Psalm 100:1 Komentář

It is with good reason that many sing this psalm very frequently in their religious assemblies, for it is very proper both to express and to excite pious and devout affections towards God in our approach to him in holy ordinances; and, if our hearts go along with the words, we shall make melody in it to the Lord. The Jews say it was penned to be sung with their thank-offerings; perhaps it was; but we say that as there is nothing in it peculiar to their economy so its beginning with a call to all lands to praise God plainly extends it to the gospel-church. Here, I. We are called upon to praise God and rejoice in him (Psa 100:1, Psa 100:2, Psa 100:4). II. We are furnished with matter for praise; we must praise him, considering his being and relation to us (Psa 100:3) and his mercy and truth (Psa 100:5). These are plain and common things, and therefore the more fit to be the matter of devotion. A psalm of praise.

Here, I. The exhortations to praise are very importunate. The psalm does indeed answer to the title, A psalm of praise; it begins with that call which of late we have several times met with (Psa 100:1), Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all you lands, or all the earth, all the inhabitants of the earth. When all nations shall be discipled, and the gospel preached to every creature, then this summons will be fully answered to. But, if we take the foregoing psalm to be (as we have opened it) a call to the Jewish church to rejoice in the administration of God's kingdom, which they were under (as the four psalms before it were calculated for the days of the Messiah), this psalm, perhaps, was intended for proselytes, that came over out of all lands to the Jews' religion. However, we have here, 1. A strong invitation to worship God; not that God needs us, or any thing we have or can do, but it is his will that we should serve the Lord, should devote ourselves to his service and employ ourselves in it; and that we should not only serve him in all instances of obedience to his law, but that we should come before his presence in the ordinances which he has appointed and in which he has promised to manifest himself (Psa 100:2), that we should enter into his gates and into his courts (Psa 100:4), that we should attend upon him among his servants, and keep there where he keeps court. In all acts of religious worship, whether in secret or in our families, we come into God's presence, and serve him; but it is in public worship especially that we enter into his gates and into his courts. The people were not permitted to enter into the holy place; there the priests only went in to minister. But let the people be thankful for their place in the courts of God's house, to which they were admitted and where they gave their attendance. 2. Great encouragement given us, in worshipping God, to do it cheerfully (Psa 100:2): Serve the Lord with gladness. This intimates a prediction that in gospel-times there should be special occasion for joy; and it prescribes this as a rule of worship: Let God be served with gladness. By holy joy we do really serve God; it is an honour to him to rejoice in him; and we ought to serve him with holy joy. Gospel-worshippers should be joyful worshippers; if we serve God in uprightness, let us serve him with gladness. We must be willing and forward to it, glad when we are called to go up to the house of the Lord (Psa 122:1), looking upon it as the comfort of our lives to have communion with God; and we must be pleasant and cheerful in it, must say, It is good to be here, approaching to God, in every duty, as to God our exceeding Joy, Psa 43:4. We must come before his presence with singing, not only songs of joy, but songs of praise. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, Psa 100:4. We must not only comfort ourselves, but glorify God, with our joy, and let him have the praise of that which we have the pleasure of. Be thankful to him and bless his name; that is, (1.) We must take it as a favour to be admitted into his service, and give him thanks that we have liberty of access to him, that we have ordinances instituted and opportunity continued of waiting upon God in those ordinances. (2.) We must intermix praise and thanksgiving with all our services. This golden thread must run through every duty (Heb 13:15), for it is the work of angels. In every thing give thanks, in every ordinance, as well as in every providence. II. The matter of praise, and motives to it, are very important, Psa 100:3, Psa 100:5. Know you what God is in himself and what he is to you. Note, Knowledge is the mother of devotion and of all obedience: blind sacrifices will never please a seeing God. "Know it; consider and apply it, and then you will be more close and constant, more inward and serious, in the worship of him." Let us know then these seven things concerning the Lord Jehovah, with whom we have to do in all the acts of religious worship: - 1. That the Lord he is God, the only living and true God - that he is a Being infinitely perfect, self-existent, and self-sufficient, and the fountain of all being; he is God, and not a man as we are. He is an eternal Spirit, incomprehensible and independent, the first cause and last end. The heathen worshipped the creature of their own fancy; the workmen made it, therefore it is not God. We worship him that made us and all the world; he is God, and all other pretended deities are vanity and a lie, and such as he has triumphed over. 2. That he is our Creator: It is he that has made us, and not we ourselves. I find that I am, but cannot say, I am that I am, and therefore must ask, Whence am I? Who made me? Where is God my Maker? And it is the Lord Jehovah. He gave us being, he gave us this being; he is both the former of our bodies and the Father of our spirits. We did not, we could not, make ourselves. It is God's prerogative to be his own cause; our being is derived and depending. 3. That therefore he is our rightful owner. The Masorites, by altering one letter in the Hebrew, read it, He made us, and his we are, or to him we belong. Put both the readings together, and we learn that because God made us, and not we ourselves, therefore we are not our own, but his. He has an incontestable right to, and property in, us and all things. His we are, to be actuated by his power, disposed of by his will, and devoted to his honour and glory. 4. That he is our sovereign ruler: We are his people or subjects, and he is our prince, our rector or governor, that gives law to us as moral agents, and will call us to an account for what we do. The Lord is our judge; the Lord is our lawgiver. We are not at liberty to do what we will, but must always make conscience of doing as we are bidden. 5. That he is our bountiful benefactor. We are not only his sheep, whom he is entitled to, but the sheep of his pasture, whom he takes care of; the flock of his feeding (so it may be read); therefore the sheep of his hand; at his disposal because the sheep of his pasture, Psa 95:7. He that made us maintains us, and gives us all good things richly to enjoy. 6. That he is a God of infinite mercy and goodness (Psa 100:5): The Lord is good, and therefore does good; his mercy is everlasting; it is a fountain that can never be drawn dry. The saints, who are now the sanctified vessels of mercy, will be, to eternity, the glorified monuments of mercy. 7. That he is a God of inviolable truth and faithfulness: His truth endures to all generations, and no word of his shall fall to the ground as antiquated or revoked. The promise is sure to all the seed, from age to age.

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 100 A Psalm of Praise. The Arabic version ascribes this psalm to David, and very likely it is one of his: the Targum calls it "a hymn for the sacrifice of thanksgiving;'' and so Jarchi. It is supposed to have been used when peace offerings for thanksgivings were offered up, Lev 7:11. The Syriac inscription is very odd; "concerning Joshua the son of Nun, when he made the war of the Ammonites to cease;'' though it more rightly adds, "but in the New Testament, when the Gentiles are converted to the faith:'' and indeed the scope of the psalm is to exhort the Gentiles to praise the Messiah, to serve and worship him, from the consideration of his goodness and mercy, truth and faithfulness.

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Or, "all the earth" (c); that is, as the Targum, all the inhabitants of the earth, who are called upon to shout unto him as their King; as the angels did at his birth, the disciples when he made his public entrance into Jerusalem, the apostles at his ascension to heaven, the saints when the marriage of him, the Lamb, will be come, and both men and angels when he shall descend from heaven to judge the world; and such a joyful noise or shout should be made unto him as to a triumphant conqueror, who has got the victory over sin, Satan, death, and the grave, and every enemy of his and his people, and made them more than conquerors through himself; see Psa 95:1. (c) "omnis terra", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, Tigurine version, &c.

"Jubilate," therefore, "unto the Lord, all you lands" [Psalm 100:1]. This Psalm gives this exhortation to us, that we jubilate unto the Lord. Nor does it, as it were, exhort one particular corner of the earth, or one habitation or congregation of men; but since it is aware that it has sown blessings on every side, on every side it does exact jubilance. Does all the earth at this moment hear my voice? And yet the whole earth has heard this voice. All the earth is already jubilant in the Lord; and what is not as yet jubilant, will be so. For blessing, extending on every side, when the Church was commencing to spread from Jerusalem throughout all nations, [Luke 24:47] everywhere overturns ungodliness, and everywhere builds up piety: the good are mingled with the wicked throughout all lands. Every land is full of the discontented murmurs of the wicked, and of the jubilance of the good. What then is it, "to jubilate"? For the title of the present Psalm especially makes us give good heed to this word, for it is entitled, "A Psalm of confession." What means, to jubilate with confession? It is the sentiment thus expressed in another Psalm: "Blessed is the people that understands jubilance." Surely that which being understood makes blessed is something great. May therefore the Lord our God, who makes men blessed, grant me to understand what to say, and grant you to understand what ye hear: "Blessed is the people that understands jubilance." Let us therefore run unto this blessing, let us understand jubilance, let us not pour it forth without understanding. Of what use is it to be jubilant and obey this Psalm, when it says, "Jubilate unto the Lord, all you lands," and not to understand what jubilance is, so that our voice only may be jubilant, our heart not so? For the understanding is the utterance of the heart.

In this Psalm the profession of the principles of his domestic and political government testifies, as well as actions in accordance with it, David's appreciation of God's mercy to him, and His judgment on his enemies: and thus he sings or celebrates God's dealings. (Psa 101:1-8) He avows his sincere purpose, by God's aid, to act uprightly (Gen 17:1; Psa 18:30).

The call in Psa 100:1 sounds like Psa 98:4; Psa 66:1. כּל־הארץ are all lands, or rather all men belonging to the earth's population. The first verse, without any parallelism and in so far monostichic, is like the signal for a blowing of the trumpets. Instead of "serve Jahve with gladness (בּשׂמחה)," it is expressed in Psa 2:11, "serve Jahve with fear (בּיראה)." Fear and joy do not exclude one another. Fear becomes the exalted Lord, and the holy gravity of His requirements; joy becomes the gracious Lord, and His blessed service. The summons to manifest this joy in a religious, festive manner springs up out of an all-hopeful, world-embracing love, and this love is the spontaneous result of living faith in the promise that all tribes of the earth shall be blessed in the seed of Abraham, and in the prophecies in which this promise is unfolded. דּעוּ (as in Psa 4:4) Theodoret well interprets δι ̓ αὐτῶν μάθετε τῶν πραγμάτων. They are to know from facts of outward and inward experience that Jahve is God: He hath made us, and not we ourselves. Thus runs the Chethξb, which the lxx follows, αὐτὸς ἔποήσεν ἡμᾶς καὶ οὐχ ἡμεῖς (as also the Syriac and Vulgate); but Symmachus (like Rashi), contrary to all possibilities of language, renders αὐτὸς ἐποίησεν ἡμᾶς οὐκ ὄντας. Even the Midrash (Bereshith Rabba, ch. c. init.) finds in this confession the reverse of the arrogant words in the mouth of Pharaoh: "I myself have made myself" (Eze 29:3). The Ker, on the other hand, reads לו, (Note: According to the reckoning of the Masora, there are fifteen passages in the Old Testament in which לא is written and לו is read, viz., Exo 21:8; Lev 11:21; Lev 25:30; Sa1 2:3; Sa2 16:18; Kg2 8:10; Isa 9:2; Isa 63:9; Psa 100:3; Psa 139:16; Job 13:15 cf. the note there, Psa 41:4; Pro 19:7; Pro 26:2; Ezr 4:2. Because doubtful, Isa 49:5; Ch1 11:20 are not reckoned with these.) which the Targum, Jerome, and Saadia follow and render: et ipsius nos sumus. Hengstenberg calls this Ker quite unsuitable and bad; and Hupfeld, on the other hand, calls the Chethb an "unspeakable insipidity." But in reality both readings accord with the context, and it is clear that they are both in harmony with Scripture. Many a one has drawn balsamic consolation from the words ipse fecit nos et non ipsi nos; e.g., Melancthon when disconsolately sorrowful over the body of his son in Dresden on the 12th July 1559. But in ipse fecit nos et ipsius nos sumus there is also a rich mine of comfort and of admonition, for the Creator of also the Owner, His heart clings to His creature, and the creature owes itself entirely to Him, without whom it would not have had a being, and would not continue in being. Since, however, the parallel passage, Psa 95:7, favours ולו rather than ולא; since, further, ולא ,reh is the easier reading, inasmuch as הוּא leads one to expect that an antithesis will follow (Hitzig); and since the "His people and the sheep of His pasture" that follows is a more natural continuation of a preceding ולו אנחנו than that it should be attached as a predicative object to עשׂנוּ over a parenthetical ולא אנחנו: the Ker decidedly maintains the preference. In connection with both readings, עשׂה has a sense related to the history of redemption, as in Sa1 12:6. Israel is Jahve's work (מעשׂה), Isa 29:23; Isa 60:21, cf. Deu 32:6, Deu 32:15, not merely as a people, but as the people of God, who were kept in view even in the calling of Abram.