John Calvin Commentary Psalms 9:11

"Sing praises to Jehovah, who dwelleth in Zion: Declare among the people his doings." — Psalms 9:11 (ASV)

Sing unto Jehovah. David, not content with giving thanks individually and for himself, exhorts the faithful to unite with him in praising God. He urges this not only because it is their duty to encourage one another in this religious exercise, but also because the deliverances he discusses were worthy of being celebrated publicly and solemnly. This is expressed more clearly in the second clause, where he commands them to be published among the nations.

The meaning is that God’s deliverances are not published or celebrated as they deserve unless the whole world is filled with their renown. To proclaim God’s deeds among the nations was indeed, so to speak, singing to the deaf. However, by this way of speaking, David intended to show that the territory of Judea was too small to contain the infinite greatness of Jehovah’s praises.

He gives God this title, He who dwelleth in Sion, to distinguish him from all the false gods of the Gentiles. In this phrase, there is a tacit comparison between the God who made his covenant with Abraham and Israel, and all the gods who, in every other part of the world except Judea, were worshipped according to the blind and depraved imaginations of men.

It is not enough for people to honor and reverence some deity indiscriminately or randomly; they must distinctly offer to the only living and true God the worship that belongs to him and that he commands.

Moreover, since God had particularly chosen Sion as the place where his name might be called upon, David very properly assigns it to him as his special dwelling place. This is not because it is permissible to try to confine Him—whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain (1 Kings 8:1)—in any particular place, but because, as we will later see (Psalms 132:12), he had promised to make it his resting place forever.

David did not assign God a dwelling place there according to his own imagination; rather, he understood by a revelation from heaven that this was the pleasure of God himself, as Moses had often predicted (Deuteronomy 12:1). This strongly supports what I have said before: that this psalm was not composed on the occasion of David’s victory over Goliath, for it was only towards the end of David’s reign that the ark of the covenant was moved to Sion according to God’s commandment.

The conjecture of some that David spoke by the Spirit of prophecy about the ark’s residence on Sion as a future event seems to me unnatural and forced. Furthermore, we see that the holy fathers, when they went to Sion to offer sacrifices to God, did not act merely as their own minds suggested. Instead, what they did came from faith in God’s word and was done in obedience to his command; therefore, they were approved by him for their religious service.

From this it follows that there is no basis whatever to use their example as an argument or excuse for religious observances that superstitious men have invented for themselves by their own imagination.

Besides, it was not enough for the faithful in those days to depend on God’s word and to engage in the ceremonial services he required. Aided by external symbols, they also had to elevate their minds above these observances and offer spiritual worship to God.

Indeed, God gave real signs of his presence in that visible sanctuary, but not to confine the senses and thoughts of his people to earthly elements. He rather wished that these external symbols would serve as ladders by which the faithful could ascend even to heaven. From the beginning, God’s design in appointing the sacraments and all outward religious exercises was to accommodate the weakness and limited capacity of his people.

Therefore, even today, their true and proper use is to help us seek God spiritually in his heavenly glory, not to preoccupy our minds with worldly things or keep them fixed on fleshly vanities—a subject we will have a more suitable opportunity to discuss more fully later.

And just as the Lord in ancient times, when he called himself He who dwelleth in Sion, intended to give his people a full and solid basis for trust, tranquility, and joy, so even now—after the law has come from Sion and the covenant of grace has flowed to us from that source—let us know and be fully convinced that wherever the faithful are gathered to engage in solemn acts of religious worship, worshipping him purely and properly according to the instruction of his word, he is graciously present and presides in their midst.