This psalm might be a comment on yesterday’s reading. The Lord reigns, not Herod, nor any other human ruler. The rulers of the nations have power, but only in so far as God allows. The psalm is a celebration of God’s rule over Israel. At her best, Israel recognised and lived under God’s rule in a way that other nations did not. They thus became, in fulfilment of God’s promise to Abraham, a blessing to other nations by modelling what living under God’s rule could be like (Genesis 12:2,3). Look back through the psalm to see what marks God’s rule.

God is great, awesome and holy – beyond our understanding and yet intimately involved with us. Not only does God rule justly (v 4), he also enters into a relationship with his people. He speaks to them (v 7), he sets boundaries for their own good and he holds them accountable (v 8). The same is true for us as we enter into relationship with him through Jesus. Israel experienced the forgiveness of God (v 8) through the system of sacrifices, but we find forgiveness through the death of Jesus. So we can join in this wonderful celebration, praising this great God whom we can never fully understand but who is worthy of our worship.

Enable us, Lord, to measure our public worship against the standard set in this psalm.

The dominant theme of this little hymn is the holiness of God (vs 3,5,9). Everything in it serves to illustrate and emphasise this characteristic of Israel’s God. Although the divine nature has been revealed to Israel specifically – Moses, Aaron and Samuel are singled out as bearers of the revelation of his character – it is also available for ‘all the nations’ (vs 2,3) and they are summoned to join the song of praise and adoration. 

The second stanza (vs 4,5) connects the core divine attribute of holiness with justice, equity and what is right, pointing to the fact that God’s nature has practical and societal consequences and that to worship him in truth must result in a way of life which mirrors his character. This is, of course, the constant theme of Israel’s prophets, who demanded that splendid public worship in the Temple must have social consequences in ‘what is just and right’ (v 4). Bereft of this, it degenerates into an empty and powerless ritual. The knowledge of God is traced to a theophany in which he spoke to the fathers ‘from the pillar of cloud’, which resulted in their keeping ‘his statutes and the decrees he gave them’ (v 7). 

Finally, the holiness of God and the demand this makes upon his worshippers for ‘what is just and right’ (v 4), means that human beings will inevitably be conscious of sin and failure; for this reason the psalmist rejoices that ‘you were to Israel a forgiving God, though you punished their misdeeds’ (v 8). Weiser comments that awe and terror are combined in this hymn with joyful confidence and he says that it is the combination of these two experiences which alone ‘produce the true note of biblical faith’.¹ We should ask ourselves how our public worship measures up against this standard.

Reread the psalm, then pray the Lord’s Prayer and note the parallels.

¹ Artur Weiser, The Psalms: A Commentary, Westminster Press, 1962