Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 113
Charles Ellicott Commentary
Psalms 113
Charles Ellicott Commentary
Psalms 113
"Praise ye Jehovah. Praise, O ye servants of Jehovah, Praise the name of Jehovah." — Psalms 113:1 (ASV)
Ye servants of the Lord — that is, Israel. (See Psalms 69:36.)
"That humbleth himself to behold [The things that are] in heaven and in the earth?" — Psalms 113:6 (ASV)
Humbles himself. — Contrast this condescension with the indifference to human joys and sorrows which heathen deities were said to show.
"He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, And lifteth up the needy from the dunghill;" — Psalms 113:7 (ASV)
Dunghill. —Literally, a heap of rubbish. “Before each village in Hauran there is a place where the household heap up the sweepings of their stalls, and it gradually reaches a great circumference and a height which rises far above the highest buildings of the village.” “The mezbela serves the inhabitants of the district as a watch-tower, and on close oppressive evenings as a place of assembly, because there is a current of air on the height. There the children play about the whole day long; there the forsaken one lies who, having been seized with some horrible malady, is not allowed to enter the dwellings of men, by day asking alms of the passers by, and at night hiding himself among the ashes which the sun has warmed.”—Delitzsch’s Commentary on the Book of Job, ii. 152, with Note by Wetzstein. It was on the mezbela that, according to tradition, Job sat.
"He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, And lifteth up the needy from the dunghill; That he may set him with princes, Even with the princes of his people." — Psalms 113:7-8 (ASV)
See 1 Samuel 2:8, from which the verses are taken; and compare to Luke 1:52.
So the heathen poet sang of Jove (Horace, Odes 1.34, 1.35).
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