Make a joyful noise unto the Lord - See the notes at Psalm 95:1.

All ye lands - Margin, as in Hebrew, "all the earth." The margin expresses the sense. The idea in the psalm is, that praise did not pertain to one nation only; that it was not appropriate for one people merely; that it should not be confined to the Hebrew people, but that there was a proper ground of praise for "all;" there was that in which all nations, of all languages and conditions, could unite. The ground of that was the fact that they had one Creator, Psalm 100:3. The psalm is based on the unity of the human race; on the fact that there is one God and Father of all, and one great family on earth.

Make a joyful noise - הריעו hariu, exult, triumph, leap for joy.

All ye lands - Not only Jews, but Gentiles, for the Lord bestows his benefits on all with a liberal hand.

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 Psalm 95:1.

(c) "omnis terra", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, Tigurine version, &c.

1 Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.

2 Serve the Lord with gladness; come before his presence with singing.

3 Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise; be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

5 For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.

Psalm 100:1

"Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands." This is a repetition of Psalm 98:4. The original word signifies a glad shout, such as loyal subjects give when their king appears among them. Our happy God should be worshipped by a happy people; a cheerful spirit is in keeping with his nature, his acts, and the gratitude which we should cherish for his mercies in every land Jehovah's goodness is seen, therefore in every land should he be praised. Never will the world be in its proper condition till with one unanimous shout it adores the only God. O ye nations, how long will ye blindly reject him? Your golden age will never arrive till ye with all your hearts revere him.

Psalm 100:2

"Serve the Lord with gladness." "Glad homage pay with awful mirth." He is our Lord, and therefore he is to be served; he is our gracious Lord, and therefore to be served with joy. The invitation to worship here given is not a melancholy one, as though adoration were a funeral solemnity, but a cheery, gladsome exhortation, as though we were bidden to a marriage feast. "Come before his presence with singing." We ought in worship to realise the presence of God, and by an effort of the mind to approach him. This is an act which must to every rightly instructed heart be one of great solemnity, but at the same time it must not be performed in the servility of fear, and therefore we come before him, not with weepings and wailings, but with Psalms and hymns. Singing, as it is a joyful, and at the same time a devout, exercise, should be a constant form of approach to God. The measured, harmonious, hearty utterance of praise by a congregation of really devout persons is not merely decorous but delightful, and is a fit anticipation of the worship of heaven, where praise has absorbed prayer, and become the sole mode of adoration. How a certain society of brethren can find it in their hearts to forbid singing in public worship is a riddle which we cannot solve. We feel inclined to say with Dr. Watts -

"Let those refuse to sing

Who never knew our God;

But favourites of the heavenly king

Must speak his praise abroad"

Psalm 100:3

continued...

The call in Psalm 100:1 sounds like Psalm 98:4; Psalm 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 Psalm 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 Psalm 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" (Ezekiel 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., Exodus 21:8; Leviticus 11:21; Leviticus 25:30; 1 Samuel 2:3; 2 Samuel 16:18; 2 Kings 8:10; Isaiah 9:2; Isaiah 63:9; Psalm 100:3; Psalm 139:16; Job 13:15 cf. the note there, Psalm 41:4; Proverbs 19:7; Proverbs 26:2; Ezra 4:2. Because doubtful, Isaiah 49:5; 1 Chronicles 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, Psalm 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 1 Samuel 12:6. Israel is Jahve's work (מעשׂה), Isaiah 29:23; Isaiah 60:21, cf. Deuteronomy 32:6, Deuteronomy 32:15, not merely as a people, but as the people of God, who were kept in view even in the calling of Abram.

<> Make a {a} joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands.

(a) He prophecies that God's benefits in calling the Gentiles will be so great that they will have wonderful opportunity to praise his mercy and rejoice.

praise: or, thanksgiving

all...: Heb. all the earth

PSALM 100

Ps 100:1-5. As closing this series (see on [630]Ps 93:1), this Psalm is a general call on all the earth to render exalted praise to God, the creator, preserver, and benefactor of men.

1, 2. With thankful praise, unite service as the subjects of a king (Ps 2:11, 12).

100:1-5 An exhortation to praise God, and rejoice in him. - This song of praise should be considered as a prophecy, and even used as a prayer, for the coming of that time when all people shall know that the Lord he is God, and shall become his worshippers, and the sheep of his pasture. Great encouragement is given us, in worshipping God, to do it cheerfully. If, when we strayed like wandering sheep, he has brought us again to his fold, we have indeed abundant cause to bless his name. The matter of praise, and the motives to it, are very important. Know ye what God is in himself, and what he is to you. Know it; consider and apply it, then you will be more close and constant, more inward and serious, in his worship. The covenant of grace set down in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, with so many rich promises, to strengthen the faith of every weak believer, makes the matter of God's praise and of his people's joys so sure, that how sad soever our spirits may be when we look to ourselves, yet we shall have reason to praise the Lord when we look to his goodness and mercy, and to what he has said in his word for our comfort.