PSALMS 92-100
BY
J. B. ROTHERHAM
AND
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[PART 1]
Psalms 92-100
By J. B. ROTHERHAM
DESCRIPTIVE TITLE - A Service of Song for a Sabbath Day.
ANALYSIS
Psalm 92: Personal Song - Probably by a King.
Psalm 93: Jehovah Proclaimed King.
Psalm 94: Prayer for Vengeance on the Lawless.
Psalm 95: Invitation – “O Come! Come in!”
Warning: “Harden not your Hearts!”
Psalm 96: The Land called upon to Sing to
Jehovah, and to Proclaim his Kingship to the Nations.
Psalm 97: Third Proclamation - Decisive Results, by way of Joy,
Fear.
Conviction, Shame, Homage, Thanks,
Exhortation and Triumph.
[Librarian’s mark] Psalm - Song - For
the Sabbath-day.
PSALM 92
1 It is
good to give thanks to Jehovah,
and to make melody a unto thy name, O Most High!
2 To declare, in the
morning, thy kindness,
and thy faithfulness in the
nights: b
3 With an instrument of ten strings, and with a
lute, c
with murmuring music d on a lyre.
4 For thou hast made me glad, Jehovah, by thy doings,
in the works of thy hands will
I ring out my joy.
5 How great have grown thy
works, Johovah!
how very deep have been laid
thy plans!
6 A man that is brutish
cannot get to know,
and a dullard cannot understand
this:-
7 When the lawless bud like
herbage,
and all the workers of iniquity
have blossomed
It leadeth to their being
destroyed for ever.
8 But thou art on high e to the ages, O Jehovah
9 For lo! thine
enemies, Jehovah,
For lo! thine enemies shall perish,
scattered abroad shall be all the workers
of iniquity. f
10 But thou wilt uplift, like those of a wild ox, my horn,
I am anointed g with fresh oil;
11 And mine eye shall gaze on my watchful foes,
of them that rise up against
me as evil-doers mine ears shall hear,
12 The righteous like the palm-tree shall bud,
like a cedar in
13 Transplanted
into the house of Jehovah
in the courts of our God shall
they show buds.
14 Still shall they bear fruit
in old age,
full of sap and of bloom shall
they be:
15 To declare that upright is
Jehovah,
my Rock with no injustice in
him.
[No mark – whether librarian’s or
Chief musician’s.]
a Or: “to sweep the strings.”
b So Driver; “night-seasons” –
Delitzsch; “dark night” - (plural of
intensification) - Briggs
c More literally: “with ten and with a
lute.”
d “with murmuring sound” –
Driver; “with skilful music” – Delitzch.
e More literally: “a height.” “Exaltedness”
– Delitzsch.
f Or “mischief” (“naughtiness” - Driver). Compare 94:
4, 16, 23.
g “The passage
is doubtful” – Oxford Gesenius. (“B.D.B..”
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PSALM 93
[No mark – whether librarian’s or
Chief musician’s.]
1 Jehovah hath become king a in majesty hath he clothed himself,
Jehovah hath clothed himself - with strength hath he girded himself:
surely he hath adjusted b the world - it shall not be shaken.
2 Established is thy throne from of old, c
from age-past time art thou.
3 The
streams have lifted up, O Jehovah,
the streams have lifted up their voice,
the streams lift up their crashing:
4 Beyond the voices of many
waters,
more majestic than the breakers
of the sea d
Majestic on high is Jehovah.
5 Thy
testimonies are confirmed with might,
to thy house befitting is holiness, -
O Jehovah! to length of days.
[No mark – whether librarian’s or
Chief musician’s.]
a “Is now king” - Delitzsch. “Hath proclaimed
himself king” - Kirkpatrick.
The same 1
b So it should be (with Aramean, Septuagint, Syriac, Vulgate
(Latin) - Ginsburg thinks (a guarded opinion).
c More literally: “from then.”
d So Ginsburg thinks (a guarded opinion).
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PSALM 94
[No mark - whether librarian’s or
Chief musician’s.]
1 O GOD of avengings, a Johovah
O GOD of avengings,
a shine forth!
2 Lift up thyself, thou judge
of the earth
bring back a recompense on the
proud.
3 How long shall lawless ones, Jehovah,
how long shall lawless ones
exult?
4 They pour forth, they speak
arrogancy,
Vain-glorious are all the workers of iniquity. b
5 Thy people O Jehovah, they crush,
and thine inheritance they
humble;
6 The widow and the sojourner
they slay,
and the fatherless they murder;
7 And say - “Yah seeth
not.”
8 Understand, ye brutish
among the people,
and, ye dullards, when will ye comprehend?
9 He that planteth
the ear shall he not hear?
or that fashioneth the eye not
look on? c
10 He that correcteth nations
not shew what is right, -
he that teacheth men knowledge?
11 Jehovah knoweth the devices of men,
for they themselves are a
breath! d
12 How happy the man whom thou
correctest, O Yah,
and out of thy law dost
instruct:
13 That thou mayest give him
rest from the days of misfortune,
till there be digged, for the
lawless one, a pit.
14 For Jehovah abandoneth not
his people,
and his inheritance doth he not
forsake;
15 For unto righteousness
shall judgment, e return,
And be following it all the upright in heart.
16 Who will rise up for me
against evil-doers?
who will make a stand for me
against the workers of iniquity? f
17 Unless
Jehovah had been a help to me
soon had sunk into silence my soul!
18 If I say
- “Slipped hath my foot!”
thy kindness Jehovah! stayeth me.
19 In the
multitude of my disquieting thoughts g within me
thy consolations delight my soul.
20 Can the throne of engulfing
ruin be allied to thee,
which frameth mischief by statute? h
21 They make a raid on i the life j of the righteous one,
and innocent blood they condemn.
22 Nay! Jehovah hath
become for me a lofty retreat,
and my God my rock of refuge.
23 Nay! he hath brought back, on
themselves, their iniquity, k
and through their own evil will
he exterminate them, -
exterminate them will Jehovah our God.
[No mark - whether librarian’s or
Chief musician’s.]
a Or: “dire vengeance.”
b Or: “Mischief.” (“Naughtiness” - Driver.), and compare 92: 9 and verses 16, 23.
c “Have power of sight” - Oxford
Gesenius (“B.D.B.”)
d Or “are vapour.”
e Or “sentence.”
f Or “mischief.” (“Naughtiness”
- Driver). Compare verse 23.
g As in 139: 23.
h “Under the pretext of right” -
Delitzsch.
i “They gather
themselves in bands against” - Driver.
“They rush in upon” - Delitzsch.
j Usually “soul.”
k Or “mischief.” (“Naughtiness”
- Driver). Compare verse 16.
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PSALM 95
[No mark - whether librarian’s or
Chief musician’s.]
1 O come! let us ring out our joy to
Jehovah,
let us shout to the rock of our salvation; a
2 Let us
come to meet his face with thanksgiving,
with psalms let us shout unto him.
3 For a great God is Jehovah,
and a great king, above all
messengers divine: b
4 In whose hand are the recesses c of the earth,
and the summits of the
mountains belong to him:
5 Whose is the sea, and he
made it,
and the dry land his hands
formed.
6 Come in! oh
let us bow down, and bend low,
oh let us kneel, before
Jehovah our maker;
7 For he is our God,
and well are the people of his
hand, and the flock of his shepherding. d
To-day if to his voice ye would but hearken
8 “Do not harden your heart, as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah, in the desert:
9 When your fathers put me to
the proof
tested me, although they had seen
my work.
10 For forty years loathed I
that e generation,
and said - ‘A people
going astray in heart are they,
even they have not known my ways:’
11 So that I sware in mine
anger,
‘Surely they shall not enter
into my place of rest!’”
[No mark - whether librarian’s or
Chief musician’s.]
a Or: “our rock of safety.”
b See 8: 5. Hebrew: ‘elohim.
c “Literally places to be
explored; compare with Job 38: 26” -
Driver. Ginsburg thinks (a guarded opinion)
“distant parts” - Ginsburg’s notes in his Massoretico-Critical
Hebrew Bible.
d So
Ginsburg thinks (a guarded opinion). Compare with 79:
13; 100: 3.
Massoretic Hebrew Text:
“people of his shepherding and flock of his hand.”
e So it
should be (with Septuagint and Vulgate) - Ginsburg’s notes in his
Massoretico-Critical Hebrew Bible.
[No mark - whether librarian’s or
Chief musician’s.]
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PSALM 96
[No mark - whether librarian’s or
Chief musician’s.]
1 Sing ye, to Jehovah, a song that is new,
sing to Jehovah, all the land:
2 Sing to Jehovah, bless ye his
name,
proclaim the glad-tidings, from day to
day, of his victory: a
3 Tell, among the
nations, his glory,
among all the peoples his
wondrous works.
4 For great is Jehovah and to
be highly praised,
Fear inspiring is he above
all messengers divine: b
5 For all the gods c of the peoples are nothings, d
But Jehovah made the heavens.
6 Majesty and state e are before him,
Strength and beauty f are in his sanctuary.
7 Ascribe, unto Jehovah, ye families
of the peoples,
Ascribe, unto Jehovah, glory and strength:
8 Ascribe, unto Jehovah,
the glory of his name,
bring ye a present, g and come into his courts: h
9 Bow down, unto Jehovah, in the adornment of holiness.
i
be in birth-throes j at his presence, all the earth.
10 Say among the nations - “Jehovah
hath become king: k
Surely he hath adjusted the world, it shall not be
shaken,
He will minister judgment
unto the peoples with equity.”
11 Let the heavens be glad, and the
earth rejoice,
let the sea thunder and the
fulness thereof:
12 Let the plain exult, and all that
is therein,
Yea l let all the trees of the forest ring out their joy:-
13 Before Jehovah, for he is
coming, m
for he is coming, n to judge the earth:
He will judge the world with
righteousness,
And
peoples, with his faithfulness.
[No mark - whether librarian’s or
Chief musician’s.]
a Or: “salvation.”
b Hebrew ’elohim. Compare 8: 5.
Clearly some ’elohim are more than “nothings.”
c Hebrew ’elohim.
The addition “of all the peoples” is
deemed enough to turn the scale in translating.
d “Nothingnesses”
– Driver. “Idols”
– Delitzsch (who thus comments: “nothings and
good-for-nothings, without being and of no use.”)
e “Glory and
grandeur” – Delitzsch.
f “The word
used here denotes glory which is also a decoration or ornament (Isaiah 6o: 7, 19)” - Driver.
g Hebrew: minhah. “Viz.
to secure admission to His presence. Compare with 2
Samuel 8: 2, 6; Judges 3: 18 end” - Driver.
h Some codex (with Aramean): “come in before him” - Ginsburg’s notes in his
Massoretico-Critical Hebrew Bible.
i Compare 29:
2.
j Compare
77: 16.
k See 93: 1; 97: 1; 99: 1.
l So Ginsburg thinks (a guarded opinion).
m So (participle) Deltizsch. “Is
come” - Driver and others.
n In some codex this clause is not repeated. Compare with 1 Chronacles
16: 33 - Ginsburg’s notes in his Massoretico-Critical Hebrew Bible.
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PSALM 97
[No mark - whether librarian’s or
Chief musician’s.]
1 Jehovah hath become king a - let the earth exult,
let the multitude of coastlands
rejoice.
2 Clouds and darkness are
round about him,
righteousness and justice b are the foundation of his throne:
3 Fire before him proceedeth,
and setteth ablaze round about
his adversaries.
4 His lightnings illumined
the world,
the earth saw and was in
birth-throes: c
5 The mountains like wax
melted at the presence of Jehovah,
at the presence of the Lord d of the whole earth:
6 The heavens declared his
righteousness,
and all the peoples saw his
glory.
7 Put to shame are all they
who were serving an image,
who were boasting themselves in
nothings: e
All messengers divine f bow ye down to him.
8
and the daughters of
Because of
thy righteous decisions, g O Jehovah.
9 For thou, Jehovah art Most
High over all the earth,
greatly hast thou exalted thyself
above all messengers divine.
10 Ye lovers of Jehovah! hate ye wrong.
He preserveth the lives h of his men of kindness,
from the hand of lawless ones he
reseueth them.
11 Light hath arisen i for the righteous one,
And for such as are upright of heart gladness.
12 Be glad O ye righteous, in Jehovah,
And give thanks unto his Holy Memorial.
[No mark - whether librarian’s or
Chief musician’s.]
a As in 93:
1; 96: 10; 99: 1.
b Or: “judgment.”
c Compare with 96:
9.
d Hebrew: adon.
e “Nothingnesses.”
- Driver.
f Or: “gods.” Hebrew ’elohim. But see 8:
5; 96: 4.
g Or: “thy
judgments.”
h Or, “persons”:
Hebrew naphshoth; usually: “souls.”
i So in some MSS. (with Aramean, Septuagint, Syriac,
Vulgate).
Compare with 112: 14 - Ginsburg’s notes in his Massoretico-Critical
Hebrew Bible. Massoretic Hebrew Text: “is sown,”
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EXPOSITION
It will
be observed that there is
but one original headline to Psalms 92 to 97; and therefore it will be no great
strain on our credulity if, from this circumstance, we assume that these
psalms, thus undivided from each other in the Hebrew text, at a very early
period in their history formed one continuous Service of Song for a Sabbath Day. That the series was composed of several
distinct psalms, probably written by two or three psalmists, is clear from
internal evidence.
Psalm 92 is intensely personal: as witness the phrases hast made me glad - I
will ring out my joy (ver.
4) -my horn - I am anointed
- mine eye - my lurking foes - my wicked assailants - mine ears (vers.
10, 11).
It is at the same time thoroughly experimental: which is evident,
not only from the above expressions, but also from the writer’s thankfulness (ver. 1), and from his persuasion that he has
been blessed with some insight into Jehovah’s works and plans (ver. 5),
as well as from that sense of nearness to God which leads him to designate him My Rock (ver. 15). The writer of the
psalm is probably a king in the line of David: which accounts for his
expectation that his horn will be exalted, in spite of his unscrupulous foes (vers. 10, 11).
He is not only a king, but an enthusiastic musician: understanding what it is to sweep the strings (ver. 1), and appreciating differences in musical instruments, as his
selection of the deep-toned lyre to accompany his poetic soliloquy in
his royal chambers sufficiently indicates.
Out of these observations emerges the natural conclusion, that its
writer was King Hezekiah.
Psalm 93 forms a
striking contrast. It is by no means
personal; but public, lofty, grand. It
propounds a thesis worthy of the most far-seeing prophetic gift: for it tells
of nothing less than an especial assumption of sovereignty by Jehovah himself,
who on the basis of his ancient rule and being makes a new Divine advance to
manifested kingship over the earth. The
psalm is but brief, calling sea-streams to witness to the Divine Majesty, and
claiming that the Divine Testimonies and Temple-worship
are confirmed by Jehovah’s Royal Proclamation. The two most remarkable things about this
short psalm are: first, that
it gives the key-note of the series; in which, be it noted, Jehovah is
proclaimed King three times, which key-note is carried over to the abbreviated
Sabbath Service of Song which we may assume to be formed by Pss. 98,
99; so that four times in the double series is this Proclamation made; second, another remarkable thing is that
King Hezekiah - himself a king in the royal, covenant line of David - should
have given so much prominence to such a theme, if he prepared this Service of
Song, a theme to give currency to which looks greatly like an act of
self-effacement on his part, as though neither he nor any of his descendants could be regarded
as The Coming King. Not only, then, does
this psalm demand a lofty prophetic gift for its production, but it requires a
prophet of unquestionable standing and commanding weight to secure its
insertion in this Service of Song. These
conditions are remarkably well fulfilled in ISAIAH; especially if we may safely come
back - as it would appear we may - to the old-fashioned custom of regarding him as the author of the whole of the book
which goes under his name. For, in that
case, we have not only the vision of Isaiah, chapter 6, to give a commanding place to the
conception of Jehovah’s becoming King of all the earth, but we have patterned
by Isaiah himself - of course under Divine guidance - in 52: 7 almost the exact formula for
proclaiming Divine Kingship which stands out so prominently in these
psalms. Isaiah is the man who has had
the vision, and who is possessed by the conception which the vision
conveys. And he has the age, the
standing, and the unquestionable spiritual authority to secure Hezekiah’s ready
acceptance of Jehovah’s own Royal proclamation of Himself as suitable for a
large place in this Sabbath Service of Song.
From this point of view, the bringing together of the two men - Isaiah
and Hezekiah - under the dominancy of a great expectation, throws an unexpected
but most welcome side-light on that strange wail of disappointment issuing from
Hezekiah’s sick-room (Isaiah 38) that now - if he must at once die - he will “not see Yah
in the land of the living,” as under Isaiah’s tuition he had conceived that he
might. So that any imagined unlikelihood
that Hezekiah would make such a theme so prominent in his Sabbath Service of
Song, is completely overborne by the evidence which shews how naturally he
might have done this very thing.
Psalm 94 differs from both the preceding:- from 92 by
not being mainly joyous, and from 93 by rather lamenting that Jehovah has not become King, than by
proclaiming that he has ascended his earthly Royal Seat. This psalm, again, has a rather strong
personal note, and may very well have been written by Hezekiah himself or at
his dictation. If so, however, its
totally different tone would drive
us to conclude that it must have been written at another and probably an
earlier time, evidently a time of sore national trouble. Indeed, so predominant is the note of
lamentation throughout this psalm, that some critics have concluded it to be
wholly out of its place where it now stands.
Perhaps they have been hasty in their judgment. But let us glance through the psalm. Three strophes (vers. 1-7) suffice to make it clear that
Psalm 95 is remarkable for the facility with
which, - after a 4-line invitation to worship, it resolves itself into two
10-line strophes, the former joyous, and the latter admonitory. As to the fitness of the latter to find place
here, - with such waverers in view as the previous psalm reveals (94: 8-11), it cannot be said that the solemn warning of this psalm (95: 7-11) is in any wise out of place. It is,
further, something to remember - that this Sabbath-day’s Service of Song points
onwards to a Divine Sabbath of Sabbaths,
which undoubtedly will be inaugurated by the Coming Divine King.
Psalm 96 enriches us with fresh thoughts: by
bringing us into sight of a new manifestation of Divine Kingship, calling for a song that is new; that it commissions a particular land to herald the glad-tidings of the
Coming Divine Reign to the other nations of the earth (verses 2, 3,
10); that, while there are Divine representatives (Elohim) who are real beings (ver. 4), there are other so-called Elohim
(“gods”) who have no existence (ver. 5); that even in the Coming Divine
Reign, there will be a sanctuary (ver. 6) into which the families of the peoples (ver. 7) can enter with their presents (ver. 8) and there worship (ver. 9); and that such a changed state of
things will amount to a New Birth for or a Readjustment of the world (vers. 9,
10), whereat all Nature - including the heavens, the earth, the sea, the plain, the forest - may well
go into ecstasies; for the good reason that Jehovah is coming to reign over all
the peoples of the world in righteousness and
faithfulness (vers. 10,
13).
Psalm 97, the last of this longer Sabbath-day
series, is notable in that, whatever cause for fear and trembling any of the
individuals and nations of the world may have, in prospect of this new and immediate
Divine Rule, the great event itself is mainly an occasion for joy: Let the earth exult. Probably not without peculiar
interest to Europeans (and it may be Americans also) the West - under the
significant Biblical name of Coastlands - is particularly called upon to rejoice:- a glimpse into the future which was, as we know, vouchsafed to Isaiah,
independently of this psalm (Isaiah 24: 15;
41: 1; 42: 4; 49: 1; 59: 18; 60: 2; 66: 19).
Other things observable in this closing psalm of the first series are:
that the promised Divine Advent is to be, in some way, open and palpable to the
whole earth; conveying its testimony of Divine righteousness to all men’s minds
(vers. 4-6); that it will be sufficiently sudden to put some boastful
idolaters to shame (ver. 7); sufficiently demonstrative to cause all true messengers divine to prostrate themselves before the
world’s Divine King (ver. 7); and yet sufficiently local in some phases of its manifestation to give
occasion to carry the joyful tidings thereof to Zion and the daughters of Judah (ver. 8). Real divine messengers, such
as kings and judges, will be permitted to govern longer, only on condition of
being manifestly in subjection to Jehovah as Most High over all the
earth (ver. 9). No wonder that such good news as
this should be finally employed by way of admonition: Ye lovers of Jehovah! hate ye wrong (ver.
10). They who persist in wrong will be punished. The wronged - the imperilled - are to be preserved, to be rescued (ver. 10). Truly we may say, light has arisen for the righteous king
Hezekiah (ver. 11), and for myriads besides who will open their eyes. And, ye righteous, who are made glad in Jehovah, forget
not to give thanks to his Holy Memorial; with the understanding that “his Holy
Memorial” is “his Holy Name,”
Jehovah (Exod. 3:
15; Ps. 135: 1-3); that is, Yahweh; that is, the Becoming One; and that here, in this beautiful Sabbath
Service of Song, He hath prophetically BECOME the King of all
the earth, as
unveiled to your believing and rejoicing eyes.
For further “General Reflections,” see at the close of Ps. 99.
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PSALMS 98 and 99
DESCRIPTIVE TITLE - A Shorter Service of Song (for a
Sabbath Day).
ANALYSIS - Psalm 98: An Invitation to Sing the New Song of Jehovah’s Victory in
behalf of the House of Israel.
Psalm 99: Jehovah’s Assumption of Kingship Proclaimed: with a
Renewed Call to Worship.
[Librarian’s mark] Psalm.
PSALM 98
1 Sing ye, to Jehovah,
a song that is new,
for wondrous things hath he
done, -
his own right hand and his holy
arm have gotten him victory!a
2 Jehovah hath made known his
victory,
to the eyes of the nations hath
he unveiled his righteousness:
3 He hath remembered his
kindness and his faithfulness to the house of
all the ends of the earth - have seen
the victory a of our God.
4 Shout ye, to Jehovah, all the earth,
break forth and ring out your joy
and make ye melody:
5 Make ye melody, to Jehovah, with the lyre, -
with the lyre, and the
voice of psalmody;
6 With trumpets, and the
sound of the horn
shout ye, before the
King - Jehovah!
7 Let the sea thunder, and the fulness thereof,
the world, and they who
dwell therein:
8 The streams - let them
clap their hands,
together the mountains - let them
ring out their joy:-
9 Before Jehovah, for he is
coming to judge the earth
he will judge the world with
righteousness,
and the peoples with equity.
a Or: “salvation.”
[No mark - whether Librarian’s or
Chief Musician’s mark.]
PSALM 99
1 Jehovah hath become king a - let the
peoples tremble,
enthroned on cherubim - let the
earth quiver.
2 Jehovah in
and high is he above all the peoples.
3 Let them thank thy name, great and
fearful:
(4) “Holy is he!
- 4 and strong,
a king who loveth justice.”
Thou hast established equity,
justice and righteousness in Jacob
hast thou thyself; wrought.
5 Exalt ye Jehovah our
God,
and bow down at his footstool:
“Holy b is he”!
6 Moses and Aaron, among his
priests,
and Samuel, among the
callers on his name,-
callers were they unto Jehovah, and he used
to answer them:
7 In a pillar of cloud used he to speak unto them:
they kept his testimonies,
and a statute he gave to them.
8 Jehovah our God! thou thyself didst answer them,
a forgiving GOD
becamest thou unto them;
but one taking vengeance on the
evil deeds of them.
9 Exalt ye Jehovah our God,
and bow down at his holy mountain;
For holy is Jehovah our God.
[No mark - whether Librarian’s or
Chief Musician’s mark.]
a As in 93: 1; 96: 10; 97: 1.
b Some codex = equals written copy, (with Septuagint (i.e., early Greek version) and, Vulgate
(Latin):
“For holy” - Ginsburg’s notes in his
Massoretico-Critical Hebrew Bible.
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EXPOSITION
The warrant for regarding Pss. 98 and 99 as a Shorter Service of Song for Sabbath Worship is informal,
but probably sufficient. The comparative
brevity of this “Service” is
obvious. Its distinctness from what has
gone before is marked by the superscribed word Psalm over 98. Its
substantial identity of theme with Pss.
92-97 is
easily perceived; and chiefly appears in the recurrence of the Proclamation of
Jehovah’s Kingship, sustained by similar invitations to worship, and a
repetition, in 98:
9, of the herald note of 96: 13.
Ps. 98 opens
like 96, only with a clearer statement of
the precise nature of Jehovah’s victory: that it amounts to an unveiling of
his righteousness, by fulfilling his promises to the house of
Ps. 99 contains
a considerable amount of new matter: as, for example, Jehovah’s occupancy of
his cherubic throne;
The foregoing rapid survey of the two Sabbath Services of Song
has been submitted for the purpose of preparing the reader for the following
GENERAL REFLECTIONS
on the entire twofold series of psalms whose
Keynote is Jehovah hath become King.
The first reflection is: That here we have intimated some NEW DIVINE ACTION based upon the abiding and unalterable Sovereignty of God, but in advance
of it; coming into effect at a special time and place and under special
circumstances; and furthermore leading to results so stupendous as naturally to
raise the question how far they have even yet been fulfilled. It is satisfactory to observe with what
practical unanimity Expositors agree that such “New
Divine Action” is affirmed by the great words of proclamation four times
over used in these psalms: Yahweh malak
= Jehovah hath become King. Thus the “Speakers’
Commentary” says: “The verb rendered ‘is (now) king’ is here used in
reference to the inauguration of the Theocracy in its final and complete
manifestation.” Similarly
Perowne: “Is KING”. More exactly, ‘hath become King,’ as if by a
solemn coronation (comp. the same expression of a new monarch ascending the
throne, 2 Sam.
15: 10; 1 Kings 1: 11; 2 Kings 9: 13). He has been King from everlasting, but now
His kingdom is visibly set up, His power and His majesty fully displayed and
acknowledged.” More fully
Delitzsch: “Heretofore Jahve’s
rule, seeing He has waived the use of His omnipotence, has been self-abasement
and self-renunciation; now, however, He manifests Himself in all His majesty,
which soars above everything; He has put this on as a garment; He is King and
now shows himself to the world in His royal robe.” In like manner Thrupp:
“There is in the words themselves, as Hengstenberg
justly remarks, an allusion to the form used at the proclamation of the
commencement of the reign of an earthly sovereign; and hence it follows that
the language does not apply to the constant government of God, but to a new
glorious manifestation of his dominion.”
With equal explicitness, Briggs: “Not the
assertion of his everlasting royal prerogative, but the joyous celebration of
the fact that He has now shown Himself to be King by a royal advent, taking His
place on His throne to govern the world Himself, and no longer through
inefficient or wicked servants.” (Cp. Intro.,
The second reflection is: That these psalms are JEHOVISTIC RATHER THAN MESSIANIC, as a glance through them will at once shew. No Messiah, no Son of David, is once named in
them. At first this is startling:
ultimately it seems less strange. For,
let us consider: Since “No man can see God and live” (Exo. 33:
20), since “No man hath seen God himself at any time” (John 1: 18), it follows that whenever men have
been held to have seen him, it can only have been through a veil. It is well known that there are incidents and
suggestions even in the Old Testament looking in this direction, particularly
with regard to the Messenger in whom is the name Jehovah (Gen. 16: 10-13; 19: 24; Exo. 23: 20, 21; 33: 14, 15). Then, too, Christians, holding Jesus of
Nazareth to have been the Messiah, consistently conceive of him as the veiled
manifestation of Deity - veiled “in self-renunciation and
self-abasement”; and therefore no man was compelled to see his glory;
which glory, now, for the present, is “hid in God” (Col. 3: 3) and ready at any time to burst forth as in these Theocratic psalms.
A third reflection
naturally follows: That these psalms, for their fulfilment, await THE MESSIAH’S SECOND ADVENT. The psalms are highly
poetic, and even dramatic, as all sober interpreters admit. Still, it by no means follows that they have
no clear burden to deliver; and therefore the dictate of sanctified common
sense would appear to be to say, Will the burden of these psalms, when due
allowance has been made for figures of speech, be well met when the Messiah
returns, according to the plain
sense of his own and his apostles’ sayings about his Second Coming?
We may here strengthen these reflections by quoting the
weighty words of Delitzsch: “In addition to such
psalms as behold in anticipation the Messianic future, whether it be prophetically
or only typically, or typically and prophetically at once, as the
world-overcoming and world-blessing kingship of the Anointed of Jahve, there
are others, in which the perfected theocracy as such is seen beforehand, not as
the parousia of a human king, but as the parousia of Jahve himself, as the
kingdom of God manifest in all its glory.
These theocratic psalms form along with the Christocratic
two series of prophecies, referring to the last time, which run parallel with
one another. The one has for its goal
the Anointed of Jahve, who from out of
A fourth reflection is: That as soon as the ultimate blending of
the Theocratic and the Christocratic prophecies is
accepted, and information is accordingly sought in the New Testament regarding
the Messiah’s Second Coming as destined to fulfil these psalms, particularly as
to the Destruction of the Lawless One by that Second Coming, according to 2 Thes. 2,- so soon is THE POSITION OF PSALM 94 IN THIS SABBATH SERVICE OF SONG TRIUMPHANTLY VINDICATED.
It cannot be denied that its position here is extraordinary; nor can it
be doubted that the psalm itself - both in its description of so gigantic a
development of Lawlessness, as is portrayed therein, and in its
outcries for Divine Vengeance thereupon -
readily carries us beyond Hezekiah and beyond Sennacherib. It would surpass the wit of man to coin a
more apt phrase for describing the COMING LAWLESS ONE, in the awful doings to be permitted
him, than as the Throne of Engulfing Ruin framing
Mischief by Statute. Given,
then, the conclusions that this Throne of Iniquity will yet prove specially
disastrous to Hezekiah’s nation; and that Jehovah’s overthrow of that Throne
will constitute the great Victory by which the Theocracy will be visibly
set up on earth, and Jehovah’s final reign inaugurated, - then nothing could be
more appropriate than the insertion of this psalm just here in Hezekiah’s
larger Sabbath-day’s Service of Song.
Indeed, only to see this, is nothing short of discovering a new,
unexpected and most welcome proof of Jehovah’s wondrous over ruling ways and it
may be forgiven any Christian if, under such an impulse, with bowed head he
here sends up to heaven his welcome to YAHWEH-CHRIST as EARTH’S COMING KING.
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PSALM 100
DESCRIPTIVE TITLE - Invitation to All the Earth to Come In before Jehovah and
Worship.
ANALYSIS.
[Librarian’s mark.]
Psalm - For a Thank-offering (or For Thanksgiving.)
1 Shout ye unto Jehovah, all the earth!
2 serve Jehovah with gladness
come in before him with a
ringing cry.
3 Know that Jehovah, he is God,
he made us, and his are we, a
his people, and the flock of
his shepherding. b
4 Come into his gates, with
thanksgiving, c
into his courts with praise, d -
give thanks to him, bless his
name;
5 For good is Jehovah,
to the ages his kindness, -
and unto generation after generation
his faithfulness.
[No mark - whether Librarian’s or
Chief Musician’s mark.]
a So Heb. marg. (kri = read
preferred by Delitzsch, Perowne, Kirkpatrick, Briggs, Driver.)
Hebrew text
(Massoretic Text.
[For “Massorites”]): “and not we ourselves.”
b Cp. 79: 13;
95: 7, (Isa. 63:11).
c Or: “a thank-offering.”
d Or: “a song
of praise.”
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EXPOSITION
The
close connection between
this psalm and those immediately preceding it is evident, and at once supplies guidance
as to the breadth of the outlook which should be given to the first line as an
appeal to all the earth rather than to “all the land.” It is true that the Hebrew word 'erez
means “land” as well as “earth,” and further true that once in the foregoing series (96: 1) it has here been rendered “land.”
But that was for a special passing reason; namely, because of an
apparent distinction between a particular “land” and the remaining nations of the
earth. Hence, as it cannot be denied
that in most of the 15 occurrences of the word in Pss. 94-100, “earth” has far stronger claims to stand in
English than the more limited word “land,” it is submitted that “earth” is the right word here. The dominant thought of the psalms now
closing is that Jehovah is lord of the whole earth and has now entered upon the
manifest kingship of all the world; and that no
sufficient reason comes in here, at the opening of this new and final psalm, to
limit the appeal to a smaller sphere than the whole world. We are not just here following Asaph pleading
for the reunion of the tribes, as we were some twenty psalms back; but rather
are we under the guidance of Isaiah, who is familiar with the conception that
Jehovah’s temple in Jerusalem is to be “a house of prayer for all
peoples” (Isa.
56: 7) and that Jehovah purposes to “gather
together all nations and tongues to come and see his glory,” yea and that “all flesh
shall come in and bow down before me, Saith Jehovah” (Isa. 66: 18, 23). Hence we may with
reasonable confidence give the fullest possible breadth to the opening
invitation: Shout ye unto
Jehovah, all the earth.
The more firmly we take up this
position, the more frankly it becomes us now to submit that the language of the
psalm points to the gathering, periodic or otherwise, of all the earth to a
local centre: Come in before Jehovah - Come into his gates,
into his courts (ver. 4). And this too is in the
spirit of the psalms which have gone before, in which are many local indications:
such as the house of Jehovah, the courts of our God (92:
13)- Come
to meet his face, Come in, let us kneel (95:
2, 6) - Strength and beauty are
in his sanctuary (96: 6) - Bring ye a present and
come into his courts (96: 8) - Jehovah in Zion is great (99: 2)
- Bow down at his footstool (99: 5)
- Bow down at his holy mountain (99: 9).
So that it is entirely in the vein of these Sabbath-day Services of Song
to abide by the local indications in the psalm now before us. These psalms deal with
Note, then, what it is which is here set before us: it is
nothing less than a worshipping world - a world worshipping with unspeakable
gladness, because of what at first sight appear as two primordial truths, which
however ultimately resolve themselves into one; namely the relationship to the
world as both Creator and Shepherd sustained by Jehovah. This is the inspiration: this
the gladness: this the motive and theme of praise. “Ye men of all the earth, know this: that Jehovah, God of the Hebrew nation, of
grace and revelation and redemption is God
of all the earth; He made us, and His we are - His people, and the flock of his shepherding.” If
all the earth is appealed to, to shout with gladness and give a ringing cry, - this of necessity is to be the burden of that “ringing cry”: which prophetically implies that when
this song is sung according to its main intention, all the earth will have come
into line with all who know God and rejoice in him as their Shepherding
Creator. As Delitzsch has well said: In
this announcement, He made us, and His we are, “lies a
rich store of comfort and warning; for the Creator is also the Owner; His heart
clings to his creature; while the latter owes himself entirely to Him, without
whom he would neither have had being nor continue to exist.” It is worth while to ensure perfect
correctness by observing that the Divine relationships to all the earth here
celebrated are essentially one. It does
not say, “He created us all, and some of us are his
people and the flock of his shepherding.” That may be the exact truth now; yea, and may
have been the exact truth in all past ages.
But it is not the whole truth as it is to be realised and rung out with
joy in the Final Theocracy; for it is not the whole truth as here set forth by prophetic
anticipation. The “various reading” here preferred itself carries us
further: He made us, and His we are - His people. Not merely “his creatures”; which of itself turns the broader
word made to excellent account. He made
us - what we are, His people; He made us - what we are, His flock. This opens our eyes to see that to make here
means more than to Create: it includes tending, training, forming our
characters. What he makes us to be is not
mere men; but good men, communing with him, like him; otherwise we could not be
His people, the flock of his shepherding.
Does this lofty conception, when applied to all the earth,
introduce confusion? It may: if we make
of the past an iron-mould for the stereotyping of our thoughts; otherwise,
there is no necessity for confusion. God
has already had more than one people on the earth: the Jewish nation - now alas
in a great measure in abeyance; the Christian Church - sometimes too wise in
her own conceits, as for instance when she so far forgets herself as to affirm
that “the Church Catholic has been manifestly revealed
as that ‘mountain of the Lord.’ unto which, according to prophecy, all nations
were to flow.”* We have only to let in the thought that as God has had
more “peoples” than one in succession to each
other, so he may yet have many peoples simultaneously whom he may graciously
acknowledge as his own. Of this prospect
we have distinct intimations both in Old Testament and New: In the former, in
such remarkable words as these - “In that day shall Israel be a third with Egypt and
with Assyria, - a blessing in the midst of the earth: whom Jehovah of hosts hath blessed saying, - Blessed be my people - the
Egyptians, and the work of my hands - the Assyrians, and mine own
inheritance - Israel” (Isa.
19: 24).
And in the latter, in such ravishing words as these - “Lo! the tent of God is with
men, And he will tabernacle with them, And they shall be his peoples [mark the plural!], And he shall be God with them, And he will wipe away every tear out
of their eyes” (Rev. 21: 3, 4). Confusion disappears when the
right perspective is obtained. The
glorious prospect therefore is: That in the Final Theocracy all the earth will
be able to shout - Jehovah made us and his we are, - his people and the flock of his
shepherding.
* Thrupp, Vol. II, 147.
We may perhaps revert to
*
* *
[PART 2]
PSALMS 92-100
By
ARNO C. GAEBELEIN
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THE NINETY-SECOND PSALM
After
that beautiful ninety-first Psalm, the Psalm of the second Man, the description of His perfect
life and trust, His preservation and triumph, praise and worship is in
order. This we find in the next
Psalm. It has for an inscription “for the Sabbath Day.”
Blessed rest is found in praise, in worship and adoration. But let us remind ourselves that the full
worship and praise is not revealed here.
It is worship connected with an earthly sanctuary, and prophetically
looks forward to the time when once more an earthly sanctuary is in
I. The Praise of the Most High. (Verses l-5.)
“It is a good
thing to give praise unto Jehovah,
And to sing praises unto Thy
Name, O most high!
To make known Thy loving-kindness
in the morning
And Thy faithfulness night
after night.
Upon an instrument of ten
strings and the lute,
Upon the harp with a solemn
sound.
For Thou, O Jehovah, hast made me
glad by Thy work.
I will triumphantly sing of
the work of Thy hands.
Jehovah, how great
are Thy works!
Thy thoughts are very deep.”
The name “Most High” is one of the millennial names of God, when all the
earth will worship and praise Him. The
Psalms which follow, beginning with “The Lord reigneth” and with “singing unto the Lord”
(93: 95
to 100) are all prophetic of
the coming age when the Lord indeed will reign.
The work of the Lord by which gladness has come to His people
Besides this prophetic application we find something here for
ourselves. Every morning when we awake
we must praise Him for all His loving-kindness.
Look upon each day as a new gift from Himself
and praise Him for it. The more we begin
the day in praise and worship the better it will go during that day. Neglect of praise, even when all things are
against us, grieves the Holy Spirit.
When evening comes we must praise Him for His faithfulness revealed
during the day spent. And thus morning
and night must be filled with thanksgiving.
And when we wake during the night His Spirit can direct us also to
praise Him.
The musical instruments mentioned are often used to justify
the use of elaborate music, musical programs, etc., in “Church services.” But true
Christian worship cannot be patterned after
II. The Brutish and the
Fool, Their Coming Destruction. (Verses
6-10.)
“A brutish man
knoweth not,
And a fool does not
understand this.
When the wicked spring as
the grass,
And all the workers of
iniquity flourish,
Then shall they be destroyed
for ever;
But Thou art a high place
for ever, Jehovah.
For, lo, Thine enemies, Jehovah,
For, lo, Thine enemies shall perish;
All the workers of iniquity
shall be scattered.
But my horn shalt Thou exalt
like that of an unicorn;
I shall be anointed with
fresh oil.”
It is a retrospect, reviewing the conditions as they were on
the earth before the Lord interfered.
Man is brutish, acting like the beast that perishes. Man is made upright, to walk and look up, but
he looks down and grovels in the filth of sin.
He is a fool, lacking his right senses, and he cannot understand because
his foolish heart is darkened. And the
brutish man and the fool, who deny God, reject His Word, despise His offer of
salvation, loving darkness more than light, increase everywhere as the age is
about to end. Then comes the great
plunge so vividly described in the Word of God, when man becomes altogether
foolish and acts rebellious against God and against His Anointed. Then when in material things all seems to
flourish, when they say “Peace and safety,” sudden destruction will be their lot. But Jehovah remains the high place, the place
of shelter and refuge for His people.
His enemies, and
III. The Blessed Portion of a Redeemed People.
(Verses 11-13.)
“Mine eye
shall witness as to mine enemies,
Mine ears shall hear about
the wicked that rise up against me.
The righteous shall flourish
like the palm tree,
He shall grow like a cedar
of Lebanon.
They that are planted in the
house of Jehovah,
Shall flourish in the courts
of our God.
They shall still be strong
in old age,
They shall have life and be
green;
To witness that Jehovah is
upright.
He is my rock and there is
no perversity in Him.”
The redeemed shall see the complete overthrow of all their
enemies. Their ears will hear of the
defeat. The palm tree and the cedar of
Lebanon are mentioned. The palm tree is
the emblem of victory; the cedar denotes strength and seriousness. Such are the righteous as they walk in
fellowship with Jehovah. He takes care
of them and even in old age their strength will be undiminished. While all this is in a measure true now, it
will be accomplished in redeemed
-------
THE NINETY-THIRD PSALM
A brief, but a most instructive
prophetic Psalm. It consists only of five verses. They are in fullest keeping with the two
preceding Psalms.
“Jehovah
reigneth!
He is clothed with majesty;
Jehovah is clothed, He hath
girded Himself with strength;
The World also is
established, that it shall not be moved.
Thy throne is established of
old -
Thou art from eternity.”
Jehovah has come to begin His glorious reign over the [present] earth. It is Jehovah the Son. He appeared once unto Moses in the burning
bush announcing that He would come down, to deliver His people, to bring them
out and to bring them in. He came and
delivered
He has a garment of majesty, clothed with majesty and with strength.
This does not mean a spiritual majesty.
Jehovah has a spiritual glory but there
is another glory. It is a physical, a
visible glory. This is the glory so
often mentioned in the Old Testament and in prophecy. This is the glory the Saints of God beheld of
old. It was a visible glory which was
seen in
Then once more the rebellion, the opposition which precedes
the enthronement of the King of Glory is brought into
view.
“The floods
have lifted up, O Jehovah
The floods have lifted up
their voice;
The floods lift up their
waves.
Mightier is Jehovah on high
Than the sound of many
waters of the tumultuous waves of the sea.
Thy testimonies are very
sure,
Holiness becometh Thy house, Jehovah for ever.”
Floods in Scripture symbolically mean rebellion and
opposition. All the powers of Satan, the
enemy of God, were manifested in the final struggle, and completely exhausted. Then Jehovah showed Himself mightier than all
the powers of evil. Evil was completely
defeated; Satan’s power crushed and Satan bound. Truth is vindicated; His testimonies have
proved true. Holiness is now the leading
characteristic of His house. “In that Day
shall there be upon the bells of the horses ‘holiness
unto the Lord’ and the pots in the Lord’s house
shall be like the bowls before the altar. Yea every pot in
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THE NINETY-FOURTH PSALM
This
Psalm begins another interesting section; another cluster of Psalms, one linked to the other, revealing
a consecutive story, as we have seen so often before. The section extends from the ninety-fourth to the one hundredth Psalm. The story is prophetic throughout. Five of these Psalms are glorious millennial Psalms celebrating the glorious manifestation of
the Lord and His reign as King. Inasmuch
as the manifestation of the Lord and His reign is preceded by the time of Jacob’s
trouble, the first Psalm: of this
series gives us a picture of the prevailing afflictions of the righteous
remnant and their cry to the Lord to act in their behalf and deliver them.
I. The Plea to the Judge
of the Earth. (Verses 1-7.)
“Jehovah, God of vengeances -
God of vengeances - Shine forth!
Lift up Thyself, Thou Judge
of the earth!
Recompense the proud.
Jehovah, how long
shall the wicked -
How long shall the wicked
triumph?
How long shall he speak
arrogantly?
All the workers of iniquity
boast themselves.
They break in pieces Thy
people, Jehovah,
And afflict Thine, heritage.
They slay the widow and the
stranger,
And murder the fatherless.
And they say the Lord doth
not see
Neither doth the God of
Jacob regard it.”
The prayer is addressed to Jehovah as the God of vengeances,
the God of righteousness, the covenant keeping God, who does not forget his
suffering and afflicted people.
It reminds us of the parable of the widow and the unjust judge
spoken by our Lord (Luke 18: 1-8). She cried, “Avenge me of
mine adversary.” The judge would not act, but finally he,
though he did not fear God nor regard man’s opinion,
answered her cry. Then our Lord said: “And shall
not God avenge His own elect, who cry day and
night unto Him, though He bear
long with them?” The widow represents the godly in
[* This
is a dispensational teaching which I do not agree with. Our Lord Jesus has more than Jewish disciples within
His ‘Church’! - Ed.]
It is a brief prayer, “Shine forth!” but it contains much. A similar prayer is recorded in Isaiah which
belongs to the same time and will then be prayed. “Oh that Thou wouldest rend the heavens
and come down” (Isa.
64: 1). They know One is in
the heavens, One is at the right hand of God (Psa. 80:
17). They
know he will descend and appear in their behalf to judge the earth in righteousness,
and therefore they plead - Shine forth! Rend the heavens! Come down! Then follows a description
of their suffering. The wicked triumph over them. How long shall they triumph? The workers of iniquity boast themselves in
arrogancy. They crush His [redeemed] people and afflict that which is the
Lord’s heritage. Widows and strangers
are slain and the fatherless murdered. In
their atheism they boast and ridicule the thought that there is a God who sees,
who knows, who regards it. This is
already the vicious spirit of our own times, the times when God is ruled out
and defied. But how much worse will
it be when the restraining influence of the Spirit of God is removed!
II. Jehovah Knows and
Sees. (Verses
8-13.)
“Understand, ye brutish among the people;
And ye fools, when will
you get knowledge?
He that planted the ear - shall He
not hear?
He that formed the eye - shall He not
see?
He that restraineth the
nations, shall not He correct?
And He that teacheth
knowledge?
Jehovah knoweth the thoughts
of man.
That they are vanity.
Blessed is the man whom Thou
chastenest, Jehovah,
And teachest him out of the
law;
To give him rest in the days
of evil
Until the pit be digged for the wicked.”
Jehovah knows and sees! The ungodly are like the dumb beasts, they are
brutes.
The brute does not know God, for the animal creation has not
the capacity which man, the offspring of God, has. Man, refusing to listen to God, sinks down to
the level of the brute. They reject His
Word* and
become fools with no understanding.
[* That
is, they reject Christ; and His prophecies. For a selected few see: Matt. 5: 20; 7: 21; 8; 12: 32b, 36; 16: 18; 20: 26, 27; 24: 13, 44-46, etc.]
But he that formed the ear, hears. He that formed the eye so wonderfully,
sees. When the age ends, mankind will
have cast off the fear of God and become brutish. What happened to Nebuchadnezzar, the proud
monarch, will happen to the apostates
among Jews and Gentiles. But Jehovah
knows all, He knoweth the thoughts of man. But blessed is the man who yields to the
restrainings of Jehovah, who is taught in His law and in His Word. He can even have rest and quietness in the
evil day and wait patiently till the time comes when the pit is digged for the
wicked.
III. The Comfort of
Faith. (Verses 14-19.)
“For Jehovah
will not cast off His people
Neither forsake
His heritage.
But judgment shall return
unto righteousness,
And all
the upright in heart shall follow it.
Who will rise up for me
against the evil-doers?
Who will take a stand for me
against the evil workers?
Unless Jehovah had been my
help
My soul would soon have
dwelt in silence.
When I said, my foot
slippeth,
Thy mercy sustained me.
In the multitudes of my
anxieties within me
Thy comforts calm my soul.”
God is faithful! He has
pledged Himself not to leave nor to forsake. He is a God whose gifts and calling are
without repentance. The long history and
experience of
IV. Jehovah Will Cut
Them Off. (Verses 20-23.)
“Shall the
throne of wickedness be in fellowship with thee,
Which frameth mischief
according to statute?
They gather themselves
together against the soul of the righteous,
And condemn the innocent
blood.
But Jehovah is my defence,
And my God is the rock of
refuge for me.
And He shall bring upon them
their own iniquity,
And shall cut them off in
their wickedness.
Jehovah our God will cut
them off.”
The throne of wickedness will ere long
be established on the earth. The rightful One, the
King of glory, is not enthroned, and before His enthronement comes, another one
will reign for a short time, the man of sin, the lawless one, Satan’s man. But will God tolerate this forever? Will He stand by when the evil forces gather
against the righteous and shed innocent blood? The trusting soul knows the answer.
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THE NINETY-FIFTH PSALM
This
Psalm is a delightful hymn of praise. It may he termed the preface to the millennial Psalms which
follow. The praise comes from the lips of the saved remnant of
I. The Praise of Jehovah.
(Verses 1-5.)
“Come, let us sing unto
Jehovah;
Let us make a joyful noise
to the rock of our salvation.
Let us come before His
presence with thanksgiving,
Let us make a joyful sound
unto Him with psalms.
For Jehovah is a great God,
And a great King above all
gods.
In His hand are the deep
places of the earth;
And the heights of the hills
are His.
The sea is His, and He made
it,
And His hands formed the dry
land.”
They break forth into singing for the signs of the dawn of the
morning are about them. They realize
that the answer from above to the prayer of the preceding Psalm “Shine forth!” is about to come, and He whom they
expect will soon appear. So they begin
to sing though the full outburst of praise is not yet. The Psalms which follow record this full
praise. They speak of Jehovah as a great
God and King. He controls the sea and
the land, the deep places of the earth and the heights of the hills are His. Here we must think of Him, who is Jehovah and
who was manifested in the flesh, our Lord. He is the One by whom and for whom all things
were created. In that impressive scene
in Revelation (Chapter
10) He is revealed
as the mighty angel clothed with the sun, His face shining like the sun and His
feet as pillars of fire. Then He is seen
setting His right foot upon the sea and His left foot upon the earth. “And He cried with a loud voice,
as when a lion roareth; and
when He had cried seven thunders uttered their voices.” In this vision He is seen about to claim that
which is His, sea and land, while the loud voice like the voice of a roaring
lion is symbolical of the impending judgment. It falls in line with the words of this Psalm.
II. The Call to Worship
and the Warning. (Verses 6-11.)
“Come, let us worship and bow down;
Let us kneel before Jehovah
our Maker.
For He is our God
And we are the people of His
pasture,
The sheep
of His hand.
Today if ye will hear His
voice,
Harden not your heart, as at
Meribah,
In the days of
When your fathers tempted Me,
Proved Me
and saw My work.
Forty years was I grieved
with that generation, and said
It is a people that do err
in their hearts,
And they have not known My ways;
Wherefore I sware in Mine
anger,
That they should not enter into My rest.”
It is a call to all
But they must hear His
voice, they must return unto Him, they must be obedient; if stiff-necked as their
fathers were and unbelieving, they cannot enter into the rest and promised glory.
And so, as other Scriptures tell us, the
disobedient in
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THE NINETY-SIXTH
PSALM
The next
Psalms, from the ninety-sixth to the one hundredth
celebrate prophetically the manifestation of Jehovah and His reign on and over the earth. We call them the
singing Psalms. The groans have ceased,
and the singing has begun, because “Jehovah reigneth.” Ritualistic denominations use these Psalms as
if all is now found accomplished in Christendom, but they overlook the prophetic feature. So do many of our
psalm-singing Presbyterians, who spiritualize these Psalms and read into
them the spiritual reign of Christ in the Church. But these Psalms are
prophetic throughout. They look forward to the
day when He appears, when the Messianic kingdom as revealed to David in a
previous Psalm (the 72)
has come, when righteousness and peace are enthroned through Him, who is the
King of righteousness and the King of peace. The Greek translation, known as the Septuagint, invented an
inscription which must be rejected. The
translators state that it refers to the time “when the
house was built after the captivity.” This is the view of the destructive school of
criticism, which also claims that most of the Psalms are post-exilic. But this is contradicted by 1 Chronicles 16: 23-33 in which we find this Psalm, with some variations, quoted and
used in the times of David when the Ark was brought into the sanctuary at Zion.
But what blessed meaning this Psalm
takes on when we consider it as a great prophecy!
I. The New Song. (Verses 1-3.)
“O sing unto Jehovah a new song,
Sing unto Jehovah, all the
earth.
Sing unto Jehovah!
Bless His Name!
Publish His Salvation from
day to day.
Declare His glory among the
nations,
His marvellous works among
all the peoples.”
It is a glorious beginning! He has come and by His coming He has fulfilled
and continues to fulfil all that had been spoken by His prophets of old. The remnant of
[* vv. 5, 6.]
II. Jehovah Alone is Great. (Verses 4-6)
“For great is
Jehovah, and greatly to be praised;
He must be feared above all
gods.
For all the gods of the
peoples are idols,
But Jehovah made the heavens.
Honour and majesty are
before Him,
Strength and beauty are in
His sanctuary.”
Idolatry is mentioned here, for it will end with His glorious
manifestation. Idolatry is the result of
man’s darkened heart and Satan’s deceptions. How it all came into existence, the origin,
development and degrading process of idolatry is written in the opening chapter
of the Roman Epistle. Man turned away
from God, who has revealed Himself in the works of creation. The terrible evolution of man’s false worship
starts with “thinking themselves wise,” leaving the worship of the one God. So-called “philosophy”
(the human love of wisdom) still leads in the same way. Then followed in ancient
times man-hero worship, followed by the worship of birds, by the worship of
quadrupeds, and finally, the worship of the creeping things, the serpent
itself. Then came
the terrible plunge into the vilest abyss. The story of idolatry is still being written. Nor must we forget that the modern man with
all his assumed culture and nobleness, but rejecting God and His Truth, is also
an idolator. He bows his knees to the
creatures and makes his own idols. All
will be stopped when the Lord is visibly manifested and Satan is chained, “to seduce the
nations no more” when
Atheism, Deism, Polytheism and Pantheism will be answered by the glorious
manifestation of Him who has made the heavens and whose beauty and majesty will
be beheld in that day.
III. His Glorious
Worship. (Verses 7-10.)
“Give unto
Jehovah, all families of the peoples,
Give unto Jehovah glory and
strength.
Give unto Jehovah the glory
of His name;
Bring an offering and come
into His courts.
Worship Jehovah in the
beauty of holiness,
Tremble before Him all the
earth.
Say it among the nations - Jehovah is
King.
The world is established, it cannot be
moved;
He shall judge the peoples
righteously.”
The true universal worship will then be introduced and all false
worship ends. The times of the Gentiles began with a false worship, when a monarch
assumed headship over worship and demanded that all people should worship
alike according to his dictates (Dan 3). Such attempts to create a unified
worship persisted throughout the times of the Gentiles. The Romish Church has
done the same thing, and still does it. She persecutes all who refuse to
worship her idols. Protestantism also attempts such a unified worship and has
its federation. Finally the times of the Gentiles end as they began, with the
false worship of the beast and his image (Rev. 13).
But when He is revealed it will
all end and true worship follow. "The Lord shall be King over all the
earth; in that day shall there be one Lord and His Name shall be one."
(Zech. 14:9). The nations of the earth will go up to
IV. Creation’s Worship. (Verses 11-13.)
“Let the heavens rejoice, let the
earth be glad;
Let the sea roar and the fulness
thereof.
Let the field be joyful, and all that
is therein;
Then shall all the trees of the wood
sing joyously
Before the Lord; for He is come.
He is come to judge the earth.
He judges the world in righteousness
And the peoples in His faithfulness.”
All will fall in line with this true worship. It will not be
confined to man. All creation will burst out in singing. The heavens above make
known their joy. The whole earth is glad. The thundering sea‑waves join
in the Hallelujah chorus. The trees, too, sing and express their gladness in
some way known to the Creator, who alone is worthy. Creation's Lord and
Creation's Redeemer is here to finish redemption's story. What a glorious day
it will be!
“O scenes surpassing fable, and yet true, Scenes of
accomplished bliss! which who can see, Though but in
distant prospect, and not feel His soul refreshed with foretaste of the joy?
Rivers of gladness water all the earth, And clothe all
climes with beauty; the reproach Of barrenness is past. The fruitful field
Laughs with abundance; and the land once lean, Or
fertile only in its own disgrace, Exults to see its thistly curse repealed. The various seasons woven into one, And that one season an eternal
spring.” - W. Cowper.
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THE NINETY-SEVENTH PSALM
This
Psalm is closely linked with the preceding one. The reign of
Jehovah after His return, what it is and what it includes,
is prophetically revealed. He is King,
the empty throne, not in heaven, but here
on [this] earth, is now filled. Gabriel’s great message to the Virgin of
Nazareth is now historically fulfilled - “The Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David.” It is a beautiful Psalm prophecy. In reading it and meditating upon it we can
even now enjoy in the anticipation of faith these coming glorious [and
millennial] events.
I. Jehovah Reigneth.
(Verses 1-5.)
“Jehovah
reigneth, let the earth exult:
Let the multitude of the
isles rejoice.
Cloud and darkness are round
about Him,
Righteousness and judgment
are the foundations of His throne.
A fire goeth before Him,
And consumeth His
adversaries all around.
His lightnings flash over
the world:
The earth saw and trembled,
The mountains melted like
wax at the presence of Jehovah
At the presence of the Lord
of the whole earth.”
In a certain hymn Christians sing: “Joy to the
world the Lord has come.” It refers to His
coming in humiliation. But the real joy will come when He appears
again in power and great glory, when all things will be put under His feet.
The cloud mentioned is the glory, the
visible glory, the Shekinah which is so frequently seen in the theophanies of
the Old Testament and which is equally prominent in the New. The darkness is symbolic of His judicial acts
which He will execute. The description
of His appearing is much like Habakkuk’s great prophetic ode (chap. 3). The foundations of His judgment throne are
righteousness and judgment. His reign
begins with great judgments. This is the
meaning of the statement, “A fire goeth before Him and consumeth the adversaries
round about.” He therefore
does not find a world converted to Him, welcoming Him as King, as an
unscriptural post-millennialism dreams. It
will be the very opposite. He finds
nations banded together, opposing Him and His coming reign. The satanically staged world revolution has
then reached its God-defying climax. Then
comes the lightning-like flash of His glory, which
will be known all over the earth. Then
the hills, symbolical of that which is high and exalted, melt like wax; the
high and lofty things will be made low, as we read in Isaiah (chapter
2). What a change comes in human history, when “the Lord of
the whole earth”
appears in majesty and power, when every mouth will be stopped and His enemies
will lick the dust.
II. The
Display of Glory and
“The heavens
declare His righteousness;
And all the peoples see His
glory.
Ashamed are all they that
serve graven images,
That boast themselves of idols;
All the gods worship Him.
And the daughters of
Because of Thy judgments, O Jehovah,
For Thou, Jehovah,
art most high above all the earth,
Thou art greatly exalted
above all gods.”
Once more the end of all idolatry is mentioned. It does not come till He comes. The testimony of the Gospel is nowhere
mentioned as bringing a change into the great pagan religious systems. The idol worship of
Interesting is the statement, “The
heavens declare His righteousness, and all the peoples see His glory.” In the nineteenth Psalm we read that the heavens declare the glory of God (Elohim) the Creator. Here is the declaration of His righteousness
written in the heavens, and the dwellers upon the earth, the nations everywhere
will see the glory not of God as Creator, but the glory of Jehovah, the
Redeemer. The New Testament revelation
will give us light here. When He comes to reign He does not come
alone. He brings His Saints, His co-heirs with Him. That redeemed body, the many sons He brings with Him to glory, makes known His
righteousness, that great work of righteousness on
The verse, “All the gods worship Him” is quoted in the opening chapter of
the Hebrew Epistle and there the word “angels” is used. Angels, the mighty ones, will be there to
attend Him in His triumph. And on earth
III. His Holiness.
(Verses 10-12.)
“Ye that love Jehovah, hate evil;
He keepeth the souls of His
Saints,
He delivereth them from the
hands of the wicked.
Light is sown for the
righteous,
And gladness for the upright
in heart.
Be rejoicing, ye righteous,
in Jehovah.
And give thanks to His holy
Name.”
This is an exhortation in view of that coming [millennial] day. It is addressed, as all
these Psalm exhortations are, to the godly in
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THE NINETY-EIGHTH PSALM
This
Psalm begins with the
call to sing. The forty-fifth and
forty-sixth begin in a similar way. It
is another great millennial Psalm. It
has been called, “an echo of the previous Psalms”:
but it is not, for there are no echoes in God’s Word, no vain repetitions. Nor is it true that much of this Psalm is taken
from the second part of the Prophet Isaiah.
The Psalm gives us a precious prophetic picture of the final victory of
God, where His righteousness and His Salvation are manifested to His people
It is like a great symphony, with a great theme and its
beautiful variations. The theme is
stated in the first three verses and the variations in the rest of the Psalm.
I. The Great Theme of
the New Song. (Verses 1-3)
“Sing unto the
Lord a new song,
For He hath done wonderful
things;
His right hand and His holy
arm hath achieved
For Him the victory.
Jehovah hath revealed His
salvation;
He hath made known His
righteousness
Visibly in the sight of the
nations.
He hath remembered His
loving-kindness and
His faithfulness to the
house of
All the ends
of the earth have seen
The salvation
of our God.”
The inspired Psalmist is projected into the distant
future. The singing times have
come. The Lord so long silent has broken
that mysterious age-long silence; the heavens have been opened and wonderful
marvellous things have been done by Him.
Not redemption by blood is here
in view, but redemption by power. As
we have seen in so many previous Psalms the remnant of
The Lord Jesus Christ is God’s right hand in salvation. After His finished work on the Cross in which
He did what was needed so that the holy and righteous God can save unholy and
unrighteous man, He took His seat at the right hand of God, to exercise His
offices as Priest and as Advocate. And
when He comes again He will act as God’s
right hand and as His holy arm in the execution of His judgments. Through
Him God makes known in that coming day His righteousness before the nations. Once more He remembered His covenant with
Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob (Exodus 2: 24). The faithful and
covenant keeping God acted and His mercy and loving-kindness were displayed in
their behalf and all the promises of blessing were fulfilled. The display of that salvation and the great
victory was not confined to
II. The Great Praise of
the Redeemed People. (Verses 4-6.)
“Shout aloud
unto Jehovah, all the land;
Break forth and sing for joy
and sing praises!
Sing unto the Lord with the
harp;
With the harp and the voice
of a psalm.
With trumpets and the sound
of the cornet
Make a joyful noise before
Jehovah, the King.”
Here then we have the first variation. It is the praise of
But as we shall learn in the next variation this praise is not confined to
[* Anti-millennialists take note.]
III. The Great
Finale. Universal
Praise. (Verses 7-9.)
“Let the sea
roar and the fulness thereof;
The world and its
inhabitants.
Let the rivers clap their
hands,
Let the hills together sing
for joy
Before Jehovah - For He came
to judge the earth;
He shall judge the world in righteousness.
And the peoples with fairness.”
This is the final variation.
The sea waves thunder their praises.
All nature will join in
praise as it is more fully revealed in the great Hallelujah chorus in the close
of this book. All the inhabitants of the
world will join in. Groaning creation groans no longer.
Peace on earth is fully come. Then “the mountains and the hills shall
break forth before you into singing, and all the
trees of the field shall clap their hands” (Isaiah
55: 12).
He judged in His manifestation.
He dealt that judgment stroke through which all His enemies and the
enemies of His people were defeated. He continues to judge in righteousness.
-------
THE NINETY-NINTH
PSALM
Again we find, as we have so often before, that this short and
beautiful Psalm is another link in this prophetic chain. While in the preceding one we heard the singing
of that coming day, when His salvation is fully known, in the Psalm which is
before us now we have a brief description of the [millennial] reign of the Lord, His supremacy and
His victory.
I. Jehovah Reigneth. (Verses 1-3.)
“Jehovah
reigneth; and the peoples tremble;
He is throned above the
cherubim; the earth is moved.
Jehovah is great in
And He is exalted above all the peoples.
Let them praise Thy great
and fearful Name; it is holy.”
Jehovah has now become King.
Well may we remember here who this Jehovah is. It is God the Son. Of Him Micah wrote, “Whose goings
forth have been from of old, from everlasting” (Micah 5:
2). He first appeared on
the threshold of human history and is seen in fellowship with man, created in
His own image. When sin had come He came
“to
seek and to save what was lost.” It was His voice which
said, “Adam, where art
thou?” Throughout the Old Testament history He
appeared many times. He called Abraham
out of
[* So says the Apostle Peter: “… and the prince of life you killed; whom the God raised out of dead ones, of whom we are witnesses:” (Acts
3: 15, Lit. Greek).]
His reign is in
II. Judgment, Service
and Worship. (Verses 4-6.)
“And the might
of the King loveth judgment;
Thou hast established equity,
Executing judgment and
righteousness in Jacob.
Exalt Jehovah our God, and worship
at His foot-stool; He is holy.
Moses and Aaron were among
His priests,
And Samuel among them that
called upon His Name;
They called upon Jehovah, and He
answered them.”
The King has all power; He is mighty. But He is not a tyrant - “the King
loveth judgment.” There can be no unrighteousness in His
government, as it is in all forms of government during man’s day. He has established equity. What David beheld and described in the Seventy-second
Psalm has now come
to pass. “He shall judge the poor of the
people. He
shall save the children of the needy, and shall
break in pieces the oppressor.” Man attempts to
produce a new government. Socialism and
Communism promise to put judgment with equity into the world. One only needs to look to the Soviets and
their Utopia to find it is all a delusion and leads to a worse tyranny. The true Christian is exhorted in the New
Testament to be patient, when the
conditions [and apostasy of His redeemed people] are in the earth preceding the coming of the King, to wait for His coming (James 5: 7,
8).
The world then is called to exalt Jehovah upon His throne and to bow at
His footstool.
The past is recalled.
Moses and Aaron were His priests and drew nigh unto Him. Samuel also called upon His Name; they all
called upon Jehovah and He answered them graciously. And as they did once on earth, so people are
now encouraged to draw near in worship, no longer through the blood of a
sacrifice, but through Him who is sacrifice and priest in His own person, the
Priest-King after the order of Melchisedek, having His own throne. But how much greater will be His answer when
the dispensation of the fullness of time has come! Isaiah 65: 24 will then be fulfilled: “And it shall
come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they
are yet speaking, I will hear.”
III. Jehovah in His
Holiness and Love. (Verses 7-9.)
“In the pillar
of cloud He spake unto them;
They kept His testimonies, and the
statute He gave unto them.
Jehovah our God, Thou didst
answer them;
A forgiving God Thou wast
unto them,
Even while taking vengeance
on their doings.
Exalt Jehovah our God;
And worship at His holy hill;
For Jehovah our God is holy.”
Jehovah is holy and demands holiness from His people. But He is also a forgiving Lord. John in his first Epistle gives us the two
definitions of God - “God is Light,” this is holiness; “God is Love.”
He dwelt with them of old in the pillar of cloud. He dwells now with them again, for Isaiah 4: 5 will have its fulfilment. “And the Lord
will create upon every dwelling place of
Then - [and not
at any time before then] - will come universal praise and worship in
-------
THE ONE HUNDREDTH
PSALM
1 “Shout aloud
unto Jehovah, all the earth!
2 Serve ye
Jehovah with gladness;
Come before Him with a
joyous song.
3 Know that Jehovah - He is God;
It is He that made us and
not we ourselves, -
We are His people and the
sheep of His pasture.
4 Come into His gates with
thanksgiving,
Into His courts with praise.
Give thanks unto Him; bless His
Name.
5 For Jehovah is good, His
loving-kindness is for ever,
And His faithfulness unto
all generations.”
What a glorious finale to this precious cluster of Psalms we
have followed (94 to 100)! “Jehovah is
King.” Jehovah is enthroned, sing unto Him! Praise Him! Worship Him!
Such is the keynote of these great prophetic utterances strung together
by the Holy Spirit like a brilliant necklace of wonderful gems.
And now comes the One Hundredth Psalm which we may rightly regard as a great doxology. There are many doxologies in the Word of
God. True believers sing today the one
found in the first chapter of the Ephesian Epistle. “Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with
every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ.” Another great doxology for us to sing now is
the one given to us by the Holy Spirit in the first chapter of Revelation. “Unto Him who
loveth us, and washed us from our sins in His
own blood, and hath made us priests and kings
unto God His Father; to Him be glory and
dominion for ever and ever.” But the doxology of
the One
Hundredth Psalm will be
sung when the Lord is King upon the throne [of David in the holy
city of Jerusalem
for: “He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most
High; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of
his father David: …” (Luke 1:
33, R.V.). ].
The whole earth is called upon to shout aloud unto Jehovah, to
sing a mighty Hallelujah, for the whole
earth knows now His salvation and enjoys the marvellous blessings of His [messianic and millennial (Rev. 20: 4)] kingdom. Nor do the nations brought to the knowledge
of Jehovah praise only. They have become
His servants and therefore serve Him with gladness, in willing service. They come before Him with a joyous song.
In the third verse is a blending together of creation and redemption. God is spoken of as creator first of
all. Jehovah, He is God! How this applies to our Lord Jesus
Christ. The Lord Jesus is God! By Him and for Him were all things
created. He hath made us and we are His,
by right of creation. This applies first
of all to
Then follows the gathering of other
nations. They come to worship with redeemed
The great post-exilic prophet Zechariah gives the same testimony. When
“Sing and rejoice, O daughter of
A great worship will then be in the [this] earth, located in
[* NOTE. That is, up to
** 2 Peter 3:
8.]