A Joyful Salutation and God’s Response
To the chief musician upon Gittith, to be sung to the accompaniment of the zitherlike instrument which David brought along from the Philistine city of Gath, a psalm of Asaph, an antiphonal, festal hymn, probably for the celebration of the Passover, God Himself answering the praise of His people by reminding them of their obligations and picturing to them the happy consequences of obedience and loyalty to Him.
V. 1. Sing aloud unto God, our Strength, letting exultation sound forth in His honor, to praise Him for His almighty protection; make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob, the only true God, Jacob representing the Church of all times. V. 2. Take a psalm, the summons being addressed to the chorus of Levites to begin their songs of praise, and bring hither the timbrel, the pleasant harp with the psaltery, zither and harp being used largely in the Temple orchestra on account of the pleasing quality of their music.
V. 3. Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, the horns, as blown by the priests, being the most prominent instruments on the Feast of the New Moon, the civil new year, on the first of Tishri, Num. 10, 10, in the time appointed, on our solemn feast-day, for trumpets were used on all the great festivals.
V. 4. For this was a statute, for Israel, pertaining to the precepts governing the covenant people, and a law of the God of Jacob, fixed by Him to regulate the customs of the feasts. V. 5. This He ordained in Joseph, this one tribe here representing the entire nation, for a testimony, when He went out through the land of Egypt, in preparing for the exodus of His people; for from that time dated the personal intercourse of Jehovah with His people; where I heard a language that I understood not, the psalmist speaking in the name of Israel, states that the fact of a strange language in the mouth of their oppressors in Egypt increased the burden of their slavery.
The mention of these facts agreed with the object of the Hebrew festivals, which were to bring the great deeds of God to the remembrance of all believers. The Lord Himself now takes up the strain of the hymn.
V. 6. I removed his shoulder from the burden, by setting His people free from the serfdom of Egypt; his hands were delivered from the pots, from the baskets which the children of Israel were forced to carry as hods in transporting building materials for the monuments of Pharaoh.
V. 7. Thou calledst in trouble, when the Egyptians oppressed them, and I delivered thee, Ex. 2, 24. 25; I answered thee in the secret place of thunder, literally, the veil of the thunder, the pillar of cloud, from out of which God wrought His wonders at the passage of the Red Sea. I proved thee at the waters of Meribah, testing their faith by the miracle there performed, Ex. 17, 6. 7. Selah.