — except the orchestra is the entire created order. Angels first, then sun and moon and stars, then the waters above the heavens. And then, as if turning from the balcony seats to the floor, he calls up the earth: dragons and deeps, fire and hail, snow and vapor, stormy wind. Mountains and hills. Fruitful trees and cedars. Beasts and cattle, creeping things and flying fowl. Kings and judges. Young men and maidens, old men and children. No one is excused. No one is too small or too strange or too wild. The dragons are summoned alongside the judges, the creeping things alongside the kings. There is something almost comic about the list, and something deeply serious: it implies that the universe is not a machine running on indifferent laws but a choir that has been given a song. And the final verse makes the most extraordinary claim of all — that Israel, this small and often bewildered people, has been brought near to the God whom stars and storms already praise. The whole cosmos was singing before we arrived. We have simply been invited to join in.
00:00 The Heavens Summoned to Praise
01:00 Every Creature, Every King, Every Child

Psalm 147: The God Who Counts Stars and Binds Wounds
The most astonishing line in this psalm is also the most easily missed. "He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names. Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite." And directly before it: "He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds." The psalmist places these two facts side by side as though they belong together — and of course they do, though it takes a moment to see it. The same God who catalogues galaxies with the ease of a shepherd counting sheep is also, at this very moment, kneeling beside someone whose heart has come apart. He does not delegate the stars to an assistant so he can attend to the brokenhearted, nor does he leave the wounded to manage while he maintains the cosmos. He does both, simultaneously, with the same infinite attention. And then this strange, wonderful rebuke: he delights not in the strength of the horse nor takes pleasure in the legs of a man. What does please him? Those who fear him, those who hope in his mercy. Not the impressive but the dependent. Not the strong but the waiting.
00:00 Praise and the Broken Heart
01:00 Snow, Ice, and the Word That Melts
02:00 A Privilege Given to No Other Nation

Psalm 146: The Psalm That Tells You Where to Put Your Weight
There is a bluntness to this psalm that cuts through centuries of polite religion. "Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help." It is not that princes are wicked — only that they are mortal. Their breath goes forth, they return to earth, and in that very day their thoughts perish. The psalmist is not cynical; he is clear-eyed. He has looked at every earthly support and found it subject to the same law of gravity that pulls everything human back to dust. And then, having cleared the ground, he shows us what remains standing: the God of Jacob, who made heaven and earth and sea and all that therein is. But notice what this God does — he does not thunder from a distance. He executes judgment for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry, opens the eyes of the blind, raises those who are bowed down, preserves the stranger, relieves the fatherless and widow. The God of this psalm is not impressive because he is large but because he is near. He shall reign forever — and that, if you stop to think about it, is either the most terrifying or the most comforting sentence ever written, depending entirely on whether you are a prince or a prisoner.
00:00 Praise the Lord, O My Soul
01:00 The God Who Stoops to the Stranger

Psalm 145: David's Last Praise
This is the only psalm the tradition labels simply "David's Psalm of praise" — as if all the others were merely working up to this one. And what David praises is not what you might expect from a king looking back on a life of battles and betrayals. He praises God's tenderness. "The Lord is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy. The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works." Over all. Not over the deserving, not over Israel alone, but over all his works — the whole groaning, glorious creation. And then this: "The Lord upholdeth all that fall, and raiseth up all those that be bowed down." The God of this psalm is not watching from a distance; he is stooping. He opens his hand and satisfies the desire of every living thing. It is a vision of divine generosity so extravagant that it leaves you wondering not whether God is good, but whether we have ever really believed it. David's last word, fittingly, is an invitation: let all flesh bless his holy name for ever and ever.
00:00 I Will Extol Thee, My God
01:00 Tender Mercies Over All
02:00 The Desire of Every Living Thing