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Psalms 100: What the Passage Says

16 claims across 5 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Psalms 100 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

This short psalm calls everyone on earth to worship the LORD with joy. It tells people to serve him gladly, to come to him singing, and to know that he is God, the one who made them and cares for them like a shepherd cares for sheep. It ends with the reasons: the LORD is good, his loving care lasts forever, and he stays faithful to every generation.

Claim by Claim

  1. 100:1
    • This psalm is titled a psalm for thanksgiving.
    • All the earth is commanded to shout aloud to the LORD.
  2. 100:2
    • The LORD is to be served with gladness.
    • One is to come before him with joyful song.
  3. 100:3
    • The hearers are commanded to know that the LORD is God.
    • It is the LORD who made us.
    • The text as written says we did not make ourselves; an alternate reading says we belong to him.
    • We are the LORD's people.
    • We are the sheep of his pasture.
  4. 100:4
    • One is to enter his gates with thanksgiving.
    • One is to enter his courts with praise.
    • One is to give thanks to him.
    • One is to bless his name.
  5. 100:5
    • The LORD is good.
    • His steadfast love lasts forever.
    • His faithfulness lasts to every generation.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

100:1
"The LORD" in small capitals stands in for the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew letters usually written YHWH. Ancient Jewish practice avoided saying it aloud, substituting a word meaning "my Lord," and English translations follow that custom by printing LORD. "All the earth" means every land and its people, not the ground itself.
100:2
"Serve" here is the ordinary word for what a subject does for a king or a worshiper for a god, attending on him, doing what he asks. It carries no sense of drudgery; the psalm pairs it directly with gladness. "Come into his presence" pictures approaching the temple, where God was understood to be present in a particular way.
100:3
The Hebrew of the middle line has two readings that sound identical when spoken, and Jewish scribes preserved both. One spelling means "and not we ourselves" (we did not make ourselves) (the King James choice. The other means "and we are his") the reading behind this rendering. Both have been copied faithfully for centuries and neither can be ruled out.
100:4
The gates and courtyards are those of the temple in Jerusalem. Ordinary worshipers did not enter the building itself; they gathered in the open courts outside it, which is where the singing and thank offerings happened. So this is a picture of a crowd walking in through the temple gates.
100:5
Two key words sit behind this verse. The first, *chesed*, is loyal love that keeps faith with a commitment even when it is costly, the King James renders it "mercy." The second, rendered "truth" in the King James, does not mean factual accuracy but reliability: the quality of someone who can be leaned on and will not give way.

Read Psalms 100