"Oh sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth!
2 Sing to the Lord, bless his name;
tell of his salvation from day to day.
3 Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvellous works among all the peoples!
4 For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
he is to be feared above all gods.
5 For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols,
but the Lord made the heavens.
6 Splendour and majesty are before him;
strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.
7 Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength!
8 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
bring an offering, and come into his courts!
9 Worship the Lord in the splendour of holiness;
tremble before him, all the earth!
10 Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns!
Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved;
he will judge the peoples with equity.”
11 Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
12 let the field exult, and everything in it!
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy
13 before the Lord, for he comes,
for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness,
and the peoples in his faithfulness."
Psalm 96
At a first reading, this Psalm is a lovely song of praise and worship. It is a Psalm, which has given us the wonderful words 'O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness', and it is worthy of our attention for this alone, apart from anything else. But there is much more in the Psalm than this, and we must look at its significance, in getting behind it to see what it is saying. The Psalms in this section of the Psalter all celebrate the Lord as King, and this is a key note here also, as we see in 10, 'the Lord reigneth' (or, 'is become King'). When we studied these same words in Psalm 93:1 we said they celebrated an act rather than a state, and we should assume the same interpretation here. Some think the reference is to the return from the exile in Babylon, but any Divine act of deliverance serves to illustrate the words. Also, just as in Psalm 93, here also there is a prophetic note, which looks forward to the final consummation, and this is what gives the double message of the Psalm. But there is something else: we should notice the association of ideas between the fact of Jehovah's becoming King (10) and His coming (13). There is something important in this, in relation to a Christian understanding of the Psalm. And this needs to be looked at in two ways, which will be the subject of the next Note.