Psalm 138:1 - "Before the gods I sing your praise"
#3 in our verse-by-verse study of Psalm 138.
I give you thanks, O LORD, with my whole heart;
before the gods I sing your praise; (ESV)
Introduction
In our last installment of our study through Psalm 138, we looked at the first line of verse 1, “I give you thanks, O LORD, with my whole heart.” You can review that study by clicking here.
Today, we look at the second line, “before the gods I sing your praise.”
Let’s get started.
“Before the gods”
In line one of this verse, the psalmist is describing something going on inside of him. Inside of him he is filled with gratitude to God. He is telling God how how thankful he is and he is doing it, as he says, “with my whole heart.”
In the second line, the psalmist is describing something going on outside of him. It’s something that’s intentional and bold.
Specifically, the psalmist says this outward and bold activity is being done “before the gods,” but what exactly does that mean? Does that mean there are other gods? Does that mean the psalmist is participating in some pagan ritual? The ESV Study Bible mentions three possibly alternatives for the meaning of this phrase.
First, it could possibly be referring to angels. The wording here used used for “gods” is the same as that used to refer to angelic beings in Psalm 8:5. The Study Bible also says that “others suppose these are human rulers.” Psalm 82:1 is used to support this idea. Finally, “still others think these are false deities.”
But which one is it? And does it matter?
Of course it matters because there is always a best best interpretation of Scripture and we, by the power of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:14), should always strive to know the Bible correctly. However, in this passage we aren’t being given a command, but rather we are seeing obedience to a command.
The Bible is full of commands to praise God and it also describes in many places examples of how and when this is done. For example, in Genesis 29:35, Leah praises God after having a baby. In 2 Samuel 22:50, David sings of praising God among the nations. Psalm 22:22 describes praising God “in the great congregation.” In Luke 17:11-19, ten lepers were healed by Jesus and one returned to Jesus praising God. The Apostle Paul mentions “sing[ing] praise with my spirit” in 1 Corinthians 14:15.
In fact, the book of Psalms ends with this command:
Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Praise the LORD! - Psalm 150:6 (ESV)
This is what is happening in the second line of verse 1:
“Before the gods I sing your praise.”
This point of Psalm 138:1 isn’t to give us a step-by-step instruction of how and where to praise God.1 The point here is that the psalmist is praising God! In effect, King David is telling us he is going to praise God no matter what. No matter where he is and no matter who is watching, he is going to worship the Lord.
[How we worship God is very important and there are ways to do it wrong and right. Please see footnote 1 below for an important note on this.]
“I sing your praise”
The outpouring of David’s praise - his “before the gods” praise - is done via song. As he says, “before the gods I sing your praise.”
As we noted above, this isn’t a command to praise, but rather an example of it being done. And in the same way, this isn’t a command to sing praise, but rather it is a demonstration of being obedient.
Why is this?
Because singing praise to God is a command given in Scripture.
There are many places in Scripture that command us to sing and many that describe it being done. For example, Psalm 98:1 says,
Oh sing to the Lord a new song,
for he has done marvelous things!
His right hand and his holy arm
have worked salvation for him. - Psalm 98:1 (ESV)
And as we see in Psalm 138:1, singing praise to God is really a natural response to being filled with gratitude to God.
I give you thanks, O Lord, with my whole heart;
before the gods I sing your praise. - Psalm 138:1 (ESV)
In Psalm 138, the psalmist has some things to tell us about God. God has answered his prayers. God has found him in trouble and preserved him. God has delivered him from his enemies. He knows God is faithful and God will fulfill His purposes. These things (and others, I’m sure) create in David a heart filled with thankfulness. He knows what God has done for him. His heart is so full that it overflows with praise. Actually, it overflows with singing.
In our world, many of us would rather have our fingernails pulled out slowly than to actually sing out loud and in public. It’s not something we are comfortable doing and we avoid it at all costs. But why is that? I think there are some pretty obvious reasons for this reluctance. It’s obvious that some people sound better than others when they sing. Not everyone sings like Charlotte Church and we don’t want to be embarrassed if we don’t.
Singing is also very personal and emotion-filled. By singing, many of us show the public a part of us that is rarely seen and many of us just can’t bear the thought of that happening. So we don’t sing.
But think for a moment about when we do sing, or when we don’t mind singing for others to hear.
We certainly don’t mind singing our favorite school’s fight song or cheer after a big win.
We don’t mind singing the happy birthday song for a favorite friend on special birthday at a special party.
We don’t mind singing silly songs with or to our children when they are too young to know that grown-ups aren’t supposed to sing.
The point is we sing, but we only sing when we want to sing. What does that say about how we are willing to worship the one true God?
Application
The Bible gives us to commands to praise the Lord and the Bible gives us commands to sing to the Lord, but that isn’t what we have in Psalm 138:1. No, in this verse we see examples of these commands being practiced.
So what should we take away from this verse?
Is it simply “be like David” and praise God and sing while we are doing it?
To a certain degree that is true and this isn’t a bad example to follow. However, there is something else this passage calls us to ponder. Most followers of Christ understand the Biblical command to worship God and most want to do so. But how do we do that? How do we get to the place where David was in Psalm 138? How do we get to the point where we are comfortable worshiping God - even singing to God - no matter where we are? To answer this question, let’s consider the following points.
Practice Remembering - If we want to reach Psalm 138-type worship, we need to remember what God has done for us. Typically, if we’re put on the spot to tell others something God has done for us, we clamor around for something that happened on that day. But do we practice remembering what Almighty God, a God who is sovereign and all-knowing, has done for us throughout our lives? It’s hard to move on to the next bullet point - practicing gratitude - unless we have a good strong memory of God has actually done. Think about how many times the book of Psalms mentions God bringing the Israelites out of Egypt, through the water, and eventually to the Promised Land. (For one example of this, see Psalm 66.) These events happened hundreds of years before the psalms were written, but they were constantly brought to remembrance via these songs.
Practice Gratitude - David’s “whole heart” was filled with gratitude to God and as we’ve previously discussed, he is brought to this state because he remembers what God has done (see above). We know this about David in part because we read the psalms! He remembers what God has done for Israel and he is filled with thanksgiving. But, he doesn’t just hide these thoughts in his heart. No, gratitude pours our of him. And as we know from reading the psalms, this happens frequently for him. He practices this.
Practice Worship - This psalm reminds us that David will worship God anywhere. But how did he get to the point where he would even worship God “before the gods?” Well, the above two items - remembrance and gratitude - are key elements because they feed worship. These two things lead us to the place where we want to and need to worship God. But there is also the sense that this - being a worshiper of God - is just something David does. We get the clear picture from reading the psalms that he is in the habit or practice of worshiping his God. That is just what he did and the same can be true of us. By practicing, or being intentional, with our worship we can become more consistent in our worship and more bold. How do we this? By doing it. We can praise God in the shower before work, or in our car on the way to work. We can praise God to our co-workers and we can praise God before our friends at the ballpark. We can praise God as we gather with our family around the dinner table to eat and we can praise Him with other believers each week at church.
Practice Singing - As with worshiping God described above, the more we sing to the Lord, the more we are comfortable singing to the Lord. And God wants us to sing to Him. After all, He has commanded that we do so! We all know that some of us can’t carry a tune in a bucket. But we also know that there are few things as precious as hearing one of these fellow believers bellow out their praises to God.
To be clear, it is very important how we praise God and there are right and wrong ways to do this. For example, John 4:24 tells us, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” Therefore, all worship must be done in “spirit and truth.”
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