What Does Psalms 147:2 Mean?

"The LORD builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the outcasts of Israel." The specific historical content of the praise begins in verse 2: the building of Jerusalem and the gathering of outcasts (nidachei Yisrael, those who have been driven away, the exiles scattered by the Babylonian deportation) are the two post-exile acts that give the psalm its probable historical setting. The building after the exile, the return of the scattered — these are the themes of Ezra-Nehemiah, the books of the restoration, the deeds of the Persian-period community that knew what it meant to have been outcasts gathered back. This is the new song of verse 9 — praise for what the LORD has done so recently that the community can hardly believe it.

The builds-up (boneh, the active participle: the LORD is building, is in the process of building) is present tense — the building of Jerusalem is ongoing. This is not the completed past but the continuing action. The gathering (mekabbets, the active participle again: he is gathering) is also in process. The psalm's praise is praise for something happening during the singing — the community experiencing its own gathering and the city experiencing its own reconstruction can sing of what they are witnessing in real time.

John 11:51-52 gives the New Covenant's version of the gathering: "He prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad." The LORD-gathers-the-outcasts-of-Israel of Psalm 147:2 and the gather-into-one-the-children-of-God-scattered-abroad of John 11:52 are the same gathering — the Babylon-scattered outcasts anticipating the sin-scattered children of God, and the same gathering God acting through the same covenant-faithfulness in both. The building of Jerusalem finds its New Covenant form in Revelation 21's new Jerusalem built by God himself, the city no exile can destroy.