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#7.
Worship and the exaltation of the Lord.
pp. 137 - 140
In Psalm 99: 5 and 9, we read:
"Exalt ye the Lord our God, and worship at His footstool; for He is holy."
"Exalt ye the Lord our God, and worship at His holy hill; for the Lord our God is holy."
This Psalm is one of a series that speak of the coming King, and find their fulfillment
in that day when "The kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our Lord and of
His Christ" (Rev. 11: 15). Psalms 93:, 97: and 99:, open with the announcement,
"The Lord reigneth". Psalm 95: says, "The Lord is a great God, and a great king above
all gods" (verse 3). Psalm 96: would have the good news of the kingdom proclaimed
among the nations: "Say among the heathen that the Lord reigneth" (verse 10). In
Psalm 98: all the earth is called upon to make a joyful noise unto the Lord, "With
trumpets and sound of cornet make a joyful noise before the Lord, the King".
There is an emphasis in Psalm 99: on the awful holiness of God:
"The Lord reigneth; let the people tremble. He sitteth between the cherubim, let the
earth be moved" (Psa. 99: 1).
He has a "terrible name" for "it is holy" (verse 3). Again at the end of verse 5 and
verse 9 there is an insistence upon His holiness. His almighty power is allied to and
always used with judgment. With God "right is might" and never "might is right". His
mercy is great, for He is a God that forgives, yet at the same time He took vengeance
upon the inventions that, at times, even the best of His servants superimposed upon the
ordinances which they had received (verse 8). The correspondence of verses 5 and 9
indicates that "His holy hill" is His footstool. In I Chron. 28:, "the ark of the
covenant" is called the footstool of God, and in Psalm 132: 7 "His footstool" is found
"in His tabernacles", the plural form of majesty being used here, as in Heb. 9: 24, "the
holy places". In Isa. 66: 1, the earth is said to be His footstool. These are not
contradictions, but revelations. In connection with His manifest presence "between the
cherubim" the ark would be His footstool, but when we learn that the Lord's throne is
heaven, then the wide earth itself becomes His footstool: it is a matter of proportion in
the particular sphere concerned.
In this Psalm the special feature in connection with worship is the twice-repeated call
to "exalt" the Lord. In verse 2 the psalmist says "He is high above all people", where the
words "high above" translate the same Hebrew word that is translated "exalt". This word
is Rum, and enters into the name Abram, "high or exalted father". False worship ends in
the exaltation of self, true worship in the exaltation of the Lord. This element of false
worship can be seen in the import of such a passage as Isa. 14::
"For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne
above the star of God . . . I will ascend . . . I will be like the Most High" (Isa. 14: 13).