Psalm 135--Your Name, O LORD, Endures Forever

Psalm 135
English Standard Version

Your Name, O LORD, Endures Forever
135 Praise the LORD!
Praise the name of the LORD,
    give praise, O servants of the LORD,
2 who stand in the house of the LORD,
    in the courts of the house of our God!
3 Praise the LORD, for the LORD is good;
    sing to his name, for it is pleasant!
4 For the LORD has chosen Jacob for himself,
    Israel as his own possession.

5 For I know that the LORD is great,
    and that our LORD is above all gods.
6 Whatever the LORD pleases, he does,
    in heaven and on earth,
    in the seas and all deeps.
7 He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth,
    who makes lightnings for the rain
    and brings forth the wind from his storehouses.

8 He it was who struck down the firstborn of Egypt,
    both of man and of beast;
9 who in your midst, O Egypt,
    sent signs and wonders
    against Pharaoh and all his servants;
10 who struck down many nations
    and killed mighty kings,
11 Sihon, king of the Amorites,
    and Og, king of Bashan,
    and all the kingdoms of Canaan,
12 and gave their land as a heritage,
    a heritage to his people Israel.

13 Your name, O LORD, endures forever,
    your renown, O LORD, throughout all ages.
14 For the LORD will vindicate his people
    and have compassion on his servants.

15 The idols of the nations are silver and gold,
    the work of human hands.
16 They have mouths, but do not speak;
    they have eyes, but do not see;
17 they have ears, but do not hear,
    nor is there any breath in their mouths.
18 Those who make them become like them,
    so do all who trust in them.

​19 O house of Israel, bless the LORD!
    O house of Aaron, bless the LORD!
20 O house of Levi, bless the LORD!
    You who fear the LORD, bless the LORD!
21 Blessed be the LORD from Zion,
    he who dwells in Jerusalem!
Praise the LORD!

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We praise the LORD because He is the Elector who has elected us.  We are the people of God for no other reason other than the fact that He has chosen us to be His possession.  However, we who are Gentiles (speaking of myself here) have been grafted into the vine which is both Christ and Israel for Christ was the True Israel who succeeded in every way that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their offspring did not succeed.  God still chose the people of Israel and still has a plan for them.  While they no longer need to gather in the Temple to offer sacrifices and burnt offerings, there will be a time when all God's people (Jews and Gentiles alike) will once again gather in His Holy Temple in Jerusalem and worship Him in gladness for who He is and what He has done to provide our salvation.

We worship the LORD because He is great and good, and the maker of heaven and earth and all that are in them.  He formed everything by the word and breath of His mouth.  All that is exists because He spoke it into existence out of nothing.  He is the one that controls the weather--whether that is the rain that gives us the growth for the harvest or the storms that brings gusts, gales, hail tornadoes and floods that destroy.  The LORD is in control of all of it.  Both blessing and judgment are in His control.

The LORD is a Mighty Warrior who saves His people and destroys the kings that stand in His way--whether that was Pharoah and the superpower of the kingdom of Egypt or Og and Bashan the Amorite kings.  The LORD judges the peoples that He had found guilty and cleared a way for His people to receive the eternal inheritance that He had promised to them with an everlasting covenant which He swore to them by His own Name.

The LORD is the one that takes vengeance for His people when others abuse them and take advantage of them.  While we may face many trials and pain and suffering and those who outright ant to try to wipe us out and destroy us because we are called by the name of the LORD, the LORD will be the one who sits in judgment over all the living and the dead, and vengeance belongs to Him--He will repay the wicked who do not belong to Christ for all their wickedness, but for the righteous (those who are in Christ), He will give us all the blessings that belong to His Son which we could never earn or deserve.

Right after the LORD gives us the New Covenant in Jeremiah 31, He makes this promise to make sure we understand that this New Covenant will in no way replace or undo the Abrahamic Covenant.  See how the LORD has an eternal love for His people and intends to deliver on all of His promised to them still to this day!


35 Thus says the LORD,
who gives the sun for light by day
    and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night,
who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar--
    the Lord of hosts is his name:
36 “If this fixed order departs
    from before me, declares the LORD,
then shall the offspring of Israel cease
    from being a nation before me forever.”

37 Thus says the LORD:
“If the heavens above can be measured,
    and the foundations of the earth below can be explored,
then I will cast off all the offspring of Israel
    for all that they have done,
declares the LORD.” (Jeremiah 31: 35-37)

The Name of the LORD endures forever and is greatly to be praised!  While we are but His humble servants, we serve Him with gladness and worship Him, and will be pleased to do so all the days of our lives both now and forevermore as the purpose of our existence to bring glory and honor to Him.

The LORD is not like the idols fashioned by men in the images of their imagination.  No!  Man has been made in the image of God.  "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." (Genesis 1:27).  Those idols are deaf, dumb, blind, and impotent, but our God is the God who sees and hears and knows all and the one who is good enough and powerful enough and wise enough to take care of anything and everything.  He knows the past, present, and future.  Nothing takes Him by surprise.  In all things He is most excellent and preeminent.  There is none like Him.

The psalm ends with a call for all the people to praise the LORD--the congregation, then the priests, then the Levites.  Let all the people great and small join together with one voice and praise the LORD together (for that is what we look forward to in heaven when people from every tribe, tongue and nation will join together and sing a new song of praise to the one who sits on the throne--"Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen." (Revelation 7:12)​