Bible Strands
Psalms 147:2
The LORD builds up Jerusalem; He gathers the exiles of Israel.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The psalmist addresses God in communal praise (v. 1), moving immediately from general doxology to two specific acts of Yahweh. The moment is one of thanksgiving for restoration, not petition.
The words — בּוֹנֵה (bōneh) is a present participle, rendering God not as a one-time builder but as one who is continually in the act of building. נִדְחֵי (nidḥēy) is a passive participle of דָּחָה, carrying the force of "driven out" or "rejected," stronger than a neutral "exiles."
The thread — The gathering motif recurs in Deuteronomy 30:3 and Isaiah 56:8; the building language echoes Psalms 51:18 ("build up the walls of Jerusalem").
Why it lands — The verse names two concrete, historical acts—rebuilding a city and collecting scattered people—as the ground for praise. It asks the reader to locate God's faithfulness in specific, recoverable events rather than in abstraction.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
The Lord doth build up Jerusalem: he gathereth together the outcasts of Israel.
Cross-references
- Deuteronomy 30:3 then He will restore you from captivity and have compassion on you and gather you from all the nations to which the LORD your God has scattered you.
- Isaiah 56:8 Thus declares the Lord GOD, who gathers the dispersed of Israel: “I will gather to them still others besides those already gathered.”
- Psalms 51:18 In Your good pleasure, cause Zion to prosper; build up the walls of Jerusalem.
- Psalms 102:20 to hear a prisoner’s groaning, to release those condemned to death,
- Isaiah 62:7 nor give Him any rest until He establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth.
- Isaiah 14:32 What answer will be given to the envoys of that nation? “The LORD has founded Zion, where His afflicted people will find refuge.”
- Jeremiah 32:37 I will surely gather My people from all the lands to which I have banished them in My furious anger and great wrath, and I will return them to this place and make them dwell in safety.
- Ezekiel 38:8 After a long time you will be summoned. In the latter years you will enter a land that has recovered from war, whose people were gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate. They had been brought out from the nations, and all now dwell securely.
- Ezekiel 39:27 When I bring them back from the peoples and gather them out of the lands of their enemies, I will show My holiness in them in the sight of many nations.
- Ephesians 2:12 remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.