Psalm 117 Praise the LORD, all you nations; extol him, all you peoples. For great is his love toward us, and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever. Praise the LORD.
Psalm 117 has just two verse and is easily the shortest psalm in the book, indeed the shortest chapter in the Bible. The fact that Psalm 119, the very longest, is so near ought to warn us against drawing unwarranted conclusions about length of readings, sermons, prayers, etc. The straightforward message of the Psalm 117 is that all the world needs to do something - everyone in the whole world must praise the LORD. The reason that this must be done is the greatness of his love towards us and the fact that his faithfulness endures forever. Israel knew God's love best but all the world knew it and still knows it. We can start either end on this matter. We can either begin with his great love and the everlasting nature of that love and as we meditate on it we can see that the only appropriate response is praise. Alternatively we can start with the call to praise the LORD and if we have any doubt about the rightness of responding we will remember that God's love towards us is great and that his faithfulness goes on and on and we will see that we ought to praise him. There is a sort of circle here then, as in the psalm itself, which, like others psalms, begins and ends with a hallelujah. How good if we always begin and end with a hallelujah.
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