Nobody Like Him

“HE WISHED HE HAD PRAISED MORE”

The Duke of Wellington, the British military leader who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, was not an easy man to serve under. He was brilliant, demanding, and not one to shower his subordinates with compliments. Yet even Wellington realized that his methods left something to be desired. In his old age a young lady asked him what, if anything, he would do differently if he had his life to live over again. Wellington thought for a moment, then replied. “I’d give more praise.”

What is praise?

Praising God is the activity of God’s creatures in honoring God because of the acts and the nature of God. Thanksgiving is an expression of gratitude to God for his care and concern, especially as shown through his redemptive acts.

Lexham Theological Wordbook Theological Overview

Praise and thanksgiving in the OT and NT involves both personal and corporate prayer, musical expression, singing, exhortation, exaltation, and literary expressions of gratitude and worship to God for who he is and for what he has done for creation, his covenant people, and ultimately for every tribe, nation, and tongue of the world through Jesus Christ. Quite often praise and thanksgiving is described, commended through exhortation, and/or carried out in the Bible in accompaniment with a grounding reason for the praise provided by the person who is praising the Lord. These include such praiseworthy and thanks-evoking elements as: God’s righteousness, faithfulness, goodness, his covenant-keeping, steadfast love, and the person and work of Jesus Christ. For example, in Psalms, the people of God praise him because: He is their hope and salvation (Psa 43:5); he is holy and his name is great (Psa 99:3); and his law is characterized by “righteous rules” (Psa 119:62); they also praise him because of his wonderful works (Psa 139:14) and steadfast love (Pss 63:3; 147:12). Other times the authors of Scripture exhort the people to thank and praise God, as in Psa 100:4, where the psalmist exhorts the people, “Enter his gates with thanksgiving (תּוֹדָה, tôdâ), his courts with praise (תְּהִלָּה, tĕhillâ). Give thanks (יָדָה, yādâ) to him; bless his name!” (see also Pss 22:23; 107:32; 147:7; Isa 42:12).

Additionally, the Scripture contains proclamations in which a worshiper declares an intention to praise God. For example, in Psa 35:18 the psalmist declares: “I will give thanks (yādâ) to you in the great assembly; among the mighty people I will praise (הָלַל, hālal) you” (see also Pss 69:30; 106:48; 109:30). The psalms also praise God continually using the exclamation הַלְלוּ־יָהּ (hallû-yāh, “Praise Yah”), which is often transliterated from the Hebrew and Greek as “Hallelujah” and “Alleluia” (e.g., Psa 111:1; 117:2; 146:10; 150:6).

The Scriptures also present nonhuman entities—such as heaven and earth—as praising the Lord (Psa 69:34; compare Psa 89:5) and all God’s works (Psa 145:10). Corporate groups such as “the nations” (Psa 45:17) and broad expanses of geographical regions such as the ends of the earth (Psa 48:10) are said to participate and to be represented in giving praise and thanks to God. On the other hand, the realm of death called Sheol (Isa 38:18), the dust, (Psa 30:9), and carved idols (Isa 42:8) are all said to be unable to offer praise to God.

In the NT, this awareness and gratitude to God, expressed in praise and thanksgiving, continues. Jesus himself gives thanks at the Last Supper (e.g., Matt 26:27; John 6:11, 23) and at the miracle of the feeding of the 4,000 (Matt 15:36; Mark 8:6). Likewise Jesus offers thanks to the Father in Matt 11:25 (compare Luke 10:21; John 11:41). Throughout the NT, groups of people continually praise God (e.g., Matt 21:9; Luke 19:38; Rom 14:6; 1 Cor 14:17; 2 Cor 1:11), Paul thanks God (e.g., Col 1:3; 1 Thess 2:13; Acts 28:15), healed people praise God (Luke 18:43), and prayers are written that center on the blessing, praising, and thanking of God (Eph 1:3, 6, 12, 14; 4:8).

Psalms 113-118 are known as the Hallel Psalms (hallel is the Hebrew word for “praise”). These were sung by the Jews celebrating the Passover.

Lexham Theological Wordbook הָלַל

הָלַל (hālal). vb. to praise. Describes the act of praising God through prayer, instruments, and singing both corporately and individually.

This verb usually refers to the act of praising but can also mean “to shine” or “to boast” (e.g., Psa 49:6). It can be used of praising humans (e.g., Gen 12:15; 2 Sam 14:25) but in the OT is mostly used for praising God. The Scriptures attest to singers praising (hālal) God (2 Chr 5:13) and musicians offering praise (hālal) to God with lyres (1 Chr 25:3); harps (Psa 71:22); and the trumpet, lute, tambourine, dance, strings, pipe, and cymbals (Psa 150:3–5). The Scriptures offer exhortations to praise God, such as Psa 107:32: “Let them exalt him in the congregation of the people, and praise (hālal) him in the assembly of the elders” (compare Psa 22:23; 106:48). People also declare that they will praise God, as in Psa 146:2: “I will praise (hālal) Yahweh while I live; I will sing praises (זָמַר, zāmar) to my God while I am still alive” (compare Psa 35:18; 69:30). Reasons for praising God are often given, including: God’s righteous rules (Psa 119:164), God’s goodness (Psa 135:3), the exalted nature of his name and his majesty (Psa 148:13), and his mighty deeds and excellent greatness (Psa 150:2). Even nonhuman and nonbiological entities are exhorted to express praise to God, including the angels, all God’s hosts, the sun, moon, stars, highest heavens, waters, sea creatures, and the deep (Psa 48:2–4, 7).

The Psalms often use the expression הַלְלוּ־יָהּ (hallû-yāh, “Praise Yah”), which combines hālal with יָהּ (yāh), the shortened form of God’s name יהוה (yhwh, “Yahweh”; e.g., Psa 11:1; 135:21; 146:1; 148:1). This expression does not occur in the OT outside the Psalms.

“We have an obligation to praise the Lord because of his reputation”

This threefold call is a reminder of the obligation his people have to continually extol God’s greatness. Its natural to praise that which is worthy of praise. People do it all the time in everyday life. So, how much more natural should it be for those who know the God who saves, the God whose glory is above the heavens to offer him such praise

“We have an obligation to praise the the Lord because of his position”

Psalm 113:5–7 (TOTC Ps 73–150): The challenge of verse 5, Who is like the Lord our God?, meets us, expressed or implied, throughout the Bible. It is put eloquently and at length in Isaiah 40:12–41:4, but it has its witnesses everywhere, even in the names of men and angels (Micaiah, ‘who is like Yahweh?’; Michael, ‘who is like God?’). Here this transcendence is memorably suggested by the perspective of verse 6, where the very heavens are almost out of sight below him. He is, as jb puts it, ‘enthroned so high, he needs to stoop to see the sky and earth!’

7ff.

“We have an obligation to praise the Lord as it foretells the coming of the gospel”

Psalm 113:7 (TOTC Ps 73–150): Yet he is anything but aloof. Verses 7 and 8 anticipate the great downward and upward sweep of the gospel, which was to go even deeper and higher than the dust and the throne of princes: from the grave to the throne of God (Eph. 2:5f.).

Consciously, however, these verses look back to the song of Hannah, which they quote almost exactly (cf. 7, 8a with 1 Sam. 2:8). Hence the sudden reference to the childless woman who becomes a mother (9), for this was Hannah’s theme. With such a background the psalm not only makes its immediate point, that the Most High cares for the most humiliated, but brings to mind the train of events that can follow from such an intervention. Hannah’s joy became all Israel’s; Sarah’s became the world’s. And the song of Hannah was to be outshone one day by the Magnificat. The spectacular events of our verses 7 and 8 are not greater than this domestic one; the most important of them have sprung from just such an origin.

But it would distort the psalm, and its values, to make verse 9 simply a means to an end. The psalm finishes with what seems an anticlimax, and it must not be disguised. It is here that God’s glory most sharply differs from man’s: a glory that is equally at home ‘above the heavens’ (4) and at the side of one forlorn person.

There is plainly much more than rhetoric in the question of verse 5, ‘Who is like the Lord our God?’