LET’S PAUSE FOR a bit of review. In previous posts, we’ve been exploring the set of psalms known collectively as the Hallel or even the Egyptian Hallel. Over time, Psalms 113 to 118 came to be associated with the yearly celebration of the Passover. Psalm 114, for example, specifically mentions the Exodus from Egypt. And as we’ve seen recently, Psalm 116 mentions a “cup of salvation” which was later linked to the wine taken during the seder, the Passover meal.

The overall thrust of the Hallel is the praise of God. Psalm 113 both begins and ends with a hallelujah, typically translated as “Praise the LORD”; Psalms 115, 116, and 117 then all end with hallelujah as well. And Psalm 118 begins and ends with the same command to praise: “Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever” (vss. 1, 29, NIV).

The Hallel celebrates the character of God and the multiple ways God has demonstrated his covenant love and faithfulness toward his people. Psalm 113 praises God for lifting the poor and needy. Psalm 114 remembers what God did to lead the people out of Egypt, sustain them in the wilderness, and bring them into the Promised Land. Psalm 115 proclaims repeatedly that God is the people’s help and shield, in contrast to the worthless idols of other nations. And Psalm 116 is a poem of love and gratitude for the way God rescued the psalmist from the cords of death.

Psalm 117, then, follows in the same vein. If Psalm 119 is the longest psalm in the Bible — indeed, the longest chapter in the Bible, period — then Psalm 117 is the shortest, with only two verses:

Praise the LORD, all you nations;
    extol him, all you peoples.
For great is his love toward us,
    and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever.

The psalmist praises God for his love and faithfulness, both common themes in the Psalms. Indeed, these two words often appear together: the phrase “love and faithfulness” can be found nine times in the Psalms. And that’s not counting the number of times they appear in the same context but not next to each other, as is the case here in Psalm 117. Together, the words express the covenant mercy and kindness of God toward his people, and the fact that he can be trusted to remain true to his word. In this way, Psalm 117, even in just two short verses, captures the spirit of the Hallel.

But let’s not miss what’s unique about verse 1. Think back to Psalm 115. There, the psalmist complained that the surrounding nations were looking at God’s people and asking each other, “Where is their God?” (vs. 2). That’s despite the fact that their so-called gods are nothing but human creations, incapable of doing anything, in stark contrast to the one true and sovereign God, maker of heaven and earth.

And then, in Psalm 117, these nations are invited to praise God. It’s said twice, in two poetically parallel phrases. First, all the Gentile nations are to “praise” God; the verb in Hebrew is halal — the same verb as in hallelujah. Second, all the peoples are to “extol” God; here, the verb suggests that whatever the people do to praise God, they should do it loudly.

Why?

In verse 2, the psalmist gives the reason: “For great is his love toward us.” But the question is, who’s included in the pronoun “us”? If it includes everyone, then the psalmist is saying that the nations should praise God for being loving not just to God’s people but to them as well. It is possible to read it that way.

On balance, though, I think it’s better to read the “us” as primarily meaning God’s people. But that raises another question: why should the Gentiles praise God for that?

. . .

SOME PSALMS ARE personal expressions of immediate situations: they lament suffering, cry out for help, curse enemies, and of course, praise God for healing and rescue. But the psalmists also look backward to the past and forward to the future. They retell the stories of God’s faithfulness, for example, as a way of encouraging the hope that their pleas will be answered. And sometimes they look even farther into the future, to the way God will prosper the generations to come, to the day that the meek will inherit the earth.

Something like that, I think, is what’s going on here in Psalm 117. As a theologian might say, we need to read the psalm eschatologically; or to put it differently, we need to understand what’s happening in the story now in terms of what we know of how the story ends.

I’m reminded, for example, of the prophecy in Micah 4. The prophet envisions that in “the last days,”

the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established
    as the highest of the mountains;
it will be exalted above the hills,
    and peoples will stream to it. (vs. 1)

The nations aren’t coming to Jerusalem to attack it. They’re coming to learn from God, saying,

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
    to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
    so that we may walk in his paths. (vs. 2)

Does that sound surprising? In some ways, it shouldn’t be. All the way back in Genesis 12, when God chose to make Abram the father of a nation, the intent wasn’t merely to bless him, but to bless other nations and peoples through him and his descendants (Gen 12:2-3).

Unfortunately, as the story unfolds throughout the Old Testament, and continuing on into the New, the divide between Jews and Gentiles becomes increasingly hateful and unbridgeable. When Jesus, for example, dared to tell the people in his hometown synagogue that God cares about the Gentiles, they wanted to throw him off a cliff (Luke 4:24-29). And of course, we can think of the controversy that continually surrounded the ministry of the apostle Paul — a Pharisee! — to the Gentiles.

The psalmist envisions a day in which all nations, all people everywhere might participate in praising God. God is, after all, sovereign over all of creation, all of humanity. His praise is not complete until all join in. Thus, the psalmist not only praises God for his love and faithfulness toward his covenant people, he invites all the world to the praise party.

. . .

PSALM 117 SHOULD be a reminder to God’s people in every place and time: as we praise God for his blessings, we must also remember that we are blessed to be a blessing to others. We will always be tempted to draw hard lines between “us” and “them.” But in part, we have been made into an “us” because of “them” and for their sake; it’s not “us versus them,” but “us for them.”

We are to live in a way that invites others to join in the celebration of God’s love and faithfulness. Will they? Who knows? But we can still live as if the story were to end that way.