Today’s Passage: Psalm 99
This psalm begins the way a herald begins, with an announcement that changes the room: the LORD reigns, so let the nations tremble. Three times as the song goes on it stops and says the same thing over again, that He is holy. It sings of His kingship, and of His justice, and of the prayers He answered long ago, and not one of those things stands apart from His holiness. Everything the psalm says about this King comes back to that one word.
As you read, hold this: The LORD reigns. He is holy.
Psalm 99:1-3 (BSB)
¹ The LORD reigns; let the nations tremble! He is enthroned above the cherubim; let the earth quake! ² Great is the LORD in Zion; He is exalted above all the peoples. ³ Let them praise Your great and awesome name—He is holy!
Context Enthroned above the cherubim
The cherubim were the two winged figures that sat over the ark of the covenant, facing each other above the golden lid the people called the mercy seat. Israel had no grand palace to show for this King, and the ark was the nearest thing to a throne that anyone could point to. Yet from Zion He reigns over all the earth, and so the nations are told to tremble before Him. He is holy.
Psalm 99:4-5 (BSB)
⁴ The mighty King loves justice. You have established equity; You have exercised justice and righteousness in Jacob. ⁵ Exalt the LORD our God, and worship at His footstool; He is holy!
Here the refrain comes back a second time, and now it lands on His justice. qadosh, pronounced kah-DOSH. Strong's H6918, holy, set apart. It means set apart, utterly His own.
The psalm reaches for this word three times over. It comes once after the throne is named, once after His justice, and once after His forgiving and His rebuking, and it is never simply decoration. Whatever else the song may say about this King, the word keeps insisting on the one thing: He is not like any of the other names in the room. in this psalm is not only His distance from us, the way He is set high above every other name. It is also the way He rules, with equity and with righteousness, and so the people are called to worship at His footstool.
Psalm 99:6-7 (BSB)
⁶ Moses and Aaron were among His priests; Samuel was among those who called on His name. They called to the LORD and He answered. ⁷ He spoke to them from the pillar of cloud; they kept His decrees and the statutes He gave them.
The psalm names three men who prayed, Moses and Aaron and Samuel. They called upon the LORD, and He answered them, speaking to them out of the pillar of cloud, and for their part they kept the decrees and the statutes He had given them.
Study notes Moses and Samuel
Long after, God would name these same two men together as the very measure of a powerful plea.
"Even if Moses and Samuel should stand before Me, My heart would not go out to this people. Send them from My presence, and let them go!" Jeremiah 15:1 (BSB)
That verse was spoken as a warning, not as a compliment to the people of Jeremiah’s own day, and yet it still tells us how much weight the prayers of Moses and Samuel once carried. This psalm looks back and remembers the hour when their asking was answered.
Psalm 99:8-9 (BSB)
⁸ O LORD our God, You answered them. You were a forgiving God to them, yet an avenger of their misdeeds. ⁹ Exalt the LORD our God and worship at His holy mountain, for the LORD our God is holy.
Both of these lines are meant to stand together. He forgave them, and He also called them to account for their misdeeds, and His holiness will not let go of the one in order to keep the other. The LORD reigns. He is holy.