This morning I read Ps 136 (135 LXX) in the ScriptureStoryline reading. I noticed the paucity of indicative verbs and the abundance of substantival participles. This screenshot from a Logos bar chart shows that Ps 136 (135 LXX) has the fewest indicatives per 1,000 words of any Psalm.
So what carries the action of the Psalm? Substantival participles. The author of the Psalm explicates that God’s activities in the redemption of Israel are rooted in God’s character. The Psalm has the rhetorical effect of casting God’s redemption of Israel as an expression of His timeless character. What He did, He can do, will do.