Psalm 92

This is the only psalm with a day in its title: a song for the sabbath day. The Jewish traditions preserved in the Mishnah record it as the psalm the Levites sang in the temple on the seventh day, standing on the step platform between the court of Israel and the altar while the offering was made.

The instruments are named: a ten-stringed instrument, the harp, and the lyre with a solemn sound. Israel's strings were the smaller lyre, light enough to carry and play walking, and a larger harp. Lyres appear on seals and coins from the region across many centuries, so the shape is not guesswork.

The two trees at the end are chosen for how long they last. A date palm bears fruit in punishing heat for a century and keeps producing when it is old. The cedars of Lebanon grew for centuries, were the prestige timber of the whole ancient world, and were shipped south for Solomon's temple. Both stand against the grass of the psalm before this one, which came up in the morning and was cut down by evening.

The horn of the wild ox in the closing lines is the aurochs — a huge wild bovine, far larger than cattle, hunted by kings as a display of strength and extinct only in recent centuries.