play upon it · verb, piel imperative, 2nd person masculine plural
LORD
לַ֭יהוָהla.Yah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · preposition + proper noun, a title
dwelleth
יֹשֵׁ֣בyo.Shev
H3427
properly · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
Zion
צִיּ֑וֹןtzi.Yon
H6726
Tsijon (as a permanent capital) · proper noun, a place name
declare
הַגִּ֥ידוּha.Gi.du
H5046
properly · verb, hiphil imperative, 2nd person masculine plural
people
בָ֝עַמִּ֗יםva.'a.Mim
H5971
a people (as a congregated unit) · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
doings
עֲלִֽילוֹתָֽיוa.Li.lo.Tav
H5949
an exploit (of God) · noun, common feminine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 107:22 And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and declare his works with rejoicing.
Psalms 96:1-2 O sing unto the LORD a new song: sing unto the LORD, all the earth.
Psalms 148:1-5 Praise ye the LORD. Praise ye the LORD from the heavens: praise him in the heights.
Psalms 66:2 Sing forth the honour of his name: make his praise glorious.
Psalms 105:1-2 O give thanks unto the LORD; call upon his name: make known his deeds among the people.
Isaiah 12:4-6 And in that day shall ye say, Praise the LORD, call upon his name, declare his doings among the people, make mention that his name is exalte…
Psalms 96:10 Say among the heathen that the LORD reigneth: the world also shall be established that it shall not be moved: he shall judge the people righ…
Psalms 118:17 I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the LORD.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 9:11–end
In these verses,
I. David, having praised God himself, calls upon and invites others to praise him likewise, Psa 9:11. Those who believe God is greatly to be praised not only desire to do that work better themselves, but desire that others also may join with them in it and would gladly be instrumental to bring them to it: Sing praises to the Lord who dwelleth in Zion. As the special residence of his glory is in heaven, so the special residence of his grace is in his church, of which Zion was a type. There he meets his people with his promises and graces, and there he expects they should meet him with their praises and services. In all our praises we should have an eye to God as dwelling in Z…
Sing praises to the Lord, which dwelleth in Zion,.... The psalmist having determined in the strength of grace to praise the Lord himself, and show forth all his marvellous works, and given his reasons for it, both with respect to himself in particular, and with respect to the people of God in general, here calls upon others to engage in the same work; the Lord is not only to be praised, which may be done by celebrating the perfections of his nature, and the works of his hands; by giving him thanks for mercies temporal and spiritual, and by living to his glory; but his praises are to be sung by a modulation of the voice in musical notes, as the word used signifies; see Sol 2:12; where the sam…
Psalm 9:9-12
9. And Jehovah will be a refuge to the poor, and a protection in seasonable times in trouble. 10. And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee: for thou forsakest not them that seek thee, O Jehovah. 11. Sing unto Jehovah, who dwelleth in Sion, and proclaim his doings among the nations. 12. For in requiring blood, he hath remembered it: he hath not forgotten the cry of the afflicted.
9. And Jehovah will be a refuge for the poor. David here furnishes a remedy for the temptation which greatly afflicts the weak, when they see themselves, and those who are like them, abandoned to the will of the ungodly, while God keeps silence. [173] He puts us in mind that God delays…
The Church Fathers
A drastic alteration of circumstances took place in reality: ancient enemies became friends, those distant became close, slaves became sons, those ignorant became knowledgeable, those in darkness came to be in light, the dead in hope of life the poor became heirs of the kingdom of heaven, Jews came to be far away and Gentiles close at hand, sons became dogs, dogs sons. In short, the Savior's devices took on a divine seemliness: the gift of immortality was given through mortality, life through death, honor through dishonor, blessing through curse, salvation through a cross—these are the devices, these the exploits of our God.
What do you mean? Does the one whose throne is heaven and his footstool earth, in whose hands are the bounds of the earth, dwell in Zion? Yes: he refers here to his dwelling, not for him to be circumscribed (his greatness, after all, is unbounded) but to indicate his affinity with the place and his feeling at home there with a view to winning the Jews over to him through this considerateness.… Now, in a spiritual sense Zion refers to the church: "You have approached Mount Zion," remember, "and church of the firstborn." Rightly is the church called a mountain on account of being firm, solid and unshakeable. You see, just as it is impossible to shake a mountain, so too the church of God.
Those who are wild in respect of faith and polluted in life, not purified by the righteousness that is according to the law, are called wild beasts. But changed from wild beasts by the faith of the Lord, they become people of God, advancing from the wish to change to the fact. For some the Lord exhorts, and to those who have already made the attempt he stretches forth his hand and draws them up. "For the Lord dreads not the face of anyone, nor will he regard greatness; for he has made small and great and cares alike for all." And David says, "For the heathen are fixed in the destruction they have caused; their foot is taken in the snare that they hid." "But the Lord was a refuge to the poor, a help in season also in affliction." Those, then, who were in affliction had the gospel seasonably proclaimed. And therefore it said, "Declare among the heathen his pursuits," that they may not be judged unjustly.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Dwell — Tents were in primitive times the common dwellings of men. Houses were afterwards built, the walls of which were frequently of mud (Job 24:16; Matt. 6:19, 20) or of sun-dried bricks. God “dwells in…
Muth-labben — Occurring only in the title of Psalm 9. Some interpret the words as meaning “on the death of Labben,” some unknown person. Others render the word, “on the death of the son;” i.e., of Absalom (2 Sam.…
Psalms, Book Of — The present Hebrew name of the book is Tehill’im, “Praises;” but in the actual superscriptions of the psalms the word Tehillah is applied only to one, (Psalms 145:1) ... which is indeed emphatically…
Praise · UNCLASSIFIED SCRIPTURES RELATING TO — UNCLASSIFIED SCRIPTURES RELATING TO
Testimony · RELIGIOUS — RELIGIOUS
Zion · worship — worship
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
(Heb.: 9:12-13) Thus then the z-strophe summons to the praise of this God who has done, and will still do, such things. The summons contains a moral claim, and therefore applies to all, and to each one individually. Jahve, who is to be praised everywhere and by every one, is called ישׁב ציּון, which does not mean: He who sits enthroned in Zion, but He who inhabiteth Zion, Ges. 138, 1. Such is the name by which He is called since the time when His earthly throne, the ark, was fixed on the castle hill of Jerusalem, Psa 76:3. It is the epithet applied to Him during the period of the typical kingship of promise. That Jahve's salvation shall be proclaimed from Zion to all the world, even outside…
Recognition that the Lord’s judgment falls on some of the wicked (9:3-6) and that God promises to judge all evil (9:7-10) motivates praise. The psalmist calls on the godly community to join him.
9:11 The psalm writers often connect the idea that God reigns (or sits, or is enthroned) with a place, such as heaven (2:4; see 47:9), Jerusalem, “between the cherubim” (80:1; 99:1), “on high” (113:5), or “at my right hand” (110:1). Since the Lord rules the world, all people must know of his unforgettable deeds of salvation (see 9:1; 64:9; 66:16; 105:1).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 9:11
Sing praises to the Lord, which dwelleth in Zion: declare among the people his doings.
Being full of gratitude himself, our inspired author is eager to excite others to join the strain, and praise God in the same manner as he himself vowed to do in the first and second verses. The heavenly spirit of praise is gloriously contagious, and he that hath it is never content unless he can excite all who surround him to unite in his sweet employ. Singing and preaching, as means of glorifying God, are here joined together, and it is remarkable that, connected with all revivals of gospel ministry, there has been a sudden outburst of the spirit of song. Luther's Psalms and Hymns were in all men's mout…
