149
📚Praise the LORD 📖! Sing to the LORD a new song 📖,
his praise in the congregation
of the saints.
2 📚May Israel rejoice in him
who made him 📖;
may the children of Zion be joyful
in their King 📖.
3 📚May they praise his name
with the dance;
may they sing praises to him
with the
tambourine and harp.
149:3 Ex 15:20; 2 Sam 6:14-15. Sometimes believers have such joy in God that the body too becomes involved in the expression of it.⚜
4 📚For the LORD takes pleasure 📖
in his people.
He will beautify the meek 📖
with salvation.
5 📚May the saints be joyful in glory.
May they sing aloud on their beds.
149:5 What an honor it is to be the people of the one true God, made beautiful with His salvation! No one has more cause for joy and song.⚜
6 📚May the high praises
of God be
in their mouth,
and a two-edged sword in
their hand,
7 📚To execute vengeance
on the nations,
and punishment
on the peoples,
8 📚To bind their kings with chains,
and their nobles with fetters
of iron,
9 📚To execute on them the written
judgment.
All his saints have this honour.
Praise the LORD!
149:6-9 Israel in the Old Testament was an instrument in God’s hand to inflict God’s vengeance on wicked people. See Num 31:2; Deut 7:1-2. In these New Testament days the weapons of our warfare are not physical but spiritual (2 Cor 10:4; Eph 6:17). We fight wickedness by proclaiming the Word of God, by faith and by prayer. At the end of this age Christ will appear to take vengeance on God’s enemies (2 Thess 1:5-10; Rev 19:11-16). At that time His people will be with Him and share in His judgment of the earth (1 Cor 6:2-3).⚜