Psalms 96
Butler1. O SING unto the LORD a new song: Sing unto the LORD, all the earth. 2 Sing unto the LORD, bless his name; Shew forth his salvation from day to day. 3 Declare his glory among the nations, His marvellous works among all the peoples. 4 For great is the LORD, and highly to be praised: He is to be feared above all gods. 5 For all the gods of the peoples are idols [things of nought]: But the LORD made the heavens. 6 Honour and majesty are before him: Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. 7 Give unto the LORD, ye kindreds of the peoples, Give unto the LORD glory and strength. 8 Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name:
THIS grand prophetic Psalm looks forward with joyful certainty to the setting up of a Divine kingdom upon earth. But it is only indirectly Messianic. It connects the future blessings, not with the appearance of the Son of David, but with the coming of Jehovah. There are in the Old Testament two distinct lines of prophecy, culminating in these two advents. Their convergence and ultimate unity are only seen in the light of New Testament fulfilment. The same hopes, however, gather about both, as may be seen, for instance, by a comparison of this Psalm with such a passage as Isa. 11: 1-9. P.
Bring an offering, and come into his courts 9 O worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness: Tremble before him, all the earth. 10 Say among the nations, The LORD reigneth: The world also is stablished that it cannot be moved: He shall judge the peoples with equity. 11 Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof; 12 Let the field exult, and all that is therein; Then shall all the trees of the wood sing for joy; 13 Before the LORD, for he cometh: For he cometh to judge the earth: He shall judge the world with righteousness, And the peoples with his truth.
The present Psalm is a millennial anthem. It accords with the condition of the world when Christ shall sit enthroned in the willing loyalty of our race. The nations join in an acclaim of praise to Him as their rightful Judge and King. There is a unanimity in the song, as if it ascended from a world purged into a temple of holiness, and whose inhabitants were indeed a royal priesthood, with one heart to make Jesus king, with one voice to sound forth one peal of melody in praise of the name above every name. It holds true to the deepest principles of our nature, that what we contemplate as possible, much more what we anticipate as certain, lends us the very hope and energy conducive to its realization. On the contrary, despair paralyzes effort. Is it on this account that everywhere in prophecy, old and new, there floats before us the ideal of a recovered and rejoicing world, at times transfigured into a loftier scene, the new heavens and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness? Our earth may be in ruins meanwhile, blackness on the sky, barrenness on the soil, because sin is everywhere; but a change is promised. What we hope for, we labor for all the more that our hope is no dream of fancy, but has its basis in the science and certainty of absolute truth. “For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations” (Isa. 61: 11). In this holy Psalm, the Jerusalem from above, the mother of us all, trains us to the utterance of a song suitable to seasons of millennial glory, when the Moloch of oppression, the Mammon of avarice, the Ashtaroth of fiery lust, every erring creed, every false religion, shall have given place to the worship of the one true and living God—to the faith and love of Christ. “Let the peoples praise Thee, O God; let all the peoples praise Thee.” W. H. Goold.
1-3. A summons to the people of Jehovah to sing praise unto its God, repeated three times, and to evangelize the heathen. The new song presupposes a new state of affairs, while the summons to sing the new song presupposes a present, which had the appearance of being such a beginning of this new state as guaranteed its realization, the beginning, viz., of the recognition of Jehovah throughout the whole Gentile world, and of His accession to lordship over the whole earth. The new song is an echo of the revelation of redemption and glory that is making a way for itself in history; and this revelation is also the inexhaustible material of the joyful tidings that are proclaimed from day to day. D.—The new song is not the Psalm itself, but one which shall be the fit expression of all the thoughts and hopes and triumphs of the new and glorious age which is about to dawn. It is the glad welcome given to the King when He enters His kingdom. Compare with this verse Isa. 42: 10; 60: 6; 66: 19. P.
A new song. The old song is the song of creation; the new is the song of salvation. M.—“A new song,” unknown to you before. Come, all ye nations of the wide earth, who up to this hour have been giving your worship to dead gods that were no gods at all; come and give your hearts to the true and only God in this new song! C.
Three times we are here called to sing unto the Lord; sing to the Father, to the Son, to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, when the morning stars sang together, is now, in the Church militant, and ever shall be in the Church triumphant. We have reason to do it often, and we have need to be often reminded of it and stirred up to it. Sing unto the Lord—that is, “Bless His name, speak well of Him, that you may bring others to think well of Him.” Sing a new song, the product of new affections, clothed with new expressions. A new song is a song for new favors, for those compassions which are new every morning. A new song is a New Testament song, a song of praise for the new covenant and the precious privileges of that covenant. A new song is a song that shall be ever new, and shall never wax old or vanish away; it is an everlasting song, that shall never be antiquated or out of date. H.
2. From day to day. Salvation is a fit subject for unceasing praise. Every man should praise God every day—on each returning morning and on every evening—for the assurance that there is a way of salvation provided for him, and that he may be happy forever. If we had right feelings, this would be the first thought which would burst upon the mind each morning, irradiating as with sunbeams all around us; and it would be the last thought which would linger in the soul as we lie down at night and close our eyes in slumber, making us grateful, calm, happy, as we sink to rest, for whether we wake or not in this world we may be forever happy. Barnes.—Each day brings us deeper experience of our saving God, each day shows us anew how deeply men need His salvation, each day reveals the power of the Gospel, each day the Spirit strives with the sons of men; therefore, never pausing, be it ours to tell out the glorious message of free grace. S.
3. The use of glory, to denote the special manifestation of God’s attributes, is a characteristic feature of Isaiah’s later prophecies. To preclude all doubt as to the extent of the invitation, the ambiguous expression all the earth, in v. 1, is here explained to mean the nations, and then still more absolutely all the peoples. A.
Declare His wonders. What a wonderful person He is, God manifest in the flesh; what wonderful love He has shown in His incarnation, obedience, sufferings, and death; what amazing miracles He wrought, and what a wonderful work He performed; the work of our redemption, the wonder of men and angels; declare His wonderful resurrection from the dead, His ascension to heaven, sitting at the right hand of God, and intercession for His people; the wonderful effusion of His Spirit, and the conquests of His grace, and the enlargement of His kingdom in the world; as also what wonders will be wrought by Him when He appears a second time; how the dead will be raised, and all will be judged! Gill.
5. For all the gods of the nations are nothings, and Jehovah the heavens did make.** Nothings, nonentities, a favorite description of idols in Isaiah’s later prophecies. The contrast intended is extreme and absolute. He called the world into existence; they do not even exist themselves. A.—Their Elohim are elilim. The word elilim occurs in two places in the Psalms, here and 97: 7. It is used most frequently by Isaiah, and properly signifies nothings; as Paul says, “An idol is nothing.” Chr. Wordsworth.
Remarkably here, as usually in the Scriptures, the decisive test of true divinity, distinguishing the true God from all false gods, is His creator-ship. Your heathen gods are mere nothings (the sense of the Hebrew word for “idols”), but Jehovah, our God, built the heavens. Compare Psalm 95: 5 and Jer. 10: 11, 12, 16. Ought He not then to be feared and worshipped, high above all gods? C.
6. Splendor and majesty are before Him**, in His immediate presence above, where the angels cover their faces as unable to bear the dazzling lustre of His glory. Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary, both that above and this below. In God there is everything that is awful, and yet everything that is amiable. If we attend Him in His sanctuary we shall behold His beauty, for God is love, and experience His strength, for He is our Rock. Let us therefore go forth in His strength, enamoured with His beauty. H.
“Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary;” strength first, beauty afterward; strength as the basis and support, and beauty as a graceful floral finish and decoration. This is the Divine order in all things. Beauty comes not first, but last. The flowers may perish while the foundations remain, but the foundations cannot perish and the flowers remain. Whatever a Christian be else, he must be strong. Stand he cannot unless there be in him the qualities symbolized in Jachin and Boaz—strength and stability. The world itself has grown from strength to beauty. Just as the pillars were not finished till their capitals bloomed in “lily work,” so must it be with a true human life and character. This is not completed without its capital, a capital which need not be of lily work, but must be the reproduction of some Divine flower. The fruits of the Spirit are the lily work by which, often more than by the sterner virtues of our religion, it is to be commended to the admiration and the faith of others. To despise these graces is to despise the Saviour in whom they were embodied. Mellor.
God has in the Bible wedded beauty to truth, and preluded, by the existence of this book, the period when in each soul glory shall crown the sacred work of grace. “Beauty and power,” it is said, “are in His sanctuary.” Godet.
Character-building ought to be temple-building—the framing and adorning of a sanctuary for the indwelling God—a sanctuary in whose firm foundation, massive walls, fair proportions, and rich adornings there should be blended strength and beauty. Nor will the strength suffice for the perfection of character without the beauty. As the beautiful in nature is something more than the useful, so is the beautiful in character something more than the substantially good. This beauty of character you need not only for your own sake, but equally for your social influence, for the good that you may do in the world, which I trust will enter into the life-purpose of every one of you. It is this element of character, more than anything else, that gives goodness its beneficent power. You will do good, less by what you say or do, or even give, than by what you are. A. P. Peabody.
The tree that has its firm-fixed root and upright stem has also its spreading branches and thousand waving twigs, which yield to the breeze and salute the gentlest movement of the surrounding air. How beautiful strength is, when it thus melts away at its extremities into kindness and courtesy; and how attractive would be firm Christian principle, when it was seen that it could clothe itself with softness and tenderness, and that it rises so powerful and lofty to bear up and spread out all genial affections, like leaves and blossoms, and to have all innocent enjoyments come fluttering like birds to sing among its branches! “Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.” Ker.
We can give the highest evidence of strength of character when strength is so restrained and controlled as to elaborate itself into beauty. True strength is the strength of faith, and true beauty is the beauty of holiness. Other strength will decay, other beauty will fade; but this strength will only grow stronger and this beauty more beautiful as eternity shall roll on. M. Hopkins.
Beauty and strength come from communion with God. If you want to be pure and good, noble and gentle, sweet and tender; if you desire to be delivered from your own weaknesses and selfish, sinful idiosyncrasies, the way to secure your desire is, “Look unto Me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.” There is no influence to refine and beautify men like that of living near Jesus Christ and walking in the light of that beauty which is the effulgence of the Divine glory and the express image of His person. And in like manner as beauty, so strength comes from communion with God, and laying hold on Him. The two poles of perfectness in humanity, so often divorced from one another, beauty and strength, have one common source, and depend for their loftiest position upon one thing. God possesses both in supremest degree, being the Almighty and the all-fair; and we possess them in limited, but yet possibly progressive measure, through dependence upon Him. The true force of character, and the true power for work, and every real strength which is not only weakness, comes on condition of our keeping close by God. It is safe for us to leave all thoughts of our miserable selves behind us if instead of them we have the thought of that great, sweet, dear Lord filling mind and heart. “Looking off” from ourselves “unto Jesus” is safe. Self-oblivion comes only from self being swallowed up in the thought of the Lord. A. M.
7-9. The families of the nations themselves are called upon to take up the song in which Israel has made known to them the salvation of Jehovah. These three verses are taken partly from Psalm 29 : 1, 2.
7,8. Give glory.** We go into God’s courts, it has been truly remarked, to give rather than to get. This is the principle of all true prayer, ascription rather than petition. P.
Give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name. It is a stated rule in Scripture that respect to God must be proportioned to the nature of God. God is a spirit, therefore will be worshipped in spirit and truth. God is a God of peace, therefore lift up pure hands, without wrath and doubting. God is a holy God, therefore will be sanctified. They that will glorify and honor God with a glory due to His name must sanctify Him as well as honor Him. For “God is glorious in holiness.” This God counteth to be His chief excellency, and the glory which He will manifest among the sons of men. Manton.
This power of giving glory to God assures us that we have fellowship with Him, and that our true work is His. There must be some likeness of nature, or the tribute would be impossible. There must be some community of purpose, or we should not rejoice instinctively in the thought of the Divine omnipotence. And as we exercise the powers which enable us thus to realize a Divine communion they become insensibly more pervading and more energetic. Whoever has cultivated the habit of looking to God and praising Him will have found growing up within himself the vital consciousness of a present Saviour by whose strength and for whom he is working. He will have learned not to be impatient of results, for he knows that we see but little of that which can be seen even on earth, and that the end is not here. He will have ceased to trouble himself as to what God gives him to do, for he feels that the work of God is one, and that all faithful labor contributes to its fulfilment. Bishop Westcott.
Bring an offering, and come into His courts. Come with an unbloody sacrifice; atonement for sin having been made, it only remains to bring thank-offerings, and let not these be forgotten. To Him who gives us all, we ought gladly to give our grateful tithe. When assembling for public worship we should make a point of bringing with us a contribution to His cause, according to that ancient word, “None of you shall appear before Me empty.” The time will come when from all ranks and all nations the Lord will receive gifts when they gather together for His worship. S.
The Scripture makes it a very material circumstance of worship to approach God’s house, to enter into His courts, to come into His presence, to own ourselves His servants and worshippers; and without disparaging private prayers or closet and family devotions, there is no reason to think God will own those for His worshippers who deny Him this public homage. All the promises of the Gospel are originally made to the Christian Church, the body of Christ, and to particular Christians, as members of and in communion with the Christian Church. But those cannot pretend to be in communion with the Church who never communicate with it; and those who live in communion with the Church, and serve God in His house as oft as opportunity will permit, may expect a gracious return to their private prayers, which are offered to God in the name of Christ and in the communion of the Church; but this is no encouragement to those who set up private devotions against public worship. W. Sherlock.
9. If thou wouldst be faithful to that work that God hath allotted thee to do in this world for His name, then labor to see a beauty and glory in holiness and in every good work; this tends much to the engaging of thy heart. Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness! Bunyan.
Shall we call holiness an attribute? Is it not rather the glorious combination of all His attributes? All are glorious, but in this we have a combination of all into a still more glorious whole. It is for this reason that it is so frequently in Scripture associated with the Divine beauty. The poetic nature of the Psalmist is exalted to ecstasy in contemplation of the “beauty of holiness,” the “beauty of the Lord.” Beauty is a combination of elements according to the laws of harmony; the more beautiful the parts or elements, and the more perfect the harmonious combination, the higher the beauty. How high and glorious, therefore, must be the beauty of this attribute which is the perfect combination of all His infinite perfections! J. Le Conte.
Beauty consists in delicacy of proportion, a harmony of parts conveying to the mind sweet associations of thought. Holiness is the subdued reflection of the bright things of heaven, the image of God traceable in His creatures, a spirit of love, and peace, and order, gathering all things gracefully into a unity of being and a singleness of purpose. Then is not holiness true beauty? Our services on earth are done best when they copy most the worship of heaven. There the beauty of saints and angels is their awe. The nearest to God will always be the most reverential. J. V.—In worship we must be reverent, sincere, earnest, and pure in heart both in our prayers and praises. Purity is the white linen of the Lord’s choristers, righteousness is the comely garment of His priests, holiness is the royal apparel of His servitors. S.
It is part of the constitution of a church, without which it cannot be “beautiful,” that every member should be exercising in some way his own proper gift for the service of God and the extension of His kingdom. For a church is to be a centre—a centre of expansion, always extending itself, light and love always radiating from it. The acme of holiness itself is love. Let your sympathies go out and give expression to the thought you feel. Let the Church be more what it ought to be, “one family,” and so “grow up into Him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ.” J. V.—He takes a very limited view of what constitutes the worship of God who restricts it exclusively to those exercises of prayer, praise, or thanksgiving which are specifically religious. Our whole life should be one great instance of devotion. It is the end, the intention of it which determines the character of an act; and if in all that we do we aim at the glory of God, “every action of nature becomes religious,” every meal an instrument of piety, every office of ordinary life a holy oblation. It is the spirit and temper of the soul which settles the question of worship. Thornwell.
Prayer here, such as God can accept, adoration and praise here are qualifying souls for the deeper and nobler emotions which will accompany the grander revelations of the heavenly world. Whether any of these sensibilities will be superseded there, I will not venture to inquire. But it is not probable that reverence will ever cease, since the disclosures of the glories of God there, natural and moral, will make the distance between the finite man and the infinite God greater and greater, so that there will be the more need of reverence, and the more room for its exercise. Prepare, then, by worship here for worship there. Wherever else light-minded, be devout in God’s house and in worship. If you have been profane, shake off the habit; learn to see God everywhere and to adore Him. If you have been formal and yet decent, think that God cannot accept such services. Give your mind to the grand thoughts of the Gospel, and enter on the worship of God in spirit and in truth. Then you will have joy when you unite with all the good ones of earth and heaven in the cry, “Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Almighty, which is and was and is to come!” “Blessing and honor and glory and power be unto Him that sitteth on the throne and unto the Lamb forever and ever!” Woolsey.
Excess of material circumstance in spiritual worship, whether of architectural adornment, ritual ceremony, musical elaboration, or even intellectual fastidiousness, is as injurious to it as is overcumbrous machinery in manufacture, excess of ceremonial in social life, superfluous raiment to personal activity, or gaudy ornamentation to personal grace. It is both injurious to life and offensive to taste. But, on the other hand, if we may not overlay spiritual life, neither may we denude it. The true law of life is that its energies be developed in all the force and with all the beauty of which they are capable, and that it worship with such cultured adornment as in the highest degree may appeal to and express its own spiritual emotions. This is the simple law and the sufficient test of all artistic appliances. Is any particular cultus conducive to the worshipping heart of the congregation? If not, and still more if it be injurious to it, then no matter how beautiful in itself it may be—how conducive to the profit and joy of other congregations—however sanctioned by history and contemporary use, let it be rejected. Allon.
10. The glad tidings which the world is to hear. The world’s largest hopes are to be fulfilled. A new era is to begin, a reign of righteousness and peace, a time so blessed that even the inanimate creation must be partakers of the joy. Compare Isa. 35:1; 42:10; 44:23; 45:8; 49:13; 55:12. With the coming of Jehovah and the setting up of His kingdom all the broken harmonies of creation shall be restored. P.—That which is to be uttered among the peoples is the joyous Gospel of the kingdom of heaven as now come and realized. The world below, hitherto convulsed by war and anarchy, now stands upon foundations that are henceforth unshakeable under Jehovah’s righteous and gentle rule. This is the glad tidings of the new era, which the poet predicts from the standpoint of his own present, depicting as he does the joy that will then pervade the whole creation. D.—It is when the hour of conflict is over that history comes to a right understanding of the strife, and is ready to exclaim, “Lo! God is here, and we knew it not.” At the foot of every page in the annals of nations may be written “God reigns.” Events as they pass away “proclaim their original;” and if you will but listen reverently, you may hear the receding centuries, as they roll into the dim distance of departed time, perpetually chanting “Te Deum Laudamus” with all the choral voices of the countless congregation of the age. Bancroft.
Say among the heathen that the Lord reigneth must be the Christian’s as it was the Israelite’s motto. The earliest preaching of our Saviour and His disciples was the preaching of the Gospel of the kingdom. It was because all power was given unto Him in heaven and in earth, that, after His resurrection from the dead, Jesus sent forth His apostles to go and teach all nations. The substance of the apostles’ subsequent preaching was, confessedly, the kingdom of God. Thrupp.
11-13. Nothing can excel this noble exultation tion of universal nature, where the whole animate and inanimate creation unite in the praises of their Maker. Poetry here seems to assume the highest tone of triumph and exultation, and to revel, if I may so express myself, in all the extravagance of joy. Lowth.—These verses are full of comprehensive beauty and power. They present the gathering together of everything under the confessed dominion of the reigning Christ. Things in heaven as well as things on earth rejoice together in the acknowledged blessing of the Lord of peace. The Psalm is throughout a very sweet strain of millennial prophecy. A. Pridham.
13. Before Jehovah, for He cometh, for He cometh to judge the earth; He shall judge the world in righteousness, and nations in His truth (or faithfulness). The rejoicing described in the preceding verse is to take place in the presence (literally, to the face) of God when He assumes His universal sovereignty, the judicial function of which is here made prominent, in order to suggest the moral perfection of His reign. In righteousness, not merely in a righteous manner, but in the exercise of His inherent and essential justice. The use of the word people in the common version of the last clause obscures the sense by seeming to apply the verse to Israel, whereas it is expressly applied in the original to the nations generally. Even the truth or faithfulness of God, which commonly denotes His veracity in fulfilling His promises to the chosen people, has here a wider sense, as opposed to the dishonesty or partiality of human judges. A.—He cometh. The repetition is full of force and animation, as if the coming of Jehovah is actually taking place before the eyes of the Psalmist. It is a coming to judgment, but a judgment which is to issue in salvation. This judgment in righteousness and faithfulness, and the peace which follows thereon, are beautifully portrayed in Isa. 11:1-9. P.
In the mind of the Psalmists there was nothing contradictory between faith in God as a righteous Judge and faith in God as being long-suffering and of great kindness. They did not think of God as divided between His sense of justice and His love of mercy, because they understood that mercy was never forgotten in His judgments. They felt that His judgments were the truest mercies both for themselves and for the world at large. So deep was their conviction of the blessedness of God’s judgments that some of their most joyous strains are those in which they proclaim God as coming to judge the world in righteousness. G. Forbes.