His Faithful Love Endures Forever

Meditations on Christ in the Psalms

February 15, 2023

His Faithful Love Endures Forever

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good!

     His faithful love endures forever.

Give thanks to the God of gods.

     His faithful love endures forever.

Give thanks to the Lord of lords.

     His faithful love endures forever.

Psalm 136:1-3

Many churches include a reading of the Psalms in their worship services. In this liturgical setting, a lyrical response can be sung by the congregation at various intervals in the reading of a psalm. This format is like the structure of Psalm 136 in which the lyrical response, “His faithful love endures forever,” is included at the end of each verse.

This response in Psalm 136 is another example of Bible translators struggling to find the best English words to convey the meaning of the original Hebrew language. Translators have used words such as, faithful love, mercy, love, steadfast love, and loving-kindness to express the Hebrew expression, “covenant-love.” For the Old Testament Jews, their covenant with God was the very heart of their relationship with God, just as justification by faith is the heart of the Christian’s relationship with God. How do you express the covenant-love of God? In Psalm 136, the psalmist took twenty-six verses to plumb the depths of such love. The first three verses call Israel to worship God. The next six verses extol God as their Creator. The next sixteen verses praise God’s redemptive love that brought the Jews through the Exodus, from a life of slavery in Egypt, and established them in the Promised Land. The psalmist then closed with a reaffirmation of his call to worship.

This structure of Psalm 136 is like the Apostles’ Creed, which begins with praise for our Creator God, then affirms God’s redemptive love in sending Jesus Christ to be our Savior and closes with praise for the ways God has provided for His people to live together.

The Gospel writers described Jesus as the redemptive love of God, leading people on a new exodus to escape slavery to sin and death. In Psalm 136, as you read of God’s faithfulness in redeeming Israel, keep in your mind thoughts of God’s faithfulness in redeeming you from sin and death. You may well stand up and sing, “His faithful love endures forever” before you are finished reading.

My Takeaway: I have bookmarked Psalm 136. Its twenty-six praises of thanksgiving to God and twenty-six affirmations that “His faithful love endures forever” is a great prayer in times of distress.

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

 

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.

 

Copyright © 2023 by Alex M. Knight

 

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.