Psalm 24

Overview

    This Psalm praises the Lord, placing Him up on High. It begins with the explanation that everything belongs to God: the earth, the people, all who dwell here, because He created it all. If He is so above us all, who can be near Him? Only those who have clean and pure hands and hearts; those who seek His face. He is the King of glory! And there is a lot of repetition at the end to emphasize and add exclamation points to this fact that God is the King of glory.

Characters

The earth, the Lord, those who dwell in the earth, the generation of those who seek him.

Key Verse

For my key verses I will choose 5-6.

“He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Selah”

Cross References

Genesis 22:17, 18 “I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”

Isaiah 46:13 “I bring near my righteousness; it is not far off, and my salvation will not delay; I will put my salvation in Zion, for Israel my glory.”

Isaiah 56:1 “Thus says the Lord: “Keep justice, and do righteousness, for soon my salvation will come, and my righteousness be revealed.”

Psalm 27:9 “Hide not your face from me. Turn not your servant away in anger, O you who have been my help. Cast me not off; forsake me not, O God of my salvation!”

Psalm 38:22 “Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation!”

Psalm 51:14 “Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.”

Psalm 88:1 “O Lord, God of my salvation; I cry out day and night before you.”

Psalm 14:5 “There they are in great terror, for God is with the generation of the righteous.”

Psalm 27:8 “You have said, “Seek my face.” My heart says to you, “Your face, Lord, do I seek.”‘

Psalm 105:4 “Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually!”

Conclusion

This Psalm always makes me think of the time when God invited everyone up the mountain with Moses to meet Him, and to enter into their own relationships with him, and the people don’t want to go. Instead they tell Moses, as we do with our pastors and leaders in church, “You go talk to God, and come back and tell us what He says.” I pray that all of us ae bold and fully enter into our relationships with God, He wants us to seek His face. Verses 3-6 together express that those who seek Him are the ones who are righteous, because we receive righteousness from Him. We are this generation seeking Him.

As an aside, I love reading the ESV instead of the NIV because it is easier to not get into a rut of merely skimming the Scripture because of the familiar passages in the NIV. Also, the new words I learn from the ESV are fun, like, bloodguiltiness. Amazing word! There are big words in the commentary, too, today, but they make the points I want to make so well, I will quote them. Don’t fear the dictionary.

Jesus in the Psalm

    “The greatness of God humbles the human being who lives in his presence, but the Creator’s ownership of the earth assures the believer that all its resources are gifts from a gracious sovereign (v. 1; cf. 1 Cor. 10:26). Kind welcome into the presence of God is not universal, however. The Lord demands a sincere heart and is not pleased with perfunctory, arid worship (Ps. 15:1-5; Isa. 1:11-17).”

1 Corinthians 10:26 “For “the earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof.””

CLICK HERE to review our Psalm 15 study.

Isaiah 1:11-17 “”What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? Says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. “When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations—I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.”

Matthew 5:8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

Romans 1:16-17 “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.””

The only way we receive this welcome is by the salvation that comes through Jesus Christ.

“David may have reflected on this grace as he led the ark into the sanctuary (2 Samuel 6).” David entered the throne room of God in this way, and saw he was not worthy. But none of us are, except through Christ giving us that worth by his death and resurrection. “The one united to Christ by faith has then been brought into the throne room of God’s grace and may therefore enter boldly by prayer (Heb. 4:16).”

2 Samuel 6:2b, 9, 17 “…the ark of God, which is called by the name of the Lord of hosts who sits enthroned on the cherubim…And David was afraid of the Lord that day, and he said, “How can the ark of the Lord come to me?”…And they brought in the ark of the Lord and set it in its place, inside the tent that David had pitched for it. And David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord.”

Hebrews 9:24 “For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.”

Hebrews 4:16 “Let us with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Tomorrow: Psalm 25

*Note: I am using the ESV Gospel Transformation Bible for the Jesus in the Psalm section, so these are paraphrases and quotes from the commentary with my own ideas sprinkled in.

Thank you for reading. I am excited to hear your key verses, observations, and thoughts! Please leave a comment to share them with us.

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