Psalm 33

Exegete

Psalm 33 ESV

1 Shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous! Praise befits the upright. 2 Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre; make melody to him with the harp of ten strings! 3 Sing to him a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts. 4 For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness. 5 He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord. 6 By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host. 7 He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap; he puts the deeps in storehouses. 8 Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him! 9 For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm. 10 The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he frustrates the plans of the peoples. 11 The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations. 12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage! 13 The Lord looks down from heaven; he sees all the children of man; 14 from where he sits enthroned he looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth, 15 he who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds. 16 The king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength. 17 The war horse is a false hope for salvation, and by its great might it cannot rescue. 18 Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love, 19 that he may deliver their soul from death and keep them alive in famine. 20 Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and our shield. 21 For our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name. 22 Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you.

I want to soak up all the meaning in this Psalm. its so rich. At the same time, im going to try to be careful to not attribute meaning to something that doesnt have that meaning. Ill be checking commentaries to see if they had those findings also.

The first thing i notice is that this Psalm begins with praise. Im not sure if that is a coincidence or not. One thing i do understand about life, though, is that our stance before God, our decisions that we make, the way we live life, starts and carries out worship of some sort. So its got to be important that we begin there.

According to Spurgeon, we do not know who wrote this Psalm (parallel commentary on Psalms: Spurgeon, p136)

This was a hymn of praise for the Israelite people (Word Commentary: Psalms, p 271)

Psalm 33:1–3 ESV

1 Shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous! Praise befits the upright. 2 Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre; make melody to him with the harp of ten strings! 3 Sing to him a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.

We have a good picture here of what worship should be. Im not sure that we need to use this as a prescription book of exactly what it should look like because there are lots of references throughout scripture. It does, however, show us a clear picture.

Instruments are encouraged. Shouting and singing, yep fine. Our entire life should be an extension of our worship. Or maybe, it is an expression of our worship, of something. This Psalm says it should be of the king.

Psalm 33:4–5 ESV

4 For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness. 5 He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.

The writer begins to give what seems like reasoning for worshiping God.

His word is upright.

Upright- Strongs 3477 - straight, not crooked, Morally straight, innocent, righteous, -greek equivalent 3838 - complete, perfect, absolute

Basically he is worthy of worship because he is in fact without error, blame, or fault. He is trustworthy completely.

Im not sure about the second line though. all his work done in faithfulness. is he saying its done in faithfulness to his people? As in, everything God does pertaining to us is in our best interest? Not sure yet.

He loves righteousness because its part of who he is!

even though things seem bad here, We still live in a world that has the influence and presence of God.