Psalms 98
Butler1. O SING unto the LORD a new song ; For he hath done marvellous things : His right hand, and his holy arm, hath wrought salvation for him. 2 The LORD hath made known his salvation : His righteousness hath he openly shewed in the sight of the nations. 3 He hath remembered his mercy and his faith- fulness toward the house of Israel : All the ends of the earth have seen the sal- vation of our God. 4 Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all the earth : Break forth and sing for joy, yea, sing praises.
5. Sing praises unto the LORD with the harp ; With the harp and the voice of melody. 6 With trumpets and sound of cornet Make a joyful noise before the King, the LORD. 7 Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof ; The world, and they that dwell therein ; 8 Let the floods clap their hands ; Let the hills sing for joy together ; 9 Before the LORD, for he cometh to judge the earth : He shall judge the world with righteous- ness. And the peoples with equity.
THIS Psalm is little more than an echo of Psalm 96. Its subject is " the last great revela- tion, the final victory of God, when His salva- tion and His righteousness, the revelation of which He has promised to the house of Israel, shall be manifested both to His own people and to all the nations of the earth." P.—It con- sists of three triplets : the first celebrating the salvation of God, the second calling upon men to praise Him with all the auxiliaries of song, and the third summoning inanimate nature to join the chorus that hopes with joy for the judgment to come. M.
The parallels of this Psalm with the Virgin’s Song are very striking, and it seems as if Mary had this Psalm in her eye when she composed her song of triumph. And this is a further argument that the whole Psalm is yet to be ultimately understood of the redemption of the world by Jesus Christ, and the proclamation of His Gospel through all the nations of the earth ; and taken in this view, no language can be too strong, nor poetic imagery too high to point out the unsearchable riches of Christ. A. Clarke.
This is the only Psalm which is entitled sim- ply " a Psalm." It is at least interesting to no- tice that a song of Zion which so exults in the King’s arrival should be called pre-eminently Mizmor ; as if the Psalm of Psalms were that which celebrates Israel, and the earth at large, blessed in Messiah’s Advent. A. A. Bonar.
1. Oh, sing unto the Lord a new song ; for He hath done marvellous things. We had a new song before (Psalm 96), because the Lord was coming ; but now we have another because He has come, and seen, and conquered. Jesus, our King, has lived a marvellous life, died a marvellous death, risen by a marvellous resurrection, and ascended marvellously into heaven. By His Divine power He has sent forth the Holy Spirit doing marvels, and by that sacred energy His dis- ciples have also wrought marvellous things and astonished all the earth. Idols have fallen, superstitions have withered, systems of error have fled, and empires of cruelty have perished. His acts have proved His Deity, Jesus is Jehovah, and therefore we sing unto Him as the Lord. The salvation which Jesus has ac- complished is wrought out with wonderful wis- dom, hence it is ascribed to His right hand ; it meets the requirements of justice, hence we read of His holy arm ; it is His own unaided work, hence all the glory is ascribed to Him ; and it is marvellous beyond degree, hence it deserves a new song. S.
3. He hath remembered His mercy and His truth. His mercy moved Him to make His promise, and His truth hath engaged Him to perform it ; and He hath been mindful of both, by scattering the blessed influences of His light and bounty over the face of the whole earth, and causing all nations to see and par- take of the salvation of God. Matthew Hole.
5. The voice of a Psalm. With
Psalms Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah celebrated their victories. Psalms made glad the heart of the exiles who returned from Babylon. Psalms gave courage and strength to the Maccabees in their brave struggles to achieve their country’s independence, and were the repeated expression of their thanksgivings. The Lord of Psalmists and the Son of David, by the words of a Psalm proved Himself to be higher than David, and sang Psalms with His apostles on the night before he suffered, when He instituted the holy supper of His love. With Psalms Paul and Silas praised God in the prison at midnight when their feet were made fast in the stocks, and sang so loud that the prisoners heard them. And after his own example the apostle exhorts the Christians at Ephesus and Colossæ to teach and admonish one another with Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Jerome tells us that in his day the Psalms were to be heard in the fields and vineyards of Palestine, and that they fell sweetly on the ear, mingling with the songs of birds, and the scent of flowers in spring. The ploughman, as he guided his plough, chanted the hallelujah, and the reaper, the vine-dresser, and the shepherd sang the songs of David. P.
7,8. These appeals to nature in her great departments—of the sea in its mighty amplitude, and the earth with its floods and hills—form, not a warrant, but a call on Christian ministers to recognize God more in their prayers and sermons as the God of creation, instead of restricting themselves so exclusively to the peculiar doctrines of Christianity. Do the one, and not leave the other undone. Thomas Chalmers.
The Psalm is much occupied in celebrating the benign fruits which Christ’s reign is to yield in all the earth. It will be a reign of holiness. This is its proper and distinctive nature. Under it, the ends of the earth will fear God, and rejoice in His salvation. It will be a reign of justice. Under it the wars and oppressions and cruelties, the unequal laws and iniquitous institutions that have so long vexed and cursed the world, shall find a place no more. This happy reformation is usually foretold in the form of a proclamation that the Lord is coming “to judge the earth.” It is important, therefore, to keep in mind the true sense and intention of that oft-repeated proclamation. It does not refer, as an unwary reader might suppose, to the Judgment of the Great Day. There is no terror in it. The Psalms that have it for their principal burden are jubilant in the highest degree. The design of the proclamation is to announce Christ in the character of a peaceful prince coming to administer equal laws with an impartial hand, and so to cause wrong and contention to cease in the earth. This is Christ’s manner of judging the earth. What He has already done in this direction enables us to form a clear conception of what He will yet set Himself to do. When He designs to accomplish great and salutary reforms in the political and social institutions of a people, He begins by dislodging bad principles from men’s minds and planting scriptural principles in their stead; by purging evil passions from men’s hearts, and baptizing them with the Spirit of truth and justice, godliness and lovingkindness. A sure foundation having been thus laid for a better order of things, He will by some storm of controversy or of revolution sweep away the institutions in which injustice has entrenched itself, and will thus make it possible for righteousness to have free course. Oh, what a store of comfort for the down-trodden, the enslaved, the needy, is laid up in the announcement that the Lord is coming to be the avenger of all such! Well may all the creatures be invited to clap their hands for joy at the thought that He has taken this work in hand; that He sitteth upon the floods, and that the storms that agitate the nations are the chariot in which He rides to take possession of the earth, and make it an abode of righteousness and peace. W. Binnie.