At the edge of every village in the ancient world lay the ash heap. There people threw what nobody wanted anymore: ashes from the ovens, the shards of broken pots, rotting refuse — and there, among the smoke and the flies, sat the people nobody wanted anymore: the leper, the beggar, the widow with no one. It was the lowest place a person could reach without lying under the ground. And it is exactly that place Psalm 113 is heading for. But the song begins on the other side of the world, and it begins by climbing.
It climbs, and it keeps climbing. From where the sun rises to where it sets, one Name sounds: YHWH, high above all nations, His glory above the heavens. And then it goes higher still, until you grow dizzy: who is like YHWH our God, who dwells so high that He must stoop to see what happens in heaven? Not toward the earth does He bend down — toward heaven. The stars, the angels, the throne rooms of light that are, for us, the highest things that exist, lie beneath Him; He bends over them the way a person leans over the edge of a well to look at what's on the bottom.
And then, in that same single motion, the song plunges downward. The same God who stoops over the heavens keeps stooping in one unbroken sweep — past the clouds, past the rooftops, all the way to the ash heap at the edge of the village. He raises the poor from the dust, He lifts the needy from the filth, to seat him among nobles, among the princes of His people. The God for whom the highest heaven is a footstool crouches down beside the beggar on the garbage heap and takes him by the hand. And He gives the barren woman a home, and makes her a joyful mother of children — it is Hannah's song, now become a psalm. In this, the song says, He is without equal. Not that He is high; the nations had high gods by the dozen. But a God who is so high that heaven is too small for Him, and who stoops so low that the ash heap does not disgust Him — who bridges the distance between the throne and the garbage heap in a single motion and scoops the lowest of all out of it — there is only One of Him.
There is a second song that shows that same God from so close that it is no longer a cosmos but a face. Psalm 103, of David, and it begins strangely: a man talking to himself. Bless YHWH, O my soul, he says — as if he is grabbing his own weary insides by the shoulders and shaking them awake — and forget none of His benefits. And then he lists what that soul must not forget: He who forgives all your iniquity, heals all your diseases, redeems your life from the grave, crowns you with steadfast love. And in the middle of that list David does something you only catch if you know the mountain. He quotes. YHWH is compassionate and gracious, he sings, slow to anger and rich in devotion — word for word the words God once called out over Himself, above the shards of the golden calf. The Name that once rolled across the mountaintop lies here in the mouth of an ordinary man, generations later, as a sentence he knows by heart because he has lived on it. This is how a covenant ought to sound: not as a set of regulations you comply with, but as the dearest sentence of Someone you know, that you keep repeating because it proved true.
And then the image on which all of Psalm 103 turns falls into place, and it is the image of a father. As a father has compassion on his children, so YHWH has compassion on those who fear Him — for He knows what we are made of, He remembers that we are dust. There stands the high God of a moment ago, bent over a person the way a father bends over a toddler who has just fallen on its knees: not with a raised finger, but with the look of someone who knows exactly how newly learned those little legs still are at walking. And when David wants to say how great that compassion is, he reaches for the only thing large enough — the distances of the cosmos itself. As high as the heaven is above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him; and as far as the east is from the west — and those two never touch, no matter how far you walk — so far has He removed our transgressions from us. The dizzying height of Psalm 113 becomes here the measuring rod of His grace: not to make us small, but to say how immeasurably far He has carried our guilt away.
For man is like grass — David is sober about that: the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and the place where it stood no longer knows it. We are dust with an expiration date. But the steadfast love of YHWH, he sings, is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him. On the one hand a blade of grass that will already have withered by this afternoon; on the other a love without beginning and without end — and the two touch, because the Eternal One bends down toward the grass. That is the God who stoops. You do not measure His greatness by how far He towers above you, but by how deep He bends down toward you. And the deepest bow was still to come. The God for whom heaven was a footstool would one day stoop so deep that He Himself ended up on the ash heap — born in a feeding trough among the animals, dying on a wooden beam between two criminals, to carry the grass that we are home into the eternity that He is. Who is like YHWH our God? No one dwells so high. And no one, no one, stoops so low.
ExpertThe grammar of high and low
Psalm 113 poses the question in its classic form — mi ka-YHWH Eloheinu, "who is like YHWH our God" (113:5) — but the sting is in what follows: two Hebrew participles moving in opposite directions. Ha-magbihi lashevet: the One-who-raises-Himself-high to sit enthroned. Ha-mashpili lir'ot: the One-who-lowers-Himself to see. In a single breath He raises Himself to sit high, and stoops to look. Both verbs stand in the same form, as if the poet wants to say that stooping belongs to God just as essentially as enthronement — that His height and His condescension are not two moods but one motion. The gods of the nations were either high or near; people had distant sky-gods and handy household idols. This God is both at once, and it is exactly that combination that has no equal: so high that heaven lies beneath Him, so low bent down that the dust comes within reach of His hand.
ExcursusThe song Jesus sang
Psalm 113 opens the Hallel, the collection of psalms (113–118) sung at Passover. At the start of the meal, 113 and 114 were sung; afterward, over the last cup, 115 through 118. That means that on the evening Jesus celebrated the Passover with His disciples, just before He went out into the night in which He would be betrayed, this song about the God who stoops sounded through the upper room — "who is like YHWH our God, who raises the poor from the dust." The evangelist mentions it almost in passing: "and when they had sung the hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives." That hymn was this song. The God who bends down to the dust, sung by the Man who was about to bend down deeper than the psalm had ever dared to dream.
HeartHe remembers that we are dust
There are two ways a father can bend over a fallen child. One is the measuring look: why again, when will you ever learn, I expected more of you. The other is the knowing look: he sees how small the child still is, how unsteady the little legs, and his heart breaks before it judges. Psalm 103 says in one sentence which of the two God is: as a father has compassion on his children, so YHWH has compassion on those who fear Him, for He knows what we are made of; He remembers that we are dust.
For anyone who grew up under that first look — the measuring, never-satisfied look — this may be the hardest sentence in the whole Bible to believe. That God does not use your fragility against you but factors it in. That He does not pretend you are made of steel and then feel disappointed when you break, but that He knew you were dust when He began with you, and precisely because of that holds you so tenderly. You do not have to be bigger than you are for this Father. He has not forgotten what He made you from. And a child who knows that its father knows its frailty does not have to pretend; it may come as it is, fallen and all, and be carried.
A note on the source text. Psalm 113 — the question "who is like YHWH our God" (113:5), the God who raises Himself high and lowers Himself (113:5-6), the poor from the dust and the barren woman as joyful mother (113:7-9). The Hallel (Psalm 113–118) and the Passover; cf. Matthew 26:30. Psalm 103 — the fatherly compassion and "He remembers that we are dust" (103:13-14), the cosmic measures of steadfast love and forgiveness (103:11-12), the grace formula repeated (103:8; cf. Exodus 34:6), the grass and the eternal chesed (103:15-17). The divine Name as YHWH.
At the edge of every village in the ancient world lay the ash heap. There people threw what nobody wanted anymore: ashes from the ovens, the shards of broken pots, rotting refuse — and there, among the smoke and the flies, sat the people nobody wanted anymore: the leper, the beggar, the widow with no one. It was the lowest place a person could reach without lying under the ground. And it is exactly that place Psalm 113 is heading for. But the song begins on the other side of the world, and it begins by climbing.
It climbs, and it keeps climbing. From where the sun rises to where it sets, one Name sounds: YHWH, high above all nations, His glory above the heavens. And then it goes higher still, until you grow dizzy: who is like YHWH our God, who dwells so high that He must stoop to see what happens in heaven? Not toward the earth does He bend down — toward heaven. The stars, the angels, the throne rooms of light that are, for us, the highest things that exist, lie beneath Him; He bends over them the way a person leans over the edge of a well to look at what's on the bottom.
And then, in that same single motion, the song plunges downward. The same God who stoops over the heavens keeps stooping in one unbroken sweep — past the clouds, past the rooftops, all the way to the ash heap at the edge of the village. He raises the poor from the dust, He lifts the needy from the filth, to seat him among nobles, among the princes of His people. The God for whom the highest heaven is a footstool crouches down beside the beggar on the garbage heap and takes him by the hand. And He gives the barren woman a home, and makes her a joyful mother of children — it is Hannah's song, now become a psalm. In this, the song says, He is without equal. Not that He is high; the nations had high gods by the dozen. But a God who is so high that heaven is too small for Him, and who stoops so low that the ash heap does not disgust Him — who bridges the distance between the throne and the garbage heap in a single motion and scoops the lowest of all out of it — there is only One of Him.
There is a second song that shows that same God from so close that it is no longer a cosmos but a face. Psalm 103, of David, and it begins strangely: a man talking to himself. Bless YHWH, O my soul, he says — as if he is grabbing his own weary insides by the shoulders and shaking them awake — and forget none of His benefits. And then he lists what that soul must not forget: He who forgives all your iniquity, heals all your diseases, redeems your life from the grave, crowns you with steadfast love. And in the middle of that list David does something you only catch if you know the mountain. He quotes. YHWH is compassionate and gracious, he sings, slow to anger and rich in devotion — word for word the words God once called out over Himself, above the shards of the golden calf. The Name that once rolled across the mountaintop lies here in the mouth of an ordinary man, generations later, as a sentence he knows by heart because he has lived on it. This is how a covenant ought to sound: not as a set of regulations you comply with, but as the dearest sentence of Someone you know, that you keep repeating because it proved true.
And then the image on which all of Psalm 103 turns falls into place, and it is the image of a father. As a father has compassion on his children, so YHWH has compassion on those who fear Him — for He knows what we are made of, He remembers that we are dust. There stands the high God of a moment ago, bent over a person the way a father bends over a toddler who has just fallen on its knees: not with a raised finger, but with the look of someone who knows exactly how newly learned those little legs still are at walking. And when David wants to say how great that compassion is, he reaches for the only thing large enough — the distances of the cosmos itself. As high as the heaven is above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him; and as far as the east is from the west — and those two never touch, no matter how far you walk — so far has He removed our transgressions from us. The dizzying height of Psalm 113 becomes here the measuring rod of His grace: not to make us small, but to say how immeasurably far He has carried our guilt away.
For man is like grass — David is sober about that: the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and the place where it stood no longer knows it. We are dust with an expiration date. But the steadfast love of YHWH, he sings, is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him. On the one hand a blade of grass that will already have withered by this afternoon; on the other a love without beginning and without end — and the two touch, because the Eternal One bends down toward the grass. That is the God who stoops. You do not measure His greatness by how far He towers above you, but by how deep He bends down toward you. And the deepest bow was still to come. The God for whom heaven was a footstool would one day stoop so deep that He Himself ended up on the ash heap — born in a feeding trough among the animals, dying on a wooden beam between two criminals, to carry the grass that we are home into the eternity that He is. Who is like YHWH our God? No one dwells so high. And no one, no one, stoops so low.
ExpertThe grammar of high and low
Psalm 113 poses the question in its classic form — mi ka-YHWH Eloheinu, "who is like YHWH our God" (113:5) — but the sting is in what follows: two Hebrew participles moving in opposite directions. Ha-magbihi lashevet: the One-who-raises-Himself-high to sit enthroned. Ha-mashpili lir'ot: the One-who-lowers-Himself to see. In a single breath He raises Himself to sit high, and stoops to look. Both verbs stand in the same form, as if the poet wants to say that stooping belongs to God just as essentially as enthronement — that His height and His condescension are not two moods but one motion. The gods of the nations were either high or near; people had distant sky-gods and handy household idols. This God is both at once, and it is exactly that combination that has no equal: so high that heaven lies beneath Him, so low bent down that the dust comes within reach of His hand.
ExcursusThe song Jesus sang
Psalm 113 opens the Hallel, the collection of psalms (113–118) sung at Passover. At the start of the meal, 113 and 114 were sung; afterward, over the last cup, 115 through 118. That means that on the evening Jesus celebrated the Passover with His disciples, just before He went out into the night in which He would be betrayed, this song about the God who stoops sounded through the upper room — "who is like YHWH our God, who raises the poor from the dust." The evangelist mentions it almost in passing: "and when they had sung the hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives." That hymn was this song. The God who bends down to the dust, sung by the Man who was about to bend down deeper than the psalm had ever dared to dream.
HeartHe remembers that we are dust
There are two ways a father can bend over a fallen child. One is the measuring look: why again, when will you ever learn, I expected more of you. The other is the knowing look: he sees how small the child still is, how unsteady the little legs, and his heart breaks before it judges. Psalm 103 says in one sentence which of the two God is: as a father has compassion on his children, so YHWH has compassion on those who fear Him, for He knows what we are made of; He remembers that we are dust.
For anyone who grew up under that first look — the measuring, never-satisfied look — this may be the hardest sentence in the whole Bible to believe. That God does not use your fragility against you but factors it in. That He does not pretend you are made of steel and then feel disappointed when you break, but that He knew you were dust when He began with you, and precisely because of that holds you so tenderly. You do not have to be bigger than you are for this Father. He has not forgotten what He made you from. And a child who knows that its father knows its frailty does not have to pretend; it may come as it is, fallen and all, and be carried.
A note on the source text. Psalm 113 — the question "who is like YHWH our God" (113:5), the God who raises Himself high and lowers Himself (113:5-6), the poor from the dust and the barren woman as joyful mother (113:7-9). The Hallel (Psalm 113–118) and the Passover; cf. Matthew 26:30. Psalm 103 — the fatherly compassion and "He remembers that we are dust" (103:13-14), the cosmic measures of steadfast love and forgiveness (103:11-12), the grace formula repeated (103:8; cf. Exodus 34:6), the grass and the eternal chesed (103:15-17). The divine Name as YHWH.