Bible Commentaries

A Greeting of the Coming Kingdom of God

What Psalm 95:3 says: “A great God is Jahve, and a great King above allgods,” is repeated in Psalm 96:1-13. The lxx inscribes it (1) ùôùÄáõéand the chronicler has really taken it up almost entire inthe song which was sung on the day when the Ark was brought in (1 Chronicles 16:23-33); but, as the coarse seams between vv. 22-23, vv. 33-34 show, he there strings together familiar reminiscences of the Psalms(vid., on Ps 105) as a sort of mosaic, in order approximately to express thefestive mood and festive strains of that day. And (2) ïïïéù(Cod. Vat. ù) ìåôáôçáéBy this the lxx correctly interprets thePsalm as a post-exilic song: and the Psalm corresponds throughout to theadvance which the mind of Israel has experienced in the Exile concerningits mission in the world. The fact that the religion of Jahve is destined formankind at large, here receives the most triumphantly joyous, lyricalexpression. And so far as this is concerned, the key-note of the Psalm iseven deutero-Isaianic. For it is one chief aim of Isaiah 40:1 to declare thepinnacle of glory of the Messianic apostolic mission on to which Israel isbeing raised through the depth of affliction of the Exile. All these post-exilic songs come much nearer to the spirit of the New Testament than thepre-exilic; for the New Testament, which is the intrinsic character of theOld Testament freed from its barriers and limitations, is in process ofcoming into being (im Werden begriffen) throughout the Old Testament,and the Exile was one of the most important crises in this progressiveprocess.

Psalm 96:1 are more Messianic than many in the strict sense of the wordMessianic; for the central (gravitating) point of the Old Testament gospel(Heilsverkündigung) lies not in the Messiah, but in the appearing (parusia) of Jahve - a fact which is explained by the circumstance that the mystery ofthe incarnation still lies beyond the Old Testament knowledge orperception of salvation. All human intervention in the matter of salvationaccordingly appears as purely human, and still more, it preserves a national and therefore outward and natural impress by virtue of the national limit within which the revelation of salvation has entered. If the ideal Davidic king who is expected even does anything superhuman, he is nevertheless only a man - a man of God, it is true, without his equal, but not the God-man. The mystery of the incarnation does, it is true, the nearer it comes to actual revelation, cast rays of its dawning upon prophecy, but the sun itself remains below the horizon: redemption is looked for as Jahve's own act, and “Jahve cometh” is also still the watchword of the last prophet (Malachi 3:1).

The five six-line strophes of the Psalm before us are not to be mistaken. The chronicler has done away with five lines, and thereby disorganized the strophic structure; and one line (Psalm 96:10 ) he has removed from its position. The originality of the Psalm in the Psalter, too, is revealed thereby, and the non-independence of the chronicler, who treats the Psalm as an historian.

Call to the nation of Jahve to sing praise to its God and toevangelize the heathen. שׁירוּ is repeated three times. The newsong assumes a new form of things, and the call thereto, a present whichappeared to be a beginning that furnished a guarantee of this new state ofthings, a beginning viz., of the recognition of Jahve throughout the wholeworld of nations, and of His accession to the lordship over the wholeearth. The new song is an echo of the approaching revelation of salvationand of glory, and this is also the inexhaustible material of the joyful tidingsthat go forth from day to day (מיּום ליום as in Esther 3:7, whereas in the Chronicles it is מיום אל־יום as in Numbers 30:15). Weread Psalm 96:1 verbally the same in Isaiah 42:10; Psalm 96:2 calls to mind Isaiah 52:7; Isaiah 60:6;and Psalm 96:3 , Isaiah 66:19.

Confirmation of the call from the glory of Jahve that is now become manifest. The clause Psalm 96:4 , as also Psalm 145:3, is taken out of Psalm 48:2. כל־אלהים is the plural of כּל־אלוהּ, every god, 2 Chronicles 32:15; the article may stand here or be omitted (Psalm 95:3, cf. Psalm 113:4). All the elohim, i.e., gods, of the peoples are אלילים (from the negative אל), nothings and good-for-nothings, unreal and useless. The lxx renders δαιμόνια , as though the expression were שׁדים (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:20), more correctly εἴδωλα in Revelation 9:20. What Psalm 96:5 says is wrought out in Isa 40, Isa 44, and elsewhere; אלילים is a name of idols that occurs nowhere more frequently than in Isaiah. The sanctuary (Psalm 96:6) is here the earthly sanctuary. From Jerusalem, over which the light arises first of all (Isa. 60), Jahve's superterrestrial doxa now reveals itself in the world. הוד־והדר is the usual pair of words for royal glory. The chronicler reads Psalm 96:6 עז וחדוה בּמקמו, might and joy are in His place (הדוה( ecalp siH ni era yoj d a late word, like אחוה, brotherhood, brotherly affection, from an old root, Exodus 18:9). With the place of God one might associate the thought of the celestial place of God transcending space; the chronicler may, however, have altered במקדשׁו into במקמו because when the Ark was brought in, the Temple (בית המקדשׁ) was not yet built.

Call to the families of the peoples to worship God, the One, living, andglorious God. הבוּ is repeated three times here as Psalm 29:1-11, ofwhich the whole strophe is an echo. Isaiah (ch. 60) sees them coming inwith the gifts which they are admonished to bring with them into thecourts of Jahve (in Chr. only: לפניו). Instead of בּהדרת קדשׁ here and in the chronicler, the lxx brings thecourts (חצרת) in once more; but the dependence of the strophe upon Psalm 29:1-11 furnishes a guarantee for the “holy attire,” similar to the weddinggarment in the New Testament parable. Instead of מפּניו, Psalm 96:9 , the chronicler has מלּפניו, just as he also alternates withboth forms, 2 Chronicles 32:7, cf. 1 Chronicles 19:18.

That which is to be said among the peoples is the joyous evangel of thekingdom of heaven which is now come and realized. The watchword is“Jahve is King,” as in Isaiah 52:7. The lxx correctly renders: ïêõå

(Note: In the Psalterium Veronense with the addition apo xylu, Cod. 156, Latinizing ἀπὸ τῷ ξύλῳ ; in the Latin Psalters (the Vulgate excepted) a lignoundoubtedly an addition by an early Christian hand, upon which, however, great value is set by Justin and all the early Latin Fathers.)

for מלך is intended historically (Revelation 11:17). אף, as in Psalm 93:1, introduces that which results from this fact, and therefore to a certain extent goes beyond it. The world below, hitherto shaken by war and anarchy, now stands upon foundations that cannot be shaken in time to come, under Jahve's righteous and gentle sway. This is the joyful tidings of the new era which the poet predicts from out of his own times, when he depicts the joy that will then pervade the whole creation; in connection with which it is hardly intentional that Psalm 96:11 and Psalm 96:11 acrostically contain the divine names יהוה and יהו. This joining of all creatures in the joy at Jahve's appearing is a characteristic feature of Isaiah 40:1. These cords are already struck in Isaiah 35:1. “The sea and its fulness” as in Isaiah 42:10. In the chronicler Psalm 96:10 (ויאמרו instead of אמרו) stands between Psalm 96:11 and Psalm 96:11 - according to Hitzig, who uses all his ingenuity here in favour of that other recension of the text, by an oversight of the copyist.

The chronicler changes שׂדי into the prosaic השּׂדה,and כל־עצי־יעל with the omission of the כל into עצי היּער. Thepsalmist on his part follows the model of Isaiah, who makes the trees ofthe wood exult and clap their hands, Psalm 55:12; Psalm 44:23. The אז,which points into this festive time of all creatures which begins with Jahve's coming, is as in Isaiah 35:5. Instead of לפני, “before,” the chronicler has the מלּפני so familiar to him, by which the joy is denoted as being occasioned by Jahve's appearing. The lines Psalm 96:13 sound very much like Psalm 9:9. The chronicler has abridged Psalm 96:13, by hurrying on to the mosaic-work portion taken from Ps 105. The poet at the close glances from the ideal past into the future. The twofold בּא is a participle, Ew. §200. Being come to judgment, after He has judged and sifted, executing punishment, Jahve will govern in the righteousness of mercy and in faithfulness to the promises.