“He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the Lord.”
This concluding verse of the psalm depicts God enabling the barren woman to become mother of a joyful family, establishing divine power as capable of reversing the biological and social limitations that leave certain women without the fundamental role and identity that motherhood provided in ancient society. This verse embodies the principle that God's power works against the grain of apparent natural limitation and social marginalization, transforming the seemingly impossible into the celebrated and the rejected into the honored. The image of joy accompanying the transformation suggests that God's restoration brings not merely material provision but fundamental restoration of identity and social integration, healing the profound alienation of those considered cursed or diminished. By concluding the psalm with this vision of comprehensive transformation from shame to joy, the psalmist establishes that God's redemptive work encompasses every dimension of human existence and reaches particularly toward those whom society has deemed hopeless or accursed.
Church Fathers on Psalms 113:9
1. ...When ye hear sung in the Psalms, “Praise the Lord, you children” Psalm 112:1; imagine not that that exhortation pertains not unto you, because having already passed the youth of the body, you are either blooming in the prime of manhood, or growing gray with the honours of old age: for unto all of you the Apostle says, “Brethren, be not children in understanding; howbeit, in malice be children, but in understanding be men.” What malice in particular, save pride? For it…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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