Who is like unto Jehovah our God, who hath placed his dwelling on high;
Psalm 113 asks who can be compared with the LORD our God, whose glory is above the heavens. What kind of greatness has to stoop even to look at heaven and earth — and where does that stooping land?
The comparison is not settled by height alone. It turns on what the high One does — and on who made that known.
"There is none like Him, even Jehovah our God." With that the psalm now closes, because He exalts Himself, and in grace He humbles Himself. And who has made this known? Jesus! That is now known to believers in Jesus.
Being seated on high is not a picture of a tall throne. It says something about where God is, and about who can reach Him.
God dwells in light that no man can approach. That is God's nature, it is true; but the heavens are all the things we look at as something under God. It is light no one can enter; neither man nor angel can get there. "Above all heavens"... God is at the top of all, though He "humbles Himself to behold the things that are in heaven and in the earth."
Verse 6 says He must lower Himself even to look at the heavens. Why would He? One writer names the reason.
Grace alone is in question here. His dwelling is on high, yet He "humbles Himself to look on the heavens and on the earth." It is grace. The natural heart cannot even imagine it. Man would rather say, "The Deity cannot humble itself."
If He must stoop even to look at the heavens, our own scale of big and small means nothing to Him.
Great and small are only words people use. They cannot apply to Him, "who humbles Himself to behold the things that are in heaven," as well as "the things that are on earth." They are all alike to Him "who sits on the circle of the earth." Jehovah can tell the number of the stars, and while He does so He can take knowledge of a falling sparrow; He can make the whirlwind His chariot, and a broken heart His dwelling place. Nothing is great or small with God.
That is why the verse is a resting place in trouble, not just a statement about God's size.
In every fresh difficulty, great or small, our wisdom is to stand still — to stop working at it ourselves and find our sweet rest in God's salvation... So we have only to cast ourselves, in trusting faith, on Him who "humbles Himself alike to behold the things that are in heaven and on earth."
One commentator follows the psalm's question into the New Testament, where the stoop goes deeper still.
The greatness of God's humbling Himself is insisted on here. Who is the One who humbled Himself? The One who is high above all others, His glory above the heavens (v. 4). Who could possibly be like Him? (v. 5). Even to consider created things, whether in the heavens or on earth, means He must humble Himself (v. 6). The New Testament goes much further. It declares that the Lord Jesus, being in the form of God, came down to become a Servant, appearing as a Man (Phil. 2:5-8).
The verse does not stay in the heights. The looking down reaches the dust and the childless woman of verses 7 to 9.
It is a rich, lofty note of thanks to Jehovah for all He has done in grace for His people. It paints striking pictures: the poor one raised out of the dust, and the barren woman made to keep house. The songs of Hannah (1 Sam. 2) and of Mary (Luke 1) belong with this; and they were, in their day, the poor one and the childless wife.
Behind that picture lies a principle about how God works.
God chooses weak things, so that it may be evident that good and blessing come from His power and love.
- Height. He dwells in light no man or angel can enter, at the top of all.
- Stoop. From that height, even a look at heaven and earth means stooping. Writers call it pure grace — the one thing the natural mind refuses to grant God.
- Scale. Because He stoops so far, "great" and "small" are human words only: the God who counts the stars notices a sparrow and lives in a broken heart.
- Person. Jesus answers the psalm's question. Being in the form of God, He came down to be a Servant — the stoop carried to its furthest point.
- Reach. The stoop ends in the dust: the poor one raised, the childless woman given a house — God chooses weak things, so the blessing is plainly His.
Who humbleth himself to look on the heavens and on the earth?
Psalm 113 praises a God whose glory is above the heavens and who still bends down to look. Verse 6 is that stoop, and commentators ask how far down it reaches and why a God so high would look at all.
The verse names heaven and earth together. God must come down to look at either one.
God dwells in light that no man can approach. That is God's nature, it is true; but the heavens are all the things we look at as something under God. It is light inaccessible in itself; neither man nor angel can get there. "Above all heavens" is like the picture in Ezekiel. There we see the cherubim and all around them. Then comes the vault, which stands for the heavens. God is above it all — and yet He "humbles Himself to behold the things that are in heaven and in the earth."
The ESV has "looks far down." Older translations read "humbles Himself to behold," and the Hebrew can be taken either way. One older version, which writes God's name as "Jehovah," gives both readings:
Who is like Jehovah our God, that dwells on high, that sees deep (or, humbles Himself to see) in the heavens and in the earth?
The natural mind resists the whole idea. A God who lowers Himself sounds impossible to us.
His dwelling is on high, yet He "humbles Himself to look on the heavens and on the earth." This is grace, and the natural heart cannot even imagine it. Man would like to say, "God cannot humble Himself." But there is more, though it is not a greater thing. He shows His grace to the poor in the dust and to the needy on the rubbish heap.
Commentators link this verse with Philippians 2. There the same principle goes deeper.
This psalm presses on us how great a thing it is that God humbles Himself. Who is the One who humbled Himself? The One who is high above all others, His glory above the heavens (v. 4). Who could be like Him? (v. 5). Even to look at created things, in the heavens or on earth, He must humble Himself (v. 6). The New Testament goes much further. It says that the Lord Jesus, being in the form of God, came down to become a Servant, found in appearance as a Man (Phil. 2:5-8).
The same stooping shows in the small details of God's law.
Here we see how amazingly He stoops down. He is the great God of heaven and earth, yet He can settle a case between one man and another about the death of an ox, the loan of a garment, or the loss of a servant's tooth. "Who is like the LORD our God, who humbles Himself to behold the things that are in heaven and on earth?" He rules the universe, yet He can take up the task of covering one of His creatures. He guides the angel's flight and takes notice of a crawling worm.
The same truth meets our own troubles. We divide difficulties into ones we can manage and ones we cannot.
We cannot say that some difficulties are small enough for us to handle, while others need nothing less than the hand of God. No; all are alike beyond us. We are as little able to change the colour of a hair as to remove a mountain — to form a blade of grass as to create a world. All are alike to us, and all are alike to God. So we have only to trust Him and cast ourselves on Him — the One who "humbles Himself (alike) to behold the things that are in heaven and on earth."
The next lines of the psalm show what He does once He has looked.
He has humbled Himself so that others might be lifted up. And these are the lowliest of people: the poor, raised from the dust, and the needy, raised from the ash heap, a burned-out existence. And these He has seated with princes (v. 8). Marvellous grace!
That lifting reaches its highest point in a birth:
Mary's song, at the beginning of the New Testament, reminds us — could we ever forget it — that one birth has taken the place of all others for us here. That birth was impossible unless God stooped down to man. And with it has come, for everyone who receives divine grace now, the promise and the power of a resurrection. By that resurrection, those brought lower than the dwellers on the rubbish heap are raised higher than princes! Hallelujah!
- He stoops — God is above the heavens themselves, so even to look at heaven, not only earth, He must come down.
- He stoops in grace — the natural mind says a God cannot lower Himself; the psalm says He does, and that is grace.
- He stoops further — Philippians 2 carries the same principle deeper: the One in the form of God came down to become a Servant and Man.
- He stoops to everything — a governed universe and a servant's tooth are alike to Him, so no trouble of ours is too small or too large to bring.
- He stoops to lift — He lifts the beggar out of the ashes and seats him with princes, and one birth opens that same rising to all who receive His grace.