12 Blessed is the nation whose God is Jehovah, The people He has chosen for an inheritance for Himself. 13 From heaven Jehovah looks down, He beholds all the sons of men. 14 From the place where He sits, He gazes On all the inhabitants of earth:-- 15 Even He who forms the hearts of them all, Who marks all their works. 16 A king is not saved by the greatness of [his] army, A hero is not delivered by the greatness of [his] strength. 17 A horse is a vain thing for safety; And by the greatness of its strength it does not give escape. 18 Behold the eye of Jehovah is on them who fear Him, On them who hope for His loving-kindness, 19 To deliver their soul from death, And to keep them alive in famine.
20 Our soul waits for Jehovah, Our help and our shield is He. 21 For in Him shall our heart rejoice, For in His holy name have we trusted. 22 Let Thy loving-kindness, Jehovah, be upon us, According as we have hoped for Thee.
This is the last of the four psalms in Book I. which have no title, the others being Psalms i., ii., which are introductory, and x. which is closely connected with ix. Some have endeavoured to establish a similar connection between xxxii. and xxxiii.; but, while the closing summons to the righteous in the former is substantially repeated in the opening words of the latter, there is little other trace of connection, except the references in both to "the eye of Jehovah" (xxxii. 8, xxxiii. 18); and no two psalms could be more different in subject and tone than these. The one is full of profound, personal emotion, and deals with the depths of experience; the other is devoid of personal reference, and is a devout, calm contemplation of the creative power and providential government of God. It is kindred with the later type of psalms, and has many verbal allusions connecting it with them. It has probably been placed here simply because of the similarity just noticed between its beginning and the end of the preceding. The reasons for the arrangement of the psalter were, so far as they can be traced, usually such merely verbal coincidences. To one who has been travelling through the heights and depths, the storms and sunny gleams of the previous psalms, this impersonal didactic meditation, with its historical allusions and entire ignoring of sins and sorrows, is indeed "a new song." It is apparently meant for liturgical use, and falls into three unequal parts; the first three verses and the last three being prelude and conclusion, the former summoning the "righteous" to praise Jehovah, the latter putting words of trust and triumph and prayer into their mouths. The central mass (vv. 4-19) celebrates the creative and providential work of God, in two parts, of which the first extends these Divine acts over the world (vv. 4-11) and the second concentrates them on Israel (vv. 12-19).