1Sing to the LORD a new song!
Sing to the LORD, all the earth.
2Sing to the LORD, bless His name,
Bring tidings every day of His rescue.
3Recount among the nations His glory,
among all the peoples His wonders.
4For great is the LORD and most praised,
fearsome is He over all the gods.
5For all gods of the peoples are ungods,
but the LORD has made the heavens.
6Greatness and grandeur before Him,
strength and splendor in His sanctuary.
7Grant to the LORD, O families of peoples,
grant to the LORD glory and strength.
8Grant to the LORD His name’s glory,
bear tribute and come to His courts.
9Bow to the LORD in sacred grandeur;
quake before Him, all the earth.
10Say among the nations: The LORD reigns.
Yes, the world stands firm, will not shake.
He metes out justice to peoples righteously.
11Let the heavens rejoice and the earth exult,
let the sea and its fullness thunder.
12Let the field be glad and all that is in it,
then shall all the trees of the forest gladly sing
13before the LORD, for He comes,
He comes to judge the earth.
14He judges the world in justice
and peoples in His faithfulness.
PSALM 96 NOTES
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1. Sing to the LORD a new song. In this celebration of God’s majesty, it is of course in the interests of the psalm poet to proclaim that this is a fresh and original composition. In point of fact, it is a weaving together of phrases and whole lines that appear elsewhere. Yair Hoffman actually characterizes it as a “mosaic” of lines drawn from familiar psalms. The very familiarity, of course, might have enhanced its accessibility to the Israelite worshipper.
3. the nations . . . / all the peoples. The perspective of this poem is decidedly global rather than national. All the inhabitants of earth are enjoined to celebrate God’s kingship.
5. For all gods of the peoples are ungods. The previous line, “fearsome is He over all the gods,” which also has a close parallel in Psalm 95:3, looks as though it is a line inherited from an early stratum of Hebrew poetry. In this case, the psalmist immediately attaches a kind of monotheistic rejoinder to it by asserting that all the other gods have no real existence: “ungods,” ʾelilim, is a polemic coinage that appears frequently elsewhere, punningly formed on ʾal, (“no,” “not”) and ʾel (“god”), to which a diminutive or pejorative suffix is appended. The standard meaning of the term in all subsequent Hebrew is “idols.”
6. Greatness and grandeur. The alliteration approximates the effect of the Hebrew hod wehadar.
8. bear tribute. The Hebrew minḥah also has the cultic sense of “offering,” and a pun is surely intended here, but the emphasis on celebrating God as king of all the earth invites seeing “tribute” as the leading edge of the pun.
10. righteously. The Hebrew meysharim, which has a Mesopotamian cognate, is an abstract noun derived from yashar, “straight” or “upright,” and has the sense of fairly, even generously, administered justice.
11. Let the heavens rejoice. Given that the poet has already proclaimed God’s all-embracing reign over the sundry realms of creation, it is an apt conclusion that, at the end, sky and sea and the fields of earth are all urged to rejoice in God’s kingship.