The last verse of Psalm 111 is the theme for Psalm 112. Or to put it another way, Psalm 112 picks up where Psalm 111 left off. Psalm 111 ended with that classic description of true, godly wisdom found several places in the wisdom literature (see Job 28:28; Prov. 1:7, 9:10; Eccles. 12:13): 

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise (v. 10). 

That is what Psalm 112 unfolds. It describes the character of the person who fears the Lord and honestly obeys his precepts, and in doing this it makes the point that the person who truly loves and worships God will be like him. Anyone will be like the god he or she worships. 

Yesterday we read about the past events in Canaan and their present application. When we consider how good God has been to us and continues to be, can we not say with the psalmist, “I will extol the Lord with all my heart in the council of the upright and in the assembly”? We have a similar parallel between God's past and present saving work in verse 9, which refers specifically to redemption. 

Today we look at three important things about this introduction. First, the psalmist says that he is going to praise God himself. He wants other people to do this too, and the bulk of the psalm will give them some good reasons for extolling God and tell them how. But he is not asking others to do something he himself is not doing. If we want other people to praise God, we must praise him first. If we want them to love God, we must love him too. If we want others to serve God, we must serve him. We must set an example.

At the end of the last book of the Psalter (book four), we came across several psalms that were chiefly praise songs, each beginning and ending with the word hallelujah, which means “Praise the LORD.” Psalm 111 is another psalm that begins with hallelujah. In fact, it is the first of three, since Psalm 112 and 113 also begin in this way. Then, although Psalm 114 does not begin or end with hallelujah, Psalms 115, 116 and 117 each end with it. Then there is the well-known set of five psalms that close the Psalter, each of which both begin and end with hallelujah.

The third and last point of exposition of the words “in the order of Melchizedek," which we began in yesterday's study, is that the priestly work of Jesus was superior to that of the Aaronic priests in that it was done once for all and did not need to be repeated. Jesus made a true atonement for sins, and when he had completed his work he showed he had done it by sitting down at the Father's right hand: