play upon it · verb, piel imperative, 2nd person masculine plural
LORD
לַיהוָ֣הla.Yah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · preposition + proper noun, a title
harp
בְּכִנּ֑וֹרbe.khi.Nor
H3658
a harp · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
harp
בְּ֝כִנּ֗וֹרbe.khi.Nor
H3658
a harp · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
voice
וְק֣וֹלve.Kol
H6963
a voice or sound · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular construct
psalm
זִמְרָֽהzim.Rah
H2172
a musical piece or song to be accompanied by an instrum… · noun, common feminine singular absolute
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 33:2 Praise the LORD with harp: sing unto him with the psaltery and an instrument of ten strings.
Isaiah 51:3 For the LORD shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the ga…
Revelation 5:8 And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and go…
Revelation 14:2-3 And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping…
1 Chronicles 25:1-6 Moreover David and the captains of the host separated to the service of the sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who should prophes…
2 Chronicles 29:25 And he set the Levites in the house of the LORD with cymbals, with psalteries, and with harps, according to the commandment of David, and of…
Psalms 92:3-4 Upon an instrument of ten strings, and upon the psaltery; upon the harp with a solemn sound.
1 Chronicles 15:16 And David spake to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren to be the singers with instruments of musick, psalteries and harps and…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 98:4–end
The setting up of the kingdom of Christ is here represented as a matter of joy and praise.
I. Let all the children of men rejoice in it, for they all have, or may have, benefit by it. Again and again we are here called upon by all ways and means possible to express our joy in it and give God praise for it: Make a joyful noise, as before, Psa 95:1, Psa 95:2. Make a loud noise, as those that are affected with those glad tidings and are desirous to affect others with them. Rejoice and sing praise, sing Hosannas (Mat 21:9), sing Hallelujahs, Rev 19:6. Let him be welcomed to the throne, as new kings are, with acclamations of joy and loud shouts, till the earth ring again, as when Solomon was proc…
Sing unto the Lord with the harp,.... Playing upon that at the same time: here and in the following verse is an allusion to Old Testament worship, and the manner of performing that; not that this should be done in New Testament times, only New Testament worship is expressed in Old Testament language, which is no unusual thing; hence in Gospel times, and Gospel churches, the saints, especially when singing the new song of redeeming grace, are said to have harps in their hands, expressive only of their spiritual melody in their hearts, Revelation 5:8,
with the harp, and the voice of the psalm; with the harp alone first, as Aben Ezra and Kimchi interpret it, and then with the harp, and togethe…
Psalm 98:4-9
4. Exult before Jehovah all the earth; make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise. 5. Sing to Jehovah upon the harp, upon the harp, and with the voice of a psalm. [111] 6. With trumpets, and sound of the cornet, sing before Jehovah the King. 7. Let the sea roar, and the fullness thereof; the world, and those who dwell therein. [112] 8. Let the floods clap their hands: [113] let the hills be joyful together, 9. Before Jehovah: for he cometh to judge the earth; with righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with uprightness.
4 Exult before Jehovah all the earth Here he repeats the exhortation with which he had begun, and by addressing it to the nations at large…
The Church Fathers
Make melody to the Lord on the harp. Let all your strings have voice. There cannot be a harp if one string is missing. What does it profit you if you are chaste, and yet greedy? What does it profit you if you are both chaste and generous in almsgiving, and yet envious? What does it profit you if you have six strings whole and one broken? If one string is lacking, the perfect sound of the harp cannot exist.
"Make melody unto the Lord upon the harp: on the harp and with the voice of a Psalm" [Psalm 98:5]. Praise Him not with the voice only; take up works, that ye may not only sing, but work also. He who singeth and worketh, maketh melody with psaltery and upon the harp. Now see what sort of instruments are next spoken of, in figure: "With ductile trumpets also, and the sound of the pipe of horn" [Psalm 98:6]. What are ductile trumpets, and pipes of horn? Ductile trumpets are of brass: they are drawn out by hammering; if by hammering, by being beaten, ye shall be ductile trumpets, drawn out unto the praise of God, if ye improve when in tribulation: tribulation is hammering, improvement is the being drawn out. Job was a ductile trumpet, when suddenly assailed by the heaviest losses, and the death of his sons, become like a ductile trumpet by the beating of so heavy tribulation, he sounded thus: "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." How did he sound? How pleasantly doth his voice sound? This ductile trumpet is still under the hammer....We have heard how he was hammered; let us hear how he soundeth: let us, if it please you, hear the sweet sound of this ductile trumpet: "What! shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" O courageous, O sweet sound! whom will not that sound awake from sleep? whom will not confidence in God awake, to march to battle fearlessly against the devil; not to struggle with his own strength, but His who proveth him. For He it is who hammereth: for the hammer could not do so of itself....See how (I dare so speak, my brethren) even the Apostle was beaten with this very hammer: he saith, "there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan, to buffet me." Behold he is under the hammer: let us hear how he speaketh of it: "For this thing," he saith, "I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for My strength is made perfect in weakness." I, saith His Maker, wish to make this trumpet perfect; I cannot do so unless I hammer it; in weakness is strength made perfect. Hear now the ductile trumpet itself sounding as it should: "When I am weak, then am I strong."... The voice of the pipe of horn, what is it? The horn riseth above the flesh: in rising above the flesh it needs must be solid so as to…
Dictionary and topics
Harp · Used in worship — Used in worship
Praise · Called the: Voice of a psalm — Called the: Voice of a psalm
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).
The call in Psa 98:4 demands some joyful manifestation of the mouth, which can be done in many ways; in Psa 98:5 the union of song and the music of stringed instruments, as of the Levites; and in Psa 98:6 the sound of wind instruments, as of the priests. On Psa 98:4 cf. Isa 44:23; Isa 49:13; Isa 52:9, together with Isa 14:7 (inasmuch as פּצחוּ ורננוּ is equivalent to פּצחוּ רנּה). קול זמרה is found also in Isa 51:3.
Tyndale Open Study Notes on Psalms 98:4-6
The psalmist invites the whole earth to worship the King (see 96:1).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 98:5
Sing unto the Lord with the harp; with the harp, and the voice of a psalm.
Sing unto the Lord with the harp. Skill in music should not be desecrated to the world's evil mirth, it should aid the private devotions of the saint, and then, like George Herbert, he will sing,
"My God, my God, My music shall find thee, And every string Shall have his attribute to sing."
Martin Luther was thus wont to praise the Lord, whom he loved so well. God's praises should be performed in the best possible manner, but their sweetness mainly lies in spiritual qualities. The concords of faith and repentance, the harmonies of obedience and love are true music in the ear of the Most High, and better please him t…
