Psalm Devotional
Praise the Practical Man!
The theme of praise to God runs prominently through Psalms 111–113. The structure and content of Psalms 111 and 112 tie them together as a pair. Both are acrostic (alphabetic), with the succeeding letter of the Hebrew alphabet being the first letter of the first word of each line after the initial praise.
The wording of 111:3-4 and 112:3-4 is strikingly similar. By these means, the psalmist instructs us to see these psalms as two parts of one flow of thought. Psalm 111 presents the works of God for His praise from men (v. 3), and Psalm 112 presents the works of the godly for his praise from God (112:3, 9; see 111:10).
The first and most important point of this psalm is that the Lord is to be praised for the blessedness of the practical man. This demonstrates again that Psalm 111 is the root of the fruit of Psalm 112. Just as we are saved by the grace of God in Christ and by the Spirit, so also do we bear the fruit and enjoy the blessings of salvation by the grace of God in Christ and by the Spirit. The beginning of that fruit is the fear of the Lord (v. 1; see 111:10). This fear is not the cringing dread of the unrepentant but the awestruck love of the redeemed. As the godly man delights to study the works of God (111:2), so also does he, in this awestruck love, delight to know and do the words of God (v. 1; see Ps. 119:35).
