Psalms 66:4

Psa 66:4 All the earth shall worship thee, and shall sing unto thee; they shall sing [to] thy name. Selah.

Ver. 4. All the earth shall worship thee] Heb. they shall bow down to thee, stoop to thy government, submit to the sceptre of thy kingdom; they shall become the kingdoms of our Lord Jesus Christ. O dieculam illam! O mora! Christe veni.

Selah] Let that thy kingdom come; come speedily, come in our days, as the modern Jews pray daily (Bimherah, Beiamenu).

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Psa_66:4-7

All the earth shall worship Thee, and shall sing unto Thee.

The worlds conversion

I. The glorious and auspicious prospect which is here opened to our view. All the earth shall worship Jehovah, and shall sing unto His name.

II. All objections to the fulfilment of this declaration are triumphantly repelled. The politicians of this world tell you plainly that your object can never be accomplished. The world is against you. The carnal mind, which is enmity against God, is against you. The glorious Gospel of the grace of God must come in contact with much that is contrary to its own nature. I am fully aware, too, that Satan, the god of this world, has long kept the minds of men in subjection to his vassalage, and held his captives in an almost universal submission. But with all these appalling circumstances put in array, and leaving you room to put in a thousand more, I see something in my text which excites you to go forward, in sure and certain hope of complete and glorious victory. Come, and instead of looking on the works of men, till your hearts grow feeble, and your hands hang down, come and see the works of God. Here are two grounds of encouragement--

1. The consideration of what God has done for His ancient Church, in fulfilling His promises, and in overcoming her foes; and--

2. What He will yet do for His Church, in fulfilling all for which He has encouraged you to hope. Consider these things; and declare if God has spoken anything which He has not fulfilled. (J. Stewart, D. D.)

Worship

It is a mans duty to worship God; therefore--

I. Man can attain a true knowledge of God. Not, indeed, if left unaided. The instinct which prompts the heart to bow down before an invisible Power is one of the last to disappear in the ruin of our nature. In the absence of everything else which gives dignity to human life it still survives. The first idea of God is awakened by the words and acts of our fellow-men, but when the idea is once ours, we can verify and ennoble it for ourselves. It has been maintained that man cannot have any real knowledge of what God is; that there are impregnable barriers to every attempt of the human soul to attain the real truth about the Divine attributes. But if I am informed that the world is ruled by a Being whose attributes are infinite, but what they are we cannot learn, nor what are the principles of His government, except that the highest human morality we are capable of conceiving does not sanction them; convince me of it, and I will bear my fate as I may. But when I am told that I must believe this, and at the same time call the Being by the names which express and affirm the highest human morality, I say in plain terms that I will not. Whatever power such a Being may have over me, He shall not compel me to worship Him. As a Christian, as a Christian minister, I take my stand with those strong words of the philosopher against the theologian. Language has no meaning save the ordinary ones for the words, just, merciful, good; and if they do not mean this when applied to God, why do we use the words? Worship becomes impossible on such a theory. If the soul is to worship God, it must know what God is.

II. God finds satisfaction and delight in human worship. If I speak to Him, it is because I believe He listens. His heart is moved in response to ours. As I sat a Sunday or two ago on the sea-shore, and thought of the thirty millions of people around whom the waters on which I looked were softly and gently rolling, I had present to my mind the twenty or thirty thousand assemblies which were met that morning in the depths of manufacturing towns, to which the Sunday had brought a brighter, clearer sky, and a welcome interruption of toil; in ancient cities, which have been famous through all the stormy years of our countrys history; in scattered villages, where the life becomes more animated rather than more still on the weekly day of rest. I thought of venerable cathedrals, where vast and solemn spaces were filled with the music of ancient chants and exulting anthems, and the mighty harmonies of majestic organs, and of rude, unshapely buildings on the edge of lovely commons, and amongst the poorest and most wretched courts and streets of our populous districts, where, with loud cries and noisy hymns, poor labouring men whose hearts God had touched, were violently and passionately imploring His pardon, or thanking Him for deliverance from sin. I felt that at that moment the gates of heaven were thrown wide open as for some high festival, that before the day was over thousands of my countrymen would be regenerated by the Spirit of God, and receive from Gods own lips absolution from all sin; and that tens of thousands would be baptized afresh with the Holy Ghost and with fire, and be gentler in their words, kinder in their deeds, purer in their thoughts all the week through as the result of that days worship. I thought of all these, and I was thankful and glad. (R. W. Dale, D. D.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Psa 66:4. All the earth shall worship thee, &c. — Many people of divers nations shall be so affected with thy stupendous works, that they shall worship and praise thee for them, and all the people shall have just cause to do so; and the time will come when all nations will actually do so, namely, in the days of the Messiah.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

4. (Psa 66:4) All the earth shall worship thee and sing to thee; they shall sing thy name. Selah. Here again the verbs are plural, shewing that all the earth is to be taken in a collective sense, as meaning all lands, or all the dwellers upon earth. See above, on ver. 1. Worship thee, bow or prostrate themselves before thee, as an act both of civil and religious homage. See above, on Psa 5:7. They shall not only sing to thee, but sing thy name, i.e. not only celebrate thy being but thy manifested nature, theattributes revealed by thy previous works. This anticipation of universal homage to Jehovah is in strict accordance with the whole spirit and design of the Mosaic dispensation.

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Psalms Translated and Explained (1850) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Verse 4. All the earth] The whole land shall worship thee. There shall no more an idol be found among the tribes of Israel. This was literally true. After the Babylonish captivity the Israelites never relapsed into idolatry.

Selah.] Remark it: this is a well attested truth.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

4. All the earth shall worship thee. The Psalmist had good reason for insisting upon this one point again and again. Though all tongues were tuned to the praise of God, they never could adequately extol it; and yet such are the negligence and the perversity of men, that they will scarcely lift one feeble note in celebration of a theme which should command their united strength and might. We have another prediction here, of a time being to come when God would be worshipped, not only by the Jews, a small section of the human family, but by all the nations which would be eventually brought under his government. And we are not to consider that he refers to such a worship as would be constrained, and only not withheld, because resistance might be dangerous, but to the sincere homage of the heart — they shall sing unto thee! they shall sing unto thy name Praise is the best of all sacrifices, (as we are told, Psalm 50:14, 23) and the true evidence of godliness.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

4. All the earth shall worship thee and hymn thee,

Yea, hymn thy name.

This verse is part of the address to God put into the mouth of the nations.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

All the earth shall worship thee,.... The Messiah, who is equal with God; the Creator of men; the Redeemer of his people; the Head of the church, and King of saints; their Lord, and therefore to be worshipped; with internal worship, in the exercise of faith, hope, and love; and with external worship, in the word and ordinances, by prayer and praise, public and private. This universal worship, that will be yielded him, will be in the latter day; which shows that this psalm respects those times, when Christ shall be King over all the earth, and his name, worship, and religion, one, Zac 14:9;

and shall sing unto thee; the song of Moses and the Lamb, the Lamb's new song, the song of redeeming grace; which none but the redeemed ever can sing aright, Rev 14:3;

they shall sing to thy name; or, "they shall", or "let them sing thy name" (x); thou shall be the subject of their song; thy person, offices, kingdom, grace, and glory: or they shall sing to the honour of thy name, as in Psa 66:2.

Selah; on this word; see Gill on Psa 3:2.

(x) "cantent nomen tuum", Gejerus; "cantabunt nomen tuum", Michaelis.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

All the earth shall worship thee - That is, all the inhabitants of the world will bow down before thee, or render thee homage. The time will come when thy right to reign will be universally acknowledged, or when thou wilt everywhere be adored as the true God. This is in accordance with all the statements in the Bible. See the notes at Psa 22:27; Compare the notes at Isa 45:23; notes at Rom 14:11.

And shall sing unto thee - Shall celebrate thy praises. “To thy name.” To thee.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Many people of divers nations shall be so affected with thy stupendous works, that they shall worship and praise thee for them, and all people shall do so, and shall have just cause to do so; and the time will come when all nations will actually do so, to wit, in the days of the Messias.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Ver. 4. All the earth shall worship thee, and shall sing unto thee. All men must even now prostrate themselves before thee, but a time will come when they shall do this cheerfully; to the worship of fear shall be added the singing of love. What a change shall have taken place when singing shall displace sighing, and music shall thrust out misery!

They shall sing to thy name. The nature and works of God will be the theme of earth's universal song, and he himself shall be the object of the joyful adoration of our emancipated race. Acceptable worship not only praises God as the mysterious Lord, but it is rendered fragrant by some measure of knowledge of his name or character. God would not be worshipped as an unknown God, nor have it said of his people, "Ye worship ye know not what." May the knowledge of the Lord soon cover the earth, that so the universality of intelligent worship may be possible: such a consummation was evidently expected by the writer of this Psalm; and, indeed, throughout all Old Testament writings, there are intimations of the future general spread of the worship of God. It was an instance of wilful ignorance and bigotry when the Jews raged against the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles. Perverted Judaism may be exclusive, but the religion of Moses, and David, and Isaiah was not so.

Selah. A little pause for holy expectation is well inserted after so great a prophecy, and the uplifting of the heart is also a seasonable direction. No meditation can be more joyous that excited by the prospect of a world reconciled to its Creator.

None.

Ver. 4.

I. Who? All the earth.

1. All, collectively, all classes and tribes.

2. All numerically.

3. All harmoniously. II. What? Shall worship and sing.

1. Humiliation; then,

2. Exultation. III. When? Shall, &c. Denotes

1. Futurity.

2. Certainty. God has spoken it. All things are tending towards it. G. R.

Psalms 66:5*

Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

4. Shall worship thee—Shall prostrate themselves, as in Psa_72:11, whether in forced submission from the overawing prevalence of divine truth or from loving obedience is not stated.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

All the earth shall worship thee, and shall sing unto thee; they shall sing to thy Name (see above, ver. 1, and compare the passages quoted in the comment ad loc.). Dr. Kay notes that "the universality of the Church is clearly contemplated" in all the psalms from Ps 65 to Ps 68.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.