The Book of Psalms

Word Study

"clap," Hebrew tiq'u (תִּקְעוּ), strike, clap. The psalm bursts open with a summons, and the verbs are the sounds of a coronation. The first is the striking of the hands, the applause that greeted a king at his crowning.

"all ye people," kol ha'ammim (כָּל־הָעַמִּים), all the peoples, the nations. Notice who is called: not Israel only, but all the peoples, every nation of the earth.

"shout," hari'u (הָרִיעוּ), raise a war-cry or coronation shout. The second coronation sound is the teru'ah, the great cry raised as a king takes his throne.

"voice of triumph," qol rinnah (קוֹל רִנָּה), a ringing cry of joy. The shout is defined further: a ringing cry of joy. This is not the noise of fear but of gladness at who reigns.

"most high," elyon (עֶלְיוֹן). And the reason for all this is given: "the LORD most high is terrible." He is not a tribal deity but the Elyon, the Most High over all.

"terrible," nora (נוֹרָא), to be feared, awesome. The Most High is awesome in majesty. Joy and awe are not opposites here; the peoples shout for gladness at a King who is to be feared.

"great King," melekh gadol (מֶלֶךְ גָּדוֹל). "He is a great King over all the earth." His throne is the whole world, which is why the summons at the head of the psalm could be addressed to every nation in it.

Explanation

Hear how wide the very first word throws the doors open. This is a psalm of the sons of Korah, sung in Israel's temple, and yet its opening summons is not "O clap your hands, O Israel" but "O clap your hands, all ye people", all the peoples, the Gentile nations included. From its first breath the psalm refuses to keep God small. Israel knew Him as their King; this song insists He is "a great King over all the earth," and so it drafts the whole human race into the coronation choir. That is a startling reach for an Old Testament hymn, and it is deliberate: three times the psalm will call Him King of "all the earth" (vv2, 7, and the sense of 8). The clapping and shouting, too, are not vague enthusiasm but the fixed sounds of a crowning, the teru'ah raised when a new king was proclaimed (compare "God save the king," 1 Samuel 10:24). The psalm is staging a coronation and calling every nation to the ceremony, centuries before the gospel would actually gather them in.

Gospel Focus

"He is a great King over all the earth", this is the LORD Jesus Christ, to whom all authority in heaven and earth has been given. The psalm summons "all ye people" to acclaim the King, and that summons is the very shape of the Great Commission: "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations" (Matthew 28:19), for the risen Christ declared, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth" (Matthew 28:18). He is no local Saviour but the Elyon in flesh, "King of kings, and Lord of lords" (Revelation 19:16). The clapping and shouting the psalm demands from every nation will one day be rendered in full, when "every knee should bow... and... every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord" (Philippians 2:10-11). And the joy of it is that the God who is "terrible," awesome and to be feared, is the same One who came near in mercy to save; the great King over all the earth is the Lamb who was slain. So the summons still stands, to every people under heaven: acclaim Him, the great King, Jesus Christ the Lord.

Word Study

"gone up," Hebrew alah (עָלָה), ascended, went up. "God is gone up with a shout." The picture is of God ascending to His throne on high, the movement of a king mounting his throne.

"with a shout," bitru'ah (בִּתְרוּעָה), with the coronation shout. The ascent is made amid the shout of His people -- the same teru'ah the nations were summoned to raise in verse 1.

"trumpet," shofar (שׁוֹפָר), the ram's-horn. With the shout comes the blast of the ram's horn, the other great sound of a coronation day.

"sing praises," zammeru (זַמְּרוּ), make music, sing praise, repeated five times in this one verse. Then the response pours out: "Sing praises... sing praises... sing praises unto our King, sing praises", five times in a single verse, a fivefold command that will not be quieted. When the King goes up, praise must go up with Him.

Explanation

Feel the deliberate excess of verse 6: "Sing praises to God, sing praises: sing praises unto our King, sing praises." Five times in one breath, the same word zammeru hammered again and again. Hebrew poetry does not repeat by accident; this is a heart that has run out of new words and simply keeps saying the one thing that matters, the way a bell keeps ringing after it is struck. And what has struck the bell is the line before it: "God is gone up." That single verb, alah, "to go up," is why the ancient church fixed on this psalm for Ascension Day and read it every year as the going-up of Christ. The imagery is a king climbing to his throne while trumpet and shout attend him, but the words outran their first occasion. No merely local king "goes up" that "all the earth" should sing; the psalm is describing a throne higher than any in Jerusalem. It sees, dimly and in advance, a King ascending on high with a shout, to reign over all, and it answers that ascent the only fitting way, with praise that repeats itself because it cannot exhaust its subject.

Gospel Focus

"God is gone up with a shout, the LORD with the sound of a trumpet", these words found their fullest meaning on the day the Lord Jesus ascended. "While they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight" (Acts 1:9); "God is gone up with a shout." Paul takes the very language of a psalm of ascent and applies it to Christ: "When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men" (Ephesians 4:8). The One who "gone up" is Jesus, and He who went up is the same LORD who first came down, "he that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens" (Ephesians 4:10). This is the wonder of the Apostolic faith: it was God Himself, manifest in flesh, who ascended, for in Jesus "dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:9). He went up with a shout and sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, and now the church answers the ascended King with the fivefold command of this psalm, "sing praises... sing praises unto our King." Lift up your song to the Lord who is gone up; the throne is not empty, and the King reigns.

Word Study

"King of all the earth," Hebrew melekh kol ha'aretz (מֶלֶךְ כָּל־הָאָרֶץ). The psalm rises to its climax by repeating the claim it opened with: "God is the King of all the earth." Everything that follows is drawn out of that one fact.

"with understanding," maskil (מַשְׂכִּיל), with skill, insight, understanding. Therefore, "sing ye praises with understanding" -- not mindless noise but intelligent, heartfelt worship.

"reigneth," malakh (מָלַךְ), has become King, reigns. "God reigneth over the heathen." The nations that were summoned to clap in verse 1 are here declared to be under His actual rule.

"throne of his holiness," kisse qodsho (כִּסֵּא קָדְשׁוֹ). He sits on a holy throne. His universal rule is not bare power; it is holy rule, and that is what makes it worth the shouting.

"gathered together," ne'esafu (נֶאֱסָפוּ). And then the astonishing scene: "The princes of the people are gathered together, even the people of the God of Abraham." The rulers of the nations, the Gentiles, are gathered in and counted among God's own people -- the very promise that in Abraham "all families of the earth" should be blessed.

"shields," maginne (מָגִנֵּי), shields, a figure for princes and rulers. "The shields of the earth belong unto God." The defenders of the nations, the men who protect them, are themselves His possession.

"greatly exalted," na'alah me'od (נַעֲלָה מְאֹד). The psalm ends where its praise has been heading all along: God Himself lifted high above every prince and every shield on earth.

Explanation

Two words in this section are worth holding up to the light. The first is "understanding": "sing ye praises with understanding" (maskil, with skill and insight). It is a striking demand to set inside a psalm of clapping and shouting. God does not want only loud worship; He wants intelligent worship, praise that knows what it is singing and why. The heart is meant to be full, but so is the head; the two are not rivals. The second is the quiet miracle of verse 9. Look closely at who is gathering: "the princes of the people... even the people of the God of Abraham." The rulers of the Gentile nations are not merely defeated by the God of Israel; they are joined to Him, folded into the covenant family and named among "the people of the God of Abraham." This is the ancient promise surfacing in song, that in Abraham "all families of the earth" would be blessed (Genesis 12:3). The psalm that opened by summoning "all ye people" (v1) now shows them actually arriving, princes laying down their shields at the throne, because "the shields of the earth belong unto God." Every power that ever defended a nation turns out to be His already. He is "greatly exalted," and the whole earth, at last, is home.

Gospel Focus

"The princes of the people are gathered together, even the people of the God of Abraham", this is the gospel's own harvest, the gathering of the nations into the family of faith through Jesus Christ. The promise to Abraham, that in him all families of the earth would be blessed, is fulfilled in Christ: "the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham" (Galatians 3:8), so that "they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham" (Galatians 3:9), and "if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" (Galatians 3:29). The Gentile "princes of the people," once far off, are made "the people of the God of Abraham," one new people in Christ, "there is neither Jew nor Greek... for ye are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28). And He who "sitteth upon the throne of his holiness," "the King of all the earth," is the Lord Jesus, "greatly exalted," seated at the right hand of God. So the psalm's vision is now unfolding across the world: from every nation the redeemed are gathered to the God of Abraham, singing praises "with understanding" to the King who is greatly exalted, Jesus Christ our Lord.