1. THE LORD reigneth ; let the peoples tremble : He sitteth upon [dwelieth between] the cherubim ; let the earth be moved. 2 The LORD is great in Zion ; And he is high above all the peoples. 3 Let them praise thy great and terrible name : Holy is he. 4 The king’s strength also loveth judgment ; Thou dost establish equity, Thou executest judgment and righteousness in Jacob. 5 Exalt ye the LORD our God, And worship at his footstool Holy is he.

6. Moses and Aaron among his priests, And Samuel among them that call upon his name ; They called upon the LORD, and he answered them. 7 He spake unto them in the pillar of cloud : They kept his testimonies, and the statute that he gave them. 8 Thou answeredst them, O LORD our God : Thou wast a God that forgavest them, Though thou tookest vengeance of their doings. 9 Exalt ye the LORD our God, And worship at his holy hill ; For the LORD our God is holy.

THIS is the last of the series of Royal Psalms, of Psalms which celebrate the coming of Jehovah as King. The first of the series, the ninety-third, opens with the announcement that “Jehovah is King,” passes on to tell that His throne has been from everlasting, that He made the world and that He rules it—rules the rage of the elements and the convulsions of political strife, of which that is the figure—and then concludes with one brief glance at His revelation of Himself to His people, and the distinguishing glory of the house in which He deigns to dwell, “Holiness becometh Thine house forever.” The ninety-fifth Psalm ascribes glory to Him as “a great King above all gods” (v. 3). The ninety-sixth would have the glad tidings run far and wide that “Jehovah is King,” that “He shall judge the people righteously” (v. 13). The ninety-seventh opens, “Jehovah is King,” speaks of the glory of His advent, and of the joy with which it is welcomed by His people. The ninety-eighth calls upon all lands to break forth into loud shouts “before the King Jehovah,” to go forth to meet Him with glad acclaim, with the voice of harp and cornet and trumpet, as men go forth to meet a monarch who comes in state to take possession of the throne of his fathers. The ninety-ninth, like the ninety-third and the ninety-seventh, opens with the joyful announcement that “Jehovah is King,” and then bids all men fall down and confess His greatness, and worship Him who alone is holy. Both the first and the last of the series, the ninety-third and the ninety-ninth, celebrate the kingly majesty and holiness of Jehovah, and also the holiness of His worship.

All these Psalms alike tell of the setting up of a Divine kingdom upon earth. All alike anticipate the event with joy. One universal anthem bursts from the whole wide world to greet the advent of the righteous King. Not Zion only and the daughters of Judah are glad, but the dwellers in far-off islands and the ends of the earth. Even inanimate nature sympathizes with the joy ; the sea thunders her welcome, the rivers clap their hands, the trees of the wood break forth into singing before the Lord. In all these Psalms alike the joy springs from the same source, from the thought that on this earth, where might has so long triumphed over right, a righteous King shall reign, a kingdom shall be set up which shall be a kingdom of righteousness and judgment and truth. In this Psalm, not only the righteous sway of the King, but His awful holiness, forms the subject of praise, and the true character of His worshippers as consecrated priests, holy, set apart for His service, is illustrated by the example of holy men of old, like Moses, Aaron, and Samuel.

The two principal divisions of the Psalm are marked by the greater refrain with which each closes, “Exalt ye Jehovah our God,” etc. (vs. 5, 9). But the thrice-repeated lesser refrain, “He is holy,” more full, as at the close (in v. 9), “Jehovah our God is holy,” marks also a strophical division, and is, in the words of Delitzsch, “an earthly echo of the seraphic Trisagion” (compare Isa. 6 : 3). We have thus three strophes or Sanctuses (vs. 1-3; 4, 5, and 6-9), the first and second consisting each of six lines. In each of these Jehovah is acknowledged in His peculiar covenant relation to His people. In the first, He is “great in Zion” (v. 2); in the second, He has “executed righteousness in Jacob” (v. 4), and He is “Jehovah our God” (v. 5); in the third, the great examples of this covenant relationship are cited from Israel’s ancient history; and again God is twice claimed as “Jehovah our God” (vs. 8, 9). In each there is the same exhortation to worship (vs. 3, 5, 9), and in each the nature of the worship and the character of the worshippers is implied, because the character of God is in each exhibited, “He is holy.” But in the third Sanctus this is brought out most fully. The priestly character of all true worship is declared. All who call upon Jehovah call Him as His priests, all anointed with the same holy oil, all clothed in the same garments of holiness, “for Jehovah our God is holy.” Bengel, recognizing this threefold partition of the Psalm, explains the structure somewhat differently. “The ninetyninth Psalm,” he says, “has three parts, in which the Lord is celebrated as He who is to come, as He who is, and as He who was, and each part is closed with the ascription of praise, He is holy.” P.

When the Prophet Isaiah saw his great vision of the King in His beauty, “sitting upon a throne, high, and lifted up,” and His train filling the temple, he heard from the voices of the encompassing seraphim the triple ascription of praise, “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty.” This Psalm may be called the earthly echo of that celestial doxology; for it is divided into three great sections, at the close of each of which it comes like a recurring thunder peal—“for it is holy;” “for He is holy;” “for the Lord our God is holy.” And these three sections, which thus celebrate the different sides of the Divine nature, and climb up to the one climactic thought—the holiness of God—stand related to each other in a regular progress and sequence. The first of them magnifies His universal dominion, as sitting between the cherubim, and being high above all people, and calls for praise to the name which is great and terrible. The second of them hymns the praises of that dominion which is as just as it is strong, which establishes equity and gives ordinances and statutes to Jacob. And the third of them sets forth the close relation of love and fellowship and mutual converse which is possible between sinful men and this mighty God. “They call upon the Lord, and He answers them; He speaks to them in the cloudy pillar; they keep His testimonies.” “Thou was a God that forgavest them, though Thou tookest vengeance of their inventions.” And on this loftiest of all the thoughts, that God talks with men and listens to them; that He gives them His mind and will, and strengthens them to keep it; that He smites them in order that they may be good, and pardons them even while He smites, there is piled a third call for praise: “Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at His holy hill; for the Lord our God is holy.” A. M.

1. The Lord reigns.** God governs the world by His providence, governs the Church by His grace, and both by His Son. We are to believe not only that the Lord lives, but that the Lord reigns. H.

3. It is holy.** No attribute is sounded out so loftily, with such solemnity and so frequently by angels that stand before His throne, as this. Where do you find any other attribute trebled in the praises of it as this? Isa. 6: 3: “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory;” and Rev. 4: 8: “The four living creatures rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty.” His power of sovereignty as Lord of hosts is but once mentioned, but with a ternal repetition of His holiness. Where do we read of the crying out, Eternal, eternal, eternal; or Faithful, faithful, faithful, Lord God of hosts! Whatsoever other attribute is left out, this God would have to fill the mouths of angels and blessed spirits forever in heaven. As sincerity is the lustre of every grace in a Christian, so is purity the splendor of every attribute in the Godhead. His justice is a holy justice, His wisdom a holy wisdom, His arm of power a “holy arm;” His truth or promise a “holy promise.” Holy and true go hand and hand (Rev. 6: 10). “His name,” which signifies all His attributes in conjunction, “is holy.” Charnock.

4. The King’s strength.** The same King who is mentioned v. 1, Jehovah. His might is no arbitrary power, like that of earthly tyrants, but a judgment-loving might. His power only expresses itself in righteousness. He has “established uprightness” as the great eternal law of His government, the inner principle of His sway, and He has manifested it in all His acts: “He has executed judgment and righteousness in Jacob.” P.

6,7. The third Sanctus looks back into the history of the days of old prior to the kings. In support of the statement that Jehovah is a living God and a God that proves Himself in grace and judgment, the Psalmist appeals to three heroes of the days of old and to their recorded experiences. D.—The happiness of Israel in God’s government is here further made out by some particular instances of His administration, especially with reference to those that were, in their day, the prime leaders and most active useful governors of that people, Moses, Aaron, and Samuel, in the former of whom the theocracy or Divine government began (for they were employed to form Israel into a people), and in the last of whom that form of government, in a great measure, ended. Moses, as well as Aaron, is said to be among his priests, for he executed the priest’s office till Aaron was settled in it, and he consecrated Aaron and his sons; therefore the Jews call him the Priest of the priests. H.

Moses is, so to speak, the proto-priest of Israel, he having twice performed priestly acts that laid the foundation for all ages to come—viz., the sprinkling of the blood at the ratification of the covenant under Sinai, and the whole ritual, which was to be a pattern for the consecrated priesthood, at the consecration of the priests; it was he also that, previous to the consecration of the priests, attended to the service in the sanctuary; he set the shew-bread in order, set up the candlestick, and burnt incense upon the golden altar. D.—So likewise he “called upon the Lord” as “a priest,” in intercession for his people. P.—Aaron is the first priest appointed by Moses; the father of the priesthood, the one with whom the divinely selected mediatorial priesthood began. D.

Samuel also, though not here classed with the priests, but mentioned as a great example of prayer, not only like Moses discharged priestly functions, but also like Moses interceded for the people. We find him at Ramah offering sacrifices in the high place, and his independent priestly position so recognized by the people that they would not partake of the sacrifice till he had blessed it (1 Sam. 9 : 12, 13). We find him on the occasion of a battle offering a whole burnt offering unto Jehovah (1 Sam. 7 : 9), at the same time that he sternly rebukes Saul for presuming to do the same thing (1 Sam. 13 : 11-13). For the efficacy of his prayers and intercessions—on which, and not on sacrifices, the stress is here laid—see the instances in 1 Sam. 7 : 8, 9; 12 : 16-18. P.—His character as mediator in connection with Divine service is outweighed by his character as a man mighty in prayer; by earnest entreaty he obtained for Israel the victory of Ebenezer over the Philistines, and confirmed his words of warning with the miraculous sign that at his calling upon God it thundered and rained in the midst of a cloudless season. The poet purposely says: Moses and Aaron were among His priests, Samuel among those that called upon His name. D.

Each of these three stood in the gap when the wrath of God broke forth, because His holiness had been insulted; and acting as intercessors, they screened the nation from the great and terrible God, who otherwise would have executed judgment in Jacob. They made it their life’s business to call upon Him in prayer. S.—He answered them, and granted them the things which they called upon Him for. Miracles were wrought at their special instance and request; nay, God not only condescended to do that for them which they desired, as a prince for a petitioner, but He communed with them as one friend familiarly converses with another. He spake unto them in the cloudy pillar. H.

S. There is here a beautiful transition from the representatives of the people to the people themselves. The pronoun in the first clause (them) can refer only to Moses, Aaron, and Samuel; in the second, it is applicable both to them and to the people; in the third, it relates to the latter exclusively. A.

Thou forgavest them, though Thou tookest vengeance of their doings. Because He loves the person and hates only the sin, therefore He preserves the one, destroys only the other. The covenant that is made with us in Christ is not a covenant made with works, but with persons; and, therefore, though the works be often hateful, yet He goes on to love the persons; and that He may continue to love them, destroys out of them what He hates, but cutteth not them off. T. Goodwin.—It is a blessed assurance that nothing can disturb our standing in the covenant. Answer and forgiveness are certain, though vengeance is taken of our inventions. Yet withal we are not shut out from God. We are able to speak to, and to hear Him; we receive what we need and much more; and, above all, we have the sweet, abiding sense of forgiveness. A. E.

Forgavest. Forgiveness is at bottom the undisturbed communication of the love of God to sinful men. We are too apt to think that God pardons men in the fashion in which the sovereign pardons a culprit who has been sentenced to be hanged. Such pardon implies nothing as to the feelings of either the criminal or the monarch. There need neither be pity on the one side nor penitence on the other. The true idea of forgiveness is to be found not in the region of law only, but in the region of love and fatherhood. The forgiveness of God is over and over again set forth in Scripture as being a Father’s forgiveness. Vengeance. The modern notion attached to revenge is by no means to be found in the word which is here employed. Our notion of vengeance is harm, or loss, or pain of some sort inflicted at the bidding of private and passionate resentment and hate, in opposition to the calm and unhating course of public justice. We set up “the wild justice of revenge,” as the phrase goes, against the course of sovereign and authoritative retribution and punitive action. But what the Old Testament meant by vengeance is precisely that public justice to which the modern notion of revenge is diametrically opposed. And what this verse says is, “Thou wast a God that didst forgive,” and in the very act of forgiving, moved by no personal animosity, moved by no passionate resentment, but in the calm, sovereign, righteous process of that law, which is only the manifestation and the form of expression of Thine infinite love, didst at one and the same time forgive the man, and amite and punish him because of his evil. A. M.

Even Divine forgiveness is not inconsistent with the exaction of certain penal consequences of evil-doing. A wound may be healed by nature, but there remains a scar. No man can sin with impunity, even though he may repent and be forgiven. There are effects left on body, mind, heart, conscience, which not even Divine grace wholly removes. No repentance can restore lost opportunity, forfeited privilege, wasted time, or exhausted life. God is not vindictive, but He is vindicative; He is not a revenging, but He is an avenging God. He owes something to His own inflexible holiness, justice, truth; to the unchanging physical and moral order He has established. Anon.—God is too loving to shield men from the natural consequences, in the physical and social world, of their sins. The penitent drunkard’s hand shakes, and his constitution is not renewed, though his spirit is. Only, punishment is changed into discipline, when the heart rests in the assurance of pardon, and is accepted as a token of a Father’s love. David’s sin relaxed the bonds of family life, and set an evil example of passion, indulged in the face of law, to his children. His eldest son copied his example, and added fresh horrors to it. That, and the miserable polygamy which David permitted himself, bore bitter fruit in Absalom’s revenging his sister’s disgrace by procuring Amnon’s murder. David, conscious of his own sin, had weakly left Amnon unpunished; and the same consciousness, added to his foolish fondness for his handsome, good-for-nothing son, led him to wink at his flagrant violation of law. He forgot that he was God’s minister of justice, and only remembered that he was Absalom’s father. His feeble compromise only irritated his son, and suggested the conspiracy to him. The success of it was facilitated by David’s passiveness, which sprang from his sense of demerit, and had helped to wean his subjects’ hearts from him. Thus every way God made of the vice the whip to scourge the sinner, and David, like us all, had to drink as he had brewed, though he was forgiven the sin. A. M.

Conflict between the Old and New Nature.

As there is much beast and some devil in man, so is there some angel and some God in man. The beast and the devil may be conquered, but in this life never destroyed. Coleridge.—There is an intestine war in man between reason and the passions. He might enjoy some repose had he reason alone without passion, or passion alone without reason. But, having both, he must needs live in a state of warfare, since he cannot maintain peace with one without being at war with the other. Hence he is always divided and always at variance with himself. Pascal.

No sooner is peace with God, through Christ, settled, than war is proclaimed, and the man involved in its arduous and lifelong struggles. Conflict begins with conversion. Besides the world and its influences, the passions that he loved in his breast and fed by long indulgence into strength, it may be said that “his enemies are the men of his own house.” Guthrie.—So long as we are in the world and of it, we know nothing of spiritual conflict. But when we become sons of God, through faith in Christ Jesus, then it is that we become conscious of conflict. “Conflict with what?” Conflict with the selfishness of our own hearts. Self wishes to be lord, and forbids Christ to be Lord. We have to resist self. Calthrop.—That idol, myself, is the idol we all bow down to. What made Eve fall and hurried her headlong upon the forbidden fruit, but that wretched thing, herself? What drew that brother-murderer to kill Abel? What drove the old world on to corrupt their ways? Who but themselves and their own pleasures? What was the cause of Solomon’s falling into idolatry, and multiplying strange wives? What but himself, whom he would rather please than God? What was the hook that took David and snared him first in adultery, but his self-lust; and then in murder, but his self-credit and self-honor? What made Judas sell his Master for thirty pieces of money, but a piece of self-love, idolizing avaricious self? What made Demas go off the way of the Gospel to embrace this present world? Even self-love and love of gain for himself. Every man blameth the devil for his sins, but the great devil, the house devil of every man, that eateth and lieth in every man’s bosom, that idol which killeth all—himself. Rutherford.

Day and night follow each other not more surely than punishment follows upon sin. Whether the sin be great or little, momentary or habitual, wilful or through infirmity, its own peculiar punishment seems, according to the law of nature, to follow as far as our experience of that law carries us, sooner or later, lighter or heavier, as the case may be. Newman.

The pardoning mercy of God leaves many penalties unremoved. Forgiveness and punishment both come from the same source, and generally go together. The old statement, “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap,” is absolutely true, universally true. The Gospel is not its abrogation. It modifies it, it gives it a new aspect; in some respects it gives it a new incidence; but be sure of this, that the harvest has to be gathered. For our worst sins there is plenteous redemption. My sin may become white as snow and pass away altogether, in as far as it has power to disturb or sadden my relation to God. Yet our least sins leave in our lives, in our characters, in our memories, in our consciences, sometimes in our weakness, often in our worldly position, in our reputation, in our success, in our health, in a thousand other ways—leave their traces and consequences. But pardoning love so modifies the punishment that it becomes an occasion for solemn thankfulness. Whatever painful consequences of past sin may still linger about our lives or haunt our hearts, we may be sure of two things about them all, that they come from forgiving mercy; that they come for our profit. The truths that lie in the whole are these: pardon and retribution are ever united; they spring from one source of holy love, and they ought to become to us the occasions of solemn and thankful praise. “Exalt the Lord our God . . . for He is holy.” Thou forgavest them, and didst punish their inventions. A. M.

9. The Lord our God is holy in His power, holy in His righteousness, and holy especially in His mercy. In the great work of salvation His power is displayed pre-eminently in the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, His righteousness in the propitiating work of the Son, and His mercy in the giving and forgiving deeds of the Father. M.

The God of Revelation is a moral God. If He is power and wisdom, He is also sanctity, justice, providence, mercy, love. According to the Gospel love is His essence; and love is interest in and self-sacrifice for that which is its object. Such a God alone can be the adequate object of religion. Traceable in every human history, especially in the history of one separated and chosen race, the interest of the Perfect Moral Being in the moral and thinking creatures of His hand culminates at Bethlehem and Calvary. The incarnation of the Eternal Son, the manifestation of the Divine life of love and justice, and compassion and purity, flashing through a veil of flesh, and leading up to a death of agony and shame, which alters the whole existing moral relation between earth and heaven; this is the glorious creed which rivets a Christian’s conviction of the moral intensity of the life of God. Liddon.

The holiness of God must be recognized by any one who would for a moment feel safe in the universe. If God were otherwise than holy and just, what could restrain any arbitrary exercise of His power? How could we know that the most terrific catastrophe the human imagination ever conceived shall not at the next moment befall the creation? His holiness, which men hate, is the safeguard of the universe in which they live. He could not properly be worshipped except He were holy. Worship mere power, and it demoralizes, it demonizes. Worship intellect, and it degrades the moral nature in us. Worship can only be offered to absolute and sovereign purity of character; and that must be God’s character, or else let every harp on high be silent and every heart on earth be dumb; shut up the Psalms and seal them; put an end to every service of praise in the creation. God’s holiness shines upon us through His law, shines in our own reason and conscience and their intuitions, shines clear and evident in the person of Christ, and is the fundamental fact of character which we are always to affirm. But then with this holiness is united tenderness; and it is that which it seems harder still to recognize and declare, for we associate austerity with holiness; we associate the Divine holiness with infinite, solitary, and self-absorbed grandeur, cold and high and far away. We associate with absolute justice absolute sov-

creignty, rather than absolute tenderness; and yet there is in His Word, even in the ancient Scripture, the declaration of His tenderness. We see this illustrated most beautifully and perfectly, of course, in the life of the Son of God, whose mission it was to reveal the infinite Father to us, that we might not be afraid of