Today’s Passage: Psalm 100
This is a short psalm, only five verses, and its heading names it plainly: a psalm of thanksgiving. It opens with a joyful noise and glad service, brings the worshiper up to a gate, and then sets down the reason that holds the whole song up, that He made us and we are His. There is no need to turn these five verses into a lesson of five neat points. The psalm itself is the meal, and that one word of belonging is the reason underneath it all.
As you read, hold this: He made us, and we are His.
Context A psalm of thanksgiving
“A Psalm of Thanksgiving.” That superscription is part of the text itself, not a later label, and this house receives it as Scripture. It is brief on purpose. Israel already knew how to walk up to the temple and pass through its gates; what this song gave them was the ground their walking stood on.
Psalm 100:1-3 (BSB)
¹ A Psalm of thanksgiving. Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth. ² Serve the LORD with gladness; come into His presence with joyful songs. ³ Know that the LORD is God. It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.
Word study "Make a joyful noise" — hārī‘ū (Psalm 100:1)
Hebrew: הָרִיעוּ (hārī‘ū), from רוּעַ (rūa‘). Pronounced hah-ree-OO. Strong’s H7321.
This is the same root used for a battle shout or the blast of a trumpet, not a hushed and careful sound. And it is aimed at all the earth, not only at the choir already gathered inside. Before worship is ever called orderly, it is called loud, a glad cry lifted to the God who made us.
Then comes the call to serve with gladness, where the ordinary word for work sits right beside joy, as though the two were always meant to keep company. Verse 3 grounds all of it: know that the LORD is God, for it is He who made us, and we are His, the sheep of His pasture. The praise does not earn the belonging. The belonging is already settled, and the praise simply answers it.
Study notes Belonging first
“It is He who made us, and we are His” comes before any further command is given. The relationship is settled first, and only then do the noise and the service follow from it.
"I am the good shepherd. I know My sheep and My sheep know Me." John 10:14 (BSB)
The Shepherd who speaks those words does not invent the picture; He fills it out and makes it His own. We are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.
Psalm 100:4-5 (BSB)
⁴ Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and bless His name. ⁵ For the LORD is good, and His loving devotion endures forever; His faithfulness continues to all generations.
These are a real gate and a real court, the actual approach to the house of God, and thanksgiving is the very posture of that approach, not a courtesy invented once a person has arrived. Gratitude is carried in through the gate; it is not manufactured after one is safely inside.
Then three short clauses hold the whole psalm up at the end: He is good, His loving devotion endures forever, and His faithfulness runs on to every generation. This is why the joyful noise back in verse 1 is never empty volume. He made us, and we are His, and the love that made us has not run out and never will.
He made us, and we are His.