Psalm 100 Commentary

It will never happen of course but sometimes one could wish that for certain absolutely key vocabulary words in Hebrew or Greek, all Bible translations in English (or in any language) could agree on one translation of that word that would get used consistently every time it occurs.  That way readers of the translation would always know it is that specific word being invoked there.  As it is, however, there are some words that are so rich in meaning, they get translated differently in all the different places where they occur.  The Hebrew word chesed is one such word.  It is very hard to come up with a single word in any language that fully captures the many-faceted nuances of this word.  You find words like this once in a while in various languages.

The Dutch language has the word gezellig and there is a similar word in German, gemuetlich or Gemuetlichkeit.  Native speakers of Dutch or German know what these words mean when they hear them but just try to come up with a single English translation that captures all of what it means.  Both words conjure up a convivial atmosphere, a place that is comforting and snug and cozy and warm and quaint and friendly and relaxing and . . .  Well, when you are in a gezellig or gemuetlich place, you know it!

Chesed is like that as it relates to the character of Israel’s God, Yahweh.  And so the word gets rendered as “kindness” or “lovingkindness.”  Sometimes it’s just rendered as “love.”  Sometimes it gets rendered as “grace” or “mercy” or in the final line of Psalm 100 in the NIV and some other translations, it is “faithfulness.”

Whatever chesed is, it is the core characteristic of Israel’s God, and in the psalms and elsewhere it is also the #1 reason on the doxological hit parade to praise God.  When we enter God’s courts with singing and praise as Psalm 100 says we should, it is at the end of the day the chesed of God that animates us most of all.

Why?  Why is this the indispensable trait of God?  There are lots of reasons for this but one of the leading ones is that it is this characteristic of God that most directly leads to our very salvation.  This is the very heart of the God who could not just abandon us to our self-chosen sin and misery.  This is the heart of the God who sought out Adam and Eve moments after they screwed up the shalom God had put into place and who, upon finding them, very quickly announced a rescue operation.

And those translations that render this as “faithfulness” are not wrong because chesed goes to also God’s “stick-to-itiveness” with people like Israel and us who keep finding it possible to make really bad choices over and over.  If God was ever tempted to say of Adam and Eve or all others who followed in their wake, “Oh to hell with all of it—literally!”, then it was God’s faithfulness that made him stay with us despite it all.

In Ephesians 2 the Apostle Paul wrote something that is downright striking.  “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.  For it is by grace you have been saved.”

In most of the typical ways we use the word “kindness,” the word comes across as soft and fuzzy (but in good ways).  Kindness is akin to being nice.  And niceness is a form of being polite.  Kindness definitely greases the skids of life in ways that make life better for those around us but when you see Paul applying kindness to nothing short of the work Jesus did to suffer and die on our behalf, well, suddenly kindness looks like it packs a wallop!  But again, Paul is in touch there with this Old Testament sense of the chesed or the loving-kindness of God that lies at the very root of all that saves us from our sin and from our thralldom to death.

When we gather for worship to this day—when we metaphorically but also in a sense literally enter God’s gates—we sing because all of this is true of our God.  Psalm 100 is one of the best-known of the 150 Psalms and it is also one of the shortest.  It is in one sense also one of the simplest of all those Hebrew songs and poems.  It is a straightforward call to worship.  Yet it encompasses a lot.  It is a reminder that God is Creator.  It is a reminder that God is Redeemer.  Creation and Redemption are the two biggest themes of the whole Bible.  So Psalm 100 covers a lot of ground in a few short words.  And by weaving in chesed at the very end, it catches up the whole of God too.

Not bad for a psalm that contains only about three dozen words in the original Hebrew!

Illustration Idea

In a seminar I co-lead for preachers, we look at how a robust program of general reading feeds the practice of creative preaching.  One of the types of literature we suggest that helps to nurture preaching is children’s literature and also middle grade fiction.  Wise preachers know they can learn much from writers like Kate DiCamillo or Gary Schmidt or Katherine Paterson or Kwame Alexander who are able simultaneously to write at a simple level and yet a very deep level.  It is what my seminar colleague Neal Plantinga calls a “second simplicity.”  This is a simplicity that lies just beyond the most basic level of a simple thing.  All piano students sooner or later learn how to plink out the simple tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”  But when no less a composer than Mozart wrote a variation on this tune, you get something that is at once simple and complex—you get a second simplicity whose refinement helps you re-appreciate the original.

So also with Psalm 100.  It plays in one sense a tune as simple as “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”  It is in one sense as simple as a Kindergarten guide to praise.  Yet there is a complexity here too that helps us understand afresh the basics of who God is and why we praise God and all that is involved in God’s sticking with us in his immense kindness and grace.  It is a second simplicity and it is in this way a deep and profound simplicity as well.