NOTES for Psa 113

This Psalm can confidently be called “a concise guide for the evangelist.” How else can one put into words the fact that a person can make an idol and worship it, but a piece of wood, iron, or gold will never hear him? God, who became man, shared everything with us, even death—He hears us, sees us, and embraces us. He speaks with us and enters into communion with us. He loves us. He acts in the world despite our resistance. And the person to whom God has granted eternal life will glorify his Savior.

The joyful remembrance of the exodus from Egypt is inseparable from the joy of knowing God, from the understanding that deliverance from slavery was no stroke of luck but came through God’s guidance and the people’s trust in Him. That trust, however, repeatedly weakened. Therefore glory belongs not to us—not to those who experienced the hardships of the exodus yet were more than once ready to turn back—but to the name of the Lord, that is, to the Lord Himself.

The wish addressed to the Gentiles that they should become as unfeeling as their idols may seem like an ordinary attack on enemies, one of those we have repeatedly encountered in the pages of the Old Testament. Yet these words can also be understood to mean that a person can easily come to resemble those whom one chooses as a model. If we acknowledge that we were created in the image and likeness of God, we become capable of accepting the opportunity He offers us to ascend toward Him. But by turning away from Him, we impoverish ourselves spiritually and risk becoming as unfeeling as idols.