Psalms 100:1-5

Psalms 90:106

Gordon Churchyard

*Thank-you, God!

Psalms 100

Jesus said, "*Thank-you, Father". (Matthew 11:25)

Psalms 100

(This is) a "*thank-you" psalm.

v1 Everyone on earth, shout to the *LORD!

v2 Do something for the *LORD to show that you are happy.
Come to him with songs of *joy.

v3 Know that the *LORD really is God.
He made us and we are his people.
(We are as his) sheep in his fields.

v4 Say "*thank-you" when you are walking through his gates.
Stand in front of his *temple and say good things about him.

v5 (Do all this) because the *LORD is good.
He is always loving and kind.
He will always do what he has promised to us.

The Story of Psalms 100

We do not know who wrote Psalms 100 or when. Perhaps It was when they built the *temple again 80 years after the King of Babylon destroyed it. The temple was a special house for God in Jerusalem. The *temple had a wall all round it. Verse 4 tells people to say "thanks!" to God as they walk through the gates in this wall. The psalm tells everybody to come to the *temple and tell God how great he is.

What Psalms 100 means

Verse 1: Here "everyone" does not only mean the *Jews. Jews are people who were born from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their children. Bible students believe that it means everybody in the whole world. The word "shout" here means "make a loud noise". The *Hebrew word in this verse does not mean "sing". The *Jews wrote the psalms in the Hebrew language, which they spoke. Maybe the shout is as at a football game, when you shout for your group to win! The LORD is a special name for God. It is a name that his people use. His people are the people that love him and obey him.

Verse 2: The *Hebrew word that we translate "do something for" means "work for" or "become the servant of". In the psalm, it means that we praise God (tell God that he is great) because he makes us so happy. There is no *temple now so we praise him in our churches or our homes. Jesus taught us that the church is now God’s *temple. Really, we can praise God anywhere! "Joy" is when you feel very happy deep down inside you.

Verse 3: Some Bibles translate "we are his people" as "we did not make ourselves". This is because they sound the same in *Hebrew! It does not matter because both translations tell us what is true. Sheep are animals that live in fields. God's people are often said to be as sheep. This means that God takes care of them just as a farmer takes care of his sheep. "Takes care of" here means "feed and give help to". In the New Testament (the second part of the Bible) Jesus said, "I am the good shepherd" (John 10:11). A shepherd is a sheep farmer.

Verse 4: The psalm tells everyone to come to the *temple and *praise God. The *temple was small, so most people stood outside it. Only the priests and Levites went inside. The priests and Levites were special servants of God. They worked in and round the *temple. "Thank-you" is a polite way to say "thanks". The *Hebrew of "say good things about him" is "bless his name". "Bless" is a special *Jewish and Christian word.

Verse 5: Another way to say "he will do what he has promised" is "he is faithful". When we do what we promise then we are faithful. God will always be faithful to us. We must also be faithful to him.

Something to do

The psalm tells us to do 7 things:

1. Shout to the *LORD! Even if we cannot sing, we can all make a loud noise. We can shout, sing aloud, or make music!

2. Do something for the *LORD. We do this because God gives us *joy. He makes us happy. In the psalm, it meant that they did it in the *temple. There is no *temple now. We must be God’s servants everywhere.

3. We must come where the *LORD is. We can sing to him, or just talk to him. He is always very near to us. He will always hear everything that we say or sing. We call "talking to God" by the name "prayer".

4. We must know who the *LORD is. "*LORD" is another name for God. God is so important that he has many names. In this psalm, there are two. One is God. In *Hebrew, this means that he is more powerful than anyone else is. The other is *LORD. This is a name that his servants use. It is a special name that means many things. Two are:

• God will be *faithful to his servants;

• and his servants will be *faithful to God.

5. We must walk through the *LORD’s gates and go into his house. There is no *temple now in Jerusalem. His *temple is the church. For Christians verse 4 means, "Go where God's people are. Worship God with them". "Worship God" means "tell God that you love him and that he is very great".

6. Say *thank-you to the *LORD for everything. We must thank him always, because he is always loving and kind to us.

7. The *LORD likes us to say good things about him. When we say good things about the *LORD, or bless his name, it makes him very happy.

Why must we do these 7 things? Verse 5 tells us, "Do all this because the *LORD is good. He is always loving and kind. He will always do what he has promised to us". THE *LORD IS A GREAT GOD!

Hebrew ~ the language that the Jews spoke when they wrote the Psalms of David.
Jew ~ someone who was born from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their children.'thank-you ~ a polite way to say ‘thanks’.'thank-you ~ a polite way to say ‘thanks’.
Lord ~ a name for God; it means he has authority, or "master"; Adonai in Hebrew. Look also at LORD below.
LORD ~ a special name for God that his people use. It is the covenant name of God. In Hebrew it is Yahweh or Jehovah. Look after Psalm 25 in Book 1 of the Psalms of David for more about the names of God.
Adonai ~ Lord or master (or better, my Lord or my master) in Hebrew.
Hebrew ~ the language that the Jews spoke when they wrote the Psalms of David.
covenant ~ what God and his people agreed.
Yahweh ~ the covenant name for God. Most Bibles translate it LORD with 4 capital letters. It means something like "I am" or "always alive".
Jehovah ~ how some languages say Yahweh, one of the names of God in Hebrew.
Jew ~ someone who was born from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their children.
like ~ as.
joy ~ when you feel happy deep inside you.
temple ~ a place where people meet to worship God.
worship ~ tell someone that they are very great and that you love them.
Jew ~ someone who was born from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their children.
praise ~ words that say how great someone is; or, to say how great somebody is.
Jewish ~ a word that describes a Jew or anything to do with a Jew.
Jew ~ someone who was born from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their children.
faithful ~ to be full of faith and not moving from what you think is true.
faith ~ to believe in someone or something; to agree with God and do the things that God teaches.