Psalm 98:6

Psalm 98 opens, “Sing unto the LORD a new song; for he hath done marvellous things”, and its first three verses give the reason for everything that follows (Psalm 98:1–3). His right hand and his holy arm “hath gotten him the victory”, he has remembered “his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel”, and he has shown his righteousness “in the sight of the heathen”. Verse 4 then widens the call from Israel to the world. The nations have seen what God did, so the nations are summoned to answer it. Praise in this psalm is always a response, with God’s saving acts coming first and the shout coming after.

The psalm belongs with a group that celebrates the LORD’s kingship and looks ahead to his coming reign, often called the enthronement psalms (Psalms 93 and 96–99). The call for a new song runs through them and beyond them. It is heard in Psalm 96:1, and Isaiah sends it out to the ends of the earth (Isaiah 42:10–12).

“All the earth” uses the Hebrew word ʼerets, and the command treats the whole world as one worshipper. Israel knew the LORD as the Creator and Ruler of every nation, so the worship due to him is as wide as his rule. The prophets looked ahead to a day when all peoples would know and honour him, as Isaiah does when he sees the nations coming to the mountain of the LORD’s house (Isaiah 2:2–4). Another psalm gives the same order to “all ye lands” (Psalm 100:1–2). The created world is drawn in as well. The heavens already declare God’s glory (Psalm 19:1–4), and in the verses that follow our passage the sea, the rivers and the hills are called to join the praise before the LORD, who comes to judge the earth with righteousness (Psalm 98:7–9).

The verb is rûwaʻ, which means to shout or cry out, and it is also the word for sounding an alarm. Here it is the shout of joy that greets a victory. The related noun, teru’ah, was used for a shout of triumph, a battle cry, or the blast of trumpets that marked a great event such as a coronation. The form in this verse, hari’u, is a command addressed to many people together. Public worship in Israel was full of sound, with shouting, singing and instruments, and the psalm asks the whole earth to acclaim its King in that way.

Verse 4 gives four commands in a row, each adding to the one before. “Make a loud noise” translates pâtsach, another strong command that repeats and strengthens the first. “Rejoice” is rânan, which means to give a ringing cry or shout, usually for joy. The joy of the heart is meant to be heard. “Sing praise” is zâmar, to sing praise or to make music in praise of God, with instruments or without them. So the shout becomes a song. The verse moves from the raw cry of triumph to melody, and both are commanded.

All four are commands. The LORD has done marvellous things, and praise is what is owed for them. It is also what gratitude and awe naturally produce in people who have seen his salvation.

Verse 5 turns from the general call to the way the praise is to be made. “Sing” is again zâmar, the verb behind “sing praise” in verse 4, and the praise is directed “unto the LORD”, Yᵉhôvâh, the covenant God of Israel, the self-existent and eternal One.

The harp is the kinnôwr, a stringed instrument of the lyre or harp kind, whose name comes from a root meaning to twang. It was small enough to carry and was played by plucking the strings with the fingers or a plectrum. Scripture links it with joy, with prophecy, and with David, who played it to calm the troubled spirit of Saul. David is called “the sweet psalmist of Israel” (2 Samuel 23:1), and he arranged for Levites to serve as singers and players before the LORD (1 Chronicles 15:16). Music stood at the centre of Israel’s worship from the tabernacle to the temple, accompanying sacrifices, feasts and daily offerings. Another psalm joins the harp to the new song in the same way (Psalm 33:2–3).

“The voice of a psalm” is qôl zimrâh in Hebrew. Qôwl is a voice or a sound, and zimrâh is a song or melody sung to an instrument, so the phrase means the sound of song. The harp is joined by words. Praise in this verse is played and sung together, and the truths about God that the song carries are spoken aloud by those who sing it. The New Testament asks the same of the church, which is to speak in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing to the Lord (Ephesians 5:19, Colossians 3:16).

Verse 6 brings in the two loudest instruments Israel had. The “trumpets” are the chătsôtsᵉrâh, the long, straight silver trumpets blown by the priests. They were sounded to call the assembly, to give signals, to announce the new moons, and over the sacrifices at the tabernacle and the temple. They belong to the ordered, priestly worship of God’s house.

The “cornet” is the shôwphâr, the ram’s horn. Its name describes a curved horn that gives a clear sound. The horn called Israel to war and announced the feasts, among them the Feast of Trumpets (Leviticus 23:24), and on the Day of Atonement it proclaimed the year of jubilee through the land (Leviticus 25:9). Above all it is the sound that was heard when God came down on Sinai to give the law, when the voice of the trumpet was exceeding loud and the people trembled (Exodus 19:16). Zechariah speaks of the Lord GOD himself blowing the trumpet (Zechariah 9:14).

Put together, the two instruments join the formal worship of the priests with the older sound of the horn, which carried Israel’s memory of meeting God. The command between them is once more rûwaʻ, “make a joyful noise”, the verb that opened verse 4. The passage begins and ends with the same shout, and by verse 6 that shout has gathered song, strings, trumpets and horn around it.

The last words of the passage tell us whom all this sound is for. It is made “before the LORD”, in his presence, and he is given the title “the King”. This title is the heart of the psalms of his kingship. He holds all authority, he rules all creation in righteousness, and he has won the salvation the psalm began with. The praise is loud because of who receives it. A coronation or a victory was greeted with shouts and trumpets, and the earth is told to greet its true King in the same way. Another psalm says it directly, calling God the King of all the earth and telling us to sing praises to him (Psalm 47:7).

The marvellous things and the victory that this psalm celebrates are brought to their fullness in Jesus Christ. In him God’s mercy and truth came among us in the flesh (John 1:14). By his death and resurrection God gives us the victory over sin and death (1 Corinthians 15:57), and God showed his love in that Christ died for us while we were still sinners (Romans 5:8).

The call to “all the earth” is carried out through the gospel. Salvation is offered to whoever believes (John 3:16). Christ has broken down the wall that divided Jew and Gentile (Ephesians 2:14), and at Pentecost men “out of every nation under heaven” were in Jerusalem when the Spirit was poured out (Acts 2:5). Jesus taught that the Father seeks those who worship him in spirit and in truth (John 4:23–24), so the harp and the trumpet are meant to carry the praise of hearts that the Spirit has made new.

The LORD, the King, of verse 6 is made known in the New Testament as Jesus, who bears the name “King of kings, and Lord of lords” (Revelation 19:16). Every knee will bow to him and every tongue will confess that he is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:10–11). The trumpet belongs to that day as well. The Lord will descend from heaven with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God (1 Thessalonians 4:16), and in Revelation the seventh trumpet sounds as the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ is announced (Revelation 11:15).

Revelation also shows the psalm’s praise as it will finally be heard. The redeemed from every kindred, tongue, people and nation sing a new song to the Lamb who was slain (Revelation 5:9–10), and then John hears the whole creation: “every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever” (Revelation 5:13). That song is sung to the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). All the earth making a joyful noise to the LORD is where history is going.

This passage shows us a God who is glad to be praised aloud. He has acted in the open, in the sight of the nations, and he asks for an answer that is just as open. The joy he commands has a cause, because it rests on a victory already won and a mercy already remembered. For us who know that victory in Christ, the shout of verse 4 is the natural sound of people who have been saved.

The passage also shows how wide a welcome God gives to what we bring. The voice, the harp, the priest’s silver trumpet and the plain ram’s horn all have a place before him, the trained and the simple together, as the closing psalm of the book gathers every instrument and everything that has breath (Psalm 150). Whatever gifts a believer or a congregation has can be offered to the King in the same spirit. And when the church sings, it joins a praise far larger than itself, which began in Israel, is spreading through the nations, and will one day be taken up by every creature in heaven and earth.