Jubilate Deo (1928 BCP)

Jubilate Deo (1928 BCP) is Psalm 100 in the Prayer Book Psalter and an alternative canticle after the Second Lesson at Morning Prayer. Its four verses summon all lands to joyful service, confess the Lord as Creator and shepherd, call the worshipping people into his courts with thanksgiving, and praise his everlasting mercy and truth.

Prayer Book text

The canticle in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer reads:

O BE joyful in the LORD, all ye lands: * serve the LORD with gladness, and come before his presence with a song.
Be ye sure that the LORD he is God; it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; * we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
O go your way into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise; * be thankful unto him, and speak good of his Name.
For the LORD is gracious, his mercy is everlasting; * and his truth endureth from generation to generation.

The Latin incipit means “Be joyful in God.” The Prayer Book text is the Coverdale tradition of Psalm 100, arranged for singing with a colon and asterisk marking the two halves of each verse. It is not a free-standing hymn inserted into the office but inspired psalmody placed on the lips of the congregation.

Place in Morning Prayer

The 1928 order appoints a New Testament lesson and then Benedictus, with Jubilate as its stated alternative:

Then shall be read in like manner, the Second Lesson, taken out of the New Testament, according to the Table or Calendar.
And after that shall be sung or said the Hymn following. . . .
Or this Psalm.
Jubilate Deo. Psalm c.

The canticle therefore answers the Second Lesson. Its praise is shaped by the New Testament reading just heard, and it leads directly to the Apostles’ Creed or, where permitted, the Nicene Creed. In this sequence the Church hears, praises, and then confesses the faith.

The Morning Prayer rubric also permits the Gloria Patri after Jubilate:

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, * and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, * world without end. Amen.

This doxology gives an explicitly Trinitarian conclusion to the psalm. The Lord whose goodness, mercy, and truth the psalm celebrates is praised as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Joyful service and praise

“O be joyful” is a command addressed to “all ye lands.” The joy is neither private optimism nor entertainment: it takes the form of serving the Lord, coming before him, giving thanks, and speaking well of his Name. Hebrews describes Christian praise in similarly verbal and sacrificial terms:

By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.

The phrase “by him” grounds the Church’s praise in Jesus Christ. Jubilate’s glad service is thus compatible with the confession and absolution that precede it in Morning Prayer: forgiven worshippers offer thanksgiving through the Son, not confidence in their own merit.

Creator and workmanship

“It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves” first confesses creaturely dependence. Human beings do not originate or own themselves; the Lord is God and Creator. In the Church’s Christian reading, Paul’s description of salvation by grace and of believers as God’s workmanship deepens rather than erases that created dependence:

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Not of works, lest any man should boast.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

Jubilate therefore excludes self-creation and self-salvation without excluding obedient service. God makes his people; grace saves them; and the good works in which they walk are themselves prepared by God.

The people and sheep of God

The psalm joins identity to dependence: “we are his people” is immediately explained by “the sheep of his pasture.” Jesus takes up this shepherd language in St. John’s Gospel:

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.
I and my Father are one.

The flock belongs to Christ, hears his voice, and follows him. The canticle’s pastoral image consequently carries both comfort and vocation: the sheep are kept by the Father and the Son, and they answer the shepherd’s voice in glad obedience.

Thanksgiving, mercy, and truth

The movement into God’s “gates” and “courts” is a movement into public worship. Thanksgiving is not merely an inward feeling; the worshippers “speak good of his Name.” Psalm 89 closely joins the same divine mercy and truth to praise across generations:

I will sing of the mercies of the LORD for ever: with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations.
For I have said, Mercy shall be built up for ever: thy faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens.

The final line of Jubilate supplies the reason for every preceding imperative. The Lord is gracious; his mercy does not expire; and his truth outlasts any single congregation. The Church can teach the same praise to the next generation because its object does not change.

Historical Anglican interpretation

William Palmer located the Prayer Book canticle within the older English morning office and interpreted it as an answer to the lesson:

This was read amongst the Psalms of lauds in the office of Salisbury, and other English churches; and the only difference between its present and former position is, that it was formerly read before the lesson, and is now read after it. Amalarius, A.D. 820, speaks of this psalm as used in lauds.

Benedictus and Jubilate Deo, either of which may be used in this place, are to be regarded in the light of responsories to the second lesson, according to the ancient custom of the Christian church, by which psalms and lessons were appointed to be said alternately.

Palmer’s evidence distinguishes continuity from mere immobility. Psalm 100 had belonged to English lauds before the Reformation; the Prayer Book retained it while moving it to follow a lesson. Its function is responsive: Scripture heard becomes Scripture sung.

The first edition of the Ritualist manual Directorium Anglicanum offered a specifically Christological reading of the shepherd image:

The Jubilate is however recommended for Sundays, as at least on a par with Benedictus. For it is distinctly a Sunday Lauds feature, (see Freeman, Vol. i., p. 357,) probably as referring to the resurrection of “that Great Shepherd of His sheep,” (“we are His people and the sheep of His pasture.”) It is also highly and purely jubilant, whereas Benedictus, as pertaining to S. John Baptist, has a penitential touch.

Purchas was commenting on an older English rubric, not legislating for the 1928 American book. His interpretation nevertheless clarifies why the canticle is apt on the Lord’s Day: the shepherd confessed in Psalm 100 is read in the light of the risen “great shepherd of the sheep” (Hebrews 13:20). Benedictus emphasizes redemption, covenant, and the prophetic ministry of St. John Baptist; Jubilate answers with universal thanksgiving, creation, divine ownership, and enduring mercy.

Use in worship

When Jubilate is chosen, it should be read or sung as a response to the appointed Second Lesson. The lesson may bring one clause into particular relief: a passage on creation illuminates “he hath made us”; a Gospel passage on Christ the shepherd illuminates “the sheep of his pasture”; and a passage on grace or covenant mercy illuminates the final verse. The congregation’s response remains the whole psalm rather than a detached theme.

Its compact structure also makes it useful for catechesis:

• verse 1 teaches joyful service and vocal praise;
• verse 2 teaches that God is Creator and that his people belong to him;
• verse 3 teaches thanksgiving in the gathered worship of God;
• verse 4 grounds praise in God’s gracious character, everlasting mercy, and enduring truth.

Sung with the Gloria Patri, Jubilate joins Israel’s psalm to the Church’s Trinitarian confession. Followed by the Creed, it also shows the characteristic movement of Morning Prayer from hearing the Word, to answering in praise, to professing the faith.

See also

• Benedictus (1928 BCP)
• Psalm 100 (1928 BCP)
• Psalms in Morning Prayer (1928 BCP)
• Daily Office (1928 BCP)

External links

• The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: The Standard Book
• William Palmer, Origines Liturgicæ, section XIII
• John Purchas, ed., Directorium Anglicanum, pages 86–119a