3 They shall praise thy great and terrible name, -- it is holy! --
And one called to the other and said, Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!
And Joshua said to the people, Ye cannot serve Jehovah, for he is a holy God; he is a jealous ùGod; he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins.
He sent deliverance unto his people; he hath commanded his covenant for ever: holy and terrible is his name.
There is none holy as Jehovah, for there is none beside thee, neither is there any rock like our God.
And they sing the song of Moses bondman of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and wonderful [are] thy works, Lord God Almighty; righteous and true [are] thy ways, O King of nations. Who shall not fear [thee], O Lord, and glorify thy name? for [thou] only [art] holy; for all nations shall come and do homage before thee; for thy righteousnesses have been made manifest.
And the four living creatures, each one of them having respectively six wings; round and within they are full of eyes; and they cease not day and night saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come.
Thou shalt not be afraid of them; for Jehovah thy God is in thy midst, a ùGod great and terrible.
Jehovah is righteous in all his ways, and kind in all his works.
{To the chief Musician. On stringed instruments. A Psalm of Asaph: a Song.} In Judah is God known, his name is great in Israel;
Say unto God, How terrible are thy works! because of the greatness of thy strength, thine enemies come cringing unto thee.
And now, our God, the great, the mighty, and the terrible ùGod, who keepest covenant and loving-kindness, let not all the trouble seem little before thee, that hath come upon us, on our kings, on our princes, and on our priests, and on our prophets, and on our fathers, and on all thy people, since the days of the kings of Assyria unto this day.
And I looked, and rose up, and said to the nobles, and to the rulers, and to the rest of the people, Be not afraid of them: remember the Lord who is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your houses.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 99
Commentary on Psalms 99 Matthew Henry Commentary
Psalm 99
Still we are celebrating the glories of the kingdom of God among men, and are called upon to praise him, as in the foregoing psalms; but those psalms looked forward to the times of the gospel, and prophesied of the graces and comforts of those times; this psalm seems to dwell more upon the Old-Testament dispensation and the manifestation of God's glory and grace in that. The Jews were not, in expectation of the Messiah's kingdom and the evangelical worship, to neglect the divine regimen they were then under, and the ordinances that were then given them, but in them to see God reigning, and to worship before him according to the law of Moses. Prophecies of good things to come must not lessen our esteem of good things present. To Israel indeed pertained the promises, which they were bound to believe; but to them pertained also the giving of the law, and the service of God, which they were also bound dutifully and conscientiously to attend to, Rom. 9:4. And this they are called to do in this psalm, where yet there is much of Christ, for the government of the church was in the hands of the eternal Word before he was incarnate; and, besides, the ceremonial services were types and figures of evangelical worship. The people of Israel are here required to praise and exalt God, and to worship before him, in consideration of these two things:-
In singing this psalm we must set ourselves to exalt the name of God, as it is made known to us in the gospel, which we have much more reason to do than those had who lived under the law.
Psa 99:1-5
The foundation of all religion is laid in this truth, That the Lord reigns. God governs the world by his providence, governs the church by his grace, and both by his Son. We are to believe not only that the Lord lives, but that the Lord reigns. This is the triumph of the Christian church, and here it was the triumph of the Jewish church, that Jehovah was their King; and hence it is inferred, Let the people tremble, that is,
God's kingdom, set up in Israel, is here made the subject of the psalmist's praise.
Psa 99:6-9
The happiness of Israel in God's government is here further made out by some particular instances of his administration, especially with reference to those that were, in their day, the prime leaders and most active useful governors of that people-Moses, Aaron, and Samuel, in the two former of whom the theocracy or divine government began (for they were employed to form Israel into a people) and in the last of whom that form of government, in a great measure, ended; for when the people rejected Samuel, and urged him to resign, they are said to reject God himself, that he should not be so immediately their king as he had been (1 Sa. 8:7), for now they would have a king, like all the nations. Moses, as well as Aaron, is said to be among his priests, for he executed the priest's office till Aaron was settled in it and he consecrated Aaron and his sons; therefore the Jews call him the priest of the priests. Now concerning these three chief rulers observe,