Psalms 96 — T4T — Scriptura

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96Sing to Yahweh a new song!
You people throughout the earth, sing to Yahweh!
^{Verse 2}Sing to Yahweh and praise him [MTY]!Every day proclaim to others that he has saved/rescued us.^{Verse 3}Tell about his glory/greatness to all people-groups;tell all people-groups the marvelous things that he has done.

^{Verse 4}Yahweh is great, and he deserves to be praised very much;he should be revered more than for all the gods,^{Verse 5}because all the gods that other people-groups worship are only idols,but Yahweh is truly great; he created the skies!^{Verse 6}Those who are in his presence honor him and can see that he is a great king.They can see in his temple that he is very powerful and is very beautiful.

^{Verse 7}You people in nations all over the earth, praise Yahweh!
Praise Yahweh for his glorious power [HEN]!
^{Verse 8}Praise Yahweh like he deserves to be praised,Bring an offering and come to his temple.^{Verse 9}Bow down before Yahweh when he appears in his holy/sacred temple;everyone on the earth should tremble in front of him,
because he is majestic and holy.

^{Verse 10}Say to all the people-groups, “Yahweh is the king!He put the world in its place, and nothing will ever be able to move/shake it.He will judge all the people-groups fairly.”
^{Verse 11}All the beings that are in [MTY] the heavens should be glad, and all the people on the earth should rejoice.The oceans and all the creatures that are in the oceans should roar to praise Yahweh.^{Verse 12}The fields and everything that grows in them should rejoice.
When they do that, it will be as though all the trees in the forests will sing joyfully^{Verse 13}in front of Yahweh.That will happen when he comes to judge everyone on [MTY] the earth.He will judge all the people fairly/justly, according to what he knows is true.

Commentary

Call to the nation of Jahve to sing praise to its God and to evangelize the heathen. שׁירוּ is repeated three times. The new song assumes a new form of things, and the call thereto, a present which appeared to be a beginning that furnished a guarantee of this new state of things, a beginning viz., of the recognition of Jahve throughout the whole world of nations, and of His accession to the lordship over the whole earth. The new song is an echo of the approaching revelation of salvation and of glory, and this is also the inexhaustible material of the joyful tidings that go forth from day to day (מיּום ליום as in Est 3:7, whereas in the Chronicles it is מיום אל־יום as in Num 30:15). We read Psa 96:1 verbally the same in Isa 42:10; Psa 96:2 calls to mind Isa 52:7; Isa 60:6; and Psa 96:3, Isa 66:19.

Confirmation of the call from the glory of Jahve that is now become manifest. The clause Psa 96:4, as also Psa 145:3, is taken out of Psa 48:2. כל־אלהים is the plural of כּל־אלוהּ, every god, Ch2 32:15; the article may stand here or be omitted (Psa 95:3, cf. Psa 113:4). All the elohim, i.e., gods, of the peoples are אלילים (from the negative אל), nothings and good-for-nothings, unreal and useless. The lxx renders δαιμόνια, as though the expression were שׁדים (cf. Co1 10:20), more correctly εἴδωλα in Rev 9:20. What Psa 96:5 says is wrought out in Isa 40, Isa 44, and elsewhere; אלילים is a name of idols that occurs nowhere more frequently than in Isaiah. The sanctuary (Psa 96:6) is here the earthly sanctuary. From Jerusalem, over which the light arises first of all (Isa. 60), Jahve's superterrestrial doxa now reveals itself in the world. הוד־והדר is the usual pair of words for royal glory. The chronicler reads Psa 96:6 עז וחדוה בּמקמו, might and joy are in His place (הדוה( ecalp siH ni era yoj d a late word, like אחוה, brotherhood, brotherly affection, from an old root, Exo 18:9). With the place of God one might associate the thought of the celestial place of God transcending space; the chronicler may, however, have altered במקדשׁו into במקמו because when the Ark was brought in, the Temple (בית המקדשׁ) was not yet built.

Call to the families of the peoples to worship God, the One, living, and glorious God. הבוּ is repeated three times here as Psa 29:1-11, of which the whole strophe is an echo. Isaiah (ch. 60) sees them coming in with the gifts which they are admonished to bring with them into the courts of Jahve (in Chr. only: לפניו). Instead of בּהדרת קדשׁ here and in the chronicler, the lxx brings the courts (חצרת) in once more; but the dependence of the strophe upon Psa 29:1-11 furnishes a guarantee for the "holy attire," similar to the wedding garment in the New Testament parable. Instead of מפּניו, Psa 96:9, the chronicler has מלּפניו, just as he also alternates with both forms, Ch2 32:7, cf. Ch1 19:18.

That which is to be said among the peoples is the joyous evangel of the kingdom of heaven which is now come and realized. The watchword is "Jahve is King," as in Isa 52:7. The lxx correctly renders: ὁ κύριος ἐβασίλευσε (Note: In the Psalterium Veronense with the addition apo xylu, Cod. 156, Latinizing ἀπὸ τῷ ξύλῳ; in the Latin Psalters (the Vulgate excepted) a ligno, undoubtedly an addition by an early Christian hand, upon which, however, great value is set by Justin and all the early Latin Fathers.) for מלך is intended historically (Rev 11:17). אף, as in Psa 93:1, introduces that which results from this fact, and therefore to a certain extent goes beyond it. The world below, hitherto shaken by war and anarchy, now stands upon foundations that cannot be shaken in time to come, under Jahve's righteous and gentle sway. This is the joyful tidings of the new era which the poet predicts from out of his own times, when he depicts the joy that will then pervade the whole creation; in connection with which it is hardly intentional that Psa 96:11 and Psa 96:11 acrostically contain the divine names יהוה and יהו. This joining of all creatures in the joy at Jahve's appearing is a characteristic feature of Isa 40:1. These cords are already struck in Isa 35:1. "The sea and its fulness" as in Isa 42:10. In the chronicler Psa 96:10 (ויאמרו instead of אמרו) stands between Psa 96:11 and Psa 96:11 - according to Hitzig, who uses all his ingenuity here in favour of that other recension of the text, by an oversight of the copyist.

The chronicler changes שׂדי into the prosaic השּׂדה, and כל־עצי־יעל with the omission of the כל into עצי היּער. The psalmist on his part follows the model of Isaiah, who makes the trees of the wood exult and clap their hands, Psa 55:12; Psa 44:23. The אז, which points into this festive time of all creatures which begins with Jahve's coming, is as in Isa 35:5. Instead of לפני, "before," the chronicler has the מלּפני so familiar to him, by which the joy is denoted as being occasioned by Jahve's appearing. The lines Psa 96:13 sound very much like Psa 9:9. The chronicler has abridged Psa 96:13, by hurrying on to the mosaic-work portion taken from Ps 105. The poet at the close glances from the ideal past into the future. The twofold בּא is a participle, Ew. 200. Being come to judgment, after He has judged and sifted, executing punishment, Jahve will govern in the righteousness of mercy and in faithfulness to the promises.

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