Psalms 149:1-3 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Sing unto the Lord a new song For these new mercies conferred upon us, denied to former times. Let Israel rejoice in him that made him That made them not only his creatures, but, which is unspeakably greater, his people; or, that advanced them to, and adorned them with, singular privileges, as the word עשׁה, here used, is understood 1 Samuel 12:6, and elsewhere. Let the children of Zion be joyful in their king In Jehovah, who condescends, in a peculiar sense, to become their king, and, in the exercise of his kingly power, delivers, protects, and governs them as his subjects. Let them praise his name in the dance, &c. According to the usage of that time and dispensation: see notes on Exodus 15:20-21; 2 Samuel 6:14. True Christians are now the people to whom belong the names and characters of saints, Israel, and children of Zion. They sing this holy song as the psalmist hath enjoined them to do. They sing it as new men, with new affections and dispositions, and in its evangelical sense, celebrating new victories, and victories of a new kind, and new and greater mercies, even a spiritual salvation and an eternal redemption. “They rejoice with hearts and voices,” if not also with “instruments, and every other token of joy, in him who made them, who created them anew in righteousness and true holiness: they are joyful in their king, who hath himself overcome, and is now leading them on to final conquest and triumph, to honour and immortality.”