Psalm 100
5 verses · KJVPsalms book hub →
Psalms 100:1-2
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands: The Hebrew title, which this page's text does not show, names the psalm for the thank offering, the todah of Leviticus 7:12-15, the sacrifice a worshipper brought with a public vow of praise attached to it. The call goes out past Israel to all ye lands, the same wide horizon as the neighboring psalms of praise, and gladness and singing are named as the manner of the service, not an accompaniment to it. Come before his presence sets worship as an approach to a person, not merely an activity performed.
Psalms 100:1, 2 voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about these verses, in their own words.
Psalms 100:1
“Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. This is a repetition of Ps 98:4. The original word signifies a glad shout, such as loyal subjects give when their king appears among them. Our happy God should be worshipped by a happy people; a cheerful spirit is in keeping with his nature, his acts, and the gratitude which we should cherish for his mercies. In every land Jehovah's goodness is seen, therefore in every land should be be praised. Nearer will the world be in its proper condition till with one unanimous shout it adores the only God.”
Charles Spurgeon· The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular (Reformed) Baptist / Five-point Calvinist / 1689 LBCF / 19th-c. evangelical
Psalms 100:1
“But, if we take the foregoing psalm to be (as we have opened it) a call to the Jewish church to rejoice in the administration of God's kingdom, which they were under (as the four psalms before it were calculated for the days of the Messiah), this psalm, perhaps, was intended for proselytes, that came over out of all lands to the Jews' religion.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Psalms 100:2, 2 voices
Psalms 100:2
"Serve the Lord with gladness," for the kingship of our God and Savior has nothing of the harsh tyranny of the devil; rather, his lordship is mild and loving.
Theodoret of Cyrus· written before 458· COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS 100:1patristic
Psalms 100:2
“Serve the Lord with gladness. "Glad homage pay with awful mirth." He is our Lord, and therefore he is to be served; he is our gracious Lord, and therefore to be served with joy. The invitation to worship here given is not a melancholy one, as though adoration were a funeral solemnity, but a cheery gladsome exhortation, as though we were bidden to a marriage feast. Come before his presence with singing. We ought in worship to realise the presence of God, and by an effort of the mind to approach him.”
Charles Spurgeon· The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular (Reformed) Baptist / Five-point Calvinist / 1689 LBCF / 19th-c. evangelical
Psalms 100:3
he that hath made us, and not we ourselves: Know ye that the Lord he is God echoes the confession Israel was made to say at Deut 4:35, and it grounds the psalm's joy in a settled fact rather than a mood. The clause and not we ourselves carries a well known textual point: the Hebrew consonants can be read as written, lo, not, which the King James follows, or as a near-identical word meaning to him, his we are, which other versions follow, and the commentators name both readings without deciding the point for the reader. We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture places this verse in the Psalter's own shepherd language, the same figure that opens Psalm 23 and pictures the Lord enthroned over Israel at Psalm 80:1.
Psalms 100:3, 1 voice
Psalms 100:3
“Know ye that the Lord, he is God. Our worship must be intelligent. We ought to know whom we worship and why. "Man, know thyself, "is a wise aphorism, yet to know our God is truer wisdom; and it is very questionable whether a man can know himself until he knows his God. Jehovah is God in the fullest, most absolute, and most exclusive sense, he is God alone; to know him in that character and prove our knowledge by obedience, trust, submission, zeal, and love is an attainment which only grace can bestow.”
Charles Spurgeon· The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular (Reformed) Baptist / Five-point Calvinist / 1689 LBCF / 19th-c. evangelical
Psalms 100:4-5
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving: Gates and courts describe a worshipper's approach to the temple grounds in stages, thanksgiving at the outer gate and praise as he draws further in, and be thankful and bless his name repeat the same act in two more words rather than adding two more duties. The closing verse gives the reason for all of it in three short clauses: the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his truth endureth to all generations, the last clause reaching forward past the worshippers singing it. Henry reads the verse as the whole psalm's argument compressed to its final line, goodness, mercy and truth answering the joyful noise the psalm opened with.
Psalms 100:4, 1 voice
Psalms 100:4
“Enter into his gates with thanksgiving. To the occurrence of the word thanksgiving in this place the Psalm probably owes its Title — In all our public service the rendering of thanks must abound; it is like the incense of the temple, which filled the whole house with smoke. Expiatory sacrifices are ended, but those of gratitude will never be out of date. So long as we are receivers of mercy we must be givers of thanks. Mercy permits us to enter his gates; let us praise that mercy.”
Charles Spurgeon· The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular (Reformed) Baptist / Five-point Calvinist / 1689 LBCF / 19th-c. evangelical
Psalms 100:5, 1 voice
Psalms 100:5
“For the Lord is good. This sums up his character and contains a mass of reasons for praise. He is good, gracious, kind, bountiful, loving; yea, God is love. He who does not praise the good is not good himself. The kind of praise inculcated in the Psalm, viz., that of joy and gladness, is most fitly urged upon us by an argument from the goodness of God. His mercy is everlasting. God is not mere justice, stern and cold; he has bowels of compassion, and wills not the sinner's death.”
Charles Spurgeon· The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular (Reformed) Baptist / Five-point Calvinist / 1689 LBCF / 19th-c. evangelical
Where the chapter sits
Psalms 100 falls in Book IV: YHWH reigns (chapters 90–106). Book III's crisis answered by Book IV's YHWH-reigns theology. Moses' Ps 90 opens. Enthronement Psalms 93, 95–99. Doxology at 106:48.
Before it: Book III: Asaph and covenant crisis, chapters 73–89. After it: Book V: Hallel and Hallelujah, chapters 107–150.
The whole shape of Psalms→Key words
The Hebrew words this chapter turns on, by how often it uses them. Each one opens its word study.
Cross references
The 8 chapters this one speaks with, most first. Open a row for the verses it shares.
Psalms 952 verses
Psalms 100:2
Psalms 95:2Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms.Psalms 100:3
Psalms 95:6O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our maker.- Read Psalms 95 →
Psalms 981 verse
Psalms 100:1
Psalms 98:4Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.- Read Psalms 98 →
Luke 191 verse
Psalms 100:1
Luke 19:37And when he was come nigh, even now at the descent of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen;- Read Luke 19 →
Psalms 321 verse
Psalms 100:1
Psalms 32:11Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye righteous: and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart.- Read Psalms 32 →
The rest of the chapters this one speaks with, 4 of them, for a reader following a thread past the four above
- Philippians 41 verse
- Psalms 711 verse
- Psalms 461 verse
- Psalms 1191 verse
Cross-references from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge and OpenBible.info.
The world behind itThe place, the time and the people around this chapter, for a reader who wants the setting.
The world behind this chapter
Psalms 100The history
The title is a psalm of thanksgiving, and the Hebrew word is also the name of a specific offering. The thank offering came with loaves of bread, had to be eaten the same day, and could not possibly be finished by one family, so bringing one meant inviting people. A thanksgiving in Israel was a meal with a deadline and a guest list. This psalm is the words that went with it.
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise, describes movement. The temple had an outer court where the people gathered, reached through actual gates. These are words for a crowd walking in, learned on the road and sung at the door.
We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Shepherding in that country meant leading rather than driving, the flock followed a voice it knew, moved between grazing grounds and water, and was penned at night in a stone fold with the shepherd lying across the opening. The point of the image is ownership and care, not stupidity.
Serve the LORD with gladness uses a word that covers both a servant's work and worship. In Israel there was no line between the two, and the psalm's five short lines were easy enough for anyone in the crowd to carry home.
What it meant to them
It tells worshippers why to be glad before it tells them to be: know ye that the LORD he is God, it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves.
The reason for the joy is ownership, not performance. And the last line is the ground it stands on, his mercy is everlasting, and his truth endures to all generations, with truth here meaning the kind of faithfulness you can lean your whole weight against.
Sources cited
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
- Charles H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Psalms 100. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Albert Barnes, Notes on the Book of Psalms; Charles Spurgeon; Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Psalms; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Matthew Henry and Theodoret of Cyrus, COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS 100:1.