Psalm 24:1-6 commentary

Does a scripture ever follow you around? Does it feel like you just hear and see it everywhere? This week it has been Psalm 24 that God keeps bringing to my attention to. This is a short commentary and response on Psalm 24:1-6.

This Psalm is attributed to King David whose story begins in 1 Samuel 16 if you’d like to read it. Psalms are written in the format of poems or songs so would most likely have been heard rather than read by the first audience.

The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein (verse 1)

David begins by reminding the hearer that God is the one who has ownership of the world. Everyone and everything belongs to him. We might ask - why is there pain or suffering or evil then? It’s important we read this phrase in the wider narrative of the Biblical story and this is what David reminds us of next.

for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers. (verse 2)

In the Ancient world (when this was written) seas, rivers and any similar body of water represented chaos. Chaos is the opposite to created order. Ancient creation myths talk about the creating gods battling with the waters to tame them and control them.

What’s beautiful about the creation story of the Bible, however, is that God merely speaks creation into being. There is no big battle. He tames chaos and creates order only by speaking, showing that He is the true God, the true all-powerful creator, unlike the man-made gods of the other creation myths of the time who had put in a lot of effort.

So everything belongs to God. He is the author of creation and so created order. However the reader would know that there was an outbreak of chaos (which is anti-creation) that happened because of the schemes of an evil being called the Satan and the hearts of human beings being taken in by his lies because they wanted to be like the creator God and know everything He knows, to be just as powerful and no longer under his rule. You can read this story in the first few chapters of Genesis.

The problem is, people aren’t created to be apart from God. They are created to ‘abide in him’ as Jesus puts it in John 15. They are made to bear his image, which means to be like Him and spread His goodness in all the earth. Apart from God, chaos (or sin) grips their hearts instead and they are separated from the place of closeness with their creator they are made for. This understanding fuels David’s next question.

Who can ascend the hill of the Lord? And who can stand in His holy place? (verse 3)

There’s another piece of Ancient context here that might be helpful. Hills and mountains were seen as places that were closer to gods because they were high places. It’s why people built places of worship to idols on the tops of hills. But here when David is asking who can ascend the hill of the Lord. He is asking, who is able to come into the presence of God? God’s holy place also refers to where the presence of God dwelt in the tabernacle and the temple.

It’s a question fuelled with longing, and to an extent, grief. David knows the way sin has a hold on people and prevents them from approaching God in such a way that means they can stand in his presence.

But he answers the question:

He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. He will receive blessings 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. (verse 3-6)

The answer is clear. The one who can come into the presence of God is one who is clean in the actions they make and pure in the heart, which means in their motives and thoughts. Someone who does not worship idols. That person will receive righteousness from God. Righteousness refers to the way of living that God intially created humans to live, close to him in complete goodness and love.

What may seem odd is that David seems convinced that these kinds of people will exist. They will be saved somehow by God and a whole load of them, a generation, will come seeking his face. In Exodus 33 God covers Moses with his hand and specifically says he will not see His face. Because of this passage people believed that people could not see the face of God, the idea being that He is too glorious for a sinful human to encounter and survive.

So how do these people do it? How is it possible that there is a generation who appear to be free from the grip of sin and chaos, who have been restored to the original intention of God’s design - righteousness - who can boldly come into His presence.

This shouldn’t be a spoiler because it has been over 2000 years and if you are on this website you are likely a Christian.

Salvation comes through Jesus. But it is not just salvation, it is also restoration.

1 John 1:5 - 2:6 puts it like this:

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

People did not earn their way into God’s presence. Jesus came, fully God and fully man, and lived a life of perfect righteousness. In his death and resurrection he made a way of us to live in righteousness too. Not beause of anything we have done but because when we repent of our sins and decide to follow Him instead of our own desires we are brought into what he did.

By His blood we are washed clean.

Colossians 3:1-3 reminds us that when we confess our sins to Jesus and decide to follow him we are raised with Christ.

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

In Christ, we can ascend the hill of the Lord with clean hands and a pure heart. We get to be part of that generation whose life’s cry is to seek His face.

In response I’m going to recommend a song called ‘Jesus Your Blood’ by Rivers and Robots which is based on this Psalm. Go listen to it, let the words wash over you. Let it bring you into a place of repentance for sin and then into the total joy that is found in knowing the truth that Jesus has washed you clean of it.

Keep pursuing Him in righteousness.

God bless,

Megan x