What Does Psalms 147:4 Mean?

"He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names." The movement from the brokenhearted to the stars is the psalm's widest theological reach — the same God who heals the individual's shattered heart also knows and names every star. The numbering of the stars (moneh mispar lakokavim, he counts the number of the stars as in counting a large collection) was the ancient equivalent of the most comprehensive possible accounting of creation's magnitude: the night sky with its innumerable stars, each one known to the creator by both number and name. The naming is the intimacy beyond the counting — not just how many but what each is called.

The God-who-numbers-and-names-the-stars is the same God-who-heals-the-brokenhearted, and the juxtaposition is not jarring but comforting: the comprehensiveness of the divine attention that names every star is the same comprehensiveness that attends to every broken heart. The God who does not lose track of the stars is the God who does not lose track of the shattered interior worlds of those who have suffered. The scale of the stellar attention is the same scale as the pastoral attention — total, specific, naming each one.

Matthew 10:29-30 gives Jesus's version of the by-name-knowing at both scales: "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered." The numbers-and-names-the-stars of Psalm 147:4 and the hairs-are-all-numbered of Matthew 10:30 are the same God attending at the same comprehensive-and-specific scale — the God who names every star also numbers every hair of the head of every disciple sent out into a world of sparrows and vulnerable bodies. The naming-scale ensures that no broken heart is outside the range of the same attention.