Psalms 98: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This psalm calls for a new song to the LORD because he has won the victory himself and has shown his saving power and his justice where all the nations can see it. He has kept his promised love and faithfulness to Israel, and the whole earth has seen it. The psalm then calls the whole earth, and the sea, the rivers, and the hills, to make music and shout before the LORD, who is coming to judge the earth fairly.

Claim by Claim

1. 98:1
   • The chapter is a psalm.
   • The hearers are commanded to sing a new song to the LORD.
   • The reason given is that the LORD has done marvelous things.
   • The LORD's right hand has gained him victory.
   • The LORD's holy arm has gained him victory.
2. 98:2
   • The LORD has made his salvation known.
   • The LORD has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations.
3. 98:3
   • The LORD has remembered his covenant loyalty toward the house of Israel.
   • The LORD has remembered his faithfulness toward the house of Israel.
   • All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
4. 98:4
   • All the earth is commanded to shout for joy to the LORD.
   • The earth is commanded to break forth into sound.
   • The earth is commanded to cry out for joy.
   • The earth is commanded to sing praise.
5. 98:5
   • The hearers are commanded to sing praise to the LORD with the lyre.
   • The praise is to be made with the lyre and the sound of melody.
6. 98:6
   • The hearers are commanded to shout for joy with trumpets.
   • The hearers are commanded to shout for joy with the sound of the ram's horn.
   • The shouting is to be done before the LORD.
   • The LORD is the King.
7. 98:7
   • Let the sea roar.
   • Let all that fills the sea roar.
   • Let the world roar.
   • Let those who dwell in the world roar.
8. 98:8
   • Let the rivers clap their hands.
   • Let the mountains sing for joy together.
9. 98:9
   • The rivers and mountains rejoice before the LORD.
   • The LORD is coming to judge the earth.
   • The LORD will judge the world with righteousness.
   • The LORD will judge the peoples with equity.

Words Worth Explaining

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

98:1

LORD printed in capitals marks the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew letters (YHWH) that Jewish readers avoided saying aloud, replacing it in speech with the ordinary word for "Lord." English translations since 1611 follow that practice by printing LORD. A "new song" meant one freshly composed for something that had just happened, usually a victory, rather than an existing song reused. "Right hand" and "arm" are ordinary Hebrew figures for strength put into action, the way English says someone's "hand" is behind an event.

98:2

"Heathen" in 1611 English simply meant the nations other than Israel, foreigners, and carried none of the contempt the word later picked up. The Hebrew word behind "salvation" means rescue or deliverance, often from enemies in battle; it describes a concrete act of saving someone, not an inward condition.

98:3

"Mercy and truth" renders two Hebrew words that are regularly paired: chesed, loyal committed love of the kind owed inside a binding relationship, and emet, reliability, being as good as one's word. "The house of Israel" means the nation understood as a single family line, the descendants of Jacob, who was also called Israel. "The ends of the earth" is a set phrase for the farthest inhabited edges of the known world.

98:4

"Make a joyful noise" translates a Hebrew verb for raising a loud shout: the roar a crowd let out to greet a king, or the cry raised going into battle. It is shouting, not singing, the singing comes in the next lines.

98:5

The KJV says "harp" twice, but the Hebrew word in both places is kinnor, a small lyre held in the arms with roughly ten strings, nothing like the large modern concert harp. "The voice of a psalm" means a sung melody with words, as opposed to instruments played alone.

98:6

These are two different instruments. The "trumpets" were straight metal horns, made of hammered silver, blown by priests to summon the people and mark festivals. The "cornet" of the KJV is not the modern brass cornet but the shofar, a ram's horn, sounded to raise an alarm, open a festival, or announce that a king had been crowned.

98:7

"The fulness thereof" means everything that fills it up. So the sea and all the fish and creatures in it.

98:8

"Floods" in 1611 English meant rivers or streams, not destructive overflows of water. Clapping was a public gesture of acclamation used when a king was crowned (see 2 Kings 11:12), so the rivers and hills are pictured doing what a crowd does at a coronation.

98:9

The Hebrew verb translated "judge" is wider than reaching a verdict in court: it covers governing, settling disputes, and putting a situation right. "Equity" in the KJV means evenhandedness, deciding straight, without favoring one party over another.