John Calvin Commentary Psalms 47:1

"Oh clap your hands, all ye peoples; Shout unto God with the voice of triumph." — Psalms 47:1 (ASV)

Clap your hands, all you peoples. As the Psalmist requires the nations to clap their hands as a sign of their joy and thanksgiving to God—or rather, as he exhorts them to a more than ordinary joy, the vehemence of which breaks forth and manifests itself by external expressions—it is certain that he is here speaking of the deliverance God had worked for them.

If God had established among the Gentiles some formidable kingdom, this would rather have deprived all of their courage and overwhelmed them with despair, than given them reason to sing and leap for joy. Besides, the inspired writer does not here discuss some common or ordinary blessings of God, but such blessings as will fill the whole world with incredible joy and stir up all people to celebrate the praises of God.

What he adds a little later, that all nations were brought into subjection to Israel, must, therefore, necessarily be understood not of slavish subjection, but of a subjection that is more excellent and more desirable than all the kingdoms of the world. It would be unnatural for those who are subdued and brought to submit by force and fear to leap for joy. Many nations were tributary to David and to his son Solomon; but while they were so, they did not cease, at the same time, to murmur and impatiently bore the yoke imposed upon them; they were so far from giving thanks to God with joyful and cheerful hearts.

Since, then, no servitude is happy and desirable except that by which God subdues and brings under the standard and authority of Christ his Son those who before were rebels, it follows that this language is applicable only to the kingdom of Christ, who is called a high and terrible King (Psalms 47:2)—not because he makes the wretched beings over whom he reigns tremble by the tyranny and violence of his rule, but because his majesty, which before had been held in contempt, will be sufficient to quell the rebellion of the whole world.

It should be observed that the design of the Holy Spirit here is to teach that, as the Jews had long been treated with contempt, oppressed with wrongs, and afflicted from time to time with various calamities, the goodness and liberality of God towards them was now all the more illustrious when the kingdom of David had subdued the neighboring nations on every side and had attained such a height of glory.

We may, however, easily gather from the context the truth of what I have suggested: that when God is called a terrible and great King over all the earth, this prophecy applies to the kingdom of Christ. There is, therefore, no doubt that God’s grace was celebrated by these titles to strengthen the hearts of the godly during the intervening period until the advent of Christ. During this time, not only had the triumphant state of the people of Israel fallen into decay, but the people, oppressed with the most bitter contempt, could also have no taste of God’s favor and no consolation from it, except by relying on God’s promises alone.

We know that there was a long interruption of the splendor of the kingdom of God’s ancient people, which continued from the death of Solomon to the coming of Christ. This interval formed, as it were, a gulf or chasm, which would have swallowed up the minds of the godly if they had not been supported and upheld by the Word of God.

Therefore, since God exhibited in the person of David a type of the kingdom of Christ, which is extolled here—even though a sad and almost shameful diminution of the glory of David’s kingdom followed shortly after, then the most grievous calamities, and finally, the captivity and a most miserable dispersion, which differed little from total destruction—the Holy Spirit has exhorted the faithful to continue clapping their hands for joy until the advent of the promised Redeemer.