Psalm 99 (1928 BCP)
Psalm 99 (1928 BCP) is the royal Psalm Dominus regnavit in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer Psalter. Appointed at Evening Prayer on the Nineteenth Day after Psalms 95–98, it joins confession of the LORD’s kingship to adoration of his holiness, remembrance of Israel’s intercessors, and the difficult truth that God both forgives and judges.
Prayer Book Text
The 1928 Psalter gives the Psalm in three movements, each marked by holiness. Its opening sets the LORD’s reign above the commotion of peoples and earth.
THE LORD is King, be the people never so impatient; * he sitteth between the Cherubim, be the earth never so unquiet. 2 The LORD is great in Sion, * and high above all people. 3 They shall give thanks unto thy Name, * which is great, wonderful, and holy.
Kingship here is not arbitrary power. The next verses bind the King’s strength to equity, righteousness, and worship before the divine footstool.
The King’s power loveth judgment; thou hast prepared equity, * thou hast executed judgment and righteousness in Jacob. 5 O magnify the LORD our God, and fall down before his footstool; * for he is holy.
The final movement names Moses, Aaron, and Samuel as those who called upon the LORD. It does not turn their prayer into an exemption from correction: the same God hears, forgives, and punishes wicked doings.
Moses and Aaron among his priests, and Samuel among such as call upon his Name: * these called upon the LORD, and he heard them. 7 He spake unto them out of the cloudy pillar; * for they kept his testimonies, and the law that he gave them. 8 Thou heardest them, O LORD our God; * thou forgavest them, O God, though thou didst punish their wicked doings. 9 O magnify the LORD our God, and worship him upon his holy hill; * for the LORD our God is holy.
Holiness, Justice, and Worship
The repeated “holy” is the Psalm’s theological centre. It begins with the holiness of the Name, directs worship to the LORD’s appointed footstool, and ends with “the LORD our God is holy.” The sequence keeps sovereignty, justice, and praise together: God’s rule is good precisely because it is holy, and worship is an answer to that reality rather than a technique for controlling it.
The third, the fifth, and in effect the ninth verses, end with this expression, which seems to be a kind of chorus, and thus divides the psalm into three parts. The first part terminates with ascribing holiness to the name of Jehovah; the second with attributing the same property to his abode; and at the conclusion, holiness, essential, infinite, and immutable holiness, is ascribed to Jehovah himself.
Calvin’s observation is a useful description of the Psalm’s literary shape, not a reason to detach its three refrains from Israel’s concrete worship. Psalm 99 remembers Zion, the cloud, law, priests, and prophets. It therefore confronts a congregation with the God who makes a people holy by drawing them into truthful worship and righteous life.
Intercession and a Holy People
The names in verse 6 are not ornamental. Moses, Aaron, and Samuel embody prayer offered for the people before the God who answers; their inclusion makes the Psalm communal rather than merely private. In the New Testament, the Church hears a related vocation—not the replacement of Israel’s story, but a summons to bear public witness to the One who called it.
But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.
The apostolic language helps Christians pray Psalm 99 without claiming Moses, Aaron, or Samuel as though their particular offices had simply become ours. Rather, the Church’s priestly calling is praise and witness, ordered by the holiness and mercy of the God who calls. The Psalm’s account of answered intercession also prevents that calling from becoming self-congratulation.
The Psalmist magnifies the special grace which God in a very remarkable manner vouchsafed to the seed of Abraham, that thence he chose for himself prophets and priests to be, as it were, mediators between him and the people, to ratify the covenant of salvation.
Calvin’s language here describes the Psalm’s memory of Israel’s covenantal mediators. Christian prayer should preserve that historical sense even as it confesses the unique mediation of Christ and prays for the Church’s ministers and people.
Forgiveness and Judgment
Verse 8 refuses both despair and presumption. The Prayer Book’s “thou forgavest them ... though thou didst punish their wicked doings” holds mercy and moral seriousness together. Forgiveness is not divine indifference to evil; discipline is not the denial of God’s covenant mercy.
The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, 7 Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty.
That Exodus confession supplies the Scriptural horizon for the Psalm’s paradox: the LORD is merciful and forgiving, yet neither injustice nor persistent rebellion is treated as harmless. In pastoral use, Psalm 99 gives words for repentance that neither minimize sin nor doubt that God hears those who call upon him.
A Christian Reading
Christians have historically read the Psalms in the light of Christ. Such a reading must begin with the Psalm’s actual voice—the God of Israel reigning in Zion and answering his servants—rather than treating its concrete imagery as disposable. Augustine’s sermon is a clear example of an explicitly Christological reading, offered after he has named the prior Scriptures as the Church’s Scriptures.
Our whole design is, when we hear a Psalm, a Prophet, or the Law, all of which was written before our Lord Jesus Christ came in the flesh, to see Christ there, to understand Christ there.
Augustine’s is a historic theological interpretation, not a substitute for the Psalm’s literal and liturgical setting. Read with that distinction in view, the repeated acclamation of the holy King becomes Christian praise of the risen Christ without erasing the Psalm’s witness to the LORD’s faithfulness to Israel.
Use in the Daily Office
The 1928 Psalter appoints Psalm 99 at Evening Prayer on the Nineteenth Day, following Psalms 95–98. In that sequence, the Psalm’s adoration of the holy King gathers up the call to worship, worldwide praise, and righteous judgment that precede it. It may be said or sung as the Office’s appointed psalmody; the Prayer Book gives the Gloria Patri its proper doxological place after a Psalm or the day’s whole portion.
Then shall follow a Portion of the Psalms, according to the Use of this Church. And at the end of every Psalm ... may be sung or said the Gloria Patri; and at the end of the whole portion or Selection of Psalms for the day, shall be sung or said the Gloria Patri, or else the Gloria in excelsis.
The Office therefore sets Psalm 99 within the Church’s repeated offering of Scripture and praise. Its final “the LORD our God is holy” does not leave worshippers with an abstraction; it sends them from confession of God’s holiness to the patient practice of justice, repentance, and intercession.
See Also
External Links
- The 1928 BCP Psalter: Psalms 95–99
- Calvin, Commentary on Psalm 99:5–9
- Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 99
References
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church (New York: Church Pension Fund, 1928), The Psalter, “The Nineteenth Day, Evening Prayer,” Psalm 99, Dominus regnavit, verses 1–3; 1928 BCP Psalter at Justus Anglican.
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (1928), The Psalter, “The Nineteenth Day, Evening Prayer,” Psalm 99, Dominus regnavit, verses 4–5; 1928 BCP Psalter at Justus Anglican.
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (1928), The Psalter, “The Nineteenth Day, Evening Prayer,” Psalm 99, Dominus regnavit, verses 6–9; 1928 BCP Psalter at Justus Anglican.
- ↑ John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms, vol. 4, trans. James Anderson (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1849), Psalm 99:5–9, note on verse 5; Christian Classics Ethereal Library edition.
- ↑ The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version (Cambridge: University Press, 1769), 1 Peter 2:9; BibleGateway text.
- ↑ John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms, vol. 4, trans. James Anderson (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1849), Psalm 99:6; Christian Classics Ethereal Library edition.
- ↑ The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version (Cambridge: University Press, 1769), Exodus 34:6–7; BibleGateway text.
- ↑ Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 99, §1, trans. J. E. Tweed, in Philip Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 8 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888); New Advent transcription.
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: Church Pension Fund, 1928), “The Order for Evening Prayer,” rubric following the Psalm portion; 1928 Evening Prayer at Justus Anglican.