1 Jehovah is King, let the earth exult,
Let many lands be glad.
2 Cloud and deep darkness are round Him,
Righteousness and judgment are the foundation of His throne.
3 Fire goes before Him,
And devours His enemies round about.
4 His lightnings lighted up the world,
The earth saw and trembled.
5 Mountains melted like wax, from before the face of Jehovah,
From before the face of the Lord of the whole earth.
6 The heavens declared His righteousness,
And all the peoples saw His glory.
7 Shamed are all they who serve graven images,
Who boast themselves of the Nothings.
Worship Him, all ye gods!
8 Zion heard and was glad,
And the daughters of Judah exulted,
Because of Thy judgments, Jehovah.
9 For Thou, Jehovah, art most high above all the earth,
Thou art exceedingly exalted above all gods.
10 Ye who love Jehovah, hate evil;
He keeps the souls of His favoured ones,
From the hand of the wicked He delivers them.
11 Light is sown for the righteous man,
And for the upright-hearted, gladness.
12 Be glad, ye righteous, in Jehovah,
And give thanks to His holy memorial.
The summons to praise the King with a new song (Psalm xcvi.) is
followed by this psalm, which repeats the dominant idea of the group,
"Jehovah is King," but from a fresh point of view. It represents His
rule under the form of a theophany, which may possibly be regarded
as the fuller description of that coming of Jehovah to judgment with
which Psalm xcvi. closes. The structure of both psalms is the same,
each being divided into four strophes, normally consisting of three
verses each, though the last strophe of Psalm xcvi. runs over into
four verses. In this psalm, the first group of verses celebrates the
royal state of the King (vv. 1-3); the second describes His coming
as a past fact (vv. 4-6); the third portrays the twofold effects
of Jehovah's appearance on the heathen and on Zion (vv. 7-9); and
the last applies the lessons of the whole to the righteous, in
exhortation and encouragement (vv. 10-12). The same dependence on
earlier psalms and prophets which marks others of this group is
obvious here. The psalmist's mind is saturated with old sayings,
which he finds flashed up into new meaning by recent experiences. He
is not "original," and does not try to be so; but he has drunk in the
spirit of his predecessors, and words which to others were antiquated
and cold blaze with light for him, and seem made for his lips. He
who reads aright the solemn significance of to-day will find it no
less sacred than any past, and may transfer to it all which seers and
singers have said and sung of Jehovah's presence of old.
The first strophe is mosaic-work. Ver. 1 (_lands_=_isles_) may be
compared with Isa. xlii. 10, li. 5. Ver. 2_a_ is from Exod. xix. 9,
16, etc., and Psalm xviii. 9. Ver. 2_b_ is quoted from Psalm lxxxix.
14. Ver. 3_a_ recalls Psalms l. 3 and xviii. 8. The appearance of God
on Sinai is the type of all later theophanies, and the reproduction
of its principal features witnesses to the conviction that that
transient manifestation was the unveiling of permanent reality. The
veil had dropped again, but what had been once seen continued always,
though unseen; and the veil could and would be drawn aside, and the
long-hidden splendour blaze forth again. The combination of the pieces
of mosaic in a new pattern here is striking. Three thoughts fill the
singer's mind. God is King, and His reign gladdens the world, even away
out to the dimly seen lands that are washed by the western ocean. "The
islands" drew Isaiah's gaze. Prophecy began in him to look seawards and
westwards, little knowing how the course of empire was to take its way
thither, but feeling that whatever lands might lie towards the setting
sun were ruled, and would be gladdened, by Jehovah.
Gladness passes into awe in ver. 2_a_, as the seer beholds the cloud
and gloom which encircle the throne. The transcending infinitude of the
Divine nature, the mystery of much of the Divine acts, are symbolised
by these; but the curtain is the picture. To know that God cannot
be known is a large part of the knowledge of Him. Faith, built on
experience, enters into the cloud, and is not afraid, but confidently
tells what it knows to be within the darkness. "Righteousness and
judgment"--the eternal principle and the activity thereof in the
several acts of the King--are the bases of His throne, more solid
than the covering cloud. Earth can rejoice in His reign, even though
darkness may make parts of it painful riddles, if the assurance is held
fast that absolute righteousness is at the centre, and that the solid
core of all is judgment. Destructive power, symbolised in ver. 3 by
fire which devours His adversaries, the fire which flashed first on
Sinai, is part of the reason for the gladness of earth in His reign.
For His foes are the world's foes too; and a God who could not smite
into nothingness that which lifted itself against His dominion would
be no God for whom the isles could wait. These three characteristics,
mystery, righteousness, power to consume, attach to Jehovah's royalty,
and should make every heart rejoice.
In the second strophe, the tenses suddenly change into pure narrative.
The change may be simply due, as Cheyne suggests, to the influence
of the earlier passages descriptive of theophanies, and in which the
same tense occurs; but more probably it points to some event fresh in
the experience of Israel, such as the return from Babylon. In this
strophe again, we have mosaic. Ver. 4_a_ is quoted from Psalm lxxvii.
18. With ver. 4_b_ may be compared Psalm lxxvii. 16. Ver. 5_a_ is like
Micah i. 4, and, in a less degree, Psalm lxviii. 2. "The Lord of the
whole earth" is an unusual designation, first found in a significant
connection in Josh. iii. 11, 13, as emphasising His triumph over
heathen gods, in leading the people into Canaan, and afterwards found
in Zech. iv. 14, vi. 5, and Micah iv. 13. Ver. 6_a_ comes from the
theophany in Psalm l. 6; and ver. 6_b_ has parallels in both parts of
Isaiah--_e.g._, Isa. xxxv. 2, xl. 5, lii. 10--passages which refer
to the restoration from Babylon. The picture is grand as a piece of
word-painting. The world lies wrapped in thunder-gloom, and is suddenly
illumined by the fierce blaze of lightning. The awestruck silence of
Nature is wonderfully given by ver. 4_b_: "The earth saw and trembled."
But the picture is symbol, and the lightning-flash is meant to set
forth the sudden, swift forth-darting of God's delivering power, which
awes a gazing world, while the hills melting like wax from before His
face solemnly proclaim how terrible its radiance is, and how easily
the mere showing of Himself annihilates all high things that oppose
themselves. Solid-seeming and august powers, which tower above His
people's ability to overcome them, vanish when He looks out from the
deep darkness. The end of His appearance and of the consequent removal
of obstacles is the manifestation of His righteousness and glory. The
heavens are the scene of the Divine appearance, though earth is the
theatre of its working. They "declare His righteousness," not because,
as in Psalm xix. they are said to tell forth His glory by their myriad
lights, but because in them He has shone forth, in His great act of
deliverance of His oppressed people. Israel receives the primary
blessing, but is blessed, not for itself alone, but that all peoples
may see in it Jehovah's glory. Thus once more the psalm recognises the
world-wide destination of national mercies, and Israel's place in the
Divine economy as being of universal significance.
The third strophe (vv. 7-9) sets forth the results of the theophany
on foes and friends. The worshippers of "the Nothings" (xcvi. 5)
are put to confusion by the demonstration by fact of Jehovah's
sovereignty over their helpless deities. Ver. 7_a_, _b_, recall
Isa. xlii. 17, xliv. 9. As the worshippers are ashamed, so the gods
themselves are summoned to fall down before this triumphant Jehovah,
as Dagon did before the Ark. Surely it is a piece of most prosaic
pedantry to argue, from this flash of scorn, that the psalmist
believed that the gods whom he had just called "Nothings" had a real
existence, and that therefore he was not a pure Monotheist.
The shame of the idolaters and the prostration of their gods
heighten the gladness of Zion, which the psalm describes in old words
that had once celebrated another flashing forth of Jehovah's power
(Psalm xlviii. 11). Hupfeld, whom Cheyne follows, would transpose
vv. 7 and 8, on the grounds that "the transposition explains what
Zion heard, and brings the summons to the false gods into connection
with the emphatic claim on behalf of Jehovah in ver. 9." But there is
no need for the change, since there is no ambiguity as to what Zion
heard, if the existing order is retained, and her gladness is quite
as worthy a consequence of the exaltation of Jehovah in ver. 9 as the
subjugation of the false gods would be. With ver. 9 compare Psalm
lxxxiii. 18, and Psalm xlvii. 2.
The last strophe (vv. 10-12) draws exhortation and promises from
the preceding. There is a marked diminution of dependence on earlier
passages in this strophe, in which the psalmist points for his own
generation the lessons of the great deliverance which he has been
celebrating. Ver. 12_a_ is like Psalm xxxii. 11; ver. 12_b_ is
from Psalm xxx. 4; but the remainder is the psalmist's own earnest
exhortation and firm faith, cast into words which come warm from
his own heart's depths. Love to Jehovah necessarily implies hatred
of evil, which is His antagonist, and which He hates. That higher
love will not be kept in energy, unless it is guarded by wholesome
antipathy to everything foul. The capacity for love of the noble is
maimed unless there is hearty hatred of the ignoble. Love to God is
no idle affection, but withdraws a man from rival loves. The stronger
the attraction, the stronger the recoil. The closer we cleave to
God, the more decided our shrinking from all that would weaken our
hold of Him. A specific reference in the exhortation to temptations
to idolatry is possible, though not necessary. All times have their
"evil," with which God's lovers are ever tempted to comply. The
exhortation is never out of place, nor the encouragement which
accompanies it ever illusory. In such firm adherence to Jehovah,
many difficulties will rise, and foes be made; but those who obey it
will not lack protection. Mark the alternation of names for such.
They are first called "lovers of God"; they are then designated as
His "favoured ones." That which is first in time is last in mention.
The effect is in view before it is traced to its cause. "We love Him
because He first loved us." Then follow names drawn from the moral
perfecting which will ensue on recognition and reception of God's
favour, and on the cherishing of the love which fulfils the law. They
who love because they are loved, become righteous and upright-hearted
because they love. For such the psalmist has promise as well as
exhortation. Not only are they preserved in and from dangers, but
"light is sown" for them. Many commentators think that the figure
of light being sown, as seeds are buried in the ground to shoot up
in beauty in a future spring-time, is too violent, and they propose
to understand "sown" in the sense of _scattered on_, not _deposited
in_, the earth, "so that he, the righteous, goes forward step by step
in the light" (Delitzsch). Others would correct into "is risen" or
"arises." But one is reluctant to part with the figure, the violence
of which is permissible in an Eastern singer. Darkness often wraps
the righteous, and it is not true to experience to say that his way
is always in the sunlight. But it is consolation to know that light
is sown, invisible and buried, as it were, but sure to germinate
and fruit. The metaphor mingles figures and offends purists, but it
fits closer to fact than the weakening of it which fits the rules of
composition. If we are God's lovers, present darkness may be quieted
by hope, and we may have the "fruit of the light" in our lives now,
and the expectation of a time when we shall possess in fulness and in
perpetuity all that light of knowledge, purity, and gladness which
Jesus the Sower went forth to sow, and which had been ripened by
struggles and sorrows and hatred of evil while we were here.
Therefore, because of this magnificent theophany, and because of
its blessed consequences for loving souls, the psalmist ends with
the exhortation to the righteous to rejoice. He began with bidding
the world be glad. He now bids each of us concentrate that universal
gladness in our own hearts. Whether earth obeys Him or not, it is for
us to clasp firmly the great facts which will feed the lamp of our
joy. God's holy memorial is His name, or His self-revealed character.
He desires to be known and remembered by His acts. If we rightly
retain and ponder His utterance of Himself, not in syllables, but in
deeds, we shall not be silent in His praise. The righteous man should
not be harsh and crabbed, but his soul should dwell in a serene
atmosphere of joy in Jehovah, and his life be one thanksgiving to
that mighty, never-to-be-forgotten Name.