Psalms 24:7-10

24:7 Look up, ¹  you gates!

Rise up, ²  you eternal doors!

Then the majestic king ³  will enter! ⁴ 

24:8 Who is this majestic king? ⁵ 

The Lord who is strong and mighty!

The Lord who is mighty in battle!

24:9 Look up, you gates!

Rise up, you eternal doors!

Then the majestic king will enter!

24:10 Who is this majestic king?

The Lord who commands armies! ⁶ 

He is the majestic king! (Selah)

Psalms 78:3-6

78:3 What we have heard and learned ⁷  –

that which our ancestors ⁸  have told us –

78:4 we will not hide from their ⁹  descendants.

We will tell the next generation

about the Lord’s praiseworthy acts, ¹⁰ 

about his strength and the amazing things he has done.

78:5 He established a rule ¹¹  in Jacob;

he set up a law in Israel.

He commanded our ancestors

to make his deeds known to their descendants, ¹² 

78:6 so that the next generation, children yet to be born,

might know about them.

They will grow up and tell their descendants about them. ¹³ 

Psalms 134:1-3

Psalm 134 ¹⁴ 

A song of ascents. ¹⁵ 

134:1 Attention! ¹⁶  Praise the Lord,

all you servants of the Lord,

who serve ¹⁷  in the Lord’s temple during the night.

134:2 Lift your hands toward the sanctuary

and praise the Lord!

134:3 May the Lord, the Creator of heaven and earth,

bless you ¹⁸  from Zion! ¹⁹ 

Psalms 148:12

148:12 you young men and young women,

you elderly, along with you children!

Exodus 15:20-21

15:20 Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a hand-drum in her hand, and all the women went out after her with hand-drums and with dances. ²⁰  15:21 Miriam sang in response ²¹  to them, “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and its rider he has thrown into the sea.” ²² 

Isaiah 38:19

38:19 The living person, the living person, he gives you thanks,

as I do today.

A father tells his sons about your faithfulness.

[24:7]  ¹ tn Heb “lift up your heads.” The gates of the Lord’s dwelling place are here personified. The idiom “lift up the head” often means “be confident, bold” (see Judg 8:28; Job 10:15; Ps 83:2; Zech 1:21).

[24:7]  ² tn Heb “lift yourselves up.”

[24:7]  ³ tn Or “king of glory.”

[24:7]  ⁴ tn Following the imperatives of the preceding lines, the prefixed verbal form with vav (ו) conjunctive indicates purpose or result.

[24:8]  ⁵ sn Who is this majestic king? Perhaps the personified gates/doors ask this question, in response to the command given in v. 7.

[24:10]  ⁶ tn Traditionally, “the Lord of hosts,” a title which here pictures the Lord as a mighty warrior-king who leads armies into battle.

[78:3]  ⁷ tn Or “known.”

[78:3]  ⁸ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 5, 8, 12, 57).

[78:4]  ⁹ tn The pronominal suffix refers back to the “fathers” (“our ancestors,” v. 3).

[78:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “to a following generation telling the praises of the Lord.” “Praises” stand by metonymy for the mighty acts that prompt worship. Cf. Ps 9:14.

[78:5]  ¹¹ tn The Hebrew noun עֵדוּת (’edut) refers here to God’s command that the older generation teach their children about God’s mighty deeds in the nation’s history (see Exod 10:2; Deut 4:9; 6:20-25).

[78:5]  ¹² tn Heb “which he commanded our fathers to make them known to their sons.” The plural suffix “them” probably refers back to the Lord’s mighty deeds (see vv. 3-4).

[78:6]  ¹³ tn Heb “in order that they might know, a following generation, sons [who] will be born, they will arise and will tell to their sons.”

[134:1]  ¹⁴ sn Psalm 134. The psalmist calls on the temple servants to praise God (vv. 1-2). They in turn pronounce a blessing on the psalmist (v. 3).

[134:1]  ¹⁵ sn The precise significance of this title, which appears in Pss 120-134, is unclear. Perhaps worshipers recited these psalms when they ascended the road to Jerusalem to celebrate annual religious festivals. For a discussion of their background see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 219-21.

[134:1]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Look!”

[134:1]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “stand.”

[134:3]  ¹⁸ tn The pronominal suffix is second masculine singular, suggesting that the servants addressed in vv. 1-2 are responding to the psalmist.

[134:3]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “may the Lord bless you from Zion, the maker of heaven and earth.”

[15:20]  ²⁰ sn See J. N. Easton, “Dancing in the Old Testament,” ExpTim 86 (1975): 136-40.

[15:21]  ²¹ tn The verb עָנָה (’ana) normally means “to answer,” but it can be used more technically to describe antiphonal singing in Hebrew and in Ugaritic.

[15:21]  ²² sn This song of the sea is, then, a great song of praise for Yahweh’s deliverance of Israel at the Sea, and his preparation to lead them to the promised land, much to the (anticipated) dread of the nations. The principle here, and elsewhere in Scripture, is that the people of God naturally respond to God in praise for his great acts of deliverance. Few will match the powerful acts that were exhibited in Egypt, but these nonetheless set the tone. The song is certainly typological of the song of the saints in heaven who praise God for delivering them from the bondage of this world by judging the world. The focus of the praise, though, still is on the person (attributes) and works of God.