I love the underdog. If a sports team wins too often, count on me to support any team that plays against them.
I think this dislike of those on top is burned into the American psyche. Our national story is one of rejecting the rule of kings and doing things the way we want to do them. Unfortunately, the rejection of King George III during the American Revolution often extends to the rejection of God as King.
We love our independence.
And that is just plain rough for biblical faith, for “king” is by far the dominant metaphor for God. Not only is it unavoidable in the Psalms, but it reaches from the first chapter of Genesis to the final chapter of the Revelation. To refer to Jesus as the Christ is to refer to him as the anointed king.
Because of our discomfort with kings, hymns like Psalm 47 are essential for shaping a biblical spirituality. Psalm 47 so thrills in the kingship of God that it infects anyone willing to pray along with it.
It begins will applause and lots of happy hoots and hollers.
Clap your hands, all peoples!
Shout to God with loud songs of joy! (Ps. 47:1)
Welcome to the party! It’s a massive shindig. Not only are your best friends here, all peoples from all places are here.
The word “all” plays a significant role in Psalm 47. The audacity of it is stunning. The nervy sons of Korah penned this enthronement psalm with guts, since the Israelite monarchy was never more than regional at best. Building on Saul’s forty years of political (if not emotional) stability, the reach of the kingdom grew to its greatest under David and Solomon. So, it’s only conceivable that Psalm 47 be written during one of their reigns. But even so, all peoples? All the earth? That’s a bit of a stretch … unless something else is going on here.
For the LORD, the Most High, is to be feared,
a great king over all the earth (Ps. 47:2).
The term “great king” in the ancient Near East refers to a king who had defeated other kings and had taken them on as vassals. In other words, lesser kings were allowed to retain a form of rule over their defeated kingdoms but did so at the will and whims of the great king who had subdued them.
The name Yahweh is rarely used in this second book within the Psalms and it’s surprising to find it here. The more generalized word for God (elohim) would make more sense, since his rule is generalized, being over all the earth. But we are reminded here that it’s the particular God of a particular group of people who is the “great king over all the earth.”
He subdued peoples under us,
and nations under our feet (Ps. 47:3).
Yahweh is the great king because he’s been victorious in battle. He’s given his people Israel dominion over the peoples around them. These other nations bow down to the dust in defeat and Israel places a foot on their necks in a sign of complete domination.
But wait! These subdued people are the ones who are called on to clap? Hmm. They don’t seem to be the best candidates for applause. Rather, it was such heavy-handedness that led the American colonists to revolt against George III. Something else must be going on here.
He chose our heritage for us,
the pride of Jacob whom he loves. Selah (Ps. 47:4).
This heritage/inheritance, which is the “pride” of Jacob, isn’t the Promised Land. It’s the defeated nations mentioned above.
Again, I can see how that might make Israel applaud. But the nations? Nope. That “something else” still eludes us.
God has gone up with a shout,
the LORD with the sound of a trumpet (Ps. 47:5).
Where the ESV has “gone up,” the NIV has “ascended,” which is more to the point. Yahweh has ascended to his throne. The image is of him walking up the steps to the seat of authority amid the shouts of the people and the ram’s horn blasts of the priests.
Where other peoples, like the Babylonians, might have actually enacted an enthronement scene in worship, the Israelites would have left it to their imaginations. It’s possible that an enthronement ceremony for God was held annually on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, or on Passover. Or it’s possible that God was enthroned in every worship event. We don’t know. I prefer the second option.
Every time we gather to worship our Lord, he is enthroned on our praise. And so we don’t enter worship with solemn faces. Instead, we enter as the psalm directs us to do: with clapping and shouts of joy and our God takes his rightful throne.
And so, we’re told to sing. Not just once or twice, but five times! I told you this was a party!
Sing praises to God, sing praises!
Sing praises to our King, sing praises!
For God is the King of all the earth;
sing praises with a psalm!
God reigns over the nations;
God sits on his holy throne (Ps. 47:6-8).
Amid all of this singing, we are told again that God is the King of all the earth. Not just part of the earth, all of it. And with the music and the songs all around us, we might just believe it’s so.
And as we get to the last verse, we finally get an idea of why the defeated people might want to join in the clapping and singing.
The princes of the peoples gather
as the people of the God of Abraham.
For the shields [or “kings”] of the earth belong to God;
he is highly exalted! (Ps. 47:9)
Why would the people praise our God? Because they have become included among us as the people of God. They have become enfolded among us. Our God is no longer the God who subdued them, but the God who loves them as he loves us.
Yahweh is referred to specifically as the God of Abraham here which takes us back to Genesis 12 and the covenant God made with Abraham. With just a few words, God launches his mission of blessing all people which unfolds throughout the rest of the Bible.
Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:1-3).
As God takes his rightful place as King over all the nations, all those nations come under his blessing. When the rebelling ends, the blessing begins in earnest.
Those who had rejected the kingship of God discover that life under that kingship is far preferable than life outside of it.
David had a sense of God’s desire to draw all nations and peoples to himself. In his battle against Goliath, he said the purpose of their fight is that “the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel” (1 Sam. 17:46). And in keeping with that, David himself gathered people from all over the world he knew about, including them among his mighty men. The list of the Thirty (2 Sam. 23:24-39) is a fascinating sampling of the nations. Perhaps they were mercenaries. But the way they are represented is as first fruits of the nations who would one day fill Jerusalem not as foreigners, but as worshipers.
This vision finds its culmination in the Revelation.
After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:
“Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb.”
All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying:
“Amen!
Praise and glory
and wisdom and thanks and honor
and power and strength
be to our God for ever and ever.
Amen!” (Rev. 7:9-12)
Now, that’s a party I’m looking forward to taking part in! And I’m pretty sure my objections to kings and such will be settled and done with as I join in the clapping and hooting and hollering.
I will find myself dominated. And joyfully so.