Psalm 47
For the director of music. Of the Sons of Korah. A psalm.
1      Clap your hands, all you nations;
shout to God with cries of joy.
2     How awesome is the Lord Most High,
the great King over all the earth!
3     He subdued nations under us,
peoples under our feet.
4     He chose our inheritance for us,
the pride of Jacob, whom he loved.                                            
                                                                            Selah
5     God has ascended amid shouts of joy,
the Lord amid the sounding of trumpets.
6     Sing praises to God, sing praises;
sing praises to our King, sing praises.
7     For God is the King of all the earth;
sing to him a psalm of praise.
8     God reigns over the nations;
God is seated on his holy throne.
9     The nobles of the nations assemble
as the people of the God of Abraham,
for the kings of the earth belong to God;
he is greatly exalted.
Go
 God is King
  •       This is the known as an enthronement psalm.  An enthronement Psalm is one that celebrates God’s universal reign.  There are others (93, 95-99) but we haven’t gotten to them yet.
  •       We have moved from “be still” in the previous Psalm to shouting, joyful, trumpets, and loud singing.
  •        This Psalm is properly understood as a prophecy about the coming kingdom of God and it gives us a glimpse into the perception Israel had of this event.  As this Psalm is calling all the people of the earth to give God praise, there is the assumption that these nations are under His Kingship.[1]
  •       Psalm 46:10 reads, “I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” [2]  This prediction is now fulfilled in Psalm 47.

   We are command five times to “sing praise” to the Lord.  Remember, repetition is a Hebrew way to say “pay attention to what I’m saying!”
  As the people of Israel praise their God to the Gentiles around them, they make two affirmations about Him.[3]
He is a King who is Sovereign! (verses 1-4)
·         Sovereign means “one that exercises supreme authority”.
·         This supreme authority of our Lord (expressed in verses 3-4) is to be a point of celebration to all the nations.
o   We celebrate this authority (verse 1) by:
§  Clapping our hands
§  Shouting with expression of joy.
He is a King worthy of praise! (verses 5-9)
·         He is worthy of praise because the Lord reigns! (verse 8)
·         This reminds us that truly God is in control.  Our Great King is still in control over everything.  Even through turbulent times, He is in control.
·         This same language is used in other passages in Scripture when describing the Lord’s deliverance of His people.
o   In Isaiah 37:36, the angel of the Lord—a single angel—destroyed the 185,000 men in the Assyrian army while the people of Israel was asleep in their beds.
o   The Lord ascends to His place after He has descended to win the battle.
o   Paul said something very similar in Ephesians 4:8-10 when he applied it to the ascension of Jesus.
§  From a human point of view, the cross was a defeat but from God’s it represented God’s victory over the world and the devil himself and bridged the grand canyon dividing us from God.
§  According to Hebrews 1:3, Jesus ascended to the right hand of God in heaven.[4]
·         Indeed, as the end of this Psalm declares, “he is greatly exalted.”

[1] John F. Walvoord, Roy B. Zuck and Dallas Theological Seminary, The Bible Knowledge Commentary : An Exposition of the Scriptures (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1983-), Ps 46:8–11.
[2] Psalm 46:10, NIV.
[3] Warren W. Wiersbe, Be Worshipful, 1st ed. (Colorado Springs, Colo.: Cook Communications Ministries, 2004), 175–176.
[4] Ibid.