Psalm 47:1-4 – Sing Praises To The King

Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 30 July 2023

Introduction:

• There is no consensus as to when this Psalm was composed¹, but its mention of the blowing of horns and trumpet fanfare or shouting associates it with the Jewish autumn festivals of the seventh month which were to be announced with trumpet or shophar-blowing. This time of year was when the Jews celebrated the new year, and the themes of this Psalm would be good for any believer to recall to mind as foundational for every year of life.

• The theme is of the unification of the world’s peoples under the kingship of God. This touches a deep longing we have in our hearts because our world is so fragmented. We have given so many bullets and bombs to the Ukranians to shoot at the Russians that we’ve run out of some of them. Russia is threatening to fight back with nuclear bombs. China and Iran pilot their ships and jets on collision courses with ours just to be aggressive. North Korea regularly launches missiles that make the world world nervous as to where the next one is going to land. And that’s just scratching the surface in describing all the hostilities going on in the world today! Psalm 47 points us to a world where all the national leaders are gathered in peaceful assembly to worship God, submitting themselves to the leadership of God who is reigning over all the earth. Is that something you long for? This is revolutionary! This is the healing of what happened at the Tower of Babel, the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy of the lion lying down with the lamb! (G. Wilson)

v.1 The Commands: Clap and Shout

• The first imperative is to Clap.

  • The Hebrew word for “clap” here is not the one usually used for applause (מחא), but rather it is the word (תקע) with a meaning like in Shakespeare’s play Henry V “clap hands and a bargain²” – or shake hands, or sign on the dotted line, as we do it in our culture. In the NIV Application Commentary, Gerald Wilson elaborates: “When Psalm 47 calls ‘all you nations/peoples’ to clap their hands and praise God, it calls them to a covenant of unity… coming together in agreement to praise the God of Israel.”

  • The Hebrew word for “Hands” appears with another verb also translated “clap” (נכה) in 2 Kings 11:12, in parallel with the people “saying ‘Long live the king.’” It’s also in Psalm 98 which has a lot of similarity to Psalm 47:4-9 (underlined words are the same in both Psalms): “Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise… With trumpets and sound of cornet make a joyful noise before the LORD, the King… Let the floods clap their hands: let the hills be joyful together Before the LORD; for he cometh to judge the earth: with righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity.” (NKJV)

  • Around the year 400 AD, a famous pastor in North Africa named Augustine preached a sermon on Psalm 47, and the sermon notes written by one of his students have survived to this day. Augustine’s method of interpretation was to find allegories, and many of his allegories seem to find more meaning than was originally intended in the Bible, but the allegory he found in the first phrase of this Psalm makes for a good application: He said, “What does ‘clap’ mean? [It means] ‘Rejoice!’ But wherefore with the hands? Because with good works. Do not rejoice with the mouth while idle with the hands.” ~Augustine (That sounds a lot like the application of the epistle of James!)

• The second command in v.1 is to “Cheer/shout”

  • This Hebrew word for “cheering” occurs in three contexts in the Bible:

1. In Religious worship contexts, such as 1 Sam. 4:5 (when the ark entered the camp), and Ezra 3:11 (when the temple foundation was finished),

2. In Political celebrations, particularly the coronations of kings in 1 Sam. 10:24 and 2 Ki. 11:12, and

3. In Military rallies, such as 1 Samuel 17:20 (when the Israelite soldiers were psyching themselves up to fight the Philistines), or in the case of Psalm 41:12 (where there was no cheering because there was no victory).

• In this Psalm, there is a blending of all three in the religious worship of God who is also a political King over all the earth, and who is being lauded by soldiers bearing shields.

• This world may seem pretty hopeless to you right now, but this nexus of spiritual, political, and military motive to celebrate is powerful enough to draw in the whole world!

• This cheering is further described, depending on which translation you read, as a “voice of triumph/cry of joy/loud song/sound of singing” - The previous two uses of this noun in the Psalms referred to singing:

• Psalm 30:5 “for it's a moment in His anger; a lifetime in His favor. During the evening weeping may be company, but by the morning there will be singing!” (NAW)

• Psalm 42:4 “It is these things I will remember while I spill my soul out on myself: that I would pass through with the throng; I would lead them to the house of God with the sound of singing and thanksgiving - a multitude celebrating the feast.” (NAW).

• Who is supposed to do this cheering and singing to God? “All the peoples!”

  • The singular “people,” by the way, is a misprint in the KJV; the Hebrew word is the plural of “people/ethnic group/nation.” (In the original languages of the Bible, “people” is not the plural of “person;” a people is an ethnic group with a common language and culture, and the plural “people” is “peoples/nations.”

  • In other words, this is not just a command to some undefined crowd of persons, this is a command addressed to every ethnic group in the world in particular!

    • Every tongue, tribe, and nation is called to obey this command to clap and cheer, because some from every tongue, tribe, and nation will be called and justified and glorified (Psalm 86:9, Isa. 2:2, Gal. 3:8),

    • furthermore, some from every language, tribe, and nation will be in heaven, according to John’s vision in the book of Revelation (Rev. 7:9).

  • The Apostle Paul, in the New Testament, explicitly stated that these commands are for us still today: Romans 15:8-11 “Now I say that Jesus Christ has become a servant to the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers, and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy, as it is written: ‘For this reason I will confess to You among the Gentiles, And sing to Your name.’ And again he says: ‘Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people³!’ And again: ‘Praise the LORD, all you Gentiles! Laud Him, all you peoples!’” That command is for us! Are we obeying it?

• When we read the commands in this Psalm to clap your hands and cheer for God, it is tempting to assume that this is like other occasions when we have been encouraged to clap and cheer.

  • Many of us have been to a public event where the stage manager introduced the special speaker or performer by saying, “And now, let’s give a big round of applause for ______.” And then during the show, the performers themselves often motion for you to clap along with their music, or the speaker will pause so you can clap in agreement with what he just said. Why do they do that? It’s because they want to feel appreciated. Is that why God’s word tells us to clap and cheer for Him? No! God is not insecure; He does not need to be encouraged, nor does he need support and affirmation from us.

  • Well, then maybe it’s for us, then. Musicians and speakers also want us to cheer and clap because it will engage us more deeply with their message/music and make us feel more like we are having a good time. Is that why God tells us to clap and cheer – because He wants us to feel more engaged with Him? Is worship nothing more than an existential high brought on by waving our hands and stomping our feet? Once again, No! That’s paganism, not Christianity. That’s what the prophets of Baal did on Mt. Carmel; that’s not what Elijah did, and it’s not what Elijah encouraged the people of Israel to do.

  • This kind of applause is more like when a performer has truly impressed you, and, at the end of their performance, you want to let them know how much you respect them for their impressive work. I remember that happening to me once as a college student when I attended an Elliot Fisk concert. As a guitar player myself, I was enthralled with his technical precision and virtuosity as he played several classical pieces with the Chattanooga Symphony Orchestra, but it was his encore that absolutely blew me away. It was a Paganini violin piece, and he played it on a classical guitar! Now, to understand the significance of that, you have to understand that to play Paganini well on the violin takes a master violinist – it is so fast-paced and complex, but the violin is only half the size of a guitar, so to play it on the guitar means moving your hands twice as far in the same amount of time, but Elliot Fisk pulled it off; it was truly amazing! The entire audience was on their feet, applauding wildly the moment he finished.

  • But our response to God goes even deeper than that. Look at the reason given in v.2 for why we should clap and to sing loud; Verse 2 starts with the word “because/for.”

v. 2 Why God should be praised

• “because Yahweh the Most-High is to be respected/feared”

  • The NIV & NLT follow some of the oldest versions in translating the Hebrew participle in v.2 as the English adjective “awesome/terrible,” in parallel with “most high,” describing God,

  • but the NASB and ESV interpret it as a verb connected with the imperatives in verse 1, commanding us to “fear/respect” God – in addition to clapping and singing His praises.

  • Either is a reasonable interpretation.

• Furthermore, “He is the great king over all the earth!”

  • Now, in the Hebrew and Greek, there is no definite article “the” in front of the word for “king” in this verse, so some Bibles translate that with the English indefinite article “a” (“God is a great king”), but we have to be careful about that, because neither Hebrew nor Greek have such a thing as an indefinite article, so when you see the word “a/an” in an English Bible, it is an interpretation – usually a legitimate interpretation, but an interpretation all-the-same. In this case, I question that interpretation, because this particular king reigns over “all the earth.” Now, how many kings are there who reign over every nation in the entire world? Is God just one of many such kings? No! There is only one such king, so I believe it is more-appropriate to use the definite article “the” here to describe this “great king,” and that is supported in the grammar of Greek and Hebrew, where sometimes a subject is not given a definite article, because it is universally-known to be one-of-a-kind, and here, I believe, is a case in point. The royal station and power and glory of King Jesus is beyond comparison with any other king.

  • And if anyone should think that I’m taking things a bit too far to equate Jesus with Yahweh in this Psalm, don’t take my word for it that Jesus is God, it’s right there in Romans 9:5 “...Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever.” (ESV)

• He is the “most high.”

  • You may have sung that Hebrew word “Elyon” in Michael Card’s song, “El Shaddai, El Shaddai, El Elyona, Adonai.”

  • We first hear God described as “Elyon” – the highest of all powers – by the Canaanite prophets Melchizedek (Gen. 14:19) and Balaam (Num. 24:16), who knew something about how many contenders for sovereignty there are out there in the physical as well as the spiritual world, and who therefore were making quite a remarkable statement about Yahweh⁴.

  • Do you have any idea how much power and authority God wields as the “Lord Most High”?

    • When Jesus told His disciples in Matthew 28:18 “All power/authority is given unto me,” can you begin to fathom what that means?

    • When Peter tells us that “Jesus Christ… is at the right hand of God after having proceeded into heaven, angels and authorities and powers having been subjected to Him,” (1 Pet. 3:22, NAW) have you considered what that means?

    • The praise and worship bands make it easy for us to roll Biblical phrases off our tongues like “the God of the whole earth,” “every knee will bow,” “Lord of heaven and earth,” “holy and awesome,” and it feels spiritual and powerful to sing these words, but have you thought about what these words imply?

  • What is the most-important, most-authoritative person you have ever met in this life? I’ve seen a general sworn-in at Fort Riley; I’ve even shaken hands with the governor of our state. Maybe someone here has met the President of the United States. When you meet somebody that powerful, you have to be very respectful. One thoughtless word – or one false move, and His security guards will cut you off from him for good. On the other hand, one word of favor from him could get you pardoned from any crime you’ve ever committed, or could get you any job or position of influence you wanted. But that’s only a drop in the bucket compared to the power and authority Jesus holds.

• The response to such power and authority is described in our Psalm as “fear.”

  • Jesus used the same word in the New Testament: “Don't be afraid of those who kill the body but do not have the power to kill the soul, but fear rather the One with power to destroy both soul and body in hell!” (Matthew 10:28, NAW)

  • For those who hate God and want to avoid accountability to Him, that will look like the kind of terror that motivates a person to run away from danger (Rev. 6:15), but that sort of fear won’t do you any good in the day of God’s judgment.

  • On the other hand, for those who love God and want to get closer to Him, fear will look more like the kind of respectful care not to offend, that we would show to the President of the United States – or maybe toward someone we would like to marry: a fanatical devotion that shows all the attention we can – and promises all the loyalty we can, so that the relationship will open up to us and we can get closer to them, an eagerness to extend every benefit of the doubt and do anything they would want, just to enjoy their favor.

  • Would that be an accurate way of describing how you relate to God? What would need to change in order for you to have an attitude like that toward Him? “He is awesome/He is to be feared/He is to be respected.”

• How did God get to be King over all the earth anyway? v.3 tells us:

v. 3 God Conquers the Peoples

• This verse is closely-related to Psalm 44:2-4, another one of the Psalms of the Korahites, which describes how Israel conquered the Canaanites under Moses and Joshua and the Judges: “It was You – Your hand – that disinherited nations. Instead You planted them [the Israelites]. You caused calamity to the peoples but them [the Israelites] You released. So it was not by their own sword that they inherited the land, and their arm-strength is not what brought deliverance to them, for it was Your right hand and Your arm-strength and the light of Your face by which you favored them. You are the same one who is my King, O God. Command the deliverances of Jacob.” (NAW)

• It is also an echo of David’s Psalm of triumph when he had completed the conquest of the Canaanites: Psalm 18:38-50 “I have pursued my enemies and destroyed them... I have destroyed them and wounded them, So that they could not rise; They have fallen under my feet⁵… You position me at the head of nations – [even of] an ethnic-group I did not know – they serve me. As soon as the sound [reaches their] ear, sons of the foreigner are heedful to me; they are obsequious toward me… let the God of my salvation be exalted! This God is the One who deals out retributions for me and decrees [or subdues] peoples to be under me… He causes to increase the salvations of His king and makes loving-kindness for His anointed one – to David and to his seed until forever.” (NAW)

• Being “underneath the feet” of someone else was a metaphor for being conquered in battle and for submission to the authority and rule of whoever came out on top.

• It should not be mistaken for some kind of racism which considers certain nationalities to be superior to others. This is about the superiority of God over all human beings, not about the superiority of certain human beings over others.

• John Calvin noted in his commentary on this psalm, “What he adds a little after, that all nations were brought into subjection to Israel, must, therefore, necessarily be understood not of slavish subjection, but of a subjection which is more excellent, and more to be desired, than all the kingdoms of the world. It would be unnatural for those who are subdued and brought to submit by force and fear to leap for joy… it follows that this language is applicable only to the kingdom of Christ, who is called a high and terrible King, (verse 2;) not that he makes the wretched beings over whom he reigns to tremble by the tyranny and violence of his sway, but because his majesty...”

• What it is ultimately about is the triumph of David’s seed, Jesus Christ:

  • who, “being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Therefore, my beloved,... work out your own salvation with fear and trembling...” (Philippians 2:8-12, NKJV) Notice that word “fear” as a New Testament command too!

  • 1 Corinthians 15:24-27 “...Christ will deliver the kingdom to His God and Father, whenever He has put out of commission all rule and all authority and power. For it is necessary for Him to reign until whenever He has put all His enemies beneath His feet… for ‘He has brought all things under submission beneath His feet.’” (NAW)

  • Ephesians 1:18-23 “...May you know what the hope of His call is, what the wealth of the glory of His inheritance in the saints is, and what the hyperbolic greatness of His power into us believers is, according to the energy of the might of His strength, which He worked in the Christ when He raised out of the dead and seated Him in His right hand in the heavens above every ruler and authority and power and lordship and every name being named – not only in this age but also in the one which is about to be – and everything He subordinated under His feet, and to Him He gave headship over everything in the church, which is His body, the fullness of the One who is filling all in all.” (NAW)

• Notice that this victorious authority is something that Jesus shares with his body the church. The Psalmist here says that the nations will be beneath “our” feet!

  • The Apostle Paul promised under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, “...the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly.” (Romans 16:20, NKJV)

  • and in 2 Timothy 2:12 “If we endure, We shall also reign with Him [Christ].”

v. 4 God as Sovereign Decision-Maker

• He is the one who “chose/chooses” those whom He “loves.”

  • Isaiah 41:8-10 expands on this, saying: “But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham, my loved one; you whom I took from the ends of the earth, and called from its farthest corners, saying to you, ‘You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you off;’ fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I chose/strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” (NAW)

  • Malachi 1:2 "I have loved you," says the LORD… “Jacob I have loved; but Esau I have hated…” (NKJV)

  • The Apostle Paul applies this to the church today in the book of Romans, confirming God’s sovereignty in lovingly choosing those He wishes to save: Romans 8:30 “Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified… 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor… any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord... 9:13-16 “As it is written, ‘Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.’ ... For He says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.’ So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.” (NKJV)

• The two phrases in the middle of verse 4 are a little more of a challenge to interpret: The first because of a textual variant:

  • The Masoretic Hebrew text reads “chosen for us our inheritance,” and that is what the modern English versions followed, indicating that God chose the Promised Land and gave it to Israel. And that makes sense. The Bible does speak in several places of God giving the Promised Land to Israel as an inheritance⁶.

  • But the Septuagint, Vulgate, Arabic, and Peshitta versions which are many hundreds of years older than the oldest extant Hebrew manuscript all read “chosen us to be His inheritance.”

    • And there is only one other verse in the Bible which contains the words “choose” and “inheritance,” and that is Psalm 33:12 “Oh the blessings of the nation where Yahweh is its God, the people group He chose for an inheritance for Himself!” (NAW, cf. 2:8)

    • This reflects the statement in Deuteronomy 32:9 “For the LORD'S portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.” (KJV)

    • Then in the New Testament, the book which speaks most about “inheritance” is Ephesians, and it also lines up with us being God’s inheritance: Eph. 1:11-18 “Christ … In whom also we were allotted [verb form of “inheritance”], being predestined [synonym to “chosen”] according to the purpose of the One who is working all things according to the counsel of His will, Resulting in us (the ones having first hoped in the Christ) being into praise of His glory [a synonym for the word for “pride/excellence” in Psalm 47], In whom also you having heard the word of the truth - the good news of your salvation, in whom also you having believed, were sealed in the Holy Spirit of the promise, Who is a down-payment of the inheritance of us into redemption of His possession into praise of His glory… the eyes of your heart having been enlightened, resulting in [you] knowing: what the hope of His call is, what the wealth of the glory of His inheritance in the saints is…” (NAW)

    • In the grammar of the verse in Hebrew, this “inheritance” is parallel to the other object “glory/pride/excellence of Jacob.” Most English versions and commentaries interpret the glory of Jacob as the Promised Land, but I think they both actually refer to the people of God⁷.

  • But either way, Psalm 37:4 emphasizes God’s sovereign power to make His own choices.

• The second phrase in the middle of v. 4 is also a challenge to interpret because “the pride/glory/excellency/exaltation of Jacob” could potentially mean a few different things. There are three other passages in the O.T. which contain this phrase “gaon yacov” – all in the minor prophets, and they demonstrate the three possible meanings of this Hebrew word gaon – even when it occurs without the word “Jacob”:

  • The first is the “excellency/glory/transcendence” of God (Ex. 15:7). Amos 8:7 “The LORD has sworn by himself⁸, the Pride of Jacob: ‘I will never forget…’” (NIV) God Himself is exalted/magnificent/pride of Jacob. We also see that meaning in the first instance of this Hebrew word in the Bible, Exodus 15:6-7 “...Your right hand, O LORD, has dashed the enemy in pieces. And in the greatness of Your excellence You have overthrown those who rose against You…” (NKJV)

  • The second meaning flows out of that: God shares His “glory/excellence/majesty” with His people, making them “glorious/exalted/something to be proud of:” Nahum 2:2 “For the LORD will restore the excellence of Jacob Like the excellence of Israel...” (NKJV, cf. Isa. 4:2, 60:15)

  • Finally, the people whom God has blessed often become sinfully-proud and selfishly-indulgent in the good things God has given them, at which point God has to chastise them for taking “pride/glory” in the wrong things, and that’s the 3^rd meaning: Amos 6:1-8 “Woe to you who are at ease in Zion, And trust in Mount Samaria… Who lie on beds of ivory… Who drink wine from bowls, And anoint yourselves with the best ointments, But are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph... The Lord GOD has sworn by Himself, The LORD God of hosts says: ‘I abhor the pride of Jacob, And hate his palaces; Therefore I will deliver up the city And all that is in it.’” (NKJV)

• So which one is it in Psalm 47:4? The “glory/pride of Jacob” here can’t be the third category of sinful pride, and it can’t be the first category describing God Himself (because God is the subject and this is a direct object), so this must be the second category of derivative glory⁹ experienced by God’s people as a result of God choosing to bless them. God’s people are “chosen” by Him, “loved” by Him, and are therefore “His inheritance” and thus they are “glorious/magnificent/excellent.” That’s you, by the way. He loves you; He is proud of you, and He is looking forward to getting you close to Him in heaven. Is that not reason to cheer?

Conclusion

• Do you acknowledge this God as your God?

• Do you relate to Him as your King?

• Does He have your fear and respect?

• Let us exalt God!

Psalm 47:5-9 – The Gathering Of The Nations To Worship Christ

Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 30 July 2023

Introduction:

• The Selah at the end of v.4 divides the psalm into two stanzas of 10 lines each. Each stanza containing a command to praise, a statement of the kingship of God over all the earth and of the subjection of the peoples to Him, and both using the verb “go up” in regard to God.

vs. 5-6 God as Heralded Royalty

• Imagine going to a K-State football game or basketball game, and when you walk in, everybody is just quietly looking at their smartphones or chatting with their neighbor. The scoreboard lights are off, and there are no loudspeaker-announcements. The team suddenly bursts in through the gate to the field/court, but nobody stands up and cheers. There aren’t even any cheerleaders.

  • If you were sitting there in the coliseum or the grandstand observing how the crowd was acting, what would you think of the K-State Wildcats? “This team must be a real dud if that’s how its fan base is acting!” Right?

  • But when the cowbells are clanging and the airhorns are honking and the lights are flashing and the people are whooping and doing the Wabash Cannonball, and the band is playing and the cheerleaders are jumping up and down and the speakers are blaring, you feel quite differently about the team, don’t you? You want to join in the excitement and cheer the team on!

  • Now, if that’s how we gauge the importance of a sports team to our community, how might we gauge the importance of God to our community?

• Every year, on the first day of the seventh month in the Jewish calendar, horns and trumpets were supposed to be blown to announce the beginning of the new year, when God’s people would remember God’s creation of the world, their freedom from slavery in Egypt, the giving of the law, and their atonement from sin. And every 70 years, the sound of those trumpets would also mean that every debt was canceled and every slave was free. This was how the ancient Jews made a big deal of how important God was to their community. In fact, some of them still do that – I’ve got a neighbor that goes out into his backyard and blows on a sheeps-horn every new moon!

• Verse 5 of Psalm 47 looks back to describe a particular occasion when the people cheered and blew shophar-horns to celebrate God ascending. When was that?

  • 2 Samuel 6:15 “So David and all the house of Israel were bringing up the ark of Yahweh with fanfare and with the sound of the shophar-horn.” (NAW) They were celebrating moving the ark of the covenant into David’s new capitol city and establishing a new place to worship God there!

  • That was during the glory-days of Israel when the nation was united, when King David was in his prime, when the military was conquering all the enemies and the people were at peace, and when God was the only one worshiped by the king and his men.

  • About 150 years later, Jehoshaphat was king in succession to David, and “the people of Moab with the people of Ammon, and others with them... came to battle against Jehosha­phat... And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the LORD, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah... [and prayed, and the LORD answered through the Prophet] Jahaz­iel.... Position yourselves, stand still and see the salvation of the LORD... So they rose early in the morning and went out into the Wilderness of Tekoa; and as they went out, Jehosha­phat ... appointed those who should sing to the LORD... Now when they began to sing and to praise, the LORD set ambushes against the people of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah; and they were defeated... So when Judah came to a place overlooking the wilderness, they looked toward the multitude; and there were their dead bodies, fallen on the earth. No one had escaped... Jehoshaphat and his people... returned... go back to Jerusalem with joy, for the LORD had made them rejoice over their enemies. So they came to Jerusalem, with stringed instruments and harps and trumpets, to the house of the LORD. And the fear of God was on all the kingdoms of those countries when they heard that the LORD had fought against the enemies of Israel. (2 Chron. 20:1-29, NKJV)

• About a thousand years later, the Lord Jesus¹⁰ ascended the same hill in Jerusalem, first on a donkey, then on His own two feet while carrying a cross. But Jesus didn’t stop at the top of the hill like David and the ark of the covenant did; Jesus died and rose from the dead and ascended even higher into heaven (Eph. 4:10). Now, none of Jesus’ “goings-ups” were accompanied by the kind of heraldic trumpet blasts described in Psalm 47, but the Bible tells us that there will be that kind of fanfare when He returns: 1 Thessalonians 4:16 “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God...” (NKJV)

• All this fits with the picture of the importance of God. He is a great God and greatly to be praised.

• For those of us who do not live in a monarchy, the implications of God also being the King may be easy to miss:

  • In a monarchy, the King is the one who makes the laws, the King is the one who enforces the laws, and the King is the ultimate judge of the laws. All authority comes down to him, and there is no way to appeal the decision of the king; he is where the buck stops.

  • Now, can you see why so many kings throughout history have felt threatened by believers proclaiming God to be king? It is tantamount to telling every earthly king, “You are not where the buck stops. You are not the final authority on what is lawful. There is someone over your head to whom your people can appeal, and you can’t do anything about it!” It takes humility to be a civil magistrate who supports Christianity!

  • For every Christian living under an oppressive government, that is good news! Your earthly government doesn’t have the final say on what is right and wrong; God in heaven does.

  • And this Psalm predicts a time when every earthly government will be brought under the jurisdiction of God’s government and there will be such joy and peace and prosperity and glory and justice and unity, that “we the people” will want nothing more than to “sing praises” to this Divine “King” and “exalt” Him! Zachariah 14:9 also describes that future: “And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one.” (NKJV)

  • Revelation 11:15-16 “Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, ‘The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!’ And the twenty-four elders who sat before God on their thrones fell on their faces and worshiped God” (NKJV) Oh how I long for that day!

• The making of music to worship our God and King is emphasized in verses 6-7 through the command to “make music/sing praise.” This command is issued, not once, not twice, not three times, but FIVE times in a row! Do you think maybe that is important?!!

  • Isaac Watts got it right in his hymn, “Come, we that love the Lord, and let our joys be known; Join in a song with sweet accord, and thus surround the throne. Let those refuse to sing that never knew our God; But children of the heav'nly King will speak their joys abroad!” It’s really not an option not to sing!

  • And, for what it’s worth, the command to sing is in the plural, so this doesn’t mean, “Listen to the worship leader sing;” it means “All of you, Sing!” It’s what we sing in the Christmas carol: “All dominions, bow before him, And extol our God and King; Let no tongue on earth be silent, Ev'ry voice in concert ring.”

  • The last word in v.7 about what kind of music to sing to God is only used 13 other places in the Bible, and every one of them in the title of a Psalm. Psalms 32, 42, 44, 45, 52-55, 74, 78, 88, 89, and 142 are all called “Maskils,” which are a kind-of wisdom-psalm that is “thought-provoking/takes certain skill/contemplative.”

    • Matthew Henry related it to the principle in 1 Cor. 14:15 “... sing with the spirit… also sing with the mind.” (NAW)

    • This tells us that being loud and celebratory is not the only way to worship God; being wise, skillful, and contemplative is also an appropriate way to show respect to the highest authority in the universe.

    • Some cultures, like the Mexicans and Sub-Saharan Africans really lead the way in being loud and celebratory, and other cultures like the Mayan Belizians and Northern Europeans lead the way in being solemn and reverent, but both kinds of worship – both the contemplative Maskill kind in v.7 and the clapping & cheering kind in v.1 – are commanded by God of us, so if you naturally gravitate toward one end of the worship spectrum, put some effort into incorporating the other end of the spectrum into your worship as an act of obedience to King Jesus.

vs. 7-8 God’s Worldwide, Pan-ethnic Dominion

• v.7 tells us the reason we are to make music & sing praises: God is “King over all the earth.”

  • Abraham Kuyper, prime minister of the Netherlands in the early 1900’s, famously put it this way, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”

• v.8 adds “God reigns over the nations” – not only is He king, He is also acting like a king, positively reigning, making laws, enforcing His laws, and judging.

  • The Deistic idea that God is some divine watchmaker who set the world in motion, then left it to run its own course is foreign to the Bible.

  • When a king sat on his throne in David’s day, he was not relaxing, he was conducting business, taking council and making decisions.

• And that throne is the “throne of His holiness.” English versions obscure this phrase a bit by putting the “his” before the word “throne,” but in the original language of this Psalm, the word “his” is attached to the word “holiness.” The throne itself is not holy; It is the holiness of His person which makes everything around Him holy. That becomes evident when you string together the previous instances of that phrase in the Psalms:

  • Psalm 3:4 “...I will call to Yahweh, and He will answer me from the mountain of His holiness.” (NAW)

  • Psalm 11:4 “Yahweh is in the temple of His holiness. As for Yahweh, His throne is in the heavens. His eyes see; His gazes will test Adam's descendants.” (NAW)

  • Psalm 20:6 “Now I know that Yahweh causes to save His anointed one; He will answer him from the heavens of His holiness with the saving mightinesses of His right hand.” (NAW)

  • Psalm 24:3 “Who will go up on Yahweh's mountain, and who will rise up in the location of His holiness?” (NAW)

  • Psalm 30:4 “Make music for Yahweh, you His godly ones, and respond to [the] remembrance of His holiness” (NAW)

  • Psalm 33:21 “for it is in Him that our heart is happy, because we have trusted in the name of His holiness.” (NAW)

• Much as it was in David’s day, so it is still, that God’s reign is currently being conducted from heaven, so we do not see all the outworkings of it, but we can take courage that God is not ignoring what is going on down here; He is intimately aware of the problems we are facing, and He is actively working to make things right; it is just mostly invisible to us, and He is doing it on His own timescale, which is not in as much a hurry as ours. Our role is to enter into relationship, by faith, with this God who can’t be seen, using the directions from the Psalms: calling upon Him, accepting His judgments, participating in His holiness, remembering Him in prayer, singing praise to him, and joining His people in worship.

v. 9 The people assembled to exalt God.

• In the last verse of the psalm, God is being exalted by an assembly of personages. Two or three phrases are used to describe the congregation:

  • first is “The noblemen/princes of the peoples,”

  • then most English translations add a parallel phrase about “the people of the God of Abraham,”

  • and then there is the “shields/kings of the land.”

• The “noblemen/princes” are those who are active in society and who have wealth that they give generously. They come to church to worship, and they support its ministry.

  • But note, that these are not just Jews; they are from the “peoples” (plural)! They are some of those of whom Jesus spoke when he said in Matthew 8:11 “...many from East and West will come and will be pulled up to the table with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.”

• The “shields” (erroneously translated “kings” in the NIV) are soldiers who carried shields as part of their armor¹¹.

  • When these men came off the battlefield and lived in their hometowns, they would hang their shields up on a wall. Ezekiel 27:10 "Those from Persia, Lydia, and Libya Were in your army as men of war; They hung shield and helmet in you; They gave splendor to you.” (NKJV)

  • So when you walked into a palace, you could see how many warriors were guarding the king by how many shields were hanging on the wall. In Solomon’s palace were 500 shields (1 Kings 10:16-17) – approximately the number of his father David’s guard of Cherethites and Pelethites (2 Sam. 15:18). And he says to his beloved in Song of Solomon 4:4 “Your neck is like the tower of David, Built for an armory, On which hang a thousand bucklers, All shields of mighty men. (NKJV)

  • King Rehoboam, his son, instituted a ceremony with the shields in his palace which may relate directly to Psalm 37: 1 Kings 14:28 says that “King Rehoboam made bronze shields... and committed them to the hands of the captains of the guard, who guarded the doorway of the king's house. And whenever the king entered the house of the LORD, the guards carried them, then brought them back into the guardroom.” (NKJV) Perhaps the sons of Korah had seen this ceremony of the 500 royal guardsmen entering the house of the Lord with the king and were impressed at how these mighty men, who served their country, also worshipped God, carrying their bronze shields to show respect and honor to God.

  • Such pomp and ceremony can be taken too far, but it is worth considering whether the way you worship adorns the glory of God or detracts from it.

• There is an ambiguous Hebrew word in the middle of the verse, translated “people” in most English versions, or “with” in a few English versions.

  • Putting it into context with the rest of the phrase, most English versions read “the nobles assembled as the people of the God of Abraham,” but a few read, “the nobles assembled together with the God of Abraham.”

  • The reason for this difference of interpretation is that, in Hebrew, the word for “people” and the word for “with” is spelled exactly the same except for one vowel difference, and vowels were not written into the Hebrew text until about 900 AD.

  • Prior to 900 AD, most folks considered the word to mean “with,” so that’s what the Eastern Syriac, Roman Vulgate, and Greek Septuagint, all translate the word as.

  • But the Enlightenment-era Masoretic scribes put the vowel for the word for “people” in their edition of the Hebrew Old Testament, so the modern versions based on that read “people.”

  • I am a traditionalist, so I lean toward the older tradition, and it also makes more sense to me in terms of the parallelism of the verse which equates the “noblemen” who are “with God,” with the “shields” who “belong to God.”

  • But either way, the logic of the sentence is that it is because the mighty-men belong to God that they assemble on God’s side, or gather as the people of the God of Abraham.

• This is also the case for you and me. We worship God because we belong to Him.

  • 1 John 4:19 “As for us, we love Him because HE first loved us.” (NAW)

  • 1 Corinthians 6:20 “For y’all were bought at a price; therefore glorify God with your body and with your spirit, both of which belong to God.” (NAW)

  • 1 Peter 1:18-19 “...knowing that it was not with perishable things – silver or gold – that y'all were ransomed out of your empty lifestyle... but rather it was with the precious blood from Christ...” (NAW)

  • That’s one reason why Jesus’ disciples called Him “Lord.” When He saves us, He becomes our master, and we belong to Him. We demonstrate that in the here-and-now by assembling with His people, the church.

• We are also worshippers of the “God of Abraham,”

  • as the Apostle Paul explained in Galatians 3:6-14 “...Abraham ‘believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness’ Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed.’ So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith…. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’— so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.” (NKJV)

  • “When the doctrine of the Gospel was manifested and shone forth, it did not remove the Jews from the covenant which God had long before made with them. On the contrary, it has rather joined us to them. As then the calling of the Gentiles was nothing else than the means by which they were grafted and incorporated into the family of Abraham, the prophet justly states, that strangers or aliens from every direction were gathered together to the chosen people, that by such an increase the kingdom of God might be extended through all quarters of the globe.” ~J. Calvin

• Thus God is exalted. “Exalted” is the same verb as the one in v.5 “God has gone up,” but in v.5, it is active, with God doing the “going up,” and here it is passive, meaning that He is lifted up by His people. Is this something you are participating in doing?

Conclusion

• Back when this Psalm was written: “We know that there was a long interruption of the splendor of the kingdom of God’s ancient people, which continued from the death of Solomon to the coming of Christ. This interval formed, as it were, a gulf or chasm, which would have swallowed up the minds of the godly, had they not been supported and upheld by the Word of God. As, therefore, God exhibited in the person of David a type of the kingdom of Christ, which is here extolled, although there followed shortly after a sad and almost shameful diminution of the glory of David’s kingdom, then the most grievous calamities, and, finally, the captivity and a most miserable dispersion, which differed little from a total destruction, the Holy Spirit has exhorted the faithful to continue clapping their hands for joy, until the advent of the promised Redeemer.” ~J. Calvin

• But for us now, “Psalm 47 offers a perspective of hope for those of us who may be enmeshed in… the contemporary world and all its brokenness… The foundation of the psalmist’s hopefulness is a vision of God as king… ‘God is king of all the earth!’ He has already become king … He has already taken a seat on his royal throne… God’s purposes move unhindered to their completion despite the chaotic brokenness of our world.”

• Summary

  • Do you acknowledge this God as your God?

  • Do you relate to Him as your King?

  • Does He have your fear and respect?

  • Do you see Him as your master who purchased you with His blood and has all rights over you?

  • Will you praise Him and make music for Him, happy-clappy or thoughtfully-sober as is appropriate?

  • Will you gather with His people to worship Him?

  • Let us exalt God!

Psalm 47 – Side-by side comparison of versions^A