Give Thanks
- Elijah McSwain
- 4 days ago
- 10 min read
11/22/2025
Elijah McSwain, Sr.
Psalm 136:1-3 NKJV — Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever. Oh, give thanks to the God of gods! For His mercy endures forever. Oh, give thanks to the Lord of lords! For His mercy endures forever:
Thanksgiving should be the posture of every Christian. Every believer has countless reasons to be thankful. Therefore, thanksgiving should naturally flow from the heart of God’s people. A thankful Christian should show gratitude in their demeanor and attitude. The people of God should display gratitude and appreciation for who He is and what He has done in our lives. Thanksgiving should be the catalyst of the believer’s heart. Thankfulness should act as the spiritual channel that shapes the hearts and minds of God’s children.
Therefore, someone with a grateful heart will express their gratitude to the Lord, who alone deserves thanks.
Thankfulness is the appropriate response for God’s children.
Acknowledging the Lord and His marvelous works fosters feelings of gratitude. Here in Psalm 136, the psalmist projects evidence of a thankful heart. He renders the call to be thankful. In all three verses that open this psalm, the writer declares to “give thanks”. He connects being thankful with reasons to be thankful. He penned to give thanks because the Lord is good, for Him being the God of gods, and for Him being the Lord of lords.
Thank God For His Goodness
In verses one to three, the writer used the word “thanks” (yada) to emphasize the act of praising, revering, and worshiping the Lord through thanksgiving. The psalmist begins by saying, “Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good,” in verse one.
God is intrinsically good; therefore, we should thank Him.
His goodness demonstrates His moral excellence, kindness, graciousness, pleasantness, and more. Goodness is the communicable essence of His nature. Goodness is the outflow of who He is as an expression toward mankind. Charles Spurgeon wrote, “Essentially he is goodness itself, practically all that he does is good, relatively he is good to his creatures. Let us thank him that we have seen, proved, and tasted that he is good. He is good beyond all others; indeed, he alone is good in the highest sense; he is the source of good, the good of all good, the sustainer of good, the perfecter of good, and the rewarder of good. For this he deserves the constant gratitude of his people.” 1 God is fundamentally good because God is good. He is the standard of goodness. He is the embodiment of goodness. He is the epitome and personification of goodness. Psalm 119:68 (NKJV) points out the fact that “You are good, and do good.”
God embodies goodness, as all goodness originates from God. Everything He does is good because goodness is a fundamental part of His character and nature.
Thus, the author stated that we should thank the Lord for His goodness. God should be the focus of our gratitude. Expressing thanks to the Lord is a way to bless Him. Recognition of who He is leads to the blessedness of His people, rendering praise, worship, homage, and showing appreciation for His goodness. Disciples of the Lord should thank Him for His goodness. Scripture informs us in Psalm 145:9 (ESV)— “The LORD is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.” His goodness is granted in a nondiscriminatory manner. He is good to all. He is good to the just and the unjust. He is good to the rich and the poor. He is good to the known and the unknown. God is good as goodness flows and emanates from His being.
What display of His goodness have you experienced in life?
Has He kept you from perils and dangers?
Has He kept you closed in the frame of your right mind?
Has He made a way when things seemed impossible?
Has He healed your body?
Has He kept your marriage intact?
Has He continually provided for you despite your financial situation?
Has He saved your soul?
Then you have experienced the goodness of the Lord. Nahum 1:7 (NKJV) declares it this way, “The LORD is good, A stronghold in the day of trouble; And He knows those who trust in Him.” We can observe his goodness through the events and actions that occur in our lives. Since we trust Him and have consistently observed His hand of goodness at work, then thanks should be our anthem of praise. Believers have tasted of His goodness, as David declared in Psalm 34:8, so we should give thanks with a grateful heart.
Thank God For His Supremacy and Sovereignty
The penman declared, “give thanks to the God of gods” in verse two. The writer shifted his focus to compare God to the so-called human-derived gods. The term “God” here is elohim, which refers to the three persons of the Godhead. When God is mentioned here, it refers to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. All persons of the Godhead are coequal and coeternal. According to The New National Baptist Hymnal, “We believe that there is one, and only one, living and true God, an infinite, intelligent Spirit, whose name is JEHOVAH, the Maker and Supreme Ruler of Heaven and earth; inexpressibly glorious in holiness, and worthy of all possible honor, confidence, and love; that in the unity of the Godhead there are three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; equal in every divine perfection, and executing distinct and harmonious offices in the great work of redemption.” 2
The phrase “the God of gods” describes God’s supreme position. Also, as indicated in verse three, the imperative is given to “give thanks to the Lord of lords.” The phraseology “the Lord of lords” speaks to God’s sovereign rule over all dignitaries, magistrates, kings, and rulers. The Lord of heaven, earth, and the universe is the pinnacle of rank, superiority, and sovereignty.
He is the apex of authority and stands paramount to all other beings. He is preeminent and superior to all others. No one compares to God. His supremacy and sovereignty are unparalleled, unequaled, and unrivaled.
Exodus 15:11 (NKJV) records “Who is like You, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like You, glorious in holiness, Fearful in praises, doing wonders?” God is incomparable to the finite images of human deities made of human form, human so-called divine intermediaries, and idols crafted of gold, silver, bronze, wood, iron, and stone. The Lord, our God, was not made by human hands. His power is not based on human intellect or imagination. He is God because He is God. He does not rely on mankind for His existence. He has always been because He always was. He is eternal in nature. He is the self-existing God. He is the creator of everything, by whose power all things were made. There is no one like the God of gods. There is no one on the same level as Him. No one can surpass Him. He is in a class of His own.
Ra, the Egyptian sun god, cannot outshine God.
The mythological demigod Hercules cannot overpower God.
The Greek deity Zeus cannot outdo God.
Dionysus, the god of grapes, cannot replace God as the true vine.
Aion, the Greek god of the personification of eternity, cannot outlive God, as our God is from everlasting to everlasting. He is the essence of eternity.
God is God, and all little gods cannot measure up to the standard of the true and living God. Psalm 82:1 (NKJV) states, “God stands in the congregation of the mighty; He judges among the gods.” God is the supreme ruler and sovereign deity over human-fabricated deities and earthly men who claim power. 1 Timothy 6:15-16 (NKJV) affirms that God “is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power.”
His rank outclasses the hierarchy of governing rulers by asserting His rank over them.
Psalm 97:7, 9 (NKJV) mentions “Let all be put to shame who serve carved images, Who boast of idols. Worship Him, all you gods. For You, LORD, are most high above all the earth; You are exalted far above all gods.” God has scripted all false gods of their worship and glory by proclaiming that He alone should be worshiped and exalted. Those who boast about carved images made of stone, gold, silver, wood, and similar materials have little to boast about. Therefore, they are put to shame. Psalm 115:3-8 (NKJV) declares, “But our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases. Their idols are silver and gold, The work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they do not speak; Eyes they have, but they do not see; They have ears, but they do not hear; Noses they have, but they do not smell; They have hands, but they do not handle; Feet they have, but they do not walk; Nor do they mutter through their throat. Those who make them are like them; So is everyone who trusts in them.”
Immovable gods are an open shame. Those who cannot respond to the cries of their worshippers are a shame. False gods cannot deliver those who pray to them, which is an open shame.
But our God intervenes on behalf of His people when we pray or cry out to Him. God hears the cries of His people and inclines His ears to us. He is actively present and involved as the God of gods in our lives. He offers help, deliverance, counsel, assistance, guidance, and support. Thus, those who trust in Him are not ashamed or put to shame. These are just some of the many reasons to praise and thank Him as the God of gods.
Joshua 22:22 (NKJV) emphatically uses repetition to express the supremacy and sovereignty of God by stating that He is “The LORD God of gods, the LORD God of gods.”
Repetition conveys intensity in the Hebrew language to emphasize who God is. Like the Hebrews, when we understand who God is, we will have an intensified proclamation of who we know Him to be. Moses proclaimed in Exodus 18:11 (NKJV), “Now I know that the LORD is greater than all the gods.” This is our core belief that God is greater than any force of human imagination. He is greater than any person of royal lineage and anyone ever appointed to a government office.
God is unmatched in power. God is unmatched in position and rank.
God is unmatched in omniscience.
God is unmatched in His lordship, kingship, and dignitary authority.
God is unmatched in every respect to His person, being, character, nature, authority, and the list goes on.
He is the God of gods and the Lord of lords.
The Benson Commentary of the Old and New Testaments affirm the testimony of God this way: “O give thanks unto the God of gods — Who is infinitely superior to all that are called gods, whether angels, or princes, or idols: the God whom angels adore, from whom magistrates derive their power, and by whom all pretended deities are and shall be conquered; unto the Lord of lords — The Sovereign of all sovereigns; or. as the word אדני, adoni, imports, the supporter of all supports, the stay, basis, or foundation of all creatures.” 3 The people of God should give thanks to God for His rule and reign. Charles Spurgeon in his Treasury of David pertaining to the Psalm stated, “There are lords many, but Jehovah is the Lord of them. All lordship is vested in the Eternal. He makes and administers law, he rules and governs mind and matter, he possesses in himself all sovereignty and power. All lords in the plural are summed up in this Lord in the singular: he is more lordly than all emperors and kings condensed into one. For this we may well be thankful, for we know the superior Sovereign will rectify the abuses of the underlings who now lord it over mankind. He will call these lords to his bar, and reckon with them for every oppression and injustice. He is as truly the Lord of lords as he is Lord over the meanest of the land, and he rules with a strict impartiality, for which every just man should give heartiest thanks.” 1
Thank God that He rules with justice, fairness, righteousness, holiness, goodness, and without partiality. He is worthy to be adored.
Thank God For His Steadfast Mercy
Every verse in the selected passage and the entirety of this psalm, from verse one to verse twenty-six, contains the phrase “for His mercy endures forever.” The dynamic use of this language suggests that every element of Psalm 136 reflects the greatness of His mercy. Mercy is translated as hesed, meaning the steadfast love of God.
In every verse, God's steadfast love cannot be overstated.
William MacDonald articulated, “The repetition of the theme is not tiresome; it says to us that the steadfast love of the Lord needs to be constantly before us and that the subject can never be exhausted. His kindness, loyalty, and fidelity never fail.” 4 If I may use Lamentations 3:22-23 (ESV) to express this reality— “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” “Through the Lord’s mercies, we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not”, as the NKJV renders Lamentations 3:22. The repeated use of the phrase “For His mercy endures forever” in Psalm 136 encourages us to thank God for His goodness, power, supremacy, sovereignty, great wonders, provisions, and deliverance.
The loyal love of God is connected to His faithfulness to keep His Word and divine promises.
His words of faithfulness and promise are reflected in His acts of kindness, goodness, mercy, provisions, and more. The psalmist provided an extensive list of God’s steadfast love in the life of His people. A thorough review of Psalm 136 will uncover the psalmist’s thankfulness to the Lord. Read Psalm 136:1-26 to see the merciful hand of the Lord.
Are you thankful for His mercy?
Are you thankful for His goodness?
Are you thankful for His Supremacy and Sovereignty?
Thank the Lord that His mercy endures forever. It is unchanging.
His steadfast love is constant and eternal. It endures forever.
With knowledge of this, grateful people should render continuous thanks to the Lord.
Notes
Spurgeon, C. H. n.d. The Treasury of David: Psalms 120-150. Vol. 6. London; Edinburgh; New York: Marshall Brothers.
The New National Baptist Hymnal. 1977. Page 606. Triad Publications.
The Believer’s Bible Commentary
