Week 22 Psalms 146-150
Yesterday I searched through psalms 146-150 looking for qualities of the Lord. I found eight.
Today I dropped a couple off the list (they didn’t quite fit the bill…they seemed like action-qualities…doing as much as being). So I had six things that described the Lord:
great is our Lord (another psalm said surpassingly great)
he is mighty in power
his understanding has no limits
he reigns forever
his splendor is above the earth and the heavens
his name alone is exalted.
I thought it would be helpful (and maybe easier) to reduce these phrases to a single word. That seemed to work at first – for instance I tried Great Powerful & Brilliant. But the second three traits were too complex to describe in a single word (and for all I know the first three were too and I was just kidding myself). After all I noticed that the writer decided to add modifiers to really make his point:
• How great is the Lord? Stupendously great
• How powerful? Powerfully powerful
• Limitlessly smart
• Permanently in-charge
• Incandescently above everyone & everything everywhere
• Peerlessly superior
But really the main point in these psalms isn’t to get the Lord’s qualities out on-the-table – even though it does do that. The writer’s aim was to show what qualities the Lord could be praised for.
You’re the greatest
You’re the strongest
You’re the smartest
You always take care of things
You’re everywhere
You’re the very best.
Praise the Lord!
Note: quotes from Psalm 147:5 (& 150:2) 146:10 147:5 148:13 148:13 (NIV)