- Psalms 135 BSB ↗
At a wedding reception, the band often plays a medley: a few lines of one old favourite, then another, then another, stitched together so smoothly that the whole hall starts singing along. Nobody minds that the songs are borrowed; the joy is in hearing the old tunes together. Psalm 135 is a medley like that. Line after line echoes something already in Scripture: phrases from Psalm 115, from Deuteronomy, from Jeremiah, from the story of the Exodus and the conquest. The singer is not trying to be original. The point is to gather Israel's best-loved words of praise into one song for the people standing in God's house.
Where it sits in the story: By the time the Psalter took its final shape after the exile, Israel had a rich library of its own worship to draw on. Psalm 135 shows that library being reused. It retells the story from the Exodus to the gift of the land, the same sequence that Psalm 136 will turn into a litany. For a returned community living on that land again, remembering how they first received it was a way of saying: the same God is still at work.
What this chapter is doing: To call the temple servants and all Israel to praise the LORD, grounding that praise in his choice of Israel, his rule over creation, and his rescue in history, set against the powerlessness of idols.
- 135:1–4 — Praise the LORD, you servants who stand in his house. It is good and pleasant to praise him, for he has chosen Jacob as his own treasured possession, the same phrase Deuteronomy uses of Israel.
- 135:5–7 — The LORD is greater than all gods and does whatever he pleases, in heaven, on earth and in the seas. He brings up the clouds, sends lightning with the rain and releases the wind from his storehouses, in words close to Jeremiah 10:13.
- 135:8–12 — The history: he struck down the firstborn of Egypt, sent signs against Pharaoh, and defeated kings, naming Sihon of the Amorites and Og of Bashan, then gave their land to Israel as a heritage.
- 135:13–18 — His name endures forever, and he will vindicate his people, quoting Deuteronomy 32:36. Then, almost word for word from Psalm 115, the psalm describes images of silver and gold that cannot speak, see or hear, and warns that those who trust in them become like them.
- 135:19–21 — The house of Israel, the house of Aaron, the house of Levi and all who fear the LORD are called in turn to bless him. The psalm ends where it began: blessed be the LORD from Zion, who dwells in Jerusalem.
Key verse: Psalm 135:3 · So what: Worship does not always need new words. Sometimes the most honest praise is to borrow what faithful people have said before and make it your own, the way families pass down songs. This psalm shows that reusing old prayers is not a failure of creativity but an act of belonging: joining a long line of people who found the same God faithful.