A psalm. For giving grateful praise.
1 Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.
2 Worship the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
3 Know that the LORD is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
5 For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.
SHOUT. Verse 1 highlights the unusual dynamic of particularity and universality in the Yahweh malak collection. Israel is called to shout for joy to the God of the covenant (particular), and the whole earth is invited to join in that proclamation of praise (universal). The Hebrew verb that is used here (hariy‘u) is strongly vocal!1 There is nothing polite or moderated about this call to praise. The worshiping community—Israel and the whole earth—is to hold nothing back in raising the roof in their praise of Yahweh.2
Worship. The second of the seven commands in the list is to “worship the LORD with gladness” (v. 2). English equivalents fail to grasp the fullness of the Hebrew verb ‘abad. The term is perhaps best understood as, in some sense, combining the ideas of “worship” and “service” and blurring the lines between the two.3 Every act of worship is an act of service, and every act of service done for the Lord is an act of worship. The command used here clearly indicates the connection that exists between praise and lifestyle. There can be no separation of public worship practice from private character and worldview. For the former to be meaningful, the latter must be consistent with the words offered.4
Come. The third command is to approach God in worship. This imperative emphasizes the relational nature of worship. It is an act of presence as praise and service are offered “before him” (lit., “before his face”). But both Israel and the nations are able to approach their Creator with “joyful songs” (v. 2) because of the membership of the covenant community; otherwise, approaching the Holy God would be marked by fear and trembling (Ps 2:11, see footnote 4). It is the transformation of relationship with God that turns the act of drawing near to him from terrifying to delightful. Accepting the kingship of Yahweh radically changes the essential experience of the worshiper’s approach to God’s throne (see Bridging Contexts).
Know. This command is the focal statement of the psalm around which the whole sense of the song coalesces. Three imperatives (shout, worship, come) precede this one and three more (enter, give thanks, praise) follow it, thus making the slightly unusual command, “know,” the pivot around which the others revolve.5 The statement “Know that the LORD is God” is the structural and theological heart of Psalm 100.
The nations are invited to join Israel in the exuberant and joyful praise of Yahweh, but that invitation to draw near with confidence is premised on the realization that he, and he alone, is the one, true God, Creator, and King over the universe. This command implies much more than simple mental acknowledgment. “To know” here is not simply to assent to the fact that Yahweh is God. This command requires a whole-life affirmation that stems from complete devotion to God and worship of him.
It is he who made us and we are his! The remainder of this verse provides the first rationale and motivation for the exuberant praise of these verses by celebrating the blessings and benefits of the covenant. The most staggering aspect of the covenantal formula in verse 3b–c is the limitless inclusion of the nations along with Israel in its scope. We come across the reference to Israel as the sheep of the divine pasture in Psalm 95:6–7, but here in Psalm 100 all the earth is given the same honor! In Old Testament terms, this expansion of the covenantal relationship is a mind-blowing one. Jeremias is helpful on this point:
Here there is, in fact, a universalizing of the “covenant formula.” Of course, this reshaping of the “covenant formula” is not carried out in such a way that the promise it contains for Israel (Pss 95:7; 79:13) is simply expanded; rather the nations are called to recognition. . . . The nations are called to recognize and acknowledge their own createdness and, as a consequence, their belonging to the one God and creator and this recognition opens for the nations the gate to an equal sharing in Israel’s worship.6
It is difficult for us to grasp how these words would challenge the worldview paradigms of the Old Testament community of faith. Access into the presence of the Creator, the particular privilege of Israel, is opened up to people from every national and ethnic identity. All those who recognize Yahweh’s cosmic kingship are called to join in this song of praise as full members of the covenant community (the sheep of Yahweh’s flock).
THE KINGSHIP OF GOD. The role of Psalm 100 within the Yahweh malak grouping is interesting. In fact, because of its worshipful tone and pastoral imagery, some struggle to connect this poem with the remainder of the collection (Pss 93–99). But Psalm 100’s links with the rest of the psalms in this group are strong and so should shape our understanding of worship within the community of God’s people.
Note first the close ties with the other psalms in “the Lord reigns” grouping. The address in Psalm 100:1 is reminiscent of Psalm 98:4, where the whole earth is also called on to shout for joy to Yahweh. This summons is further echoed by the call for the nations to worship (or serve) Yahweh with gladness (Ps 100:2), in contrast to Psalm 97:7’s critique addressed to those who worship idols and its call addressed to the gods of the nations to worship/serve Yahweh. Psalm 100:3 echoes the covenantal formulations of Psalm 95:6–7 with the passages’ shared presentation of God’s people as the sheep of his pasture. The call to praise Yahweh’s name in Psalm 100:4 evokes the similar command in Psalm 99:3, and the declaration of the goodness and faithfulness of God, while common in the Psalter, is something the nations have already witnessed in Psalm 98:3. So Psalm 100 is replete with the ideas, imagery, and theology of the other psalms in this collection.
There are two interesting aspects to Psalm 100’s inclusion in this collection. First, Erich Zenger sees a strongly missional theme in the Yahweh malak psalms. He describes the thread running through Psalms 93–100 as being “Israel and the nations in the world as the royal realm of the God YHWH.”10 He argues that in reading Psalms 93–100 consecutively we witness the nations being drawn ever closer to both Israel and her God. He plots a broad narrative that moves from the declaration of Zion as the foundation of the universe in Psalm 93 (without any indication of the presence of or any call to the nations) through the calls to worship addressed to the nations in Psalms 96–98, the trembling fear of the nations before Yahweh in Psalm 99, and the invitation to enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise in Psalm 100. There seems to be a dialogue of exclusion followed by invitation, which ultimately leads to inclusion and integration in Psalm 100.
Psalm 100, as the climax of the composition, integrates the nations of the world in worship before the God of Zion: they should, and they will, shout aloud to Yahweh, serve him (not the idols; cf. 97:7) with joy, and experience his nearness—like Israel and together with it.11
The second aspect of the discussion that is interesting is the presentation of the act of worship as an approach to the High King. The language used in Psalm 100 is clearly the language of access and approach, but it is also the terminology of deference to the monarch. For example, the shepherd imagery of verse 3 is classically considered to be a kingship image in the ancient Near East and would certainly have been thought of as such by Hebrew worshipers. While the gates and courts of verse 4 are clearly descriptors of the cultic, temple setting, we should also remember that these words represent the language of entering the royal palace.12 Most of all, however, verse 2’s call to worship/serve Yahweh is a reminder of his kingly role and our proper response to his rule.
Psalm 100 presents worship in terms of approaching the King. The congregation as a corporate body—including both Israel and the nations—is summoned before the King with the expectation that this vibrant and varied community of adherents will “serve” (v. 2; see the discussion above) their Sovereign.13 Regarding the command to “worship/serve” in verse 2, James Mays notes:
The form and style of the activity proposed in the imperative sentences is political; the language belongs to the monarchical frame of reference and draws its basic meaning from that sphere. . . . A superficial use of lexicons might suggest that “serve” (‘abad) is no more than “customary cultic language,” but a closer inspection of its usage in the Psalter shows that here it specializes in one of its possible functions, denoting conduct appropriate for relation to a royal figure. “Serve Yahweh” is a command that holds the action in the political context and should be heard as an interpretation of the cult, rather than the other way around.14
Psalm 100 in the New Testament. There are no direct citations of Psalm 100 in the New Testament. Along with several of the psalms in this collection, however, Psalm 100 resonates strongly with the images of the nations at the heart of the community of faith seen worshiping at the throne of God in the book of Revelation (Rev 5:9–10; 7:9–10). Although the primary intertext is the Song of Moses, Revelation 15 in particular evokes strong associations with the monarchic and worshipful images of this collection that are summed up so well for us in Psalm 100.15
DOING WORSHIP WELL. Based on Psalm 100, it strikes me that we are doing worship badly in the contemporary church. Psalm 100 challenges our practices in three particular ways. Worship has an outward focus. Psalm 100 invites the whole earth to worship God. We tend to think of worship as an internal act—one that is between God and his people. We do not tend to think of worship as a declaratory act of evangelistic proclamation, yet it is. Psalms 93–100 make it clear that the attractive worship of the community of God is an act of proclamation that calls and invites others to join in the praise of the Shepherd King. As Mays comments:
Praise in the psalms has an evangelical function. . . . Over and over again, the hymns in the Psalter summon and invite all nations and peoples of the earth. Over and over again, they announce the reign of the Lord. . . . Praise is proclamation; it witnesses to the present and coming reign of the Lord. It finds in its very content the motive for its openness and outreach.16
As a church, we need to consider more carefully our public praise of God as outreach. Do we explain for those who visit our services why it is that we want to exalt our God as the King? And do the songs we sing declare his universal kingship in the same way the psalms do?
Worship is a joyful act. Psalm 100 is filled with images of joy, thankfulness, and vibrant praise. Having preached in a wide variety of contexts in Scotland, the UK more broadly, and throughout the world, I sometimes wonder what it is that our worship of God actually communicates to the outside world. Imagine the arch-hypothetical scenario of the alien from space who comes down to visit earth and trucks up to church on a Sunday morning. What does our sung praise communicate about the God we worship? Often our praise is far from exuberant, far from joyful, far from the vibrant, colorful, loud, and captivating image of praise we see in Psalm 100. We stand, our hands in our pockets, mumbling words with little thought or conviction, and such behavior casts our love for God in a very poor light. Is our love for Jesus so weak that we are too shy or inhibited to “shout for joy to the LORD” and to call everyone else in the world to do the same? There is something wrong with our hearts if our praise does not reflect the powerful, joy-filled, vivid, vibrant worship of Psalm 100. Psalm 100 stands as a challenge to us!
In worship we approach the King. Psalm 100 calls on us to serve the King with gladness (v. 2). There is a sense in which our lives should be a continual act of worship to the King (Rom 12:1–2). But there is also a sense in which our public praise is an act of approach to the living King, who reigns over the cosmos. In a spiritual sense, we enter into his palace (temple), we draw near to him in his courts, and we do so with great delight and gladness.17 On one level, such an act of apparent reverence in approaching the King seems incompatible with the loud and exuberant praise pictured in Psalm 100:1. But this view is a construct shaped by our Western ideas of etiquette. In the rituals of the ancient Near Eastern political world, it would be common to direct shouts of acclamation and praise to the king.18 How much more appropriate is it to direct such shouts of praise to the High King over all the universe as we draw near to him? It is not disrespectful for us to shout out our praise to the King—disrespect occurs when we do so halfheartedly or when we fail to fulfill our covenantal obligations (v. 3; cf. Ps 95:6–11). We are called to engage in loud and lively praise, but we are also called to listen to the voice of the King and to obey his decrees absolutely, as we are enabled to do so through his Son and by the work of his Spirit.
1. In other contexts the same verb is used of a war cry (Josh 6:10) or a shout of triumph (Isa 44:23).
2. With a degree of understatement, Craig Broyles comments, “shout, indicates that Israelite worship was not to be characterized by civilized restraint” (Broyles, Psalms, 386).
3. Hence the NIV’s translation, “worship”; cf. “serve” in some other versions (ESV, NASB). Both options are perfectly valid in the context of Ps 100.
4. Note also the connection between worship/service and gladness. Psalm 100:2 seems to play on the address to the nations in Ps 2:11. Now is not the place to go into the translational complexities of that verse; however, there the nations are called to “serve the LORD with fear” (NIV, emphasis added). Here in Ps 100 the invitation addressed to the nations is to “serve the Lord with joy” (v. 2, emphasis added). Becoming part of the worshiping community transforms the nature of that worship. (For a fuller discussion of the command to the nations in Ps 2:11 see Wilson, Psalms, Volume 1, 112–14.)
5. In colloquial English we tend not to use the command form of the verb “to know.” We either know something or we don’t. The command form of the Hebrew verb (yadah) is not terribly common either—it occurs in this form only seven times in the Old Testament. Perhaps most enlightening for our understanding of its use in Ps 100:3 is the discussion of the new covenant in Jer 31:34. Here the phrase “know the Lord” is used to illustrate what may, in effect, be described as the evangelistic task (“No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me . . .”). The call to give oneself over fully to God is issued in these terms: “Know the LORD!” Similarly, here in Ps 100:3, all the earth is called to “know that the LORD is God,” that is, to acknowledge that Yahweh alone is God and to declare one’s allegiance and devotion to him.
6. Jörg Jeremias, “Ps 100 Als Auslegung von Ps 93–100,” Skrif en kerk 19 (1998): 612, 614, quoted in Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 2, 496.
7. Eaton, Psalms, 350.
8. See Grant, “ ‘When the Friendship of God.’ ” For example, in one of the Sumerian city laments the gods destroy a city simply “in hate,” and in another lament they destroy a city because its people had become a nuisance.
9. Schaefer, Psalms, 247.
10. Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 2, 497.
11. Ibid. Mays also describes the praise of Ps 100 as having “an evangelical function. . . . Psalm 100 invites the whole earth to join its doxology, because the great Shepherd has become visible in the story of the people of God” (Mays, The Lord Reigns, 68).
12. Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 2, 494. Of course, this access is the implication of entrance into the temple courts—worshipers come into the presence of the cosmic King.
13. McKelvey, Moses, David and the High Kingship of Yahweh, 158.
14. Mays, The Lord Reigns, 76.
15. Moyise, “Psalms in Revelation,” 235–36.
16. Mays, The Lord Reigns, 68.
17. Speaking of the collection as a whole, McKelvey writes, “In Psalm 100, a climaxing finale of praise occurs as a seven-fold imperative summons [to] all the earth, and Israel in particular, to pay homage to the Sovereign of the world” (McKelvey, Moses, David and the High Kingship of Yahweh, 164–65).
18. Mays, The Lord Reigns, 77.
THE STAGGERING INCLUSIVENESS of verses 1–3 is powerfully repeated in the second stanza of the psalm.
Enter his gates . . . and his courts. Verses 1–3 invite the nations to join the pasture of the covenantal flock and to sing songs of praise to Israel’s God. The nations’ new status as part of the worshiping community of faith is affirmed in the commands “to enter,” “give thanks,” and “praise” (lit., “bless” [v. 4]). The language here is the language of access into the temple. Normally, of course, non-Israelites would have been excluded from the inner court of the temple, but here they are encouraged not only to “enter his gates with thanksgiving” (i.e., access the temple complex) but also to enter “his courts with praise” (i.e., go beyond the outer court of the temple and enter the inner court with the Israelites). For the nations, this call invites a privileged and unprecedented level of participation in the festal worship of Israel. The final command “to praise his name” further implies a degree of intimacy of relationship with Yahweh that previously would have been unimaginable. As Eaton notes, the command to bless Yahweh has “a note of grateful warmth, a consciousness of having received salvation from the Lord who is kind and gracious, committed in his love, faithful and true forever.”7 The nations have come to realize that Yahweh alone is a truly good God, so they praise his name, his very being.
There follow three covenantal statements that voice the realization to which the whole earth has been drawn.
For the LORD is good. This statement gives one of the classic psalmic justifications for the worship of God. Why bring praise? Quite simply, because God is good. This assertion is, in some sense, the most basic but also the most profound character claim that could be made of a deity in the ancient world. The gods were seldom good, loving, or kind. Deities toyed with humans simply because they could do so, or they destroyed humans for the most banal of reasons.8 So the shared testimony that “the LORD is good” is a claim that would have been as attractive as it was radical at the time when Psalm 100 was first sung.
His love endures forever. The love that is implied here is the steadfast love (hesed) of the God of the covenant. It is not a love that is subject to whims and moods, for God’s love for his people and the nations is resolute, never-failing, and never-ending. Schaefer comments, “Hesed is part of God’s essence, and thus acts of grace are not the expression of some affectionate whim. The people’s reliance on God is justified by God’s covenant loyalty.”9
His faithfulness continues through all generations. The third rationale for praise is to be found in the faithfulness of God. Once again, this term (’emunah) resonates strongly with the Old Testament idea of covenant. God is always faithful to his covenantal promises, and here in Psalm 100 those covenantal promises are extended beyond Israel to all nations. They too will see, know, and experience the unshakable, resolute, and absolute commitment of Yahweh to his people.
So, the second justification for the praise of God is based firmly in his character. God’s goodness, love, and faithfulness present people of every nation with good cause to sing his praises and to worship him. The first rationale is relational (v. 3), and the second here is ontological (v. 5). God is by definition deserving of human praise just because he is who he is.
THE KINGSHIP OF GOD. The role of Psalm 100 within the Yahweh malak grouping is interesting. In fact, because of its worshipful tone and pastoral imagery, some struggle to connect this poem with the remainder of the collection (Pss 93–99). But Psalm 100’s links with the rest of the psalms in this group are strong and so should shape our understanding of worship within the community of God’s people.
Note first the close ties with the other psalms in “the Lord reigns” grouping. The address in Psalm 100:1 is reminiscent of Psalm 98:4, where the whole earth is also called on to shout for joy to Yahweh. This summons is further echoed by the call for the nations to worship (or serve) Yahweh with gladness (Ps 100:2), in contrast to Psalm 97:7’s critique addressed to those who worship idols and its call addressed to the gods of the nations to worship/serve Yahweh. Psalm 100:3 echoes the covenantal formulations of Psalm 95:6–7 with the passages’ shared presentation of God’s people as the sheep of his pasture. The call to praise Yahweh’s name in Psalm 100:4 evokes the similar command in Psalm 99:3, and the declaration of the goodness and faithfulness of God, while common in the Psalter, is something the nations have already witnessed in Psalm 98:3. So Psalm 100 is replete with the ideas, imagery, and theology of the other psalms in this collection.
There are two interesting aspects to Psalm 100’s inclusion in this collection. First, Erich Zenger sees a strongly missional theme in the Yahweh malak psalms. He describes the thread running through Psalms 93–100 as being “Israel and the nations in the world as the royal realm of the God YHWH.”10 He argues that in reading Psalms 93–100 consecutively we witness the nations being drawn ever closer to both Israel and her God. He plots a broad narrative that moves from the declaration of Zion as the foundation of the universe in Psalm 93 (without any indication of the presence of or any call to the nations) through the calls to worship addressed to the nations in Psalms 96–98, the trembling fear of the nations before Yahweh in Psalm 99, and the invitation to enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise in Psalm 100. There seems to be a dialogue of exclusion followed by invitation, which ultimately leads to inclusion and integration in Psalm 100.
Psalm 100, as the climax of the composition, integrates the nations of the world in worship before the God of Zion: they should, and they will, shout aloud to Yahweh, serve him (not the idols; cf. 97:7) with joy, and experience his nearness—like Israel and together with it.11
The second aspect of the discussion that is interesting is the presentation of the act of worship as an approach to the High King. The language used in Psalm 100 is clearly the language of access and approach, but it is also the terminology of deference to the monarch. For example, the shepherd imagery of verse 3 is classically considered to be a kingship image in the ancient Near East and would certainly have been thought of as such by Hebrew worshipers. While the gates and courts of verse 4 are clearly descriptors of the cultic, temple setting, we should also remember that these words represent the language of entering the royal palace.12 Most of all, however, verse 2’s call to worship/serve Yahweh is a reminder of his kingly role and our proper response to his rule.
Psalm 100 presents worship in terms of approaching the King. The congregation as a corporate body—including both Israel and the nations—is summoned before the King with the expectation that this vibrant and varied community of adherents will “serve” (v. 2; see the discussion above) their Sovereign.13 Regarding the command to “worship/serve” in verse 2, James Mays notes:
The form and style of the activity proposed in the imperative sentences is political; the language belongs to the monarchical frame of reference and draws its basic meaning from that sphere. . . . A superficial use of lexicons might suggest that “serve” (‘abad) is no more than “customary cultic language,” but a closer inspection of its usage in the Psalter shows that here it specializes in one of its possible functions, denoting conduct appropriate for relation to a royal figure. “Serve Yahweh” is a command that holds the action in the political context and should be heard as an interpretation of the cult, rather than the other way around.14
Psalm 100 in the New Testament. There are no direct citations of Psalm 100 in the New Testament. Along with several of the psalms in this collection, however, Psalm 100 resonates strongly with the images of the nations at the heart of the community of faith seen worshiping at the throne of God in the book of Revelation (Rev 5:9–10; 7:9–10). Although the primary intertext is the Song of Moses, Revelation 15 in particular evokes strong associations with the monarchic and worshipful images of this collection that are summed up so well for us in Psalm 100.15
DOING WORSHIP WELL. Based on Psalm 100, it strikes me that we are doing worship badly in the contemporary church. Psalm 100 challenges our practices in three particular ways. Worship has an outward focus. Psalm 100 invites the whole earth to worship God. We tend to think of worship as an internal act—one that is between God and his people. We do not tend to think of worship as a declaratory act of evangelistic proclamation, yet it is. Psalms 93–100 make it clear that the attractive worship of the community of God is an act of proclamation that calls and invites others to join in the praise of the Shepherd King. As Mays comments:
Praise in the psalms has an evangelical function. . . . Over and over again, the hymns in the Psalter summon and invite all nations and peoples of the earth. Over and over again, they announce the reign of the Lord. . . . Praise is proclamation; it witnesses to the present and coming reign of the Lord. It finds in its very content the motive for its openness and outreach.16
As a church, we need to consider more carefully our public praise of God as outreach. Do we explain for those who visit our services why it is that we want to exalt our God as the King? And do the songs we sing declare his universal kingship in the same way the psalms do?
Worship is a joyful act. Psalm 100 is filled with images of joy, thankfulness, and vibrant praise. Having preached in a wide variety of contexts in Scotland, the UK more broadly, and throughout the world, I sometimes wonder what it is that our worship of God actually communicates to the outside world. Imagine the arch-hypothetical scenario of the alien from space who comes down to visit earth and trucks up to church on a Sunday morning. What does our sung praise communicate about the God we worship? Often our praise is far from exuberant, far from joyful, far from the vibrant, colorful, loud, and captivating image of praise we see in Psalm 100. We stand, our hands in our pockets, mumbling words with little thought or conviction, and such behavior casts our love for God in a very poor light. Is our love for Jesus so weak that we are too shy or inhibited to “shout for joy to the LORD” and to call everyone else in the world to do the same? There is something wrong with our hearts if our praise does not reflect the powerful, joy-filled, vivid, vibrant worship of Psalm 100. Psalm 100 stands as a challenge to us!
In worship we approach the King. Psalm 100 calls on us to serve the King with gladness (v. 2). There is a sense in which our lives should be a continual act of worship to the King (Rom 12:1–2). But there is also a sense in which our public praise is an act of approach to the living King, who reigns over the cosmos. In a spiritual sense, we enter into his palace (temple), we draw near to him in his courts, and we do so with great delight and gladness.17 On one level, such an act of apparent reverence in approaching the King seems incompatible with the loud and exuberant praise pictured in Psalm 100:1. But this view is a construct shaped by our Western ideas of etiquette. In the rituals of the ancient Near Eastern political world, it would be common to direct shouts of acclamation and praise to the king.18 How much more appropriate is it to direct such shouts of praise to the High King over all the universe as we draw near to him? It is not disrespectful for us to shout out our praise to the King—disrespect occurs when we do so halfheartedly or when we fail to fulfill our covenantal obligations (v. 3; cf. Ps 95:6–11). We are called to engage in loud and lively praise, but we are also called to listen to the voice of the King and to obey his decrees absolutely, as we are enabled to do so through his Son and by the work of his Spirit.
1. In other contexts the same verb is used of a war cry (Josh 6:10) or a shout of triumph (Isa 44:23).
2. With a degree of understatement, Craig Broyles comments, “shout, indicates that Israelite worship was not to be characterized by civilized restraint” (Broyles, Psalms, 386).
3. Hence the NIV’s translation, “worship”; cf. “serve” in some other versions (ESV, NASB). Both options are perfectly valid in the context of Ps 100.
4. Note also the connection between worship/service and gladness. Psalm 100:2 seems to play on the address to the nations in Ps 2:11. Now is not the place to go into the translational complexities of that verse; however, there the nations are called to “serve the LORD with fear” (NIV, emphasis added). Here in Ps 100 the invitation addressed to the nations is to “serve the Lord with joy” (v. 2, emphasis added). Becoming part of the worshiping community transforms the nature of that worship. (For a fuller discussion of the command to the nations in Ps 2:11 see Wilson, Psalms, Volume 1, 112–14.)
5. In colloquial English we tend not to use the command form of the verb “to know.” We either know something or we don’t. The command form of the Hebrew verb (yadah) is not terribly common either—it occurs in this form only seven times in the Old Testament. Perhaps most enlightening for our understanding of its use in Ps 100:3 is the discussion of the new covenant in Jer 31:34. Here the phrase “know the Lord” is used to illustrate what may, in effect, be described as the evangelistic task (“No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me . . .”). The call to give oneself over fully to God is issued in these terms: “Know the LORD!” Similarly, here in Ps 100:3, all the earth is called to “know that the LORD is God,” that is, to acknowledge that Yahweh alone is God and to declare one’s allegiance and devotion to him.
6. Jörg Jeremias, “Ps 100 Als Auslegung von Ps 93–100,” Skrif en kerk 19 (1998): 612, 614, quoted in Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 2, 496.
7. Eaton, Psalms, 350.
8. See Grant, “ ‘When the Friendship of God.’ ” For example, in one of the Sumerian city laments the gods destroy a city simply “in hate,” and in another lament they destroy a city because its people had become a nuisance.
9. Schaefer, Psalms, 247.
10. Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 2, 497.
11. Ibid. Mays also describes the praise of Ps 100 as having “an evangelical function. . . . Psalm 100 invites the whole earth to join its doxology, because the great Shepherd has become visible in the story of the people of God” (Mays, The Lord Reigns, 68).
12. Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 2, 494. Of course, this access is the implication of entrance into the temple courts—worshipers come into the presence of the cosmic King.
13. McKelvey, Moses, David and the High Kingship of Yahweh, 158.
14. Mays, The Lord Reigns, 76.
15. Moyise, “Psalms in Revelation,” 235–36.
16. Mays, The Lord Reigns, 68.
17. Speaking of the collection as a whole, McKelvey writes, “In Psalm 100, a climaxing finale of praise occurs as a seven-fold imperative summons [to] all the earth, and Israel in particular, to pay homage to the Sovereign of the world” (McKelvey, Moses, David and the High Kingship of Yahweh, 164–65).
18. Mays, The Lord Reigns, 77.