Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 113:7

He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, [and] lifteth the needy out of the dunghill;

7, 8. The first three lines are taken from the Song of Hannah, 1Sa 2:8, with only a slight variation of form in two words. “To sit in the dust” (Isa 47:1), or “on the dunghill” (Lam 4:5) is an oriental metaphor for a condition of extreme degradation and misery. Cp. Job 2:8. The dung and other rubbish of an Eastern town or village is collected outside it in a heap called the Mezbele. On this “the outcast who has been stricken with some loathsome malady and is not allowed to enter the dwellings of men, lays himself down, begging an alms of the passers-by by day, and by night sheltering himself among the ashes which the heat of the sun has warmed.” Wetzstein in Delitzsch’s Comm. on Job, p. 62, quoted in Prof. Davidson’s Comm. on Job, in this Series, p. 14.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

7 9. Examples of Jehovah’s gracious condescension.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

He raiseth up the poor out of the dust – From the most humble condition in life. He exalts them to conditions of wealth, rank, honor. He has power to do this; he actually does it. This is not intended to be affirmed as a universal truth, or to assert that it is always done, but that it is among the things which show his majesty, his power, and his goodness, and which lay the foundation for praise.

And lifteth the needy out of the dunghill – From the condition of lowest poverty. Instances are sufficiently abundant in which this is done, to justify such an assertion, and to show that it is a proper foundation of praise to God.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Psa 113:7-8

He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill

From the dunghill to the throne

I.

Where Gods chosen ones are when He meets with them.

1. Many of them are in the lowest place socially. The Lord excludes no man from His election on account of his rank or condition. Come as a beggar, if you be a beggar. Come in rags, if you have no other covering.

2. The expression in the text does not refer merely to social gradations; I have no doubt it has a more spiritual meaning.

(1) The dunghill is a place where men throw their worthless things, How often have Gods own chosen people felt themselves to be mere offscourings and sweepings, good for nothing but to be cast away! You are in a like case, for you have discovered your own utter worthlessness. When we think little of ourselves, God thinks much of us. God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. He will not break thee, O thou bruised reed!

(2) The dunghill is a place of contempt. Contempt sometimes sneeringly says of its victim, He is such a person, that I would not pick him up if I saw him on a dunghill. Well, despised one, let me remind you that the Lord has often looked upon those whom man has despised.

(3) The dunghill may be spiritually considered as the place of condemnation. You look at a certain article of food for instance, and the economical housewife does not wish to waste anything. Well, if it may not serve for food, may it not be useful for something else? At last, when she sees that it is of no service, the sentence of condemnation is, Let it be cast on the dunghill. Well, poor sinner, it thou be in thyself condemned, and a hoarse voice has said, To the dunghill with him! yet I come to thee in Jehovahs name, and bid thee hear this word, He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, etc.

(4) A thing which lies upon the dunghill is in contact with disgusting associates; and, therefore, the text may represent those who have hitherto lived in the midst of evil associations.

II. How the Lord raises them from it. He lifteth the needy out of the dunghill. It is a dead lift, and none but an eternal arm could do it. It is all done by the power of the Holy Spirit through the Word, filled with the energy of God. When the Lord begins to deal with the needy sinner, the first lift He gives him raises his desires. The man is not satisfied to be where he was, and what he was. That dunghill he had not perceived to be so foul as it really is; and the first sign of spiritual life is horror at his lost condition, and an anxious desire to escape from it. The next sign generally is that to such a man sin loses all sweetness. When the Lord begins to work with you, even before you find Christ to the joy of your soul, you will find the joy of sin to have departed. A quickened soul that feels the weight of sin cannot find pleasure in it. It is another blessed sign that the man is being lifted from the dunghill when he begins to feel that his own self-righteousness is no assistance to him; when, having prayed, he looks upon his prayers with repentance, and having gone to Gods house, rests not in the outward form. It is well when a man is cut off entirely from all confidence in himself. Now comes the true lift from off the dunghill. That poor, guilty, lost, worthless one hears of Jesus Christ that He came into the world to save sinners: that poor soul looks to Him with a look which means, Lord, Thou art my last resort! If Thou dost not save me, I must perish; and Thou must save me altogether, for I cannot help Thee.

III. How He raises them up.

1. They are lifted up by complete justification. This furnishes the believer with a throne as safe as it is lofty; as happy as it is glorious.

2. The children of God who have been taken from the dunghill, many of them enjoy full assurance of faith. They are certain that they are saved; they can say with Job, I know that my Redeemer liveth. As to whether they are children of God or not, they have no question; the infallible witness of the Holy Spirit bears witness with their spirit that they are born of God. To know that my Beloved is mine, and that I am His, and that He loved me and gave Himself for me, this is far better than to be heir-apparent to a score of empires.

3. The children of God, favoured by Divine grace, are permitted to have interviews with Jesus Christ. Like Enoch, we walk with God. Union with the Lord is a coronet of beauty outshining all the crowns of earth.

4. Nor is this all: the elect of God, in addition to receiving complete justification, full assurance, and communion with Christ, are favoured with the Holy Spirits sanctification. God the Holy Spirit dwells in every Christian; however humble he may be, he is a walking temple in which resides deity.

5. God lifts His people up in another sense: while He gives them sanctification and usefulness, He also anoints them with joy. Oh! the joy of being a Christian!

IV. Where it is that our Lord sets His people. Among princes, we are told. Among princes is the place of select society. We are a Chosen generation, a peculiar people, a royal priesthood. Our courtly privileges are of the highest order. Listen! For through Him we both have access by one spirit unto the Father. Let us come boldly, says the apostle, to the throne of the heavenly grace, etc. We have courtly audience and peculiarly select society. Next to this it is supposed that among princes there is abundant wealth, but what is the wealth of princes compared with the riches of believers? for all things are yours, and ye are Christs, and Christ is Gods. He that spared not His own Son, etc. Among princes, again, there dwells peculiar power. A prince has influence; he wields a sceptre in his own domain: and He hath made us kings and priests unto God, and we shall reign for ever and ever. We are not kings of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and yet we have a triple dominion; we reign over spirit, soul, and body. We reign over the united kingdom of time and eternity; we reign in this world, and we shall reign in the world that is yet to come: for we shall reign for ever and ever. Princes, again, have special honour. Every one in the crowd desires to gaze upon a prince, and would be delighted to do him service. Let him have the first position in the empire; he is a prince of the blood, and is to be had in esteem and respect. Beloved, hear ye His word: He hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that we share the honour of Christ as we share His cross. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 7. He raiseth up the poor] The poorest man, in the meanest and most abject circumstances, is an object of his merciful regards. He may here allude to the wretched state of the captives in Babylon, whom God raised up out of that dust and dunghill. Others apply it to the resurrection of the dead.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

He raiseth up the poor; yea, he stoops so low as to regard and advance those whom all men, and even their own brethren, slight and despise.

Out of the dust; from a most contemptible and miserable condition. Beggars and mourners used to lie in the dust, or, as it follows, upon the dunghill, 1Sa 2:8; Lam 4:5.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

7, 8. which condescension isillustrated as often in raising the worthy poor and needy to honor(compare 1Sa 2:8; Psa 44:25).

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

He raiseth up the poor out of the dust,…. Persons of mean extraction and in low life are sometimes raised by him to great honour and dignity, as Saul, David, and others; and is true of many who are spiritually poor and needy, as all men are, but all are not sensible of it; some are, and these are called poor “in spirit”, and are pronounced “blessed”, for “theirs is the kingdom of heaven”: they are raised out of a low and mean estate, out of the dust of sin, and self-abhorrence for it, in which they lie when convicted of it.

And lifteth the needy out of the dunghill; which denotes a mean condition; so one born in a mean place, and brought up in a mean manner, is sometimes represented as taken out of a dunghill t: and also it is expressive of a filthy one; men by sin are not only brought into a low estate, but into a loathsome one, and are justly abominable in the sight of God, and yet he lifts them out of it: the phrases of “raising up” and “lifting out” suppose them to be fallen, as men are in Adam, fallen from a state of honour and glory, in which he was created, into a state of sin and misery, and out of which they cannot deliver themselves; it is Christ’s work, and his only, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to help or lift up his servant Israel,

Isa 49:6.

t “Ex sterquilinio effosse”, Plauti Casina, Act. 1. Sc. 1. v. 26.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

The thoughts of Psa 113:7 and Psa 113:8 are transplanted from the song of Hannah. , according to 1Ki 16:2, cf. Psa 14:7, is an emblem of lowly estate (Hitzig), and (from ) an emblem of the deepest poverty and desertion; for in Syria and Palestine the man who is shut out from society lies upon the mezbele (the dunghill or heap of ashes), by day calling upon the passers-by for alms, and by night hiding himself in the ashes that have been warmed by the sun ( Job, ii. 152). The movement of the thoughts in Psa 113:8, as in Psa 113:1, follows the model of the epizeuxis. Together with the song of Hannah the poet has before his eye Hannah’s exaltation out of sorrow and reproach. He does not, however, repeat the words of her song which have reference to this (1Sa 2:5), but clothes his generalization of her experience in his own language. If he intended that should be understood out of the genitival relation after the form , why did he not write ? would then be equivalent to , Psa 68:7. is the expression for a woman who is a wife, and therefore housewife, ( ) , but yet not a mother. Such an one has no settled position in the house of the husband, the firm bond is wanting in her relationship to her husband. If God gives her children, He thereby makes her then thoroughly at home and rooted-in in her position. In the predicate notion the definiteness attaches to the second member of the string of words, as in Gen 48:19; 2Sa 12:30 (cf. the reverse instance in Jer 23:26, , those prophesying that which is false), therefore: a mother of the children. The poet brings the matter so vividly before him, that he points as it were with his finger to the children with which God blesses her.

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

7 Who raiseth the poor from the dust In this passage, he speaks in terms of commendation of God’s providential care in relation to those diversified changes which men are disposed to regard as accidental. He declares that it is solely by the appointment of God that things undergo changes far surpassing our anticipations. If the course of events were always uniform, men would ascribe it merely to natural causes, whereas, the vicissitudes which take place teach us that all things are regulated in accordance with the secret counsel of God. On the other hand, struck with astonishment at the events which have happened contrary to our expectation, we instantly ascribe them to chance. And as we are so apt to view things from a point the very reverse from that of recognising God’s superintending care, the prophet enjoins us to admire his providence in matters of marvellous, or of unusual occurrence; for since cowherds, and men of the lowest and most abject condition, have been elevated to the summit of power, it is most reasonable that our attention should be arrested by a change so unexpected. We now perceive the prophet’s design. In this passage, as well as in others, he might have set before us the structure of the heavens and the earth; but, as our minds are unaffected by the ordinary course of things, he declares that the hand of God is most apparent in his marvellous works. And in saying that men of mean and abject condition are not merely elevated to some petty sovereignty, but that they are invested with power and authority over God’s holy people, he increases the greatness of the miracle — that being of far more consequence than to rule in other parts of the earth; for the state or kingdom of the Church constitutes the principal and august theater where God presents and displays the tokens of his wonderful power, wisdom, and righteousness.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(7) Dunghill.Literally, a heap of rubbish. Before each village in Hauran there is a place where the household heap up the sweepings of their stalls, and it gradually reaches a great circumference and a height which rises far above the highest buildings of the village. The mezbela serves the inhabitants of the district as a watch-tower, and on close oppressive evenings as a place of assembly, because there is a current of air on the height. There the children play about the whole day long; there the forsaken one lies who, having been seized with some horrible malady, is not allowed to enter the dwellings of men, by day asking alms of the passers by, and at night hiding himself among the ashes which the sun has warmed.Delitzschs Commentary on the Book of Job, ii. 152, with Note by Wetzstein. It was on the mezbela that, according to tradition, Job sat.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

(7-8) See 1Sa. 2:8, from which the verses are taken; and comp. Luk. 1:52.

So the heathen poet sang of Jove (Hor.: Odes i., 34, 35).

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

7. He raiseth up the poor In Psa 113:6 God’s universal notice of all things in heaven and earth is extolled; here the moral and beneficent character of this omniscient scanning of the universe is brought out. His eye is upon the poor, but it is the humble poor that is specially denoted here. See Psa 138:6; Isa 57:15. Psa 113:7-8 are quoted from the words of Hannah, (1Sa 2:8,) and employed by Mary in her Magnificat, (Luk 1:52,) and imply not only that Jehovah is a God of condescending pity and love, but of judgment also. He putteth down as well as lifteth up.

Dunghill The word denotes a receptacle for all sorts of dirt, offal, and rubbish. It is here figuratively used for a state of abject humiliation. “In Syria and Palestine the man who is shut out from society lies upon the dunghill, or heap of ashes, by day, calling upon the passers by for alms; and by night hides himself in the ashes that have been warmed by the sun.” Delitzsch.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments