Psalm 149

This psalm surprised me!  As we work through these psalms of praise, I didn’t expect the “turn” in verse 6, did you?  He is talking about praising God for His greatness, then all of a sudden swords, chains, vengeance and punishment come out.  What the heck is happening here?  Well, that’s why we are here studying it, so we can understand how this is a psalm of praise.

One of the major struggles we have with understanding the Old Testament is its parallel between physical implications and our interaction with the spiritual realm.  For instance, we see the annihilation of the Canaanites and call it genocide ordained by God instead of trying to understand the “why” behind it.  It’s easy to criticize God for rejecting Cain’s offering instead of trying to recognize why it was appropriate for Him to do so.  We even saw in an earlier psalm the celebration of infanticide and its implications of not understanding what was really meant in Psalm 137.

Here is the main point of this psalm: worship is warfare.  Honestly, there are a ton of verses and passages throughout the scriptures to back this up, so I will try to highlight a few that come to mind.  The easiest reference is what we see in Nehemiah 4:17-20, as the Israelites rebuilt the wall with one hand and held a sword in the other, worshipping together in the process.  Ephesians 6:10-20 is where we get the concept of God’s armor, where we clothe ourselves in God’s righteousness for our daily spiritual battle.  We have also seen through various psalms that our best response in the face of adversity is to praise God!

Our spiritual enemy, Satan (aka Lucifer when he was an angel in the presence of God), “fell” because he wanted to be worshipped like God is.  We see this picture in Isaiah 14:12-20, that he was cast out for trying to be God.  It wasn’t because he got into a fistfight with the Lord Almighty and lost; it is because he was trying to be worshipped.  And since we know that “worship” means worthy of praise, it was his self-exaltation and deception of mankind that got him in trouble.  So then, our best strategy in the battle that lies ahead of us today is to not worship he who tries to deceive and distract us, but He who actually deserves it!  Additionally, the most effective way to do so is with God’s Word, which is the Sword of the Spirit.

So, when the psalmist declares executing vengeance on the nations, binding kings with chains, and executing the judgment written on them, this is talking more about the powers and principalities that manipulate and deceive the peoples more than the peoples themselves.  We see this being foretold in Isaiah 14:21-23.  Those who have become followers of the evil one and whom God knows will not turn from their ways.  Just as Jesus said in Matthew 16:19.

The battle belongs to the Lord, so the best way for us to fight is through worshipping Him!