to be clear (orig. of sound · verb, piel imperative, 2nd person masculine plural
LORD
יָ֨הּyah
H3050
Jah · proper noun, a man's name
Praise
הַֽ֭לְלוּHa.lu
H1984
to be clear (orig. of sound · verb, piel imperative, 2nd person masculine plural
name
שֵׁ֣םshem
H8034
an appellation · noun, common masculine singular construct
LORD
יְהוָ֑הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
praise
הַֽ֝לְלוּHa.lu
H1984
to be clear (orig. of sound · verb, piel imperative, 2nd person masculine plural
servants
עַבְדֵ֥י'av.Dei
H5650
a servant · noun, common masculine plural construct
LORD
יְהוָֽהYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 96:1-4 O sing unto the LORD a new song: sing unto the LORD, all the earth.
Psalms 7:17 I will praise the LORD according to his righteousness: and will sing praise to the name of the LORD most high.
Psalms 33:1-2 Rejoice in the LORD, O ye righteous: for praise is comely for the upright.
Psalms 111:1 Praise ye the LORD. I will praise the LORD with my whole heart, in the assembly of the upright, and in the congregation.
Psalms 106:1 Praise ye the LORD. O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.
Psalms 107:8 Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!
Psalms 112:1 Praise ye the LORD. Blessed is the man that feareth the LORD, that delighteth greatly in his commandments.
Psalms 148:13 Let them praise the name of the LORD: for his name alone is excellent; his glory is above the earth and heaven.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 135:1-4
Here is, 1. The duty we are called to - to praise the Lord, to praise his name; praise him, and again praise him. We must not only thank him for what he has done for us, but praise him for what he is in himself and has done for others; take all occasions to speak well of God and to give his truths and ways a good word. 2. The persons that are called upon to do this - the servants of the Lord, the priests and Levites that stand in his house, and all the devout and pious Israelites that stand in the courts of his house to worship there, Psa 135:2. Those that have most reason to praise God who are admitted to the privileges of his house, and those see most reason who there behold his beauty and…
Praise ye the Lord,.... Or hallelujah; which may be considered as the title of the psalm; as in the Targum, Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, Ethiopic, and Arabic versions:
praise ye the name of the Lord; that is, the Lord himself, and the perfections of his nature; his greatness, goodness, grace, and mercy; his holiness, justice, power, truth, and faithfulness; and also his word, by which he makes known himself, and is a distinguishing blessing to his people, and to be praised for it; see Psalm 48:1;
praise him, O ye servants of the Lord; priests and Levites, and ministers of the word, and all the people of God; who once were the servants of sin, Satan, and the world, but now by the grace of God…
Psalm 135:1-4
1. Praise ye the name of Jehovah, [153] praise him, O ye servants of Jehovah! 2. Ye who stand in the house of Jehovah, and ye who stand in the courts of the house of our God. [154] 3. Praise God, for good is Jehovah: sing unto his name, for it is pleasant. 4. For God hath chosen Jacob [155] unto himself, and Israel for his peculiar treasure.
1. Praise ye the name of Jehovah Though this Psalm begins almost in the same manner with the preceding, the Psalmist would not appear to be addressing the Levites exclusively, but the people generally, since the reasons given for praising God are equally applicable to all God's children. No mention is made of night watching, or of their s…
The Church Fathers
Very pleasant ought it be to us, and we should rejoice because it is pleasant, to which this Psalm exhorts us. For it says, "Praise the name of the Lord" [Psalm 135:1]. And it immediately appends the reason, why it is just to praise the name of the Lord. "Praise the Lord, you servants." What more just? What more worthy? What more thankful?...For if He teaches His own servants who have deserved well of Him, the preachers of His Word, the rulers of His Church, the worshippers of His name, the obeyers of His command, that in their own conscience they should possess the sweetness of their life, lest they be corrupted by the praise or disheartened by the reproach of men; how much the more is He above all, the unchangeable One, who teaches these things, neither the greater if you praise, or the less if you reproach. For you will do nothing out of place, by praising your Lord, as servants. And if you were to be for ever only servants, you ought to praise the Lord; how much more ought ye servants to praise the Lord, that you may hereafter gain the privilege of sons?
After the previous psalms (as has been said), in which the prophet ascended by divine mercy to the peak of all virtues, he addresses those who stand in the house of the Lord so that after all God's immense acts of kindness have been conferred, the heavens and the earth would not cease to praise their Creator. And see with what distinction those commandments have grown in these two verses. First he said, "Praise the name of the Lord." And lest you should think that this was commanded to any and all, he added, "Praise the Lord, you servants," that is, "You who are his servants, devoted with eager will, and sense that you have a Lord whom you do not despise by any superstition." Third, he says, "You who stand in the house of the Lord," that is, "You who stand in holy belief in him with a persevering and unvacillating will." This is said against those who have suffered a downfall and fallen suddenly from the honor conferred upon them. Next are the words, "In the halls of the house of our God." The first entrance of a rather large home is called the hall. There those who live there have been known to make hearths for themselves to drive out the cold. And from the very murky billows of black smoke, these places were called halls (atria) on the grounds that they are pitch black (atra), as antiquity has passed down to us. And because no statement stands empty, which does not seem to contain some mystery, he also says that even those who seem to enter the first portion of the Lord's house ought to praise the Lord.
Dictionary and topics
Sihon — Striking down. The whole country on the east of Jordan, from the Arnon to the Jabbok, was possessed by the Amorites, whose king, Sihon, refused to permit the Israelites to pass through his territory,…
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
The beginning is taken from Psa 134:1; Psa 135:2 recalls Psa 116:19 (cf. Psa 92:14); and Psa 135:4 is an echo of Deu 7:6. The servants of Jahve to whom the summons is addressed, are not, as in Psa 134:1., His official servants in particular, but according to Psa 135:2, where the courts, in the plural, are allotted to them as their standing-place, and according to Psa 135:19-20, those who fear Him as a body. The threefold Jahve at the beginning is then repeated in Jāh (הללוּ־יהּ, cf. note 1 to PsPsa 104:35), Jahve, and Jāh. The subject of כּי נעים is by no means Jahve (Hupfeld), whom they did not dare to call נעים in the Old Testament, but either the Name, according to Ps 54:8 (Luther, Hitz…
Ps 135 God, the Creator and the Lord of history, “made heaven and earth” (134:3). He deserves praise because, unlike idols, he redeems his people.
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 135:1
Praise ye the Lord. Praise ye the name of the Lord; praise him, O ye servants of the Lord.
Praise ye the Lord, or, Hallelujah. Let those who are themselves full of holy praise labour to excite the like spirit in others. It is not enough for us to praise God ourselves, we are quite unequal to such a work; let us call in all our friends and neighbours, and if they have been slack in such service, let us stir them up to it with loving exhortations. Praise ye the name of the Lord. Let his character be extolled by you, and let all that he has revealed concerning himself be the subject of your song; for this is truly his name. Specially let his holy and incommunicable name of "Jehovah" be the obj…
