Key Verse: Psalm 96:2 –

 

 

Have you ever noticed how the music we listened to as teenagers imprints itself as the playlist of our lives? Though some enjoy discovering new artists and new music, others figure there’s no point in learning to appreciate Maroon 5 when we can still listen to the Four Seasons, or in cultivating a taste for rap or reggae when we’re perfectly happy with rhythm & blues or rock & roll. 

 

But sometimes a new song catches our ear, and we can’t help humming the tune, even if we don’t know who’s singing it. 

 

When the songwriter/theologian who penned Psalm 96 composed a new song, he had high hopes that it would catch on, and it did, for it remains popular at least 2,500 years after its debut.

 

Christians most commonly hear it read in services on Christmas Eve, and for good reason: the psalm looks joyfully to the day when the God who reigns over all will come to set things right. 

 

 

 

The psalm falls into three “verses,” as it were, each beginning with a call to praise God, followed by the reasons why praise is due. [DD]

 

The first verse begins with a repetitive call to “sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD all the earth. Sing to the LORD, bless his name” (vv. 1-2a).

 

The purpose of singing to the LORD was to “bless his name,” “tell of his salvation,” and to “declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples” (v. 3). [DD] The choral testimony of God’s delivering power was to be persistent, “from day to day.”

 

It’s easier to sing praise on some days than on others, but many people find that the very act of singing praise – especially in the company of fellow believers – can lift their spirits in a significant and lasting way. 

 

One reason worship in predominantly black churches tends to last two hours or more, and to feature joyful songs with victorious themes, is that people who have felt oppressed and downtrodden during the week can find in such worship strength and encouragement to help them face another week. 

 

Singing praise is good for the soul, but not its primary purpose. We tell of God’s greatness because God is worthy of our acclaim, as we learn in vv. 4-6, which begin: “Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised.”

 

Why? Because Yahweh is “to be revered above all gods.” 

“The gods of the peoples are idols,” the psalmist said – mere constructs of stone or wood or bronze combined with the human imagination. While popular gods were human projections of themselves, “the LORD made the heavens” (v. 5). 

 

In other words, gods like Baal and Asherah, Dagon and Mot were powerful in imagination but impotent in reality. They might be thought of as gods of rain and fertility and grain and death, but Yahweh reigned above all. “Honor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary” (v. 6). [DD]

 

This is one of the reasons church architects – especially those who designed the great cathedrals – have sought to create a large space that exhibits both beauty and grandeur while making the worshiper feel small before the greatness of God, symbolized by the sanctuary. 

 

 

 

The second verse switches the active verb from “sing” to “ascribe,” again repeating it three times: “Ascribe to the LORD, of families of the peoples, ascribe to the LORD glory and strength. Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name” (vv. 7-8a). [DD]

 

The psalmist is calling for a verbal offering of praise in addition to the material offerings (minhâ) to be brought into the place of worship. The reference to physical offerings of grain or flour, wine or money was a reminder that our worship includes costly elements as tangible demonstrations of our faith and gratitude. 

 

The word for “worship” in v. 9 literally means “to bow down” or “to prostrate oneself.” Some mainline churches have “kneeling benches” attached to the back of the pews, but many modern worshipers would never think of kneeling as a part of public worship, much less stretching out on the floor. [DD]

 

The psalmist calls us to bow before Yahweh “in holy splendor,” which may relate to the impressive sanctuary, the attire of the worshipers, or an awareness of worship’s sacred nature. (See “The Hardest Question” online for more on this.) 

 

The second half for v. 9 seems to echo the abject humility of the call to “bow before the LORD” in the first half. Most modern versions have “tremble before him, all the earth.” The word translated as “tremble” means “to whirl,” “to dance,” or “to writhe.” It could be used of joyful dance, of writhing in pain, or of anxious waiting. While “tremble” is a reasonable reading, it’s possible that the psalmist had in mind a joyful dance, for he is singing a joyful song and calling others to join the celebration. 

 

And what was there to celebrate? “Say among the nations, ‘The LORD is king! The world is firmly established; it shall never be moved. He will judge the peoples with equity” (v. 10). 

 

The message is not for Israel alone, but for all the nations – indeed, for “all the earth,” as in v. 9 and in the following verses. And the message is that “The LORD is king!” God reigns. 

 

What was the central message of Jesus when he went about preaching? “The kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15). Jesus constantly taught of God’s rule or reign, and his teachings were peppered with references to what the kingdom of God is like, or what it means to belong to the kingdom of God. 

 

The psalmist did not know the extent of God’s gracious love that we have come to know in Jesus, but he fully believed that God ruled over the earth and was coming to “judge the peoples with equity.” 

 

The root meaning of the word translated “equity” is “evenness.” In an ethical sense, it refers to fairness: God will judge all people fairly and justly. This is a helpful reminder, in a world marred by many injustices and in which the level of privilege often depends on the color of one’s skin, that God is a God of justice for all peoples. 

 

 

 

When God rules, humans are not the only ones to rejoice: the psalmist imagined all of creation expressing euphoric glee to be part of God’s universal kingdom. He called for the heavens to be glad and the earth to rejoice as the sea shouted along with all creatures within it. “Let the field exult,” he sang, “and everything in it,” while “the trees of the forest sing for joy” (vv. 11-12). [DD]

 

The earth itself joins humans in singing joyously in anticipation that God “is coming to judge the earth.” Again the psalmist emphasized that, unlike humans who are subject to error or partiality, God “will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with his truth” (v. 13). 

 

It is hard for us to appreciate the notion of judgment as a time for rejoicing, we typically picture judgment as a guilty defendant standing to be condemned and sentenced. 

For the psalmist, God’s coming judgment was more than that: it would be a time when God would restore a proper order and put all things right. 

 

We know that many things are out of order in our world; many things are not right. There is endemic injustice in an economic system that allows the top one-hundredth of the top one percent to own more than 11 percent of the nation’s wealth. In 2016, the top one percent owned about 40 percent of America’s wealth and the top ten percent owned 77 percent, leaving 90 percent of the people to share just 23 percent of the nation’s wealth. [DD]

 

Rampant injustice marks our penal system, where people of color are far more likely to be convicted of crimes and to have longer sentences than whites. The U.S. locks up far more of its population than any other country. A 2018 report to the United Nations showed that African Americans were 5.9 times more likely to be incarcerated than whites, and Latinos were 3.1 times as likely to see jail from the inside. [DD]

 

Disparities in convictions and sentencing are due not only to racial bias, but to wealth disparities: those who can afford high-priced lawyers are much more likely to walk free than those who rely on public defenders. 

 

We could all name other areas of injustice based on gender or gender preference, ethnicity, age, social status, or other factors. 

 

Many of us fail completely to recognize the privilege we have, or to appreciate the obstacles that others face. 

 

When Jesus came to proclaim the kingdom of God, he equated it to doing justice: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” Jesus said, “because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free” (Luke 4:18).

 

Jesus’ teaching focused on ways in which those who live under God’s reign and live with a Christ-like point of view are called to be people of justice who do the Lord’s work of setting things right in a world gone wrong. 

 

This raises a question for each of us: “What have I done this week to make this world a more just and equitable place?” Or perhaps, more importantly, “What will I do next week?”