John Calvin Commentary Psalms 99:5

"Exalt ye Jehovah our God, And worship at his footstool: Holy is he." — Psalms 99:5 (ASV)

Exalt Jehovah our God. This exhortation is properly addressed to the Church alone, because having been made a partaker of the grace of God, she should the more zealously devote herself to His service and to the love of godliness. The Psalmist, therefore, calls upon the Jews to exalt that God from whom they had received such clear help, and instructs them to render that worship appointed in His Law.

Indeed, the temple is frequently called in other places God’s seat, or house, or rest, or dwelling place; here it is called His footstool, and there is an excellent reason for this metaphor. For God desired to dwell in the midst of His people in such a way as not only to direct their thoughts to the outward temple and to the ark of the covenant, but rather to elevate them to things above.

Hence, the term "house" or "dwelling place" tended to impart courage and confidence to them, so that all the faithful might have boldness to draw near to God freely, whom they saw coming to meet them of His own accord.

But as the minds of men are prone to superstition, it was necessary to check this propensity, so that they would not associate fleshly and earthly things with their notions of God, and their thoughts become wholly engrossed by the outward forms of worship. The prophet, therefore, in calling the temple God’s footstool, desires the godly to elevate their thoughts above it, for He fills heaven and earth with His infinite glory.

Nevertheless, by these means He reminds us that true worship can be paid to God nowhere else than on Mount Zion. For he employs a style of writing that is calculated to elevate the minds of the godly above the world and, at the same time, does not in any way detract from the holiness of the temple, which alone of all places on earth God had chosen as the place where He was to be worshipped.

From this we can see, since the days of Augustine, how futilely many perplex themselves in trying to determine the reason for the prophet ordering God’s footstool to be worshipped. Augustine's answer is ingenious. If, he says, we look to Christ’s manhood, we will perceive a reason why we can worship the footstool of God and yet not be guilty of idolatry; for that body in which He wishes to be worshipped He took from the earth, and on this earth nothing else than God is worshipped, for the earth is both the habitation of the Deity, and God Himself condescended to become earth.

All this is very plausible, but it is foreign to the prophet's design, who, intending to distinguish between legal worship (which was the only worship that God sanctioned) and the superstitious rites of the heathen, calls the children of Abraham to the temple, as to their standard, there, in a spiritual manner, to worship God, because He dwells in celestial glory.

Now that the shadowy dispensation has passed away, I believe that God can only be properly worshipped when we come to Him directly through Christ, in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells. It would be improper and absurd for anyone to designate Him a footstool. For the prophet merely spoke in this way to show that God was not confined to the visible temple, but that He is to be sought for above all heavens, since He is elevated above the whole world.

The frantic bishops of Greece, in the Second Council of Nicaea, very shamefully perverted this passage when they tried to prove from it that God was to be worshipped by images and pictures. The reason assigned for exalting Jehovah our God, and worshipping at His footstool, contains an antithesis: He is holy. For the prophet, in hallowing the name of the one God, declares all the idols of the heathen to be unholy; as if to say, Although the heathen claim for their idols an imaginary sanctity, they are nevertheless utter vanity, an offense, and an abomination. Some translate this clauses for it is holy; but it will appear from the end of the psalm that it was the prophet’s design by this title to distinguish God from all idols.