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Psalm 66

Praise for God’s Goodness to Israel

To the leader. A Song. A Psalm.

Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth;

sing the glory of his name;

give to him glorious praise.

Say to God, “How awesome are your deeds!

Because of your great power, your enemies cringe before you.

All the earth worships you;

they sing praises to you,

sing praises to your name.” Selah

Come and see what God has done:

he is awesome in his deeds among mortals.

He turned the sea into dry land;

they passed through the river on foot.

There we rejoiced in him,

who rules by his might forever,

whose eyes keep watch on the nations—

let the rebellious not exalt themselves. Selah

Bless our God, O peoples,

let the sound of his praise be heard,

who has kept us among the living,

and has not let our feet slip.

For you, O God, have tested us;

you have tried us as silver is tried.

You brought us into the net;

you laid burdens on our backs;

you let people ride over our heads;

we went through fire and through water;

yet you have brought us out to a spacious place.

I will come into your house with burnt offerings;

I will pay you my vows,

those that my lips uttered

and my mouth promised when I was in trouble.

I will offer to you burnt offerings of fatlings,

with the smoke of the sacrifice of rams;

I will make an offering of bulls and goats. Selah

Come and hear, all you who fear God,

and I will tell what he has done for me.

I cried aloud to him,

and he was extolled with my tongue.

If I had cherished iniquity in my heart,

the Lord would not have listened.

But truly God has listened;

he has given heed to the words of my prayer.

Blessed be God,

because he has not rejected my prayer

or removed his steadfast love from me.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

7. He ruleth by his power over the world The Hebrew word עולם, olam, which I have translated the world, signifies occasionally an age, or eternity; ⁴⁷⁴⁴⁷⁴ Our English version renders the word in this last sense. Hammond, with Calvin, prefers reading, “over the world.” “That עולם,” says he, “ἄιὼν, as the English age, signifies not only time and duration, but also the men that live in any time, there is no question. And then מושל עולם, must here most properly be rendered ruling the world, or over the world; and so the Chaldee certainly understood, who read, ‘who exerciseth dominion over the world;’ and so I suppose the LXX. their ‘δεσπόξουτι τοῦ ἀιῶνος,’ ‘having dominion over the world,’ doth import.” The Vulgate, in this instance not following the Septuagint, has “in aeternum,” “for ever.” but the first sense seems to agree best with the context, and the meaning of the words is, that God is endued with the power necessary for wielding the government of the world. What follows agrees with this, that his eyes behold the nations Under the law, Judea was the proper seat of his kingdom; but his providence always extended to the world at large; and the special favor shown to the posterity of Abraham, in consideration of the covenant, did not prevent him from extending an eye of providential consideration to the surrounding nations. As an evidence of his care reaching to the different countries round, he takes notice of the judgments which God executed upon the wicked and the ungodly. He proves that there was no part of the human family which God overlooked, by referring to the fact of the punishment of evil-doers. There may be much in the Divine administration of the world calculated to perplex our conclusions; but there are always some tokens to be seen of his judgments, and these sufficiently clear to strike the eye of an acute and attentive observer.

⁴⁷⁴ Our English version renders the word in this last sense. Hammond, with Calvin, prefers reading, “over the world.” “That עולם,” says he, “ἄιὼν, as the English age, signifies not only time and duration, but also the men that live in any time, there is no question. And then מושל עולם, must here most properly be rendered ruling the world, or over the world; and so the Chaldee certainly understood, who read, ‘who exerciseth dominion over the world;’ and so I suppose the LXX. their ‘δεσπόξουτι τοῦ ἀιῶνος,’ ‘having dominion over the world,’ doth import.” The Vulgate, in this instance not following the Septuagint, has “in aeternum,” “for ever.”