Psalms 98

Psalms 98:1-9

God with man. A psalm. The ninety-eighth psalm, like the ninety-sixth, calls for the new song; and the close of it is also very similar. But the salvation He has wrought, and His remembrance of His people Israel are here before us, and the praise exhorted to is correspondingly more distinctly from (though not confined to) Israel themselves. The same thing is true of the next psalm, as compared with the ninety-seventh, though not so fully; and the verses of the present two psalms are nine each, as those of the former two are thirteen. This is not accident, although its meaning may not be clear to us.

1. The new song itself -the material of it -is, in the first section. Jehovah has done wonderful things, -deeds of power by which He has wrought salvation. This has spoken for Him among the nations, and manifested His righteousness: He has remembered His loving-kindness and truth toward the house of Israel, and the ends of the earth have seen His salvation.
2. The praise for this is heard in widening circles. In this section Israel is in view; in the next, the world and all the dwellers in it. Yet in the three verses here, the order is reversed, and begins with the people of the whole land; then the Levite chorus; and then; as indicated by the trumpets and the presence of the divine King, the priestly innermost circle. Jehovah is their King, and the accompaniment is heard with Israel’s praise.
3. The full praise joins together the sea and the stable land; then the ministries of blessing, for which the rivers and the hills, their sources, seem both to stand. The rivers are manifestly this, the types of refreshment, which the hills distribute. One cannot help thinking of the waters flowing from the temple-throne in the Jerusalem to be on earth: the type of those in the New Jerusalem above; the “hills” speaking elsewhere also of authorities, and as ministering blessing thus (in Psalms 72:3). The last verse reminds us once more of that supreme rule in righteousness which is the great ministry, and from which the other ministries derive their being. All these, like the cherubim of the throne, celebrate Him from whom they have their origin; and proclaim His goodness who has come once more into a world which is His own. Man is with God, and in fullness of blessing.