Psalm 96 is another unattributed Psalm, with no author or context indicated. However, when we turn to 1 Chronicles 16, it’s clear that this Psalm has its origin there (vv8-36). The occasion of the original was the restoration of the Ark of God to Israel, its arrival in Jerusalem and placement in the tent provided by David.
What an occasion that was! Burnt offerings and peace offerings were made before the Mercy Seat for the first time since its removal from Shiloh decades previously. Exultant praises, accompanied by stringed instruments, cymbals and trumpets, rang out. It was a day of new beginnings. And on that day, we are told by the chronicler, “David first delivered this psalm into the hand of Asaph and his brethren [the musicians and singers] to thank the Lord” (1 Chron 16:7). So, it is somewhat surprising that the whole psalm doesn’t appear in the Book of Psalms.
Proclaiming the Good News
It opens with the injunction to the assembled crowds, “Oh, give thanks to the Lord…Sing to him…Glory in his holy name” (1 Chron 16:8-10). Psalm 96 opens with a similar injunction, “Oh, sing unto the Lord a new song...Bless his name”.
In both versions there is a hidden gem to be found. In verse 2 of Psalm 96 (v23 of the chronicler’s account) we read, “Proclaim the good news of his salvation from day to day”. In Hebrew, the first word is basar, which means to bring good tidings. When the Tanach (Old Testament) was translated into the Greek of the Septuagint, the chosen word here was euangelizo, a word often encountered in the New Testament in connection with the gospel (e.g. Luke 4:8,43; Acts 16:11; Rom 1:15; Gal 1:16). It is the origin of our English words ‘evangel’, ‘evangelist’ and so on.
What is the ‘good news’ that David exhorts should be proclaimed? It is the good news of the Lord’s salvation. David’s Hebrew word here is yeshuah, meaning ‘rescue’, ‘deliverance’. Although David was undoubtedly rejoicing in the rescue of the Ark of God and the return of the ‘presence of the Lord’ to the nation, we know from Jesus’s own words that David often spoke prophetically of him by the Holy Spirit (Mark 12:35), so that could easily be the case here, too. What was it that the godly Jew, Simeon, said to God when the infant Jesus (Yeshua) was presented at the Temple by Joseph and Mary? “My eyes have seen your salvation” (Luke 2:20).1
The “good news of your yeshuah” in Psalm 96 is surely striking, an example of double reference, with a (then) present and a future application. Here is a Messianic element that is truly precious. And David’s injunction to “Proclaim the good news of his salvation from day to day” is a great encouragement to us in our own times.
The “good news of your yeshuah” in Psalm 96 is surely striking, an example of double reference, with a (then) present and a future (Messianic) application.
To Jews and Gentiles
What’s more, as each version of this Psalm continues, David exhorts “Declare his glory among the nations, his wonders among all peoples” (Ps 96:3, 1 Chron 16:24). At first reading, the two phrases in this couplet appear to display a classic parallelism – the same thought expressed in two different ways. This commonly occurs in poetry and Hebrew literature, where it is also used for emphasis. But is that really the case here?
Interestingly, the old King James version comes very close to a distinction that is made in David’s Hebrew, translating ‘nations’ as ‘heathen’ in the first line of the couplet. In fact, David uses goyim for ‘nations’ and am for ‘peoples’. Goyim literally means ‘Gentiles’, whereas am, meaning ‘people’, ‘kindred’ or ‘tribe’, most likely refers to David’s own people, the tribes of Israel. Hence, in each version of this Psalm, we have a foretaste of the good news of Jesus being proclaimed prophetically to Gentiles as well as Jews, perhaps the first ever such indication in Scripture.
The next indication appears in Isaiah 49:6, some 250 years later: speaking of Messiah, the Lord said, “I will also give you as a light to the Gentiles, so that you should be my salvation to the ends of the earth”. Notice that Isaiah’s prophecy makes it clear that salvation is not some kind of product, but is a person – the person of Yeshua. And it was in the fulfilment of this very prophecy that dear old Simeon rejoiced in the Temple. And, though long in reaching fulfilment, what a glorious truth it is!
Supremacy of the LORD
Psalm 96 continues to use the psalm David gave to Asaph, all the way to verse 33 of the chronicler’s account. As you read the Psalm, did you notice that the word ‘Lord’ appears in capital letters? This signifies that the Hebrew word is the four Hebrew consonants YHWH – the name by which God revealed himself to Moses (which we generally render as ‘Jehovah’ or ‘Yahweh’) (Ex 2:2-3). Even Pharaoh used this Name, as we see in Exodus 12:31, and it is also found in Egyptian temple inscriptions at Soleb, in Sudan, where the Children of Israel are referred to as ‘the nomads of Yahweh’ in a hieroglyphic cartouche dating from the 15th Century BC (see right2).
This is the very same name in the Scripture that Yeshua read in the synagogue in Nazareth: “the LORD has anointed me to preach good tidings [euanggelizo] to the poor” (Luke 3:18; Isa 61:1). Well before that event, possibly beginning in Babylon, the rabbis taught that the name YHWH was so holy that it should never be pronounced, substituting Adonai, meaning ‘my Lord’ and indicating respectful submission. As an observant Jew (Matt 3:15), it is likely that Yeshua followed this practice. What a contrast to the casual attitudes of so many in our day!
In this Psalm, David reminds us of the utter supremacy of the LORD; all other gods are mere idols, objects of man’s own imagination and making (vv4-5a). Furthermore, he is the great Creator: “He made the heavens” (5b). Praise the LORD! These are great reasons for us to praise him, too! Never forget them or underestimate them! Whatever David’s experience in the Tabernacle had been, in verse 6 we find his recollection of finding “honour, majesty, strength and beauty” in that sanctuary – his sense of the very presence of God. I wonder, how aware are we of these mighty truths? How do they affect our everyday living?
In each version of this Psalm, we have a foretaste of the good news of Jesus being proclaimed to Gentiles as well as Jews, perhaps the first ever such indication in Scripture.
The Beauty of Holiness
Next, in verses 7 to 9, David returns to further exhort the people of God. Praises and offerings are encouraged before, unable to contain himself, he bursts out with the injunction, “Oh, worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness” (v9). This is an exhortation he also uses in Psalm 29. It can be understood in two ways: to praise God “with clean hands and a pure heart” (Ps 24:4), but also to enter the Tabernacle, the beautiful holy place that represented the presence of the Lord.
Here is David’s own desire, as he expresses it in Psalm 27, “to behold the beauty of the LORD…in his Temple” (v4). Of course, no Temple as we normally understand it existed in David’s day, but his meaning is clear as he continues, confident of refuge “in [God’s] pavilion, in the secret place of his Tabernacle”.
Do you know that secret place, the place where we can truly “worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness”? It is a place that is always accessible to those transformed by the gospel. What a privilege this is!
David also makes it abundantly clear that such holiness demands reverence and awe. There’s not a hint of the matey familiarity that we find in some Christian circles today. In the final part of verse 9 he exclaims, “Tremble before him, all the earth” – that’s everybody, Jew and Gentile alike! The old King James Version expresses this as “fear before him”, whilst David’s Hebrew word means ‘to shake, writhe, fear’, even ‘to grieve’.
What a contrast is this with the rejoicing and exuberance we have been considering! Those who would ‘emphasise the positive, eliminate the negative’ are sadly misled, as we shall see in part 2 of this study. David has something else to teach us in the closing section of this super Psalm. Meanwhile, let me encourage you to respond to all his wonderful exhortations.
This article is part of a series looking at the Psalms in their original context. Click here for previous instalments.
Notes
1 In the 1st Century, the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria offered an explanation of Moses’s name change of the son of Nun from Hoshea (meaning ‘he rescued’) to Yehoshua (Joshua) in Numbers 13:16, from which came the contracted form Yeshua (Jesus): "And Ιησους [Jesus, Yeshua] refers to salvation of the Lord" (emphasis added). See here.
2 Photograph by kind permission of Dr Titus Kennedy. Inscription detail from ‘The mystery of the Shasu and the name Yahweh in Egyptian hieroglyphic texts’. Breaking Christian News, 13 January 2010, originally ASSIST News. According to Dr Kennedy’s more recent research, there is a minor error in the transcription of the last hieroglyphic element of the name ‘YHWH’, but there is no doubt that the word genuinely refers to the God of Israel.
