“Praise the Lord!
For it is good to sing praises to our God;…

The Lord builds up Jerusalem;
    he gathers the exiles of Israel.
3 He heals the brokenhearted
    and binds up their wounds.
4 He determines the number of the stars
    and calls them each by name.” -{Psalm 147:1-4}

Verse 1 the Psalmist begins with “Praise the LORD!” The word “Praise,” means “to boast, brag, praise,” and the One who is to be the focus of our bragging, boasting, is to be the “LORD,” the name is “Yahwah,” The “Self Existing One-{Exodus 3:14} and he goes on to say “For it is good to sing praises to our God; For it is pleasant and praise is becoming.” The word for “God,” is “Elohim,” “The Mighty God,” The Supreme One and speaks of authority, Sovereignty, and this is the first Name we are introduced to in genesis 1, where we see Him reveal Himself to us as Creator! Note the Psalmist reveals the relationship to Him as he says “Our God.” “Praise” Him, “Sing praises”  with the accompaniment of music is how the word used the second time in the verse for  “praises” is used here! It is “good, pleasant, becoming, {fitting},” because He approves it! Verse 2 to 4 we see more reasons why to praise the LORD and Sing His Praises. Here the psalmist gives his hearers and indeed us, you, me, reasons to THINK Right so we can PRAISE Right, Him who is worthy!  So, let us continue looking at why He is worthy of Praise.

Praise Him…

1. PRAISE HIM as “LORD,”- “Self-Existent One.” the “I Am that I Am”-{Exodus 3:14}. He has no beginning, no end, Needing nothing outside of Himself to sustain, inform, provide, explain, prop up. Self sustaining, Eternally the same!

2. PRAISE HIM, as  “GOD,” …”Our God.”- v 1. “Elohim,” the “Mighty One,… the God of Power… Sovereign.

3. PRAISE HIM, HE BUILDS UP – Jerusalem after the exile. They have suffered, and now they are back in the land and He builds up the walls of the city,He restores the city.  In verse 2 the LORD is the One who is credited with building up Jerusalem. His enabling, power to be reconstructed. In ancient Near Eastern times this is how people viewed the building of  important cities were founded by gods. “The most important aspect of the role of cities is to be found in their relationship to the temples and the gods. The patron deity of a city was typically considered the one who founded, built, and sustained the city. So the prominence and prosperity of the city and its god were inextricably intertwined.”-{Walton}. The people give the Glory to the LORD, they Praise Him and remind others and testify that the “LORD BUILDS Up JERUSALEM.” – Praise the LORD…Sing Praises to our God!

4. PRAISE HIM, HE GATHERS – “Collects,” the “exiles of Israel,” how beautiful, how tender, how definitive. He Himself is involved purposely.The word “exiles” speaks of those who had been “banished.” It is used in Jeremiah 40:12 of  the Jews who had been “driven away.”  He gathered up those who had been scattered as exiles in a foreign land. -Praise the LORD…Sing Praises to our God!

5.PRAISE HIM, HE HEALS – He cares not only for communities but for individuals such as “The brokenhearted.” The word  “broken”-{Shabar} means to “break, break in pieces.” Who is sufficient for such sadness, grief, sorrow? The LORD GOD is! The word “Heals” {Rapha} means “to mend by stitching,” cure, make, restore, heal physician, whole.” For hearts that are broken, He has the heart to heal, He has the power to heal, He promise to heal! He is the Great Physician to the brokenhearted! He had healed those who were crushed, broken, who had been in  a long captivity.-  Praise the LORD…Sing Praises to our God!

6. PRAISE HIM, HE BINDS – “up their wounds. ” The word “wounds,” {atstsebeth} means “hurt, injury, pain.” The word refers to those who are afflicted with griefs, troubles. The word is reference to “mental sorrows,” a “troubled spirit.” A heart that is saddened. God undertakes to heal and impart peace of mind and heart-{Phil 4:6-7}. – Praise the LORD…Sing Praises to our God!

7. PRAISE HIM, HE NUMBERS – He determined the number of the stars. -{v4}.  “In verse 4 our psalmist looks into the heavens and tells us that He observes Jehovah as He counts the number of the stars. According to the ancient astronomers, when Greek learning and philosophy were at their highest stage of development, the general consensus of opinion was that there were something like 1056 stars” -{ David Cooper}. Man in his eminence, believed he knew the number of stars…. I don’t think so! Time has shown that with greater ability to view the stars and count, but even now no one can count them as not all are known to man, but they are all known by God who created, sustains and knows them all!

“The earth, where we live, is a small planet revolving around a star called the sun which has a volume 1,300,000 times the earth. There are stars a million times brighter than the sun. There are about a hundred billion stars in our galaxy called the Milky Way. It is 100,000 light years across. (A light year is six million million miles.) The sun travels about 155 miles per second and so would take 200 million years to make a single revolution in the Milky Way. There are millions of other galaxies besides ours.”-{John Piper}. All Created by Him, placed in the Heavens by Him, all Known by Him. Which speaks of His Omniscience. He is all knowing. He numbers all the stars! I read that there are trillions of stars, and all numbered, known by Him. No astronomer can count them, for they are innumerable so vast are they that only God and Him alone who created them and placed in the expanse of His heavens number them. Even now in the expanse of the heavens, back into the depth of space there exists stars innumerable that declare His glory- {Read Psalm 19;1}. The stars shining for His glory. And from time to time He allows people to discover “new stars,” and they are so so excited and all the time they have existed for Him! And in His kindness He allows them, us, to “discover,” see something of His creative power and it is meant to produce wonder, awe, praise of God! – Praise the LORD…Sing Praises to our God!

8. PRAISE HIM, HE NAMES – He calls the stars by Name! Not only has He created them and placed them in the Heavens, but has named them. When I was a child in school and maybe a class of fifty students, at times there would be a roll call, and the teacher would call out each name, and you would say “present,” to let him know you were there. A roll call. God calls each star and if He called each one by roll call each would answer present… not one missing, not one.  I read that there are trillions of stars, and all known by Him, all named by Him, so acquainted is He with His creation! Isaiah wrote, “Lift up your eyes on high And see who has created these stars, The One who leads forth their host by number, He calls them all by name; Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power, Not one of them is missing.”-{Isaiah 40:26}. – Praise the LORD…Sing Praises to our God!

PRAISE–

THE LORD, -PRAISE HIM, SING PRAISES TO OUR GOD!

GOD, -PRAISE HIM, SING PRAISES TO OUR GOD!

HE BUILDS UP,- PRAISE HIM, SING PRAISES TO OUR GOD!

HE GATHERS, – PRAISE HIM, SING PRAISES TO OUR GOD!

HE HEALS, – PRAISE HIM, SING PRAISES TO OUR GOD!

HE BINDS, – PRAISE HIM, SING PRAISES TO OUR GOD!

HE NUMBERS, – PRAISE HIM, SING PRAISES TO OUR GOD!

HE NAMES – PRAISE HIM, SING PRAISES TO OUR GOD!

Look at His Power to Effortlessly create the multitudes of stars, what POWER to Create and Sustain, Power to deliver and establish and then look at His tenderness, to stoop to tenderly, graciously, gently heal the broken heart. Power to Create, Power to Deliver, Power to heal. Here is an amazing truth, the God who created, names the stars in all His Greatness {v4}… in Gentleness heals the Broken-hearted. His Powerful Hand to Create is also His tender hand that Heals! PRAISE HIM!

Praise the LORD, our God!