Context No. 3065 of 4322 · Psalms

Psalms 47:1-9: in context

1Oh clap your hands, all you nations. Shout to God with the voice of triumph! 2For the LORD Most High is awesome. He is a great King over all the earth. 3He subdues nations under us, and peoples under our feet. 4He chooses our inheritance for us, the glory of Jacob whom he loved. Selah. 5God has gone up with a shout, the LORD with the sound of a trumpet. 6Sing praises to God! Sing praises! Sing praises to our King! Sing praises! 7For God is the King of all the earth. Sing praises with understanding. 8God reigns over the nations. God sits on his holy throne. 9The princes of the peoples are gathered together, the people of the God of Abraham. For the shields of the earth belong to God. He is greatly exalted!

This psalm bursts with joyful worship of God as King. Clap your hands, all you peoples; shout to God with loud songs of joy, for the LORD Most High is a great King over all the earth. God has gone up with a shout, the LORD with the sound of a trumpet. Sing praises to our King; for God is the King of all the earth.

This is exuberant praise, clapping and shouting and trumpet blasts, and yet it calls for praise with understanding, joyful but not mindless, grounded in the truth of who God is. And the vision keeps widening. This is not merely the King of Israel but the King of all the earth, and the psalm glimpses the princes of the peoples gathering as the people of the God of Abraham, all the nations one day drawn into the worship of the one King. My small worship joins a chorus meant to rise from the whole earth.

Do I worship God as King with both joyful abandon and understanding, joining the praise meant to rise from all the earth?

Sources

Psalm 47:7: "For God is the King of all the earth. Sing praises with understanding."
Psalm 47:1: "Oh clap your hands, all you nations. Shout to God with the voice of triumph!"
Revelation 11:15: "The kingdom of the world has become the Kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ."