Psalm Chapter 113

Psalm 113: The God Who Stoops

The most extraordinary claim in this psalm is not that God is high above all nations — most religions will grant you that — but that He "humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth." Even to look at heaven is, for this God, a kind of stooping. The distance between His glory and the highest created thing is so vast that condescension begins before He ever reaches us. And yet reach us He does, and the psalm tells us exactly where He goes first: to the dust, to the dunghill, to the barren woman weeping in her empty house. He lifts the poor to sit with princes. He gives the childless woman a home full of children. This is not a God who rules from a comfortable distance; this is a God whose majesty is most fully expressed in the downward motion, the bending low, the hand extended into the muck. From the rising of the sun to its going down, His name is to be praised — and perhaps the reason is simply this: He is the only God magnificent enough to kneel.

00:00 Praise the Name of the Lord
00:15 From Sunrise to Sunset
00:25 High Above All Nations
00:35 He Humbles Himself to Behold
00:45 Lifting the Poor from the Dust
00:55 Joy for the Barren