1. Clap your hands, all ye peoples As the Psalmist requires the nations, in token of their joy and of their thanksgiving; to God, to clap their hands, or rather exhorts them to a more than ordinary joy, the vehemence of which breaks forth and manifests itself by external expressions, it is certain…

Since, then, no servitude is happy and desirable but that by which God subdues and brings under the standard and authority of Christ his Son those who before were rebels, it follows that this language is applicable only to the kingdom of Christ, who is called a high and terrible King, (verse 2) not…

3. He hath set in order the people under us Some translate the verb he hath subjected; and this agrees with the translation which I have given. Others translate it he hath led, which is somewhat more remote from the meaning.

4. He hath chosen our inheritance for us. The inspired poet here celebrates more distinctly the special grace which God, in his goodness, had bestowed upon the chosen and holy seed of Abraham.

5. God is gone up with triumph There is here an allusion to the ancient ceremony which was observed under the Law. As the sound of trumpets was wont to be used in solemnising the holy assemblies, the prophet says that God goes up, when the trumpets encourage and stir up the people to magnify and…

7. For God is King of all the earth The Psalmist, having called God in the close of the preceding verse King of the chosen people, now calls him King of all the earth; and thus, while he claims to the Jews the right and honor of primogeniture, he at the same time joins to them the Gentiles as…

8. He hath obtained the kingdom over the heathen Literally it is, He hath reigned; but as the verb מלך, malach, is in the past tense, which in Hebrew denotes a continued act, we have translated it, He hath obtained the kingdom The prophet repeatedly informs us that God reigns over the Gentiles; and…

“And of Zion it shall be said, This and that man was born in her.” Farther, it is said that this gathering together will be to the people of the God of Abraham, to teach us that it is not here meant to attribute to the Jews any superiority which they naturally possess above others, but that all…