Psalm 100:3

The psalm opens with a command: “Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands.” The Hebrew behind “all ye lands” is kol ha’arets, “all the earth”. The word ʼerets can mean one country, such as Israel, or the earth at large, and here it means the whole earth, every nation and people. God made his covenant with Israel, and this psalm still calls every people to praise him, because his rule reaches every corner of the world.

Psalm 100 comes straight after a group of psalms, Psalms 93 to 99, that celebrate the LORD as King, several of them with the cry “The LORD reigneth”. One of them tells Israel, “Say among the heathen that the LORD reigneth” (Psalm 96:10). Psalm 100 answers that whole run of psalms. Since the LORD is King over all the earth, all the earth should praise him.

The prophets look ahead to the day when this call is answered. Isaiah sees all nations streaming to the mountain of the LORD’s house in Jerusalem to learn his ways (Isaiah 2:2–3), and Zechariah sees the nations going up to worship the King, the LORD of hosts (Zechariah 14:16). In Christ the call goes out to the whole world. Jesus sends his followers to “teach all nations” (Matthew 28:19), and by his cross he has broken down the wall that divided Jew and Gentile and made one new people of the two (Ephesians 2:14–18). The Father seeks those who worship him “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23–24), wherever they are. The story ends with a great multitude from every nation, kindred, people and tongue standing before the throne (Revelation 7:9), and with every knee bowing and every tongue confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:10–11).

To make a joyful noise is to shout aloud for joy to the LORD. The verb is rûwaʻ, to shout or cry out, and it is also the word for sounding an alarm. Strong’s traces it to a root meaning “to mar”. In this verse the shout is one of joy and triumph, a loud acclamation of the LORD.

Worship in Israel was public, shared by the whole people, and often loud, with shouts, songs and musical instruments. Psalm 95 begins the same way: “O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation” (Psalm 95:1). People ask whether this means worship must always be loud. The verse calls for praise that is wholehearted and heard, given with the voice and the whole self, whether in singing, shouting, clapping or other outward praise. Its source is the joy of being with God, for in his presence “is fulness of joy” (Psalm 16:11).

The shout goes “unto the LORD”, Yᵉhôvâh, God’s personal name, which the KJV prints in capitals and which is sometimes written Jehovah. Strong’s gives its sense as “the self-Existent or Eternal”, and it recalls the name God gave Moses, “I AM THAT I AM” (Exodus 3:14). It is the name of the God who made a covenant with Israel and keeps his promises. The whole earth is called to praise him by that name, the one true and living God, the Creator of all.

Verse 2 gives two more commands, and they say how we are to come to God. “Serve” is ʻâbad, a verb that means to work, labour, serve, till the ground and worship. The same word describes a servant’s work for a master and the worship of God, so in this one word work and worship belong together. To serve the LORD is to take him as our master and obey him.

“Gladness” is simchâh, joy, gladness or mirth, the joy people feel and show. Set beside service, gladness turns obedience into a delight and a privilege. It grows from knowing who God is and what he has done, which is exactly what verse 3 goes on to say. Scripture joins serving and joy in other places too. The law speaks of serving the LORD “with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart” (Deuteronomy 28:47), Nehemiah told the people that “the joy of the LORD is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10), and Paul writes, “Rejoice in the Lord alway” (Philippians 4:4). God seeks worship “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24), so he looks for a glad heart along with the willing deed.

The word for “presence” is pânîym, the face. It is plural in form but always used as a singular, and its senses of “front”, “surface” and “presence” all grow out of the face itself. To come before his presence is to come before his face, into his company. For Israel that meant entering the temple courts, where God’s presence was known in a special way, above all in the Holy of Holies. The words also describe drawing near to God in worship and prayer, seeking his favour and fellowship.

The singing is gladness made audible. The two halves of the verse say much the same thing in different words, as Hebrew poetry often does, and the second fills out the first: glad service and joyful song go together, and the inner joy comes out in the song. Singing together also binds the worshippers to one another and tells everyone who hears that God is worthy.

In Israel the way into God’s presence ran through the temple and its sacrifices. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), and when he died the veil of the temple was torn in two (Matthew 27:51), opening the way to the Father. God, who is rich in mercy, has made us alive together with Christ (Ephesians 2:4–7), and so we may “come boldly unto the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16). Our songs are songs of salvation, for the One who conquered death. Paul tells believers to sing “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord” (Colossians 3:16), and to be “speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:19).

We praise the LORD because of who he is and what he has done, and verse 3 says what that is. “Know” is yâdaʻ, the common word for knowing. Strong’s roots it in ascertaining by seeing, and it covers recognizing, acknowledging and knowing someone personally. Here it is a command. All the earth is to recognize and confess that the LORD, the God of Israel, is God, and he alone. Glad worship grows out of this knowledge, because we serve gladly the God we know.

The verse gives three things to know: the LORD is God, he made us, and we are his. The psalm’s last verse adds a fourth: “For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations” (Psalm 100:5).

The verb for “made” is ʻâsâh, the everyday word for doing or making in the broadest sense. The psalm names the one who did the making, and the Hebrew sets his “he” against our “we”: hu asanu v’lo anachnu, “he made us, and not we ourselves”. Our life began in God’s creative work, as Genesis tells when God created man in his own image (Genesis 1:27). We depend on him for our very being, and knowing that humbles our pride.

People ask what “and not we ourselves” adds. It says that our existence came wholly from God’s power and will, so our identity, purpose and destiny are found in him. It also prepares the way for the gospel. The people who could not make themselves also need God to save them, and salvation is by grace through faith, “the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8–9).

The New Testament shows the Son at work in this making. By him all things were created, in heaven and in earth, visible and invisible, and all things were created by him and for him (Colossians 1:16). John says that all things were made by him (John 1:3). So the God who made us is the God who came in Christ to redeem us.

Having made us, God keeps us as his own. “His people” speaks of belonging to God by his choice and his covenant. At Sinai the LORD told Israel that if they obeyed his voice they would be “a peculiar treasure unto me above all people” (Exodus 19:5–6), and Moses told them that the LORD had chosen them “to be a special people unto himself” (Deuteronomy 7:6).

“Pasture” is mirʻîyth, a grazing place where a flock is fed. Israel was a land of farmers and shepherds, and the shepherd was a familiar picture of authority, provision, guidance and protection, the care a ruler owed his people. To be “the sheep of his pasture” is to be fed, led and kept safe by God on his own ground. The two phrases say the same thing twice, once plainly as “his people” and once in a picture. David says it too: “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want” (Psalm 23:1), and the whole of Psalm 23 works the picture out.

Jesus takes this picture to himself: “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). He came that his sheep might have life more abundantly (John 10:10), and he has other sheep, outside Israel’s fold, whom he brings in so that there is one flock (John 10:16). He has redeemed his people by his blood out of every kindred, tongue, people and nation (Revelation 5:9), and Peter calls him the chief Shepherd (1 Peter 5:4). So we belong to him twice over, as the creatures he made and as the people he bought, and we are his for ever.

The joy these verses ask for rests on what verse 3 declares. The LORD made you, so your life and worth come from his design and his gift. He calls you his own and feeds you as his sheep, so you belong to him and are safe in his care. That gives you every reason to sing, and it gives you rest from the work of making yourself.

Since the word for serving God is also the word for daily labour, the gladness of this psalm can reach your ordinary work as well as your worship with God’s people. And since the call goes out to “all ye lands”, your prayers can reach as far as God’s rule does, to every nation he is gathering into one flock to praise him.