'Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk,
O Lord, in the light of Thy countenance.'--PSALM lxxxix. 15.
The Psalmist has just been setting forth, in sublime language, the
glories of the divine character--God's strength, His universal sway, the
justice and judgment which are the foundation of His Throne, the mercy
and truth which go as heralds before His face. A heathen singing of any
of his gods would have gone on to describe the form and features of the
god or goddess who came behind the heralds, but the Psalmist remembers
'Thou shalt not make unto thyself any ... likeness of God.' A sacred
reverence checks his song. He veils his face in his mantle while He whom
no man can see and live passes by. Then he breaks into rapturous
exclamations which are very prosaically and poorly represented by our
version. For the text is not a mere statement, as it is made to be by
reading 'Blessed is the people,' but it is a burst of adoring wonder,
and should be read, 'Oh! the blessedness of the people that know the
joyful sound.'
Now, the force of this exclamation is increased if we observe that the
word that is rendered 'joyful sound' is the technical word for the
trumpet blast at Jewish feasts. The purpose of these blasts, like those
of the heralds at the coronation of a king, was to proclaim the presence
of God, the King of Israel, in the festival, as well as to express the
gladness of the worshippers. Thus the Psalmist, when he says, 'Blessed
is the people that know the joyful sound,' has no reference, as we
ordinarily take him to have, to the preaching of the Gospel, but to the
trumpet-blasts that proclaimed the present God and throbbed with the
gladness of the waiting worshippers. So that this exclamation is
equivalent to 'Oh! how blessed are the people who are sure that they
have God with them!' and who, being sure, bow before Him in loving
worship. It is to be further noticed that the subsequent words of the
text state the first element which it indicates of that blessedness of a
devout life, 'They shall walk, O Lord! in the light of Thy countenance.'