What Does 1 Chronicles 16:35 Mean?

(35, 36) See Psalm 106:47-48. (35) **And say** **ye.**—Not in Psalm 106:47. The compiler or interpolator has added it here in order to connect 1Chronicles 16:34 (Psalm 106:1) with 1Chronicles 16:35 (Psalm 106:47). It was doubtless suggested by Psalm 96:10 : “Say ye among the nations, The Lord reigneth.” **O God of our salvation.**—The psalm has “Jehovah our God.” **Gather** **us.**—The phrase used in Jeremiah 32:37, and many other places, of Israel’s restoration from exile. **And deliver us.**—Not in the psalm, where the words “gather us from among the heathen” certainly refer to the dispersion. This reference is eliminated by the compiler’s insertion. **Glory in thy praise.**—**“**Glory” (*hishtabbēah*) is a common Aramaic word, found only here (and in Psalms 106) in the Old Testament. (36) **Blessed be the Lord God of Israel.**—The *Bĕrāchāh* or benedictory close of the fourth book of the Psalter. This doxology did not form part of the original psalm, which closed with 1Chronicles 16:35 (Psalm 106:47). After the psalms had been edited in their present arrangement of five books, each concluding with a doxology, these doxologies came in time to be sung in liturgical service as integral parts of the psalms to which they were appended. **And all the people said, Amen.**—Psalm 106:48 has, “And let all the people say, Amen. Hallelujah.” The chronicler, or rather the interpolator of his work has altered a liturgical direction, or rubric, into a historical statement suitable to the occasion to which his long ode is assigned. Instances of a like free handling of fixed formulas may be seen in 2Chronicles 5:13 and Ezra 3:11. Those who hold the chronicler himself responsible for this thanksgiving ode, find in it a weighty indication of the fact that the Psalter already existed in its present shape at his epoch. The historian might, of course, have inserted such a composition in his work, as fairly and freely as such writers as Thucydides and Livy have put ideal speeches into the mouths of their leading-characters; but, for reasons already stated, we do not think that the ode should be ascribed to his pen.