a stream (including the sea · noun, common feminine plural absolute
clap
יִמְחֲאוּyim.cha.'u-
H4222
to rub or strike the hands together (in exultation) · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
hands
כָ֑ףKhaf
H3709
the hollow hand or palm (so of the paw of an animal · noun, common feminine singular absolute
hills
הָרִ֥יםha.Rim
H2022
a mountain or range of hills (sometimes used figurative… · noun, common masculine plural absolute
joyful
יְרַנֵּֽנוּye.ra.Ne.nu
H7442
properly · verb, piel imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
together
יַ֝֗חַדYa.chad
H3162
properly · noun, common masculine 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
Isaiah 55:12 For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all th…
Psalms 65:12-13 They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness: and the little hills rejoice on every side.
Psalms 89:12 The north and the south thou hast created them: Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice in thy name.
Psalms 47:1 O clap your hands, all ye people; shout unto God with the voice of triumph.
Psalms 93:3 The floods have lifted up, O LORD, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their waves.
2 Kings 11:12 And he brought forth the king’s son, and put the crown upon him, and gave him the testimony; and they made him king, and anointed him; and t…
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…
Let the floods clap their hands,.... Or "rivers" (e), dashing against their banks, as they pass along; a prosopopoeia, as the preceding and following, expressing great joy on account of the Messiah, the reigning King. Aben Ezra interprets this of men that are in rivers, as the sea; in the preceding verse of such that are in ships at sea; and the hills in the next clause of such that dwell on them;
let the hills be joyful together; see Isaiah 55:12.
(e) "fluvii", Cocceius, Gejerus, so Ainsworth.
John Calvin on Psalms 98:4–end
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 rivers shall clap their hands together. Let us ask the Jews, who understand according to the letter. Do rivers have hands? Do rivers have voices? Do rivers have feet? Do rivers have a belly? Someone may say: It is not written about a belly, about feet. But I say to you: from one member we understand the rest as well; for we cannot understand hands without feet, without a belly, without the other members. The rivers shall clap their hands together. The rivers, which have drunk from the fountain of Jesus. 'They have forsaken me,' he says, 'the fountain of living water.' The rivers themselves run from the fountain of Christ. He is the fountain, we are the rivers — if indeed we deserve to be rivers. Christ is the fountain, and the saints are the rivers; but those who are lower are little streams. Others, however, are torrents. Who are the torrents? Those who have waters for an hour, and when temptation comes are dried up. The rivers shall clap their hands together. It is not one river, there are many rivers: as many as the saints are, so many also are the rivers. But these rivers have no dissension among themselves: since they are the rivers of Christ, therefore they have concord among themselves. The rivers shall clap their hands together. They clap with the hand: the works of the saints are the praise of God. Christ is praised not by voice, but by work; he does not hear the voice, but the works. The rivers shall clap their hands together. Therefore he himself says in the Gospel: 'He who thirsts, let him come and drink; and rivers,' he says, 'shall flow from his belly.' The mountains shall exult in the sight of the Lord. What likeness is there between rivers and mountains? But since he speaks of the perfect saints, he did not say, 'the little streams shall clap their hands together,' but, 'The rivers shall clap their hands together.' See the order. Let the sea be moved, and the whole world: the rivers clap their hands together, his saints: the mountains no less, who have attained to the highest righteousness. Let us say it also in another way. Let the sea be moved, which before had been unmoved — let it be moved at the coming of Christ. Let the sea be moved: we have already said, this is the law of Moses. The rivers clap their hands together: this is the prophets. The mountains shall exult before the sight of the Lord: this is the apostles.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
on Psalms 98:7–end
Here, too, it is all an echo of the earlier language of Psalms and prophets: Psa 98:7 = Psa 96:11; Psa 98:7 like Psa 24:1; Psa 98:8 after Isa 55:12 (where we find מחא כּף instead of the otherwise customary תּקע כּף, Psa 47:2; or הכּה כּף, Kg2 11:12, is said of the trees of the field); Psa 98:9 - Psa 96:13, cf. Psa 36:10. In the bringing in of nature to participate in the joy of mankind, the clapping rivers (נהרות) are original to this Psalm: the rivers cast up high waves, which flow into one another like clapping hands;
(Note: Luther renders: "the water-floods exult" (frohlocken); and Eychman's Vocabularius predicantium explains plaudere by "to exult (frohlocken) for joy, to smite the hands…
The created order is personified as rejoicing at the coming of the righteous Judge (see 93:3-4; 96:11-13).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 98:8
Let the floods clap their hands: let the hills be joyful together
Let the floods clap their hands. The rolling rivers, the tidal estuaries, the roaring cataracts, are here summoned to pay their homage, and to clap their hands, as men do when they greet their sovereigns with acclamation. Let the hills be joyful together, or in concert with the floods. Silent as are the mighty mountains, let them forget themselves, and burst forth into a sublime uproariousness of mirth, such as the poet described when he wrote those vivid lines—
"Far along, From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud, But every mountain now hath found a tongue, And Jura answer…
