Psalm 47: The Song of the Royal Ascension

“Clap your hands, all peoples! Shout to God with loud songs of joy!” (Psalm 47:1)

The Psalms are physical. They encourage us to move our bodies and not just our minds or our mouths. After all, God is the creator of all things, body and soul, and so it is fitting to clap, sing, hum, whistle, dance, and laugh over the good grace of God.

The Woven Psalms is a reflective, unhurried, and practical podcast about praying every psalm in the Bible. This podcast is a ministry of Rock Hill Community Church in Duluth, MN. You can learn more about our work at www.wovenpsalms.com.

Mike Solis is our writer and host. Ethan Gibbs is our editor, producer, and composer of the theme music. Beau Walsh designed our logo. This episode features the song “Psalm 47” by Poor Bishop Hooper, and we want to thank them for allowing us to use the music from their EveryPsalm project. You can learn more about their music at www.poorbishophooper.com.

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated in whole or in part into any other language. The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, is adapted from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.

Transcript

The Psalms are physical. They encourage us to move our bodies and not just our minds or our mouths. After all, God is the creator of all things, body and soul, and so it is fitting to clap, sing, hum, whistle, dance, and laugh over the good grace of God.

Psalm 47

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of the Sons of Korah.

[1] Clap your hands, all peoples!
    Shout to God with loud songs of joy!
[2] For the LORD, the Most High, is to be feared,
    a great king over all the earth.
[3] He subdued peoples under us,
    and nations under our feet.
[4] He chose our heritage for us,
    the pride of Jacob whom he loves. Selah
    
[5] God has gone up with a shout,
    the LORD with the sound of a trumpet.
[6] Sing praises to God, sing praises!
    Sing praises to our King, sing praises!
[7] For God is the King of all the earth;
    sing praises with a psalm!
    
[8] God reigns over the nations;
    God sits on his holy throne.
[9] The princes of the peoples gather
    as the people of the God of Abraham.
For the shields of the earth belong to God;
    he is highly exalted!

Psalm 47 is a song of royal enthronement, a hymn of coronation as we are invited to sing praise to God as the King of Kings. But this ceremony is not a stodgy, solemn affair. Psalm 47 is raucous! It’s a jubilation! It begins with a command for all people to clap their hands (which could be either applause or rhythmic in worship) and to shout with loud songs of joy. We shouldn’t miss the important fact that these commands are addressed not just to God’s chosen people of Israel but to all nations, to the Gentiles. We’ll see that surprising emphasis through three sections that have the word “for” in each of them that explains why all people should worship God. The first reason is that God is worthy of our awe and reverence. Verses 2-4: “For the LORD, the Most High, is to be feared, a great king over all the earth. He subdued peoples under us, and nations under our feet. He chose our heritage for us, the pride of Jacob whom he loves.” That last line likely refers to the land of Israel (the thing in which the people of Jacob take pride). These verses tell the story of Joshua’s conquest of the promised land, how God settled his people in the land of Israel for the purpose of blessing the whole world (as he had promised to Abraham). God’s plan was never for one nation to conquer the world but for all nations to submit to his rule and reign. His kingdom is unrestricted by time and unconstrained by geography. His ways are not that of a tyrant but of a just, righteous King who leads his people to what is good and right. The proper response, then, to this sort of King is what we found in the second psalm: “Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.” The selah at the end of verse 4 encourages us to pause here and dwell on the majesty of this King. When God claims the throne, we have a choice: will we cling to our fragile crowns and try to rule our own life, or will we submit, bow down, and worship the King of Kings? 

Verses 5-6 return to the loud celebration: “God has gone up with a shout, the LORD with the sound of a trumpet. Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises!” There’s a cadence here, like a royal parade marching through the city. In fact, the wording here is almost identical to the story of 2 Samuel 6, in which King David brings the ark of God into Jerusalem with singing and dancing. The trumpet mentioned here is the “shophar,” a horn made from, well, an animal’s horn. This is the point: when God comes near and dwells with us, he is inviting us to come near as well. There’s an urgency to these persistent commands to praise. In his Reflections on the Psalms, C.S. Lewis famously struggled with the way the psalms tell us to praise God. Isn’t that awfully self-centered? But gradually he came to realize that whenever we enjoy something, we inevitably want to praise it. He wrote, “I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation.” When we enjoy God, we are enthusiastic about telling others about his glory. This is the second reason we are to worship him. Verse 7: “For God is the King of all the earth; sing praises with a psalm!” It is not enough to submit your allegiance to this King. He desires your heart, your joy, your wonder, your energy, and your devotion. Our God wants his people to be so filled with love that they cannot help but sing loudly of all that he is and all that he has done.

The last stanza of the psalm broadens the picture of God’s throne as the source of unity in the world: “God reigns over the nations; God sits on his holy throne. The princes of the peoples gather as the people of the God of Abraham. For the shields of the earth belong to God; he is highly exalted!” There’s a lot here. The last line about the shields of the earth belonging to God is likely a reference to rulers, but the true source of protection in this dangerous world is God himself. As Psalm 2 says, “Blessed are all who take refuge in him.” It’s a vision of a future in which there are no more outsiders and insiders to God’s covenant rule; everyone, from the people of Abraham’s biological lineage to the farthest foreign nation, are gathered to worship. Imagine what singing this song would have done for God’s own people of Israel. They would be invited to see the mission of God for the Gentiles and to get excited for it, wondering how it might happen that all nations could share in the covenant of Abraham. And for any Gentiles who hear this song, what might it stir within them to know that the God of the universe knows them, loves them, and welcomes them to his side? In fact, Psalms 46-48 all circle around this tension: God gives a unique and privileged place to his people and the city of Jerusalem, yet he also invites all peoples to worship him. What would it take for the people of Abraham who are blessed by God to become a blessing themselves? In the storyline of the Bible, Israel failed by becoming just like the pagan, evil nations around them. The covenant partners could not keep their end of the relationship, and so God promises that he will make a new covenant in which every tribe, tongue, and nation will be brought under his rule and reign. As one scholar said of Psalm 47, “This psalm stands on tiptoe and looks directly across history to the salvation of the gentiles and God’s universal reign over the world.” And this brings us to the person and work of Jesus.

There’s a subtle foreshadowing of the gospel in verse 5: “God has gone up with a shout.” Many commentators have observed the implication that for God to go up, he must first have come down among us to fight a battle and win a victory. Of course, this is exactly what happens in the incarnation. Jesus, the King of Kings, came and dwelt among us in the form of a humble human being. King Herod saw him as an existential threat to his little kingdom, so he tried to kill the Messiah. But Jesus presented himself as a very different kind of king as opposed to typical rulers. He defined leadership as service. He saw our chief enemies not as flesh and blood but sin, Satan, and death. Jesus went not only to the people of Israel but to Samaria, and he commanded his disciples to go even farther, to the ends of the earth. But in order for Jesus to be exalted as the King of Kings, he had to be lifted up on a cross and pay the penalty of our rebellion against God. He died while his enemies clapped and shouted their mocking jeers at him. Yet sing praises to God, sing praises! Death could not subdue him, and Jesus rose from the dead. He ascended to the throne of heaven, where he now sits to rule with justice and righteousness. By his death and resurrection, Jesus made a new covenant in which all people could be called children of Abraham. In the liturgical calendar, Psalm 47 is typically associated with Ascension Day, going all the way back to the first century. This is an evangelistic psalm, pointing us to the mission of the church to bring the good news of Jesus the Messiah to every nook and cranny of this world. And one day, as the book of Revelation describes, Jesus will return to the sound of a voice shouting, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.”

When might you turn to the celebration song of Psalm 47? Here are some ideas:

When you enjoy God so much that you need to move your body and respond to his greatness with claps and shouts.

When you don’t feel like praising God and want to move your heart back to a posture of worship.

When you need to gain perspective again on the fearful, awesome presence of the LORD, the Most High.

When it is election day for you to choose a flawed, human ruler to lead you, yet you place your true citizenship in heaven.

When your land is conquered by force, you must trust that the Lord will bring justice as the King over all kings.

When you read the book of Joshua and see God fulfilling his promise to bring his people to a good land.

When you hear a loud trumpet blast (or perhaps a car horn).

When you sing loudly in corporate worship, whether on pitch or wildly out of tune, all to the glory of God.

When you sing the psalms through chanting or a modern rendition.

When it is Ascension Day, the 40th day of the Easter season, and you remember the good news that Jesus is now on the throne.

When you need protection, a shield against danger.

When you want language to help you exalt, magnify, and glorify God.

Psalm 47

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of the Sons of Korah.

[1] Clap your hands, all peoples!
    Shout to God with loud songs of joy!
[2] For the LORD, the Most High, is to be feared,
    a great king over all the earth.
[3] He subdued peoples under us,
    and nations under our feet.
[4] He chose our heritage for us,
    the pride of Jacob whom he loves. Selah
    
[5] God has gone up with a shout,
    the LORD with the sound of a trumpet.
[6] Sing praises to God, sing praises!
    Sing praises to our King, sing praises!
[7] For God is the King of all the earth;
    sing praises with a psalm!
    
[8] God reigns over the nations;
    God sits on his holy throne.
[9] The princes of the peoples gather
    as the people of the God of Abraham.
For the shields of the earth belong to God;
    he is highly exalted!

Thank you for listening to the Woven Psalms. This podcast is a ministry of Rock Hill Community Church in Duluth, MN.

I’m Mike Solis. I’m a pastor at Rock Hill and the writer of this podcast. Ethan Gibbs is our producer, editor, and composer of the theme music. Our logo was designed by Beau Walsh. This podcast uses the English Standard Version, published by Crossway.

We want to give a special thanks to Poor Bishop Hooper for allowing us to use the music from their EveryPsalm project.

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, please share it with others. You can learn more about our work at wovenpsalms.com.