Psalm 96:7 Ascribe to Yahveh, you families of the peoples, ascribe to Yahveh fame and strength. Psalm 96:8 Ascribe to Yahveh the fame of his name; bring an offering and enter his courts. Psalm 96:9 Worship Yahveh in the splendor of his holiness; let the whole land tremble before him.
from singing to bringing
In this psalm, we are first instructed to sing praise to God, then we are told to bring an offering to him. This is how it should be. We give becase we appreciate who God is. Our offerings are part of our worship. He is worthy of our singing. He is also worthy of our gifts.
Thank you, LORD, for giving us different opportunities to express our gratitude.
Psalm 96:1 Sing a new song to Yahveh; let the whole land sing to Yahveh. Psalm 96:2 Sing to Yahveh, bless his name; proclaim his deliverance from day to day. Psalm 96:3 Declare his fame among the nations, his wonderful things among all peoples. Psalm 96:4 Yes, Yahveh is great and is highly praised; he is feared above all gods. Psalm 96:5 Yes, all the gods of the peoples are idols, but Yahveh made the sky. Psalm 96:6 Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.
sing to the sky maker
As I write this, I am looking out over a huge corn field, covered with a beautiful blue sky. At night, the sunsets turn the sky bright orange and pink, and gray. It is a spectacular show every night, free of charge.
We take the sky for granted because it is. It is a sign from God granted to us so that we will always have reason to sing. Why waste our time on the gods of the peoples? They are just empty idols. Yahveh made the sky. Yahveh brought us deliverance through the Son, Jesus. So while we are singing, we should think up new ways to proclaim that deliverance from day to day.
Psalm 95:6 Come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before Yahveh our Maker. Psalm 95:7 Yes, he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, the sheep under his hand. Today, if you hear his voice: Psalm 95:8 Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as on that day at Massah in the open country, Psalm 95:9 where your ancestors tested me; they tried me, though they had seen what I did. Psalm 95:10 Yes, forty years I was disgusted with that generation; I said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray; they do not know my roads.” Psalm 95:11 So I swore in my anger, “They will not enter my rest.”
testing or resting
By hardening their hearts against his, and refusing to learn his roads, the people of Israel lost out on God’s promised rest. An entire generation struggled and died in the wilderness, testing God.
You and I have the same choice. We can continue testing God, and never see the fulfillment of his promises. Or, we can choose to obey him, and he can take us where we need to go in this life.
There are all kinds of alternate choices, but none of them clearly reflect God’s will. We can (for example) pretend that the struggles we face today are some kind of purgatorial work. We could pride ourselves on how hard our road is. Wrong choice.
As long as we set ourselves against God’s word and stubbornly seek our own path, we will stay on the wrong road. We have to surrender to his will — bowing down to him. That is true repentance. Only true repentance leads to God’s rest.
Psalm 95:1 Let us walk, let us shout joyfully to Yahveh, shout triumphantly to the rock of our salvation! Psalm 95:2 Let us enter his presence with thanksgiving; let us shout triumphantly to him in song. Psalm 95:3 Yes, Yahveh is a great God, a great King above all gods. Psalm 95:4 The depths of the land are in his hand, and the mountain peaks are his. Psalm 95:5 The sea is his; he made it. His hands formed the dry land.
a mingled din of praise
Horsley says that the Hebrew verb here rendered “shout joyfully” in verse 1 “signifies to make a loud sound of any sort, either with the voice or with instruments. In the Psalms, it generally refers to the mingled din of voices and various instruments, in the Temple service” (236).
Our voices are not enough. Music is not enough. We should praise our glorious God with a mingled din of praise!
Horsley, Samuel. The Book of Psalms; Translated from the Hebrew: with Notes, Explanatory and Critical. By Samuel Horsley, LL. D. 1815.
Psalm 94:16 Who will stand up for me against the wicked? Who will take a stand for me against troublemakers? Psalm 94:17 If Yahveh had not been my helper, my throat would soon settle down in the silence of death. Psalm 94:18 If I say, “My foot is slipping,” your covenant faithfulness will support me, Yahveh. Psalm 94:19 When I am filled with troubling thoughts, your comfort brings my throat joy. Psalm 94:20 Can a corrupt throne be your partner, a throne that makes evil prescriptions? Psalm 94:21 They band together against the throat of the righteous and condemn the innocent to death. Psalm 94:22 But Yahveh is my refuge; my God is the rock of my protection. Psalm 94:23 He will pay them back for their trouble and silence them for their evil. Yahveh our God will destroy them.
going to silence
Lazarus went to that silence that our psalmist had almost visited. Unless our Lord returns before our death, we will go there too. We need not fear that land of silence, because it will not be our Lord’s last word for us. We will be raised from the dead when he returns. He will keep his promise. He will wake us from the silent sleep of death.
For more on the unconscious intermediate state, see:
Psalm 94:12 Fortunate is anyone you discipline and teach from your law, Yah. Psalm 94:13 to give him relief from troubled times until a hole is dug for the wicked. Psalm 94:14 Yahveh will not leave his people or abandon his hereditary possession, Psalm 94:15 for the administration of justice will again be righteous, and all the upright in heart will follow it.
returning to justice
While the troubled times exist, the law is there to give us assurance of ultimate relief when justice will “return to its accustomed channels” (Alexander, 400).
When we face trouble, we can hold on to God’s word and know that he will prevail over all evil.
Alexander, Joseph A. The Psalms: Translated and Explained. Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan Publishing House, 1864.
Psalm 94:8 Pay attention, you stupid people! Fools, when will you be wise? Psalm 94:9 Can the one who shaped the ear not hear, the one who formed the eye not see? Psalm 94:10 The one who instructs nations, the one who teaches Adam knowledge – does He not discipline? Psalm 94:11 Yahveh knows the thoughts of Adam; they are temporary.
He disciplines
Alexander points out that the Hebrew word for stupid in verse 8 is a “participle, denoting habitual conduct or a permanent condition” (399).
The violent oppressors of the marginalized just cannot understand that a God in heaven sees and hears what they are doing and will hold them accountable.
Alexander, Joseph A. The Psalms: Translated and Explained. Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan Publishing House, 1864.
Psalm 94:1 Yahveh, God who avenges – God who avenges, shine! Psalm 94:2 Rise up, Judge of the land; repay the proud what they deserve. Psalm 94:3 Yahveh, how long will the wicked – how long will the wicked celebrate? Psalm 94:4 They pour out arrogant words; all the troublemakers brag. Psalm 94:5 Yahveh, they crush your people; they oppress your hereditary possession. Psalm 94:6 They kill the widow and the resident alien and murder the fatherless. Psalm 94:7 They say, “Yah doesn’t see it. The God of Jacob doesn’t pay attention.”
God who avenges
Alexander sees the first part of this psalm as a complaint that God has absented himself and as a result, his enemies are winning (398) They stomp all over the orphans, widows, immigrants, and other marginalized people, because there seems to be no one to stop them. It calls on the God of vengeance to shine and put these arrogant evildoers down.
Our prayers should look deep at the problems we are facing and call on our omnipotent God to make a difference.
Alexander, Joseph A. The Psalms: Translated and Explained. Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan Publishing House, 1864.
Psalm 93:5 Yahveh, your testimonies are completely reliable; holiness makes your house lovely for all the days to come.
Alexander says that the holiness spoken of here is “sacredness, the immunity from profanation, and of course from violent intrusion” (398).
God’s house is safe from the world’s influence. We should seek to dwell in his house — away from the world — to learn from him, and therefore we will be better able to live in the world as he wishes.
Alexander, Joseph A. The Psalms: Translated and Explained. Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan Publishing House, 1864.
Psalm 93:3 The rivers have lifted up, Yahveh, the rivers have lifted up their voice; the rivers lift up their pounding waves. Psalm 93:4 Greater than the roar of much water – the mighty breakers of the sea – Yahveh on high is majestic.
they shall not prevail
Luther continues, “But against (Christ’s) kingdom, as the Psalmist saith, the ‘waves and ‘mighty waters’ will swell and lift up themselves; that is, the kingdoms and peoples of the world will roar against the Lord and against his Anointed; and will rage against the godly with sword and fire; but they shall not prevail: for, as Daniel saith, ‘this kingdom shall break in pieces all other kingdoms beneath it, and shall stand forever’ Daniel ii. 44″ (247).
The majesty of God will not allow his Son’s kingdom to be shaken. The usurpers shall not prevail.
Luther, Martin. A Manual of the Book of Psalms, Or, the Subject-Contents of All the Psalms. London: R.B. Seeley & W. Burnside, 1837.
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