Acts maps the transition of the community of Jesus from a Jewish heartland out to Gentile populations. This was not a foreign idea to earlier generations. Count the number of times the psalmist refers to ‘all the earth’ or similar (vs 1,3,7,9,10,13). All nations or peoples are called to praise the Lord’s name, and all stand accountable to him (vs 10,13). On the other side, God’s people are mandated to ‘proclaim his salvation’ (v 2) and ‘declare his glory’ (v 3), to tell the nations ‘The Lord reigns’ (v 10). We too are never content with simply enjoying enrapturing worship as something internal to the Christian community. Our appreciation of the Lord must be declared globally.

Both singing and fear play a part in responding to God. There is true joy in singing to the Lord. The new song suggests a freshness in experience of God’s marvellous deeds, in this case probably the witness of victory in battle. The singing reverberates throughout creation with heavens, sea, fields and trees rejoicing in jubilation. We can always find fresh reasons for rejoicing in the Lord as we explore his greatness. However, fear is also appropriate, even trembling, which gladly acknowledges that God is holy – unique among all other claims to deity, glorious, kingly and our judge. But even his judgement is a cause for rejoicing. It means that everything will be set right.

God, grant us fresh knowledge of your greatness.

The dominant note throughout this psalm is one of adoration and worship in the knowledge of the greatness of Israel’s God. The summons to ‘Sing … a new song’ (v 1) is directed to the whole earth and to all nations, and this universal perspective echoes through the poem again and again. Although God’s salvation has been revealed to Israel, his greatness as Creator, Ruler and Judge extends to the whole earth, so that ‘all peoples’ are witnesses to his ‘marvellous deeds’ (v 3) and are repeatedly called to ascribe to him ‘the glory due to his name’ (v 8). Perhaps the key statement is the summons to Israel to say ‘among the nations’ that the Lord reigns and will ‘judge the peoples with equity’ (v 10). The psalm thus affirms both the existing evidence of God’s glory and the certainty of justice when, in the future, he will ‘judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with his truth’ (v 13, NRSV).

These notes are being written during the terrible days of conflict following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The confidence of the psalmist in God’s absolute sovereignty might sound hollow as war and destruction dominate nightly news bulletins, but in fact it is precisely in such contexts that the need to ‘Say among the nations’ that ‘The Lord reigns’ (v 10) and to call them to renounce idols and worship him alone is greater than ever. It is this experience of the greatness of God, known to Israel in the act of corporate worship, that alone can create the combination of ‘fear and trembling and rapturous joy’ to which this psalm bears such wonderful testimony.¹ In times of conflict, with thousands of refugees fleeing from violence, we need to evaluate the quality of our corporate worship in the light of this extraordinary psalm.

Take a moment to reread the psalm and make it your own prayer.

¹ Artur Weiser, The Psalms: A Commentary, Westminster Press, 1962, p630