By Jeffery M. Leonard, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Biblical Studies, Samford University
Committed to His Worship
Psalm 99:1–9
Our family is a storytelling family. Before they went to be with the Lord, my grandparents would regale us with stories of their childhood years. Tales of blackberry picking, brothers getting sick after sneaking into their father’s chewing tobacco, tire inner tubes turned into giant slingshots — these and a thousand other stories were the mainstay of our family gatherings.
My parents also have passed on the stories of their younger years. My father has us all fairly well convinced that in his day, a quarter was all it took to pay for two hamburgers, two fries, two milkshakes, a double feature and, I believe, the down payment on a new Studebaker.
What stories will we tell generations to come about a year like 2020? We will surely laugh about some inconveniences: wearing masks and standing on social-distancing stickers, wondering if we would ever find toilet paper again.
But 2020 has also been a year full of moments we won’t laugh about: canceled graduations and delayed weddings, lost jobs, lonely funerals and the deaths of so very many people. These are the moments when holding onto faith can be the most difficult.
Our spiritual ancestors in Israel faced their own moments when hope seemed to recede ever more distantly beyond the horizon. One particularly grave moment occurred when the Assyrians, that terrifyingly brutal empire found in northern Mesopotamia, began to push its way westward toward the promised land. One nation after another fell until finally even the northern kingdom, Israel, was destroyed.
It is quite fascinating to note that just at this very moment, this moment when hopes for survival in Judah seemed most dim, Judah’s psalmists began to compose a new kind of song. With the Assyrian kings and their kingly gods breathing down their necks, the Judean poets began to praise the God of Israel as the one true king, the king of all the universe.
Praise God for His holiness and great power. (1–3)
Psalm 99 is but one example of this sort of defiant psalm celebrating Jehovah’s kingship. The phrase in verse 1 that is often translated as “the Lord reigns,” is better rendered as, “the Lord is king.” We might push this phrase a bit further in context and say, “It is the Lord who is king.” Other contenders for the throne might emerge now from Assyria, in yesteryear from Egypt, in days to come from Babylon, but the only one true king is the God of Israel.
Praise God for His justice, fairness and righteousness. (4–5)
Verses 1–3 of Psalm 99 emphasize the kingliness of God. He is enthroned between the cherubim, the earth shakes at His presence, He is exalted over the nations. Verses 4–5 emphasize another aspect of God’s character: He is not only powerful, He is also just. As verse 4 says, “The King is mighty, He loves justice.”
To be sure, the God of Israel is separated from the gods of the nations by His power; He reigns over creation in a way the nations could hardly conceive for their gods. Just as importantly, the God of Israel is a God intensely concerned with His creatures; He is a God who insists upon justice and kindness among those who follow Him.
Praise God for His answers. (6–9)
As if to underscore the basis for the psalmist’s confidence in the God of Israel, verses 6–9 turn to moments in the past when God answered those who were willing to trust Him.
If God delivered in the past, He surely would do so again in the present. It is when times seem darkest, when we face times like those before us now, that the psalmists call us to raise our eyes above the horizon of our present struggles, to raise our eyes and find hope in the God we know is truly in control of the world around us.
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