Psalm 100: Enter His Gates with Thanksgiving

"Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture."

"Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations."

Seven commands

In five verses the psalm gives seven imperatives: make a joyful noise, serve, come, know, enter, be thankful, bless. They move from the whole earth to the temple gates and into the courts, like a procession. The reason comes at the end: "For the LORD is good."

Later use

Psalm 100's heading, mizmor le-todah, links it to the thanksgiving offering; Jewish tradition recites it in the weekday morning service and omits it on Sabbaths and festivals, when no private thanksgiving offering was brought. In Latin it is the Jubilate Deo, a canticle of Anglican Morning Prayer; in English verse it became William Kethe's "All people that on earth do dwell" (1561), sung to the tune Old Hundredth.

"Not we ourselves" or "we are his"

100:3 is a famous ketiv/qere. The written text (ketiv) has ve-lo' anahnu, "and not we [ourselves]"; the reading tradition (qere) has ve-lo anahnu, "and we are his." The two words sound the same. The library's Hebrew prints both forms side by side. The KJV follows the written text ("and not we ourselves"), as do the Greek and Latin (Vulgate "et non ipsi nos"); most modern translations follow the qere ("and we are his"). See the passage page.

"A Psalm for thanksgiving"

The heading mizmor le-todah may mean "a psalm of praise" or "a psalm for the thank offering" (todah, Leviticus 7:12); the library's Vulgate reads "Psalmus in confessione." As the Jubilate (Vulgate "Jubilate Deo, omnis terra") it is a canticle at Anglican Morning Prayer; William Kethe's paraphrase "All people that on earth do dwell" (1561) gave the tune "Old Hundredth" its name.