PSALM 24

Ps 24:1–10. God’s supreme sovereignty requires a befitting holiness of life and heart in His worshippers; a sentiment sublimely illustrated by describing His entrance into the sanctuary, by the symbol of His worship—the ark, as requiring the most profound homage to the glory of His Majesty.

1. fulness—everything.

world—the habitable globe, with

they that dwell—forming a parallel expression to the first clause.

2. Poetically represents the facts of Ge 1:9.

3, 4. The form of a question gives vivacity. Hands, tongue, and heart are organs of action, speech, and feeling, which compose character.

hill of the Lord—(compare Ps 2:6, &c.). His Church—the true or invisible, as typified by the earthly sanctuary.

4. lifted up his soul—is to set the affections (Ps 25:1) on an object; here,

vanity—or, any false thing, of which swearing falsely, or to falsehood, is a specification.

5. righteousness—the rewards which God bestows on His people, or the grace to secure those rewards as well as the result.

6. Jacob—By “Jacob,” we may understand God’s people (compare Is 43:22; 44:2, &c.), corresponding to “the generation,” as if he had said, “those who seek Thy face are Thy chosen people.”

7. The entrance of the ark, with the attending procession, into the holy sanctuary is pictured to us. The repetition of the terms gives emphasis.

10. Lord of hosts—or fully, Lord God of hosts (Ho 12:5; Am 4:13), describes God by a title indicative of supremacy over all creatures, and especially the heavenly armies (Jos 5:14; 1 Ki 22:19). Whether, as some think, the actual enlargement of the ancient gates of Jerusalem be the basis of the figure, the effect of the whole is to impress us with a conception of the matchless majesty of God.