Yahweh deserves praises at all times. It doesn’t matter if we feel like it, if we want to or not, or if we feel like we’re unworthy to give Him His praise. He deserves to be praised at all times. Israel had sinned against God and yet they came before Him, confessed their sins and then began to praise Him for His goodness. It doesn’t matter what we do or who we are, we are to praise Yahweh every day we wake and take a breath. Let’s stand with Israel today and praise God for His goodness in spite of our badness.
To learn more about this series, read “To Yahweh Be the Glory.”
Yahweh, You Deserve the Praise
We stand up and bless you Yahweh, our God from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed be your glorious name, exalted above all blessing and praise!
You are Yahweh, you alone. You made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their array, the earth and all the things that are in it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve them all. The army of heaven worships you.
You are Yahweh, the God who chose Avram, brought him out of Ur-Kasdim and gave him the name of Avraham. Finding that he was faithful to you, you made a covenant with him to give the land of the Kena’ani, the Hitti, Emori and P’rizi, the Y’vusi and the Girgashi, to give it to his descendants; and you have done what you promised, because you are just.
You saw the distress of our ancestors in Egypt and heard their cry by the Sea of Suf. You performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh, against all his servants and the people of the land; for you knew how arrogantly they treated them; and you won yourself a name which is yours to this day. You divided the sea ahead of them, so that they could pass through the sea on dry land; then you hurled their pursuers into the depths, like a stone into turbulent waters.
In a column of cloud you led them by day, and by night in a column of fire, so that they would have light ahead of them on the way that they were to go. You descended on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven. You gave them right rulings and true teachings, good laws and mitzvoth (commands). You revealed to them your holy Shabbat and gave them mitzvot, laws and the Torah through Moshe your servant.
For their hunger you gave them bread from heaven; for their thirst you brought forth for them water from the rock. You ordered them to enter and possess the land you had sworn with your hand to give them. You are a God of forgiveness, merciful, full of compassion, slow to grow angry and full of grace, you did not abandon them.
You also gave your good Spirit to teach them. You did not withhold manna from their mouths and you provided them water to quench their thirst. Yes, forty years you sustained them in the desert; they lacked nothing – their clothes did not wear out; their feet did not swell up.
You gave them kingdoms and peoples; you even gave them extra land, so that they took possession of the land of Sichon, also the land of the king of Heshbon and the land of ‘Og king of Bashan.
You made their children as numerous as the countless stars in the sky. Then you brought them into the land about which you had said to their fathers that they should go in and take possession of it. So the children went in and possessed the land, as you subdued ahead of them the Kena’ani living in the land, and handed them over to them, along with their kings and the peoples of the land, for them to do with as they wished.
They took fortified cities and fertile land, possessed houses full of all kinds of good things, dug-out cisterns, vineyards, olive groves, fruit trees in plenty; so they ate their fill and grew robust, luxuriating in your great goodness.
Like them, in the time of our trouble, when we cried out to you, you heard from heaven, and in keeping with your great compassion, you gave us saviors to save us from the power of our adversaries. You heard from heaven many times and saved us, according to your compassion.
You are a compassionate and merciful God. You are our God, great, mighty, fearsome God, who keeps both covenant and grace. There is no question that you are just for you have treated us fairly.
Thank you for your goodness and mercy which endures forever.
Scripture Reference
Nehemiah 9