The grammar of Psalm 117

הַלְלוּ אֶת יְהוָה כָּל גּוֹיִם	Praise יהוה all nations
שַׁבְּחוּהוּ כָּל הָאֻמִּים	congratulate him all the peoples
כִּי גָבַר עָלֵינוּ חַסְדּוֹ	for his mercy has prevailed against us
וֶאֱמֶת יְהוָה לְעוֹלָם	and the truth of יהוה is forever
הַלְלוּ יָהּ	Praise Yah

I had a dream in the early morning and I should have immediately written it down because I forgot its clarity though not its intent. The intent is to do for the shortest psalm what I am in the process of doing for Ruth - grammar, letter by letter, word by word, phrase by phrase, meaning, textual allusions, structural form, and whatever else I can find out as I move from my native tongue to the Hebrew thought that the NT presents in translation on behalf of the Gentiles.

Structurally, the psalm opens and closes with a varied pair of brackets. The opening bracket also plays a second structural role in the first of two bi-cola. Congratulate? I chose this term to stop a mindless quick read of praise or laud. It is better if it is more like 'well done, my love.' The second 'parallel' is also surprising. The reason given for congratulations is stronger than God's desire for mercy. It has prevailed - past, completed, as in the flood waters prevailing over the earth. There seems a finality in the promise of mercy that cannot be undone. This truth is faithful in all respects and in all ages. It's a bi-colon, but not a parallel of similarity, or even of tense. Instead our reason for believing can encompass what is both complete and continuing for ever.

Psalm 117:1 is picked up by Paul (Romans 15:11) as justifying his 'Gospel to the Gentiles'. I see in the Comparative Psalter (Kohlenberger) that the LXX translators chose truth rather than faithfulness for the translation of verse 2. Verse 2 alludes to Exodus 34:6. So the psalm recognizes a universal aspect of God's mercy and lovingkindness as revealed to Moses. As Luther commented somewhere, the entire Gospel is contained in the Psalter. This Psalm implies that the mercy is universally available. Paul recognizes that universal aspect of the revelation in the Scriptures as fully expressed and realized in Jesus, son of God (Romans 1:4).

This psalm has only 17 words - so we can see them all at once. There also seems to be a remarkable foreshadowing of Psalm 118 that I just noticed - only three words are shared between these two psalms (excluding the name and some shorter words) all nations, his mercy, for ever. A curious accident of my now aging algorithm for comparing psalms.

Now here are its letters in two (three) piles - Of 62 letters, only 9 are from the non-grammatical group of 11. Of the remaining 52 letters, 17 are written in grammatical roles (omitting the prepositions from the count) leaving 36, if I haven't miscounted, of the grammatical letters acting as consonants. (Green is for grammatical, Blue for the group of letters that does not play a role in forming prefixes and suffixes, and Orange for the letters of the grammatical group of 11 that are behaving like consonants in this word.)

א
הַלְלוּ אֶת יְהוָה	Praise יהוה	hallu et hashem
כָּל גּוֹיִם	all nations	col goyim
שַׁבְּחוּהוּ כָּל הָאֻמִּים	congratulate him all the peoples	shavxuhu col ha'umim
ב
כִּי גָבַר עָלֵינוּ חַסְדּוֹ	for has prevailed against us his mercy	ci gavar `lenu xesedo
וֶאֱמֶת יְהוָה לְעוֹלָם	and the truth of יהוה is forever	ve'emet hashem l`olam
הַלְלוּ יָהּ	Praise Yah	hallu Yah

א
הַלְלוּ	Praise	2nd person plural imperative, root הלל
אֶת יְהוָה	יהוה	direct object market followed by tetragrammeton
כָּל גּוֹיִם	all nations	all as adjective plural
שַׁבְּחוּהוּ כָּל הָאֻמִּים	congratulate him all the peoples	3rd person singular suffix הוּ following second person plural imperative, root שבח (and I cannot stay with my prodding first translation - be free in him). הָאֻמִּים is plural with definite article הָ and the root word is what? It's rare (Numbers 25:15, and Genesis 25:16) - it is not the usual root for people which would be with an ayin עַם. And though it looks a lot like the word in Psalm 2, וּלְאֻמִּים apparently it is distinguished by all my sources, English, Latin, and Hebrew as different. It is said to be derived from mother - so perhaps all who are born of woman.
ב
כִּי גָבַר עָלֵינוּ חַסְדּוֹ	for it has prevailed towards us his mercy	for - acting as conjunction of purpose strong - towering (Net Bible) root גבר perfect third person singular first person plural pronoun with preposition third person singular pronoun
וֶאֱמֶת יְהוָה לְעוֹלָם	and the truth of יהוה is forever	Truth (LXX) preceded by connector with construct implied making 'the' truth - definite of proper name verbless clause, preposition, a word meaning to the age or forever
הַלְלוּ יָהּ	Praise Yah	closing the opening bracket