God’s Word for You
1 Chronicles 16:34-35 The Psalm of the Ark Part 6
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Friday, January 19, 2024
34 O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
for his mercy endures forever.
This line repeats five times in the Bible (Psalm 106:1, 118:1,29, 136:1) and in many of our table prayers. It is a call to praise and thank God. The word yadah means both of those things (praise and thank), and also, in another stem, to shoot arrows (Jeremiah 50:14). We might be reminded of the days in the old American West when men from a wagon train or cattle drive would finish their task (months of hard, dry work) and finally celebrate their achievement in town, which might involve shooting off their six-guns into the air with a whoop and a holler. The long, hard, dry work (“I thirst!”) of rescuing all mankind from our sins, of bringing us like cattle or sheep safely into God’s fold (John 10:14-15), of steering the long wagon train of Christian pilgrims through this lifetime with many breakdowns and troubles along the way is completed by our Lord. Celebrate what he has done! His mercy is eternal, and it endures forever.
35 And say: Save us, O God of our salvation,
gather us and rescue us from the nations,
so that we may give thanks to your holy name,
by boasting about you with praise.
Surely David was thinking of the way God rescued the Hebrews from their long exile in Egypt, and also about their present troubles in his time with the Moabites to the south, the Ammonites to the east, the Arameans to the north, and the Philistines to the west. “Save us, gather us, and rescue us,” he prays.
In what way do we boast about God? We often think of boasting as something sinful; something the wicked do, to their shame (Proverbs 10:3, 20:14, 25:14). And the boasts of God’s enemies are empty (Isaiah 16:6). But there is a godly boasting, a way to talk about something with happiness and pride that gives God glory. “Let those who boast boast about this: that they have understanding, and that they know me. They know that I am the Lord, who shows mercy, justice, and righteousness on earth, for I delight in these things, declares the Lord” (Jeremiah 9:24). Paul summed up Jeremiah’s words by saying: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:31). And Paul also said, “Be it far from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians 6:14). This kind of boasting, Christian pride in the deeds of our God, is virtually the same as preaching and teaching, except that it focuses on the emotion driving the teaching and the preaching. Why do I proclaim the things that the Lord has done? Is it because such work is lucrative and will be a way to earn lots of money? Not at all. Is it because I will become famous and attain a lasting notoriety by doing it? Even less. But it is because I love the Lord. I am grateful for the wonderful things he has done. He saved me, he gathered me, he rescued me; he has been merciful to me, personally, sending my terrible sins far away where they can never be brought back again. He has made me his own dear child, “that I should be his own, and live under him in his kingdom, and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as he has risen from death and lives and rules eternally. This is most certainly true.”
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.