Psalm 97:11

Psalm 97 belongs with the psalms that celebrate the LORD as King, among them Psalm 93, Psalm 96 and Psalm 99, and it was likely written for Israel’s public worship. Its first nine verses show the King arriving (Psalm 97:1–9). Clouds and darkness surround him, fire goes before him, the earth trembles and the mountains melt, in a scene that recalls his coming down on Mount Sinai. All the peoples see his glory (Psalm 97:6), those who serve idols are put to shame (Psalm 97:7), and Zion and the cities of Judah are glad because of his judgments.

Israel sang this among nations that served many gods, gods pictured with human vices and limits and competing with one another for power. Israel confessed one LORD, supreme over all the earth. The closing verses then speak to his own people, and they say how those who belong to such a King live and what they may expect from him.

The verse opens by naming its hearers as those who love the LORD. The verb ʼâhab means to love, to have affection for someone, and the one loved here is the LORD, Yᵉhôvâh. To these people comes a single command: hate evil. The verb sânêʼ means to hate, a strong and personal aversion, and its object is raʻ, evil.

Love and hatred belong together in this verse because of who God is. He is perfectly righteous, so affection for him carries with it a turning away from everything contrary to his holy nature, whether in thought, word or deed. What grieves him comes to grieve those who love him, and what delights him comes to delight them. For Israel the evil in view was concrete. It was the idolatry of the nations, the oppression of the weak and the corruption of justice, all of which pressed on the people from outside and tempted them from within.

The rest of Scripture says the same. Wisdom declares that “the fear of the LORD is to hate evil” (Proverbs 8:13). Amos calls Israel to hate evil and love good (Amos 5:15), and Paul tells the church to abhor what is evil and hold fast to what is good (Romans 12:9). Behind all of these stands God’s own word to his people, that they are to be holy because he is holy (Leviticus 19:2), and the New Testament still tells us to follow holiness (Hebrews 12:14).

The command is followed at once by two promises: “he preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked.” The LORD himself does the keeping. The verb shâmar speaks of watchful, continuing care, the care of one who guards what is his.

What he guards is the “souls” of his people. The Hebrew nephesh means the whole person, the life and being of someone, so the promise covers all that we are. The people he guards are his saints, and the word is châçîyd. It comes from chesed, loyal love or steadfast mercy, and it describes the godly and faithful, those who live in covenant with God and show his lovingkindness in their own lives.

The second promise names the danger. To deliver, nâtsal, is to rescue someone, and the peril he is taken from is marked by the words “out of the hand of”. The hand, yâd, stands for power and control, and the wicked, râshâʻ, are those who are morally corrupt and hostile to God’s ways. In Israel they were people who oppressed the vulnerable, twisted justice or drew others into pagan worship. God’s people were often surrounded by such enemies, and this promise was their security. Another psalm gives the same assurance, that the LORD delivers the righteous out of all their troubles (Psalm 34:19).

The order of the verse matters. God asks his people to stand against evil, and in the same breath he tells them that their safety rests in his hand. We are called to holiness by the One who keeps us while we pursue it.

The verb zâraʻ means to sow, to scatter seed, and here the seed is light. Israel was a farming people, and everyone who first sang this psalm knew what sowing meant. A farmer plants on purpose, the seed lies in the ground for a season, and the harvest that comes is far greater than what was sown. All of this is said of God’s goodness toward his people. He has planted it deliberately, its full appearing may take time, and the harvest is certain because he is the one who sowed.

Light, ʼôwr, is illumination, and in Scripture it stands for God’s favour, his truth and guidance, salvation and life itself. Darkness stands for the opposite: evil, ignorance, despair and judgment. To say that light is sown for the righteous is to say that God’s presence and blessing are on their way to them, even in a season when the wicked prosper for a while and the path is dark. Proverbs describes the path of the righteous as a light that shines brighter and brighter (Proverbs 4:18), and another psalm says that light dawns in the darkness for the upright (Psalm 112:4).

The second half of the verse says the same thing in other words, as Hebrew poetry often does. Gladness answers to light, and “the upright in heart” answers to “the righteous”. The righteous person, tsaddîyq, is one who is just and in right standing with God and with others. Upright, yâshâr, means straight, level and honest, and the heart, lêb, is the whole inner person: feelings, will and mind. Together the two descriptions show that God is looking for a life that is right outwardly and a heart that is sincere and undivided toward him. For such people gladness is as sure as the light. Isaiah promises God’s people everlasting joy (Isaiah 61:7), and he sees the day when the glory of the LORD rises upon Zion and the nations come to her light (Isaiah 60:1–3).

The psalm closes with two commands to the righteous. The first is to rejoice. The verb sâmach means to rejoice or be glad, to feel great joy and to show it, and the verse says where that joy rests: “in the LORD”. Circumstances shift, and possessions and achievements pass, while he stays the same. This is why joy can be commanded. Habakkuk, with every crop failing, says, “Yet I will rejoice in the LORD” (Habakkuk 3:18), and Paul gives the church the same command to rejoice in the Lord always (Philippians 4:4).

The command is addressed to “ye righteous”, those who live in covenant faithfulness to God. Their righteousness is first of all his gift, as when Abraham believed the LORD and it was counted to him for righteousness (Genesis 15:6), and it then shows in how they live. The LORD knows the way of such people (Psalm 1:6).

The second command is to give thanks. The verb yâdâh means to praise, to give thanks or to confess, and it is tied to the Hebrew word for the hand, as of hands held out in worship. It is joy spoken aloud to God, in private and among his people. Israel’s worship was full of it, with music and offerings, and Scripture elsewhere calls his saints to sing to him (Psalm 30:4) and to worship him in the beauty of holiness (1 Chronicles 16:29).

Jesus is the one who loved the LORD with his whole heart and hated evil completely. He was tempted in every way as we are and remained without sin (Hebrews 4:15). His ministry was a confrontation with evil, in casting out demons and healing the sick, and he appeared to take away our sins (1 John 3:5).

In him the promise of verse 10 is made sure. By his cross and resurrection he disarmed the powers of darkness and triumphed over them (Colossians 2:15), and God has delivered us from the power of darkness into the kingdom of his Son (Colossians 1:13). Jesus says of his sheep that no one can pluck them out of his hand or out of his Father’s hand (John 10:28–29), and Paul is persuaded that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38–39).

He is also the light of verse 11. Jesus calls himself the light of the world and promises that whoever follows him “shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12). The righteousness the verse speaks of is ours through him, for God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (2 Corinthians 5:21). The gladness is the joy of sins forgiven and of the Holy Spirit within us, and joy is named among the Spirit’s fruit (Galatians 5:22). The full harvest is still ahead, in the city where the Lamb is the light (Revelation 21:23) and where those enter who are written in the Lamb’s book of life (Revelation 21:27).

And he is the holiness of verse 12 made visible, “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person” (Hebrews 1:3). He told his disciples that his own joy would remain in them and that their joy would be full (John 15:11). He presents us holy and unblameable before God (Colossians 1:22), so we remember God’s holiness with thanks and without dread, and we join the song of heaven: “Worthy is the Lamb” (Revelation 5:12).

These verses show us a God who is both the standard and the shelter of his people. He is holy, and he asks those who love him to take his side against evil. He is also faithful, and the same verse that gives the command places our lives in his keeping.

They also give us a way to wait. Seed in the ground is hidden for a season, and a believer’s light and gladness can be hidden too. The psalm tells us they have been sown, by God, for us. A dark stretch of the road is therefore the time between planting and harvest, and the harvest belongs to him.

And they give us a joy that lasts. Joy that rests in the LORD has a footing that circumstances can never remove, because his holiness is the same today as when the seraphim first sang of it. When we call to mind who he is, thanksgiving has all the reason it needs.