1A thanksgiving psalm.
Shout out to the LORD, all the earth,
2worship the LORD in rejoicing,
3Know that the LORD is God.
He has made us, and we are His,
His people and the flock He tends.
4Come into His gates in thanksgiving,
His courts in praise.
Acclaim Him,
Bless His name.
5For the LORD is good,
forever His kindness,
and for all generations His faithfulness.
PSALM 100 NOTES
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1. A thanksgiving psalm. There is a strong cultic emphasis in this psalm, and “thanksgiving,” todah, probably refers both to the act of giving thanks to or acclaiming God in song and to a thanksgiving offering. The two would have been imagined as part of the same gesture of gratefulness to God.
2. come before Him. The Hebrew preposition also has the sense of “His presence.” The spatial reference is to the Temple, where God’s presence is conceived to dwell, an idea that will be developed in verse 4.
3. and we are His. The translation follows the marginal correcting note of the qeri, which the traditional editors use to indicate variant readings. The received consonantal text reads “and not we,” which is logically possible but sounds unnatural in the Hebrew. The difference in the Hebrew is between lo and lʾo (the latter having an aleph).
4. Come into His gates . . . / His courts. The gates are the threshold, the point where the pilgrim crosses from the zone of the profane into the sacred precincts of the Temple. It is understandable that they appear in various psalms as a beckoning image, the place where the lover enters the realm of his desires. The two versets of this line also neatly illustrate the frequent phenomenon of narrative development from the first verset to the second. First, the pilgrims are enjoined to enter the gates; then they are standing within, in the courts of the Temple.