Psalms 66
Psalm 663 opens with a summons flung out to the ends of the earth: Make a joyful noise unto God, all ye lands: sing forth the honour of his name: make his praise glorious. This is not a private devotion or a quiet word in a corner. It is a command to the whole world to lift a loud, glad shout to God - and to mean it, to make his praise glorious. And the reason the nations are called to praise is not abstract. They are told what to say: How terrible art thou in thy works! The old word terrible here means awe-inspiring, overwhelming, the kind of greatness that makes a person small and silent - and the psalm grounds the whole earth's worship not in an idea about God but in things God has actually done.
Then comes the invitation that gives the psalm its heartbeat: Come and see the works of God: he is terrible in his doing toward the children of men. He turned the sea into dry land: they went through the flood on foot: there did we rejoice in him. The memory the psalmist reaches for is the great rescue at the sea - a whole people hemmed in against the water with no way out, and God opening a path through the deep so that they crossed over on dry ground. It is offered not as a relic of the past but as something to come and see, an open exhibit of who God is. He turned an impassable sea into a highway; He ruleth by his power for ever; His eyes behold the nations. What God did at the sea He is still able to do, and the whole earth is invited to look.
But the psalm does not stay in the past, and it does not stay general. It owns the hard road that led to deliverance - thou hast tried us, as silver is tried… we went through fire and through water: but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place - and then it does something tender. It moves from we to I. The voice that summoned the whole earth now lowers to a single grateful witness: Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul. The same person who called the nations to come and see God's public works now calls them to come and hear what God has done in one private life. And it ends on the quiet, searching note of answered prayer: If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me: But verily God hath heard me… Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me.
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Psalm 66:1-7 · To the chief Musician, A Song or PsalmCome and See the Works of God
1Make a joyful noise unto God, all ye lands: 2Sing forth the honour of his name: make his praise glorious. 3Say unto God, How terrible art thou in thy works! through the greatness of thy power shall thine enemies submit themselves unto thee. 4All the earth shall worship thee, and shall sing unto thee; they shall sing to thy name. Selah. 5Come and see the works of God: he is terrible in his doing toward the children of men. 6He turned the sea into dry land: they went through the flood on foot: there did we rejoice in him. 7He ruleth by his power for ever; his eyes behold the nations: let not the rebellious exalt themselves. Selah.
The psalm does not ease in; it opens at full volume, with a command: Make a joyful noise unto God, all ye lands. Two things in that first line are worth holding. First, the praise commanded is loud - not a hushed, careful piety but a glad shout, the full-throated noise of people who cannot keep quiet about something. Second, the audience is everyone: all ye lands. The summons leaps over the borders of Israel and lands on the whole earth. And the next verses pile up the demand - sing forth the honour of his name: make his praise glorious - as though the psalmist were not content for God to be praised quietly or grudgingly, but wanted the praise itself to be magnificent, worthy of its object. Then he tells the nations exactly what to say: How terrible art thou in thy works! We have to hear that old word rightly. Terrible does not mean dreadful in the modern sense of awful or bad; it means awe-inspiring, overwhelming, the kind of greatness that makes a person fall silent. To stand before the works of God is to be filled with that holy awe - and the psalm insists this awe is not the opposite of joy but its very fuel. The greatness that humbles us is the greatness that makes us shout.
At verse 5 the psalm issues its first great invitation: Come and see the works of God: he is terrible in his doing toward the children of men. Notice the verb - come and see. The works of God are not hidden mysteries reserved for a few; they are set out in the open, an exhibit anyone may walk up to and behold. And what the psalmist invites us to see is the same thing he commanded the nations to praise: the terrible, awe-inspiring doings of God among the children of men - not abstractions, but acts in history that bear His fingerprints. There is a real wisdom in this for faith. The psalmist does not ground worship in a feeling or a theory; he grounds it in deeds. He says, in effect, do not take my word for it - come and look at what God has actually done. This is how confidence in God is built and rebuilt: not by working up an emotion, but by going back to look again at His works - the rescues, the provisions, the answered cries - until the seeing turns again into shouting. And the works he has chiefly in mind are about to be named: the sea turned to dry land, the flood crossed on foot, the impossible made a road.
The first movement closes with a wide-angle look at the God whose great deed has just been recalled: He ruleth by his power for ever; his eyes behold the nations: let not the rebellious exalt themselves. Three steady truths are set down here, each a comfort and a warning at once. He ruleth by his power for ever - the God who split the sea is no spent force; His reign has no expiry, His power no decline. His eyes behold the nations - nothing escapes His notice; the whole sweep of human affairs, every people and every plot, lies open before Him. And from those two comes the third: let not the rebellious exalt themselves. Set against a God who rules forever and sees everything, defiance is not only wicked but absurd - a clenched fist raised at the One who turned a sea to dry land and parted an army's path to ruin. There is steadiness in this for anyone who feels the rebellious of the earth looming large. The same eyes that behold the nations behold us; the same power that ruled at the sea rules still. The proud may exalt themselves for a season, but they do it under the gaze of a King whose reign outlasts them all.
Psalm 66:8-12Tried as Silver Is Tried
8O bless our God, ye people, and make the voice of his praise to be heard: 9Which holdeth our soul in life, and suffereth not our feet to be moved. 10For thou, O God, hast proved us: thou hast tried us, as silver is tried. 11Thou broughtest us into the net; thou laidst affliction upon our loins. 12Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water: but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.
The praise widens out again - O bless our God, ye people, and make the voice of his praise to be heard - and then the psalmist names the most basic mercy of all, the one we are most prone to forget: Which holdeth our soul in life, and suffereth not our feet to be moved. Before any dramatic rescue, before the sea or the fire, there is this quiet, continual work of God - that He holdeth our soul in life. The very fact that we are alive, that breath comes and the heart beats and we are still here, is His doing and not ours; He keeps the soul in the body, moment by moment, as a steady gift. And He suffereth not our feet to be moved - He keeps us from the fatal slip, the fall that would finish us. We notice God's hand in the great deliverances and overlook it in the daily ones, but the psalmist will not. He blesses God for the ordinary miracle of being upheld - and it is worth pausing on, because the same God who once parted a sea is, this very moment, holding your soul in life. The deliverances we shout about rest on a preservation we usually take for granted.
Now the psalm does something bracing and honest: it names the suffering as God's own work, and calls it good. For thou, O God, hast proved us: thou hast tried us, as silver is tried. Then it heaps up the hard images without flinching: Thou broughtest us into the net; thou laidst affliction upon our loins. Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads. Notice the repeated thou. The psalmist does not say these troubles merely happened, or that the enemy did them while God looked away. He addresses them to God: thou didst prove us, thou didst bring us into the net, thou didst lay the affliction on. This is faith refusing the easy comfort of imagining God absent from the hard seasons. And the governing image makes sense of it all: thou hast tried us, as silver is tried. The refiner does not melt silver to destroy it but to purify it - the fire is fierce, but its purpose is the gleam of pure metal at the end. So the psalmist reads the affliction not as God's rejection but as God's refining - severe, real, sometimes crushing, but aimed at something precious. The net, the burden, the men riding roughshod over them - all of it was the furnace, and the furnace had a purpose.3
Sit for a moment with the shape of verse 12, because it is the spine of the whole psalm's theology of suffering: we went through fire and through water: but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place. Everything turns on that little word but. The fire was real; the water was real; the affliction and the net and the men riding over their heads were not imagined. The psalm does not pretend the suffering was small or that it skipped them. And yet the sentence does not end in the fire. It bends, on the hinge of but, toward deliverance: God broughtest us out, and not merely out but into a wealthy place - a place wider and richer than where they began. This is how faith learns to read a hard season while still inside it: not denying the fire, but trusting the but. The God who brought them into the testing (v. 10, thou hast proved us) is the same God who brings them out into abundance - the refining and the rescue are the work of one hand. And notice that the wealthy place is not a return to the way things were; it is a fuller place than before. The fire did not merely fail to destroy them; by the hand of God it became the road to something better. That is the hope the psalm holds out to everyone in the furnace: the fire is real, but it is not the last word; the last word is but thou broughtest us out.
Psalm 66:13-20Come and Hear What He Hath Done for My Soul
13I will go into thy house with burnt offerings: I will pay thee my vows, 14Which my lips have uttered, and my mouth hath spoken, when I was in trouble. 15I will offer unto thee burnt sacrifices of fatlings, with the incense of rams; I will offer bullocks with goats. Selah. 16Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul. 17I cried unto him with my mouth, and he was extolled with my tongue. 18If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me: 19But verily God hath heard me; he hath attended to the voice of my prayer. 20Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me.
The psalm turns now from we to I, and the first thing the single voice does is keep a promise: I will go into thy house with burnt offerings: I will pay thee my vows, which my lips have uttered, and my mouth hath spoken, when I was in trouble. Here is a window into how this worshipper passed through his own fire. When I was in trouble, he made vows - promises to God, the kind a person speaks in the depths when they cry out for help. And now that the trouble is past and he has been brought out into the wealthy place, he does not quietly forget what he said. He goes up to the house of God to pay what he vowed. There is great integrity in this. It is easy to make promises to God in the furnace - only get me through this and I will… - and just as easy to let those promises evaporate once the heat is off. The psalmist will not. The vows his lips uttered in trouble, his life now honors in peace. And the offerings he brings are not token gestures but costly ones - burnt sacrifices of fatlings… bullocks with goats - the best of the flock and herd, gratitude with a real price tag. A deliverance truly received produces a thanksgiving that actually costs something.
The psalm ends on the most searching note of all, a single condition laid down about prayer itself: If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. We must read this carefully, exactly as the psalmist means it. He does not say, if I have any sin in my heart - for then no one could ever be heard, and the very next line celebrates that God hath heard me. The word is regard. To regard iniquity in the heart is to look at it with favor, to cherish it, to nurse a sin and refuse to let it go while still asking God for help - the heart that wants the blessing of God and the keeping of its sin at the same time. That, the psalmist says, breaks prayer. A heart clinging to what it knows is wrong, unwilling to release it, has set up a wall between itself and God's ear. This is not a counsel of despair but of honesty: it calls us not to sinless perfection but to a heart that does not harbor and protect its sin, a heart willing to bring even its worst into the open before God rather than hide it and hold it dear.3 And then comes the glad turn: But verily God hath heard me; he hath attended to the voice of my prayer. The psalmist did not regard iniquity in his heart - he came with a heart willing to be cleansed - and so the line between him and God was open, and God listened. Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me. Notice how prayer and mercy are bound together in that final line: as long as God does not turn away the one, He has not turned away the other. The open ear and the steadfast mercy come together - and the psalm that began with the whole earth shouting ends with one heart blessing God that it was heard.
Further study
- The Hebrew text of Psalm 66 with Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and other classical commentators side by side - useful for rua' (v. 1, the loud shout behind “make a joyful noise”), for tsaraph (v. 10, the refiner's smelting behind “tried, as silver is tried”), and for barak (v. 8, the “bless our God”).
- Psalm 66 ↔ 1 Corinthians 10 · 1 Peter 1 · Luke 8Intertextual BibleTraces the verbal threads tying Psalm 66's he turned the sea into dry land (v. 6) to the sea-crossing read as a type of salvation (1 Cor. 10:1-4), its tried, as silver is tried… through fire (vv. 10-12) to the trial of faith tried with fire (1 Pet. 1:7), and its come and hear… what he hath done for my soul (v. 16) to the witness of those who tell what God has done (Luke 8:39).
- Psalm 66 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Psalm 66 - the force of “terrible” as awe-inspiring in verses 3 and 5, the testing-as-silver image of verse 10, the “net” and the men riding over their heads in verses 11-12, and the conditional of verse 18, “if I regard iniquity in my heart.”
Where this echoes in Scripture
Come and See the Works of God
- Exodus 14:21-22And the waters were divided. And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground.The very work recalled in verse 6 - the sea turned to dry land, the flood crossed on foot.
- 1 Corinthians 10:1-2Our fathers... all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.The sea-crossing of verse 6 read as a type - salvation pictured in passing through the waters.
- Psalm 100:1-2Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. Serve the LORD with gladness.The same opening command, the same wide audience - the whole earth shouting praise to God.
- John 1:46And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see.The invitation of verse 5 - <em>come and see</em> - carried forward to the One in whom the works of God are seen.
Tried as Silver Is Tried
- 1 Peter 1:6-7The trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire.The refining of verses 10-12 - faith tried in the fire, found unto praise at the appearing of Christ.
- Isaiah 43:2When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee... when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned.The fire and water of verse 12 - the promise that God brings His people through, not consumed.
- Isaiah 48:10Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.The same image as verse 10 - the furnace of affliction as God’s chosen refining.
- Malachi 3:3And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver... and purge them as gold and silver.The refiner behind <em>tried, as silver is tried</em> (v. 10) - God watching the metal until it is pure.
Come and Hear What He Hath Done for My Soul
- Luke 8:39Return to thine own house, and shew how great things God hath done unto thee.The witness of verse 16 - <em>declare what he hath done for my soul</em> - the rescued one sent to tell.
- John 4:29Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?The same <em>come and see / hear</em> impulse of verse 16, now pointed at Christ Himself.
- Psalm 66:18 ↔ John 9:31Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God... him he heareth.The condition of verse 18 - the cherished sin that closes the ear, set against the worshipping heart God hears.
- Psalm 51:17The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.Behind verses 18-20 - the un-regarding, contrite heart whose prayer God does not turn away.