TITLE. A Psalm of Praise; or rather of
thanksgiving. This is the only psalm bearing this precise
inscription. It is all ablaze with grateful adoration, and has
for this reason been a great favourite with the people of God
ever since it was written. "Let us sing the Old
Hundredth" is one of the every-day expressions of the
Christian church, and will be so while men, exist whose hearts
are loyal to the Great King. Nothing can be more sublime this
side heaven than the singing of this noble psalm by a vast
congregation. Watts' paraphrase, beginning "Before
Jehovah's awful throne, "and the Scotch "All people
that on earth do dwell, "are both noble versions; and event
Tare and Brady rise beyond themselves when they sing—
"With one consent let all the earth
To God their cheerful voices raise."
In this divine lyric we sing with gladness
the creating power and goodness of the Lord, even as before with
trembling we adored his holiness.
EXPOSITION
Verse 1. Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye
lands. This is a repetition of Ps 98:4. The original word
signifies a glad shout, such as loyal subjects give when their
king appears among them. Our happy God should be worshipped by a
happy people; a cheerful spirit is in keeping with his nature,
his acts, and the gratitude which we should cherish for his
mercies. In every land Jehovah's goodness is seen, therefore in
every land should be be praised. Nearer will the world be in its
proper condition till with one unanimous shout it adores the
only God. O ye nations, how long will ye blindly reject him?
Your golden age will never arrive till ye with all your hearts
revere him.
Verse 2. Serve the LORD with gladness.
"Glad homage pay with awful mirth." He is our Lord,
and therefore he is to be served; he is our gracious Lord, and
therefore to be served with joy. The invitation to worship here
given is not a melancholy one, as though adoration were a
funeral solemnity, but a cheery gladsome exhortation, as though
we were bidden to a marriage feast. Come before his presence
with singing. We ought in worship to realise the presence of
God, and by an effort of the mind to approach him. This is an
act which must to every rightly instructed heart be one of great
solemnity, but at the same time it must not be performed in the
servility of fear, and therefore we come before him, not with
weepings and wailings, but with Psalms and hymns. Singing, as it
is a joyful, and at the same time a devout, exercise, should be
a constant form of approach to God. The measured, harmonious,
hearty utterance of praise by a congregation of really devout
persons is not merely decorous but delightful, and is a fit
anticipation of the worship of heaven, where praise has absorbed
prayer, and become the sole mode of adoration. How a certain
society of brethren can find it in their hearts to forbid
singing in public worship is a riddle which we cannot solve. We
feel inclined to say with Dr. Watts
"Let those refuse to sing
Who never knew our God;
But favourites of the heavenly king
Must speak his praise abroad."
Verse 3. Know ye that the Lord, he is God. Our
worship must be intelligent. We ought to know whom we worship
and why. "Man, know thyself, "is a wise aphorism, yet
to know our God is truer wisdom; and it is very questionable
whether a man can know himself until he knows his God. Jehovah
is God in the fullest, most absolute, and most exclusive sense,
he is God alone; to know him in that character and prove our
knowledge by obedience, trust, submission, zeal, and love is an
attainment which only grace can bestow. Only those who
practically recognise his Godhead are at all likely to offer
acceptable praise. It is he that hath made us, and not we
ourselves. Shall not the creature reverence its maker? Some men
live as if they made themselves; they call themselves
"self-made men, "and they adore their supposed
creators; but Christians recognise the origin of their being and
their well-being, and take no honour to themselves either for
being, or for being what they are. Neither in our first or
second creation dare we put so much as a finger upon the glory,
for it is the sole right and property of the Almighty. To
disclaim honour for ourselves is as necessary a part of true
reverence as to ascribe glory to the Lord. "Non nobis,
dominc!" will for ever remain the true believer's
confession. Of late philosophy has laboured hard to prove that
all things have been developed from atoms, or have, in other
words, made themselves: if this theory shall ever find
believers, there will certainly remain no reason for accusing
the superstitious of credulity, for the amount of credence
necessary to accept this dogma of scepticism is a thousandfold
greater than that which is required even by an absurd belief in
winking Madonnas, and smiling Bambinos. For our part, we find it
far more easy to believe that the Lord made us than that we were
developed by a long chain of natural selections from floating
atoms which fashioned themselves. We are his people, and the
sheep of his pasture. It is our honour to have been chosen from
all the world besides to be his own people, and our
privilege to be therefore guided by his wisdom, tended by his
care, and fed by his bounty. Sheep gather around their shepherd
and look up to him; in the same manner let us gather around the
great Shepherd of mankind. The avowal of our relation to God is
in itself praise; when we recount his goodness we are rendering
to him the best adoration; our songs require none of the
inventions of fictions, the bare facts are enough; the simple
narration of the mercies of the Lord is more astonishing than
the productions of imagination. That we are the sheep of his
pasture is a plain truth, and at the same time the very essence
of poetry.
Verse 4. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving.
To the occurrence of the word thanksgiving in this place
the Psalm probably owes its title. In all our public service the
rendering of thanks must abound; it is like the incense of the
temple, which filled the whole house with smoke. Expiatory
sacrifices are ended, but those of gratitude will never be out
of date. So long as we are receivers of mercy we must be givers
of thanks. Mercy permits us to enter his gates; let us praise
that mercy. What better subjcct for our thoughts in God's own
house than the Lord of the house. And into his courts with
praise. Into whatever court of the Lord you may enter, let your
admission be the subject of praise: thanks be to God, the
innermost court is now open to believers, and we enter into that
which is within the veil; it is incumbent upon us that we
acknowledge the high privilege by our songs. Be thankful unto
him. Let the praise be in your heart as well as on your tongue,
and let it all be for him to whom it all belongs. And bless his
name. He blessed you, bless him in return; bless his name, his
character, his person. Whatever he does, be sure that you bless
him for it; bless him when he takes away as well as when he
gives; bless him as long as you live, under all circumstances;
bless him in all his attributes, from whatever point of view you
consider him.
Verse 5. For the Lord is good. This sums up his
character and contains a mass of reasons for praise. He is good,
gracious, kind, bountiful, loving; yea, God is love. He who does
not praise the good is not good himself. The kind of praise
inculcated in the Psalm, viz., that of joy and gladness, is most
fitly urged upon us by an argument from the goodness of God. His
mercy is everlasting. God is not mere justice, stern and cold;
he has bowels of compassion, and wills not the sinner's death.
Towards his own people mercy is still more conspicuously
displayed; it has been theirs from all eternity, and shall be
theirs world without end. Everlasting mercy is a glorious theme
for sacred song. And his truth endureth to all generations. No
fickle being is he, promising and forgetting. He has entered
into covenant with his people, and he will never revoke it, nor
alter the thing that has gone out of his lips. As our fathers
found him faithful, so will our sons, and their seed for ever. A
changeable God would be a terror to the righteous, they would
have no sure anchorage, and amid a changing world they would be
driven to and fro in perpetual fear of shipwreck. It were well
if the truth of divine faithfulness were more fully remembered
by some theologians; it would overturn their belief in the final
fall of believers, and teach them a more consolatory system. Our
heart leaps for joy as we bow before One who has never broken
his word or changed his purpose.
"As well might he his being quit
As break his promise or forget."
Resting on his sure word, we feel that joy which is here
commanded, and in the strength of it we come into his presence
even now, and speak good of his name.
EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS
TITLE. This is the only Psalm in the whole collection
entitled "A Psalm of Praise." It is supposed to
have received this appellation because peculiarly adapted, if
not designed to be sung, when the sacrifices of thanksgiving
were offered. See Le 7:12. The Greeks think it was written by
David, who here invites all the world to join with the
Israelites in the service of God, whose divine sovereignty he
here recognises. Samuel Burder.
Whole Psalm. If we are right in regarding Psalms 93-99
as forming one continuous series, one great prophetic oratorio,
whose title is "Jehovah is King, "and through which
there runs the same great idea, this Psalm may be regarded as
the doxology which closes the strain. We find lingering in it
notes of the same great harmony. It breathes the same gladness;
it is filled with the same hope, that all nations shall bow down
before Jehovah, and confess that he is God. J.J.S. Perowne.
Whole Psalm. This Psalm contains a promise of
Christianity, as winter at its close contains the promise of
spring. The trees are ready to bud, the flowers are just hidden
by the light soil, the clouds are heavy with rain, the sun
shines in his strength; only a genial wind from the south is
wanted to give a new life to all things. "The Speaker's
Commentary, "1873.
Whole Psalm. Luther would have immortalized his name
had he done no more than written the majestic air and harmony to
which we are accustomed to sing this Psalm, and which, when the
mind is in a truly worshipping frame, seems to bring heaven down
to earth, and to raise earth to heaven, giving us anticipations
of the pure and sublime delights of that noble and general
assembly in which saints and angels shall for ever celebrate the
praises of God. Ingram Cobbin.
Verse 2. The first half of this verse is from Ps 2:11,
only that instead of "with fear, "there, where
the psalmist has to do with fierce rebels, there is substituted
here "gladness" or joy. F.W. Hengstenberg.
Verse 2. Serve the LORD with gladness. It is a
sign the oil of grace hath been poured into the heart "when
the oil of gladness" shines on the countenance.
Cheerfulness credits religion. Thomas Watson.
Verse 2. Serve the LORD. It is our privilege to
serve the Lord in all things. It is ours to please the Lord in
loosing the latchet of a shoe; and to enjoy the expression of
his favour therein. The servant of God is not serving at the
same time another master; he has not been hired for occasional
service; he abides in the service of his God, and cannot be
about anything but his Master's business; he eats, he drinks, he
sleeps, he walks, he discourses, he findeth recreation, all by
the way of serving God. Serve the Lord with gladness. Can
you bear to be waited upon by a servant who goes moping and
dejected to his every task? You would rather have no servant at
all, than one who evidently finds your service cheerless and
irksome. George Bowen.
Verse 3. Know ye that the LORD he is God,
&c. From the reasons of this exhortation, learn, that such
is our natural atheism, that we have need again and again to be
instructed, that the Lord is God; of whom, and through
whom, and for whom are all things. David Dickson.
Verse 3. It is he that made us... we are his.
Now, the ground of God's property in all things is his creating
of all... Accordingly, you may observe in many scriptures, where
the Lord's propriety is asserted, this, as the ground of it, is
annexed: Ps 89:11-12, the heavens, the earth, the whole world,
and all therein is thine. Why so? "Thou hast founded
them." And so are all the regions and quarters of the
world, northern and southern, western and eastern; for Tabor was
on the west and Hermon on the east; all are thine, for thou hast
created them. So sea and land, Ps 95:5. As all things measured
by time, so time itself, the measure of all, Ps 74:16-17.
"Thou hast made the light, "i.e. the moon for
the night and the sun for the day. He lays claim to all the
climes of the earth, and all the seasons of the year on this
account; he made them. This will be more evident and
unquestionable, if we take notice of these particulars:
1. He made all for himself. He was not employed by any to
make it for another, for in that case sometimes the maker is not
the owner; but the Lord did employ himself in that great work,
and for himself did he undertake and finish it. Pr 16:4 Col
1:15-16.
2. He made all things of nothing, either without any matter
at all, or without any but what himself had before made of
nothing. A potter when he makes an earthenware vessel, if the
clay be not his own which he makes it of, he is not the full
owner of the vessel, though he formed it: "the form is his,
the matter is another's; "but since the Lord made all of
nothing, or of such matter as himself had made, all is wholly
his, matter and form, all entirely.
3. He made all without the help or concurrence of any other.
There was none that assisted him, or did in the least co-operate
with him in the work of creation... Those that assist and concur
with another in the making of a thing may claim a share in it;
but here lies no such claim in this case, where the Lord alone
did all, alone made all. All is his only.
4. He upholds all things in the same manner as he created,
continues the being of all things in the same way as he gave it.
He does it of himself, without other support, without any
assistant. All would fall into nothing in a moment, if he did
not every moment bear them up. So that all things on this
account have still their being from him every moment, and their
well-being too, and all the means which conduce to it; and
therefore all are his own. David Clarkson.
Verse 3. It is he that hath made us. The
emperor Henry, while out hunting on the Lord's day called
Quinquagesima, his companions being scattered, came unattended
to the entrance of a certain wood; and seeing a church hard by,
he made for it, and feigning himself to be a soldier, simply
requested a mass of the priest. Now that priest was a man of
notable piety, but so deformed in person that he seemed a
monster rather than a man. When he had attentively considered
him, the emperor began to wonder exceedingly why God, from whom
all beauty proceeds, should permit so deformed a man to
administer his sacraments. But prescntly, when mass commenced,
and they came to the passage, Know ye that the Lord he is
God, which was chanted by a boy, the priest rebuked the boy
for singing negligently, and said with a loud voice, It is he
that hath made us, and not we ourselves. Struck by these
words, and believing the priest to be a prophet, the emperor
raised him, much against his will, to the archbishopric of
Cologne, which see he adorned by his devotion and excellent
virtues. From "Roger of Wendover's (1237) Flowers
of History."
Verse 3. It is he that hath made us... we are his.
Many a one has drawn balsatalc consolation from these words; as
for instance Melancthon when disconsolately sorrowful over the
body of his son in Dresden on the 12th July, 1559. But in "He
made us and we are his, "there is also a rich mine of
comfort and of admonition, for the Creator is also the Owner,
his heart clings to his creature, and the creature owes itself
entirely to him, without whom it would not have had a being, and
would not continue in being. F. Delitzsch.
Verse 3. He that made us, i.e. made us what we
are, a people to himself; as in Ps 95:5, 1Sa 12:6, and De 32:6.
It was not we that made ourselves his (compare Eze 29:3). "He
(and not we ourselves) made us His people, and the flock whom
he feeds." Andrew A. Bonar.
Verse 3. Not we is added, because any share, on
the part of the church, in effecting the salvation bestowed upon
her, would weaken the testimony which this bears to the
exclusive Godhead of the Lord. F. W. Hengstenberg.
Verses 3, 5. Know ye what God is in himself, and what
he is to you. Knowledge is the mother of devotion, and of all
obedience; blind sacrifices will never please a seeing God.
"Know" it, i.e. consider and apply it, and then
you will be more close and constant, more inward and serious, in
the worship of him. Let us know, then, these seven things
concerning the Lord Jehovah, with whom we have to do in all the
acts of religious worship.
1. That the Lord he is God, the only living and true
God; that he is a being infinitely perfect, self-existent, and
self-sufficient, and the fountain of all being.
2. That he is our Creator: It is he that hath made us, and
not we ourselves. We do not, we could not make ourselves; it
is God's prerogative to be his own cause; our being is derived
and depending.
3. That therefore he is our rightful owner. The
Masorites, by altering one letter in the Hebrew, read it,
"He made us, and his we are, "or, "to him we
belong." Put both the readings together, and we learn, that
because God "made us, and not we ourselves, "therefore
we are not our own but his.
4. That he is our sovereign Ruler. We are his
people, or subjects, and he is our prince, our rector or
governor, that gives laws to us as moral agents, and will call
us to an account for what we do.
5. That he is our bountiful Benefactor;we are not only
his sheep whom he is entitled to, but the sheep of his
pasture, whom he takes care of.
6. That he is a God of infinite mercy and good (Ps 100:5); The
Lord is good, and therefore doth good; his mercy his
everlasting.
7. That he is a God of inviolable truth and faithfulness; His
truth endureth to all generations, and no word of his shall
fall to the ground as antiquated or revoked. Matthew Henry.
Verse 4. Enter into his gates; for to the most
guilty are the gates of his church open. Francis Hill Tucker.
Verse 4. With thanksgiving. On the word hrwt the
word used in Le 7:12 for sacrifices of thanksgivings], Rabbi
Menachen remarks: All sacrifices will be abolished; but the
sacrifice of thanksgiving will remain. George Phillips.
Verse 4. The former part of this Psalm may have been
chanted by the precentor when the peace-offering was brought to
the altar; and this last verse may have been the response, sung
by the whole company of singers, at the moment when fire was
applied to the offering. Daniel Cresswell.
Verse 5. His mercy is everlasting. The
everlasting unchangeable mercy of God, is the first motive of
our turning to him, and of our continuing stedfast in his
covenant, and it shall be the subject of unceasing praise in
eternity. As the Lord is good, and his mercy everlasting, so the
full perfection of these attributes in a perfect state will call
forth praise unwearied from hearts that ever faint. W.
Wilson.
HINTS TO THE VILLAGE PREACHER
Whole Psalm. This is a bunch of the grapes of Eshcol.
It is a taste of what is still the promised land. The Jewish
church came to its perfection in the reign of Solomon, but a
greater than Solomon is here. The perfection of the New
Testament church is here anticipated. This psalm teaches,
1. That there will be a joyful state of the whole world
(Ps 100:1). (a) To whom the address is given—to
"all lands, "and all in those lands. (b) The subject
of the address—"Make a joyful noise." What a doleful
noise it has made! (c) By whom the address is given, by him who
secures what he commands.
2. That this joyful state of the whole world will arise
from the enjoyment of the Divine Being (Ps 100:2). (a) Men
have long tried to be happy without God. (b) They will find at
last that their happiness is in God. The conversion of an
individual in this respect is a type of the conversion of the
world.
3. That this enjoyment of God will arise from a new
relation to him (Ps 100:3). (a) Of knowledge on our part: he
will be known as the Triune God, as a covenant God, as the God
of salvation—as God. (b) Of rightful claim on his part; (1.)
by right of creation—"He hath made us; " (2.) By
light of redemption—"Ye were not a people, but are now
the people of God, "&c.; "I have redeemed thee:
thou art mine"; (3.) by right of preservation—"We
are the sheep, "&c.
4. That this new relation to God will endear to us the
ordinances of his house (Ps 100:4). (a) Of what the service
will consist—"thanksgiving" and praise. (b) To whom
it will be rendered. Enter into his gates—his
courts—be thankful unto him—bless his name.
That this service will be perpetual; begin on earth, continued
in heaven. This fact is founded—
5. That this service will be perpetual; begun on
earth, continued in heaven. This face is founded—(a) Upon
essential goodness. "For the Lord is good." (b) Upon
everlasting mercy. "His mercy, "etc. (c) Upon
immutable truth. "His truth, "etc. G. R.
Verse 2. Serve the LORD with gladness.
1. For he is the best of beings.
2. For his commandments are not grievous.
3. For he is your Saviour, as well as Creator; your friend,
as well as Lord.
4. The angels, so much greater than yourself, know no reason
why they should not serve him with gladness.
5. In serving him you serve yoreself.
6. You make religion attractive.
7. You get fitness for heaven. George Bowen.
Verse 2 (first clause) A true heart,
1. Is humble—serves.
2. Is pious—"serve the Lord."
3. Is active—serves.
4. Is consequently joyful—"with gladness."
Verse 2. (first clause). "Serving the Lord
with gladness." See "Spurgeon's Sermons, "No.
769.
Verse 3. Know ye that the LORD he is God. That
you may be true amid superstition, hopeful in contrition,
persistent in supplication, unwearied in exertion, calm in
affliction, firm in temptation, bold in persecution, and happy
in dissolution. W. J.
Verse 3. We are his people. We have been twice
born, as all his people are. We love the society of his people.
We are looking unto Jesus like his people. We are separated from
the world as his people. We experience the trials of his people.
We prefer the employment of his people. We enjoy the privileges
of his people. W. J.
Verse 4. A Discourse of Thankfulness which is due to
God for his benefits and blessings. A Sermon by Thomas Goodwin.
Works, vol. 9 pp. 499-514. Nichol's edition.
Verse 4.
1. The privileges of access.
2. The duty of thankfulness.
3. The reasons for enjoying both.
Verse 5.
1. The inexhaustible fount—the goodness of God.
2. The ever-flowing stream—the mercy of God.
3. The fathomless oceansthe truth of God. "O the
depths!" W. Durban.