Anyone who has heard a band leading a wedding procession down a narrow street knows that the music is not a performance to sit and watch. The drums start, the trumpet joins, someone's uncle begins to dance, and within a minute half the street is part of it. Psalm 98 works like that. It starts with one congregation singing a new song, then pulls in harps, trumpets and rams' horns, then the whole earth. By the end the sea is roaring along and the rivers are clapping their hands.
Where it sits in the story: Psalm 98 closely resembles Psalm 96, which is also quoted in 1 Chronicles 16. Its key idea is that Israel's rescue was done in the sight of the nations and meant for them too. That runs straight back to the promise to Abraham that all peoples would be blessed, and forward to the church's mission. The rescue celebrated here is not private property.
What this chapter is doing: To celebrate God's saving faithfulness to Israel as good news for the whole world, and to widen worship from one nation to every people and even to creation itself.
- 98:1–3 — Sing a new song, because the LORD has done wonderful things; his own right hand and holy arm have won the victory. He has made his salvation known before the nations, remembering his steadfast love and faithfulness to Israel, so that the ends of the earth have seen it.
- 98:4–6 — Now the whole earth is told to shout for joy and break into song. The instruments come in one after another: the harp, the voice of melody, trumpets and the sound of the ram's horn, all before the King, the LORD.
- 98:7–9 — Creation joins the choir. The sea and everything in it roar, the world and all who live in it, the rivers clap their hands and the mountains sing together, because the LORD comes to judge the earth with righteousness and the peoples with fairness.
Key verse: Psalm 98:3 · So what: Here the coming of the Judge is the reason for the party. For people who have lived with rigged systems, a fair judge is good news, not a threat. Isaac Watts loosely based the Christmas hymn 'Joy to the World' on this psalm, which shows how naturally Christians have heard in it the joy of God's arrival.