Psalm 99:3

The psalm starts from a plain statement of fact, “The LORD reigneth.” The name behind “the LORD” is Yᵉhôvâh, the personal name of the covenant God of Israel, the self-existent and eternal One. The verb mâlak means to be king, to rule and to use royal power. It stands in the perfect form, which speaks of a reign already established and still going on. So the King of this psalm is ruling now, over all creation, all nations and all that happens, and the one who rules is the God who made promises to Israel and keeps them.

Psalm 99 belongs to a group of psalms, 93 and 95 to 99, that celebrate the LORD as King. Psalm 93:1 opens with the same declaration, and Psalm 96 calls the whole earth to sing to him a new song. Among them, Psalm 99 dwells on his holiness, his justice and his mercy, and the verses after these three speak of the King who loves justice and establishes equity in Jacob. The nations around Israel served many gods, each with limited power, and Israel confessed the LORD as the one eternal King over all.

“Let the people tremble” is the first answer the psalm asks for. The verb râgaz means to quiver or shake with any strong emotion, especially anger or fear. Here it is the shaking of people who stand before overwhelming majesty and holiness, and it belongs to a humble heart that bows to its King and goes on to worship and obey him. Scripture calls this the fear of the LORD, and “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10).

“He sitteth between the cherubims” tells us where the King’s throne is. The words point to the ark of the covenant, the most sacred object in the tabernacle and later in the temple. Cherubims were shaped on its lid, the mercy seat, and there God promised Moses, “there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony” (Exodus 25:22). The cherubims guarded that holy place and marked it as God’s throne.

“He sitteth” gives God a human posture so that we can grasp his settled authority and the security of his throne. And the throne the psalm names is the one among his people. The King whose rule shakes the earth chose to be present with Israel, at a place where they could come to him and where he spoke with them. For an Israelite the ark called to mind all that God had done: his faithfulness to his covenant, the law he gave and the battles he fought for his people. In one line the psalm sets the God who rules all things beside the God who is near his own, and both call for awe.

The second verse gives the same truth from two sides. “The LORD is great in Zion” speaks of his greatness among his people, and “he is high above all the people” speaks of his rule over every nation. Together they show a God who is close at hand and infinitely exalted.

The word for great, gâdôwl, means great in size, age, status or intensity. Said of the LORD, it speaks of a majesty and might beyond human measure. Tsîyôwn, Zion, was the fortified hill in Jerusalem, and the name came to stand for the city itself, above all as the site of the temple. Moses had told Israel to seek “the place which the LORD your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there” (Deuteronomy 12:5), and Solomon’s building of the temple (1 Kings 6) established Zion as the place where the ark rested and the LORD dwelt among his people. His greatness there was something his people saw and knew when they gathered to worship. Zion was also the place from which his law and salvation would go out to the nations, “for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem” (Isaiah 2:3).

The word for high, rûwm, means to be high, exalted or lifted up. God’s place is above every earthly power, every ruler and every created thing. Another psalm of the same group says that he is exalted far above all gods (Psalm 97:9), and when Isaiah saw him, he was “sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up” (Isaiah 6:1). “All the people” takes in every nation, so the God who chose to dwell in Zion is King of the whole world.

The third verse turns from the King to the praise he is owed. “Let them praise” calls on the peoples of verse 2, all those over whom the LORD is high, and with them everyone who hears of him. The verb yâdâh means to praise, to give thanks or to confess. Its root is linked with the hand, and it is used of worship offered with hands held out. Praise of this kind is an open act that honours God and acknowledges his worth. His name is “great”, the same word gâdôwl that called him great in Zion in verse 2.

The verse gives its reason in its last words. God’s name, and so God himself, is holy. The word qâdôwsh speaks of being set apart: God is distinct from all he has made and from everything sinful or profane, pure and morally perfect. His holiness is at the root of who he is, and it is the reason he is worthy of praise. The KJV’s “for” brings out what the Hebrew order implies, that the praise rests on the holiness.

Holiness is the centre of Psalm 99 and the ground of God’s kingship there. A refrain about it closes verses 3, 5 and 9, and the psalm ends, “Exalt the LORD our God, and worship at his holy hill; for the LORD our God is holy” (Psalm 99:9). The seraphim Isaiah heard cried the same truth: “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isaiah 6:3).

So each word of this verse shapes our praise. His greatness calls us to own his rule, his awesomeness calls for humility and respect, and his holiness calls his people to a life set apart from sin, as Peter writes: “Be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16). We thank God for his gifts, and beneath those thanks lies praise for who he is in his own purity and perfection.

The New Testament shows this King in Jesus Christ. After his resurrection Jesus said, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18), and the great multitude in Revelation cries, “Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth” (Revelation 19:6). God has highly exalted him and given him the name above every name, “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow … And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9–11). The trembling of the peoples, the height of verse 2 and the praise of the name all meet in him.

The God who sat between the cherubims came nearer still. Jesus is Emmanuel, “God with us” (Matthew 1:23), the Word made flesh who dwelt among us full of grace and truth (John 1:14), and “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person” (Hebrews 1:3). In him “dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9), and in Jerusalem itself he taught with authority, healed the sick and gave himself as the sacrifice for the sins of the world. Paul calls him the propitiation God set forth for our sins (Romans 3:25), so Christ is our true mercy seat, and through him we “come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

Christ is holy as the name is holy. He was tempted as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15), and he reveals the God who “is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). As “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), he makes a way for sinful people to come near to a holy God, praise his great name and live.

Zion itself now has a wider meaning. The church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ himself as the chief corner stone, and grows into a holy temple, a dwelling of God through the Spirit (Ephesians 2:20–22). Believers “are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem” (Hebrews 12:22–24), where the great and high King reigns for ever.

These verses give us a King who is on his throne now. In a world of chaos and of powers that rise and fall, “The LORD reigneth” is solid ground, for every nation, every crisis and every personal trouble lies under his rule, and his purposes will stand. The trembling the psalm asks for and the praise it calls for belong together, because the God who is high above all the peoples is also the God who met his people between the cherubims and now meets us in Christ at the throne of grace.

His name is great, terrible and holy, and the psalm gives it to us to praise. The reason it sets before us is God himself in his holiness, and the King it shows us is one whose nearness makes awe a joy and whose holiness gives our praise its depth.