Psalm 100 - Enduring Word Commentary vs Calvin John

Psalm 100

Psalm 100 – A Psalm of Thanksgiving for All Lands

This psalm is simply titled A Psalm of Thanksgiving, and it is the only psalm in the collection to bear this title. It speaks of an invitation to the whole earth to know and to worship God. “It is jubilant with confidence for the whole earth, as it contemplates the glory of that earth, when all its people are submitted to the reign of Jehovah.” (G. Campbell Morgan)

A. The what and why of giving praise.

1. (1-2) What to do: Praise God.

Make a joyful shout to the LORD, all you lands!
Serve the LORD with gladness;
Come before His presence with singing.

a. Make a joyful shout to the LORD: Unlike the several previous psalms, Psalm 100 does not begin with a declaration of God’s sovereignty or character. It begins with the simple and direct exhortation to all you lands to praise God with a joyful shout. This is a call to the nations, extending far beyond Israel’s borders.

i. A joyful shout: “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.” (Spurgeon)

ii. “The joyful noise is…the equivalent in worship to the homage-shout or fanfare to a king.” (Kidner)

iii. All you lands: “The nations must recognize who the Lord is. He is Yahweh, by whose grace and blessings his people exist. The nations too are invited to sing hymns to the Lord and to worship him.” (VanGemeren)

b. Serve the LORD with gladness: The whole earth is invited to serve the LORD. The psalmist likely had in mind the service of worship or temple rituals, but the principle applies to any service directed to God. Those who serve the LORD should do it with gladness.

i. Serve the LORD with gladness: “It is your privilege and duty to be happy in your religious worship. The religion of the true God is intended to remove human misery, and to make mankind happy. He whom the religion of Christ has not made happy does not understand that religion, or does not make a proper use of it.” (Clarke)

ii. “As for the true believer in Jesus, he serves his God because he loves to serve him; he assembles with the great congregation because it is his delight to worship the Most High.” (Spurgeon)

c. Come before His presence with singing: As in many places in the psalms, praise is expressed in song. Singing is not the only way to praise God, but it is the chief way to praise Him.

2. (3) Why to do it: He is our Creator and Shepherd.

Know that the LORD, He is God;
It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;
We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

a. Know that the LORD, He is God: The praise that comes to God from His people and all lands should be mindful. We have many reasons to worship Yahweh, the covenant God of Israel, and the reasons begin with the recognition that He is God.

i. “To know is to have firm ground underfoot, the prerequisite of praise (cf. 40:2f.), and this knowledge is ours by gift; indeed by command.” (Kidner)

ii. Know that the LORD, He is God: “Be convinced of it, ye heathens, whose fantasies have forged false gods.” (Trapp)

b. It is He who has made us: The next reason to worship God is in appropriate recognition of His work as Creator. The idea that we could make ourselves is absurd, and we should worship the One who has made us.

i. “The sense of God’s proprietorship is the true basis of our consecration. We must realize His rights over us before we can freely give Him His due. Those rights are manifold in their sweet reasonableness; but amongst them all, this of creation is one of the chief. God has a right to us because He has made us.” (Meyer)

ii. “Of course, if we do not need God as our Creator, then we do not need to be thankful. Why should we? We got here by ourselves, thank you. We have no one but ourselves to thank.” (Boice)

iii. Under the New Covenant, the believer has a second and greater reason for praise: he or she is a new creation in Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17).

iv. And not we ourselves: “Therefore we owe him homage and service, and him only, and not other gods, who made us not.” (Poole)

v. “For our part, we find it far more easy to believe that the Lord made us than that we were developed by a long chain of natural selections from floating atoms which fashioned themselves.” (Spurgeon)

vi. “Some men live as if they made themselves; they call themselves ‘self-made men,’ and they adore their supposed creators.” (Spurgeon)

c. We are His people and the sheep of His pasture: The third reason to worship God is because He has chosen a people (originally the Jewish people, then added the followers of Jesus Christ), and He cares for us as the sheep of His pasture.

B. The what and why of giving thanks.

1. (4) What to do: Come to His house with thanks and praise.

Enter into His gates with thanksgiving,
And into His courts with praise.
Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.

a. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving: Now the psalmist pictures the people of God from all you lands (Psalm 100:1) entering through the gates and into the courts of the temple. As God’s people approach, we should do so with thanksgiving, recognizing how much God has done for us.

i. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving: “Publicly worship God; and when ye come to the house of prayer, be thankful that you have such a privilege; and when you enter his courts, praise him for the permission.” (Clarke)

ii. “It teaches that there is a special aspect of thanksgiving that involves the whole people of God together and not just the private prayers of individuals.” (Boice)

b. Into His courts with praise: Thanks and praise merge together, as God’s people are thankful and bless His name.

i. “It is as though the gates of the City, the courts of the Sanctuary, were suddenly thrown open, and all lands are called to serve Jehovah, to know that He is God, to enter into relationship with Him.” (Morgan)

ii. Under the New Covenant, not only are the gates and courts open, but even the way to the Holy of Holies is thrown open (Hebrews 10:19).

2. (5) Why to do it: God is good and merciful.

For the LORD is good;
His mercy is everlasting,
And His truth endures to all generations.

a. For the LORD is good: Thanks and praise are right in recognition of God’s goodness. He is good in His plans, good in His grace, good in His forgiveness, good in His covenant, and good in every aspect of His being.

i. For the LORD is good: “The gods of the heathen were not good. They were selfish and capricious. You could never know when they might turn against you and do you harm. Not so our God. The God of the Bible is and has always been good.” (Boice)

b. His mercy is everlasting: The brief psalm ends with God’s unending mercy and truth. These are everlasting reasons to give thanks and praise to God.

i. “So long as we are receivers of mercy we must be givers of thanks.” (Spurgeon)

ii. “How glorious will be that day which shall behold the everlasting gates of heaven lifting up their heads, and disclosing to view those courts above, into which the children of the resurrection are to enter, there, with angels and archangels, to dwell and sing forevermore!” (Horne)

Psalm 100

1. Make a joyful noise The Psalmist refers only to that part of the service of God which consists in recounting his benefits and giving thanks. And since he invites the whole of the inhabitants of the earth indiscriminately to praise Jehovah, he seems, in the spirit of prophecy, to refer to the period when the Church would be gathered out of different nations. Hence he commands (verse 2) that God should be served with gladness, intimating that his kindness towards his own people is so great as to furnish them with abundant ground for rejoicing. This is better expressed in the third verse, in which he first reprehends the presumption of those men who had wickedly revolted from the true God, both in fashioning for themselves gods many, and in devising various forms of worshipping them. And as a multitude of gods destroys and suppresses the true knowledge of one God only, and tarnishes his glory, the prophet, with great propriety, calls upon all men to bethink themselves, and to cease from robbing God of the honor due to his name; and, at the same time, inveighs against their folly in that, not content with the one God, they were become vain in their imaginations. For, however much they are constrained to confess with the mouth that there is a God, the maker of heaven and earth, yet they are ever and anon gradually despoiling him of his glory; and in this manner, the Godhead is, to the utmost extent of their power, reduced to a nonentity. As it is then a most difficult thing to retain men in the practice of the pure worship of God, the prophet, not without reason, recalls the world from its accustomed vanity, and commands them to recognize God as God. For we must attend to this short definition of the knowledge of him, namely, that his glory be preserved unimpaired, and that no deity be opposed to him that might obscure the glory of his name. True, indeed, in the Papacy, God still retains his name, but as his glory is not comprehended in the mere letters of his name, it is certain that there he is not recognized as God. Know, therefore, that the true worship of God cannot be preserved in all its integrity until the base profanation of his glory, which is the inseparable attendant of superstition, be completely reformed.



The prophet next makes mention of the great benefits received from God, and, in an especial manner, desires the faithful to meditate upon them. To say God made us is a very generally acknowledged truth; but not to advert to the ingratitude so usual among men, that scarcely one among a hundred seriously acknowledges that he holds his existence from God, although, when hardly put to it, they do not deny that they were created out of nothing; yet every man makes a god of himself, and virtually worships himself, when he ascribes to his own power what God declares belongs to him alone. Moreover, it must be remembered that the prophet is not here speaking of creation in general, (as I have formerly said,) but of that spiritual regeneration by which he creates anew his image in his elect. Believers are the persons whom the prophet here declares to be God’s workmanship, not that they were made men in their mother’s womb, but in that sense in which Paul, in Eph 2:10, calls them, Τὸ ποιημα, the workmanship of God, because they are created unto good works which God hath before ordained that they should walk in them; and in reality this agrees best with the subsequent context. For when he says, We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture, he evidently refers to that distinguishing grace which led God to set apart his children for his heritage, in order that he may, as it were, nourish them under his wings, which is a much greater privilege than that of merely being born men. Should any person be disposed to boast that he has of himself become a new man, who is there that would not hold in abhorrence such a base attempt to rob God of that which belongs to him? Nor must we attribute this spiritual birth to our earthly parents, as if by their own power they begat us; for what could a corrupt seed produce? Still the majority of men do not hesitate to claim for themselves all the praise of the spiritual life. Else what mean the preachers of free-will, unless it be to tell us that by our own endeavors we have, from being sons of Adam, become the sons of God? In opposition to this, the prophet in calling us the people of God, informs us that it is of his own good will that we are spiritually regenerated. And by denominating us the sheep of his pasture, he gives us to know that through the same grace which has once been imparted to us, we continue safe and unimpaired until the end. It might be otherwise rendered, he made us his people, etc. (124) But as the meaning is not altered, I have retained that which was the more generally received reading.

(124) The Hebrew text has a keri, which is ולו אנחנו, “and we are his,” instead of ולא אנחנו “and not ourselves.” The Septuagint supports the latter reading, the ketib, καὶ οὐχ ἡμεῖς, “and not we ourselves;” in which it is followed by the Syriac and Vulgate versions. Jerome agrees with the keri, Ipse fecit nos, et ipsius sumus ; and so does the Chaldee. “I am persuaded,” says Lowth, in Merrick’s Annotations, “that the Masoretical correction, ולו, (and we are his,) is right: the construction and parallelism both favour it.”



4. Enter his gates The conclusion of the psalm is almost the same as the beginning of it, excepting that he adopts a mode of speech which relates to the worship of God which obtained under the law; (126) in which, however, he merely reminds us that believers, in rendering thanks to God, do not discharge their duty aright, unless they also continue in the practice of a steady profession of piety. Meanwhile, under the name of the temple, he signifies that God cannot be otherwise worshipped than in strict accordance with the manner prescribed in his law. And, besides, he adds, that God’s mercy endureth for ever, and that his truth also is everlasting, to point out to us that we can never be at a loss for constant cause of praising him. If, then, God never ceases to deal with us in this manner, it would argue the basest ingratitude on our part, if we wearied in rendering to Him the tribute of praise to which he is entitled. We have elsewhere taken notice of the reason why truth is connected with mercy. For so foolish are we, that we scarcely feel the mercy of God while he openly manifests it, not even in the most palpable displays of it, until he open his holy lips to declare his paternal regard for us.

(126) “Sinon qu’il mesle des maniers de parler, qui se rapportent au service de Dieu qui estoit sous la Loy.” — Fr.