Psalms 93:1-5

Psalms 90:106

Gordon Churchyard

The *Lord is King!

Psalms 93

(The first *royal psalm)

The Roman leader said to Jesus, "Are you the King of the *Jews?" And Jesus said to him, "(Yes), it is as you say". (Matthew 27:11)

Psalms 93:1-5

v1 The *LORD is King! He is ruling with authority.
The *LORD is ruling with great power.
Also, the world will not change.
Nobody will move it any more.

v2 You (*LORD) have been king for a very long time.
You were alive before the world started.

v3 The rivers rose up, *LORD,
the rivers rose up and made a loud noise.
The rivers rose up as a great storm.

v4 But the *LORD rules over everyone!
He is greater than all the noise of the waters,
stronger than the sea itself.

v5 *LORD, the rules that you make will remain.
Your house will always be beautiful because you are so good.

The Story of Psalms 93

This psalm has no words at the top to tell us about it. But there may be a story! Some Bible students think that the psalm is about God making (creating) the world. It describes what God did in Genesis 1:6-10. This is when God made the waters of the sea separate from the dry land. Here are the verses from Genesis 1.

Genesis 1:6-10

v​6 And God said, "I want a space in the middle of the waters.
I want it to make the waters separate".

v​7 And God made (created) the space.
He made the waters that were under the space
separate from those that were over the space.
And so it happened.

v​8 And God called the space "sky".
And the evening and the morning were the second day.

v​9 And God said, "I want the waters under the sky to be together in one place.
I want the dry land to appear. And so it happened.

v​10 And God called the dry land "earth".
And where the waters were together, he called "seas".
And God saw that it was good.

But other Bible students tell us that in verse 3 the word is "rivers", not "waters" or "seas". They say the rivers are the River Tigris, the River Euphrates and the River Nile. So they say that the psalm has this meaning:

• God was always king (Exodus 15:18) but his people said, "We want a king to rule us" (1 Samuel 12:12). They meant a man on earth, not God. So, God gave them kings, Saul, David, Solomon and many other kings.

• Many of the kings were bad kings. They did not rule well. And God’s people did not obey God’s rules. God let foreign kings destroy them. These foreign kings came from Assyria, Egypt and Babylon. The rivers in these countries are the Euphrates, the Nile and the Tigris. Verse 3 says that the rivers rose up. That means this. The countries that would destroy Israel and Judah were attacking them. They took Israel and Judah away from their own country. We call this "the exile".

• But the exile ended in 538 B.C. (B.C. means "years Before Christ came to the earth")

The Jews (people that were born from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their children) went back to their own country. God had destroyed Assyria, Egypt and Babylon. He was more powerful than all these waters, (verse 4).

• The *Jews now had no king, so God became their king again. They were not ruled by human kings any more, but by God. The *LORD is king, (verse 1)! What Isaiah said in Isaiah 52:7 happened. "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him that brings good news. He says to *Zion 'Your God is king!' " Zion here is another name for Jerusalem.

Both meanings are true. We do not know if there was another meaning for the psalm. But it tells us one important thing: Whatever happens, God is still King over everything! We must remember this when bad things happen. Psalms 93 is the first of "The Royal Psalms". "Royal" is a word that describes kings. In Psalms 93 and 95-99, God is King of Everything.

What Psalms 93 means

Verse 1: In the *Hebrew Bible, "The *LORD is ruling" is "The *LORD is wearing". He wears his authority and his power as clothes. Everyone can see them. The word "great" in *Hebrew is really "belt". Nobody can take this power and authority away from God. This is because he has fastened the belt and nobody can undo it! LORD is a special name for God. It means that he will always be alive. He will always make his people safe. They are the people that love and work for him. The word "war" is not in the *Hebrew Bible. It is there to give us help to understand how the *Jews felt. Hebrew was the language that the *Jews spoke. They wrote the psalms in *Hebrew.

Verse 2: tells us that God has been king for a very long time. He was king of everything before he made (created) the world. It is this verse that suggests Genesis 1:6-10. He was king before there was a world!

Verse 3: Three times we read "the rivers rose up". This suggests rivers that get higher and higher... until they drown people! This means "danger!" The loud noise and the storm also mean "danger!" That danger was maybe when Assyria, Egypt and Babylon attacked Judah and Israel. This happened many times between 750 and 590 B.C.

Verse 4: But God is stronger than Assyria, Egypt and Babylon. Or, if the first meaning is correct, stronger than the waters in Genesis 1:6-10.

Verse 5 The rules of God are in the Bible. Psalms 119 says a lot about God’s rules. The house of God is usually the temple in Jerusalem. The temple was a special house that Solomon built. When Babylon destroyed Jerusalem, they also destroyed the temple. But, after the *exile, the *Jews built it again. If the second meaning is the correct one, then this means the new temple. They believed that God lived in this house. And God is good. That made his house special. It made it beautiful.

Something to do

1. Study Psalms 119 in this series of Psalms. It is in Book 5 of "The Psalms of David". Learn about the rules (or laws) of God.

2. Read Isaiah 8:7-8. This will tell you about Assyria and the River Euphrates.

3. Read Jeremiah 46:7-8. This will tell you about Egypt and the River Nile.

4. Read Psalms 46:3; Psalms 89:9 and Isaiah 17:12-13. This will tell you that the sea is a picture of God’s enemies.

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.
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.
royal ~ a word that describes a king.
Jew ~ someone who was born from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their children.
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.
Zion ~ Jerusalem, the City of God.
exile ~ away from your own country.