by Merrianna Mutton

Created on: April 24, 2009

Some thoughts.

"For His mercy endureth forever." This is the refrain of the psalm. It is every other phrase throughout, and is well worth repeating.

The first time this Psalm struck me was when we were reading it in church. It was a responsive reading - the pastor read a phrase and the congregation read the next phrase. In this case, we the congregation consistently read this: "for His mercy endureth forever". By the time we'd reached the end of the psalm I was full of emotion, because the beauty of it struck me. No matter what happened, we were to reply that God's mercy, His love, lasts forever. This is how we should live our lives.

"O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is
good: for His mercy endureth for ever." This first verse in a way sums up the import of this psalm, and indeed the whole Bible. Though we in our fallen nature may not always be able to see it, God is good, and His plan in the end will come out best.

Some of the phrases, however, may at first seem to clash with the idea of praising God. Let's take a look at those.

"To him that smote Egypt
in their firstborn: for His mercy endureth for ever:" Wait, what's that? Why would we want to praise God if He's doing all this smiting? It doesn't seem very merciful. The answer is in the next verse. "And brought out Israel from among them: for His mercy endureth for ever:"

If you remember the story of Moses, you'll remember that God's chosen people were enslaved by the Egyptians, and though time and time again God sent Moses to tell Pharaoh to let them go, and sent plague after plague when he broke his word, Pharaoh refused until at last this final plague was sent on the Egyptians, and Pharaoh let them go. God is merciful, but His favor is only on His chosen, the ones who acknowledge and worship Him as God.

"To him which smote great kings: for His mercy endureth for ever: And slew famous kings: for His mercy endureth for ever: Sihon king of the Amorites: for His mercy endureth for ever: And Og the king of Bashan: for His mercy endureth
for ever:" Hold on. There's the smiting again. Where's the mercy or love in that? I would say it's very merciful to get rid of bad kings. It's very easy for us to see the side of the kings since they're the only ones mentioned here, but who knows what they had done? It's quite possible there were others who were glad and saw the mercy in this at the time. But what happened then?

"And gave their land for an heritage: for His mercy endureth for ever: Even an heritage unto Israel his servant: for His mercy endureth for ever." So God took their land and gave it to those who would make better use of it: His chosen people. Right now, I don't intend to get into why they were chosen. I think it's enough to say that, for all their mistakes, in the end they followed Him, and He was merciful.

"Who remembered us in our low estate: for His mercy endureth for ever: And hath redeemed us from our enemies: for His mercy endureth
for ever O give thanks unto the God of heaven: for His mercy endureth for ever."

[Quotations from the King James translation of the 136th Psalm. (Thanks to e-Sword.) I took the liberty of capitalizing "his" where it speaks of God, as I think it should be capitalized.]

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