Psalm 24 · Passage · Stewardship
The Earth Is the LORD's
Psalm 24 has ten verses in three parts: the LORD's ownership of the earth, the question of who may stand before Him, and the King of Glory entering His gates.
Before the psalm asks who may come near the LORD, it settles who owns the ground the worshipper stands on.
The earth is the LORD’s, and the fullness thereof, the world and all who dwell therein.
- The passage
- Psalm 24:1 to 10, 1 Corinthians 10:25 to 26
- Books
- Psalms, 1 Corinthians
- Hold in memory
- Psalm 24:1
Summary
Psalm 24 grounds the LORD's ownership of the world in creation, since He set the land firm upon the waters, and the claim takes in people as well as the ground they live on. Whatever a person holds is therefore held from the LORD and is answerable to Him, and the value of stewardship rests on that fact.
- Holiness of life is the condition for coming before the owner of the earth.
- The King at the gates is named the LORD of Hosts, strong and mighty in battle.
- Paul's freedom to eat at Corinth rests on the psalm's opening claim.
The Owner of the Earth
Psalm 24:1 to 2 names everything the LORD owns.
The Earth Is the LORD's studies Psalm 24, the psalm that begins with the ownership of the world. It belongs to the value of stewardship, because a steward manages what another owns, and this psalm names the owner of everything a person can hold.
The question the study answers is what follows for the people who live on the earth and come before Him, since everything on it is the LORD's. It traces the Hebrew of the psalm's opening line and Paul's use of that line at Corinth. It also gives two readings of the King who enters the gates.
In the Hebrew of Psalm 24:1 the first word, glossed “[belongs] to Yahweh”, stands before four things: “the earth”, “what fills it”, “[the] world” and those who dwell in it.
God makes the same claim in His own voice in Psalm 50. He tells Israel, “I have no need for a bull from your stall or goats from your pens” (Psalm 50:9), and names every beast of the forest as His.
If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is Mine, and the fullness thereof.God's own words in Psalm 50 repeat the phrase of Psalm 24:1, “and the fullness thereof”, to show that no offering gives Him anything He lacks.
The Ladder of the Psalm
The psalm asks its questions in Psalm 24:3 and Psalm 24:8 and answers each in the next line.
Two questions shape the psalm, who may stand before the LORD and who the King of Glory is, and each is answered at once.
| Verses | The Berean words | What the rung adds |
|---|---|---|
| Psalm 24:1 to 2 | “For He has founded it upon the seas” | The owner's claim and the reason for it. |
| Psalm 24:3 | “Who may ascend the hill of the LORD?” | The first question: who may come before the owner. |
| Psalm 24:4 to 6 | “He who has clean hands and a pure heart” | The answer: the one whose deeds and heart are clean and who seeks the LORD's face. |
| Psalm 24:7 to 9 | “Lift up your heads, O gates!” | The call to the gates and the second question. |
| Psalm 24:10 | “He is the King of Glory.” | The second answer gives the King His name. |
Who May Ascend, and Who Enters
Psalm 24:3 to 10 names the worshipper fit for the holy place and the King fit for the gates.
Such a person “will receive blessing from the LORD and vindication from the God of his salvation” (Psalm 24:5), and the psalm calls them “the generation of those who seek Him” (Psalm 24:6).
The last four verses turn from the worshipper to the King. A voice asks twice who the King of Glory is, and the first answer is “The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle” (Psalm 24:8).
Read The Door and the Gate, on the gates of Psalm 24 and of Scripture
The Hebrew word behind “Hosts” is tseva'ot, glossed “of hosts”, from a noun whose short meaning is army.
Paul's Use of the Psalm at Corinth
1 Corinthians 10 applies the psalm's opening claim to food offered to idols.
Paul told the believers at Corinth, “Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience” (1 Corinthians 10:25), and in 1 Corinthians 10:26 he gave Psalm 24:1 as the reason.
So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.Paul's conclusion turns the owner's claim into a rule for using His gifts, so that eating and drinking are done for the owner's glory.
Albert Barnes, in his Notes on the Old and New Testaments, drew the same line from ownership to use. He wrote on Psalm 24:1 that every right a person has to the earth and its produce “is subordinate to the claims of God”.
Barnes also reported that he had seen the words of Psalm 24:1 inscribed on the front of the Royal Exchange in London.
Voices on the Owner of the Earth
One voice names the greed that forgets the owner and one gives the reason the world is His.
died 395 · Gregory of Nyssa
Gregory of Nyssa stands here for the false claim of ownership that greed makes.
Read the page on Gregory of Nyssa
“The foolish man thinks his own that which never belongs to him, ignorant seemingly in his greed that ‘the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof,’ for ‘God is king of all the earth.’ It is the passion of having which gives men a false title of lordship over that which can never belong to them.”
Gregory of Nyssa · On Virginity 4 · on Psalm 24:1Patristic
1834 to 1892 · Charles Spurgeon
Spurgeon stands here for creation as the LORD's title to the world.
Read the page on Charles Spurgeon
“In the second verse we have the reason why the world belongs to God, namely, because he has created it, which is a title beyond all dispute. ‘For he hath founded it upon the seas.’ It is God who lifts up the earth from out of the sea, so that the dry land, which otherwise might in a moment be submerged, as in the days of Noah, is kept from the floods. The hungry jaws of ocean would devour the dry land if a constant fiat of Omnipotence did not protect it. ‘He hath established it upon the floods.’”
Charles Spurgeon · The Treasury of David, Vol. 1 · on Psalm 24:2
Whose Entry Do the Gates Receive?
Readers have heard Psalm 24:7 to 10 as David bringing up the ark and as Christ ascending.
The question is what event the call to the gates describes.
The ark brought up to ZionMatthew Henry
Matthew Henry, in his Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), wrote that “It is supposed that the psalm was penned upon occasion of David's bringing up the ark to the place prepared for it”. He added that its intention was to lead the people “to a holy life and faith in Christ, of whom the ark was a type.”
The objection: the ten verses of the psalm do not name the ark or a procession, so the occasion is an inference from the history of the ark's coming to Jerusalem.
Christ ascending into heavenJerome; Augustine of Hippo
Jerome, in his Homily 94, On Easter Sunday, set the psalm at the Lord's ascent. He said that of these gates “the angels were speaking while they were preparing for the entrance of the Lord”. Augustine, in his Exposition on Psalm 24, read “mighty in battle” of the risen Christ: “Handle the scars, and you will find them made whole”.
The objection: the psalm names the one who enters only as the LORD strong and mighty, and the ascension is read into it from the New Testament.
The LORD's Earth
Whoever manages land, goods or time manages what the LORD owns.
The psalm's claim reaches every field, purse and hour a person holds, and the one who holds them must come before the owner as a worshipper fit for His holy place.
But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? For everything comes from You, and from Your own hand we have given to You.David's prayer at the gifts for the temple draws the giver's conclusion from the owner's claim, that a gift to God is only His own returned.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- STEP Bible, Translators Amalgamated Hebrew Old Testament, the tagged Hebrew text (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0.
- STEP Bible, Translators Brief lexicon of Extended Strongs for Hebrew (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0.
- Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity, chapter 4.
- Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, volume 1 (1869), on Psalm 24:2.
- Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832 to 1869), on Psalm 24:1.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on Psalm 24:7 to 10.
- Jerome, Homily 94, On Easter Sunday.
- Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 24, on Psalm 24:8.
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