Psalms 100:1

PSALM 100

ALL PEOPLE THAT ON EARTH DO DWELL;

"THE OLD HUNDREDTH"

This Psalm was reduced to poetry by William Kethe and was included in the Geneva Psalter. The music by Louis Bourgeois is that usually sung in "The Doxology," and it is one of the most popular hymns ever written. Many of the commentators have mentioned this. We believe that Kethe's poetical rendition is an acceptable commentary on the five verses of this psalm, and we are including it here:

<SIZE=2>ALL PEOPLE THAT ON EARTH DO DWELL

(Psalms 100)

"All people that on earth do dwell,

Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice;

Him serve with fear, His praise forth tell;

Come ye before Him and rejoice.

The Lord, ye know, is God indeed;

Without our aid He did us make;

We are his flock, He doth us feed,

And for His sheep he doth us take.

O enter then His gates with praise,

Approach with joy his courts unto;

Praise, laud, and bless His name always,

For it is seemly so to do.

For why? The Lord our God is good;

His mercy is forever sure;

His truth at all times firmly stood,

And shall from age to age endure!"[1]

Psalms 100:1

"Make a joyful noise unto Jehovah, all ye lands."

Despite the fact of Leupold's rejection of this rendition, preferring to read it, "Shout aloud unto the Lord, all ye inhabitants of the land,"[2] there can be no doubt of the accuracy of the translation as it stands verbatim in the KJV, the ASV, and the RSV, the three most dependable versions of the Holy Bible. The trouble with Leupold's translation is that it allows the interpreter to restrict the meaning to Israel, "the land" being understood as the land of Israel. Our marginal reference in the American Standard Version assures us that the Hebrew text here reads this passage as "all the earth."