This short psalm packs a string of commands into five verses, shout, serve, come, know, enter, give thanks, bless, and every one of them is aimed past Israel to "all the earth." It closes a run of psalms that proclaim the LORD's reign, and it works almost as their doxology, the crescendo built across Psalms 93 through 99 finally spilling into open invitation. At its structural center, between two matching calls to come and enter, sits the command every other command depends on. Know who he is.
1"Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth!" The Hebrew for "joyful noise" is the shout that greeted a king entering his capital, the homage-cry raised when Solomon was proclaimed (1 Kings 1:34, 39). Every worshiper, however untrained the voice, is summoned to that shout, and it is homage. 2"Serve the LORD with gladness! Come into his presence with singing!" The word for "serve" carries worship and labor together, and it collapses any sharp line between what happens in a sanctuary and what happens the rest of the week.
Then the center: know that the LORD is God, that he made us and we are his, the sheep of his pasture. Shepherd-language across the ancient world carried tenderness and rule in one breath, with kings calling themselves shepherds who provided pasture and protection. A sheep, unlike a goat, is helpless without the shepherd, needing him to find water, food, and safety. To call Israel "the sheep of his pasture" was a confession of total, ongoing dependence, far from sentimental decoration.
One small phrase in the verse has occupied translators for centuries. The traditional Hebrew text can be read "we are his," and an ancient alternate reading gives "not we ourselves." The two differ by a single silent letter and land in the same place. We did not make ourselves. Whatever we are, we are because someone else made us to be it, and what could not create itself cannot sustain itself either, since every moment of our existence rests on the hand that formed us.
4"Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise!" This is the language of a temple entrance liturgy, worshipers at the threshold before being summoned in, a scene like Psalms 15 and 24. What is remarkable is who is summoned. Foreigners were normally excluded from Israel's temple courts. Here "all the earth" is invited without qualification, an early anticipation of the day Isaiah promised when the nations would stream up to God's mountain to be taught (Isaiah 2:2-3). In Christ even the Holy of Holies is opened by a new and living way (Hebrews 10:19-20), and the access this psalm anticipates is made permanent.
5"For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations." It is the language God used of himself to Moses at Sinai, repeated so often across the Old Testament that it works like a creed. It also answers, as a section, the anguish of Psalm 89, where the singer asked where God's faithfulness of old had gone. Psalm 100 answers with praise instead of lament. Faithfulness that once seemed to have failed is now sung as something that simply endures.
If you feel you lack the voice to sing, remember that the shout of this psalm is the sound of a person who knows whose sheep he is, and joy of that kind will find some way to be heard.
Prayer
Father, you made us, and we are yours, sheep who could never have found pasture or safety on our own. Give us the spirit that rejoices in you, whatever our voices sound like, and let our service and our worship be one thing. Thank you for opening gates we could never enter on our own merit, and for a faithfulness that endures to all generations, still true after every failure we have brought to it. In Jesus' name, amen.