Let the floods clap their hands: let the hills be joyful together
The giving of hands and gladness and united song to rushing waters and hills is poetic personification, not literal clapping or singing, setting forth truth by giving life and speech to lifeless things. It is a command to even lifeless nature to rejoice before the Lord because He comes to judge the earth and its people with righteousness and equity. That coming is the personal second advent of Christ before the millennium, with fire burning up His enemies round about, lightnings enlightening the world till the earth trembles, and the hills melting like wax at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth. The joy of the lower world is its coming deliverance from vanity and bondage and corruption and the curse, when as creation fell with man so it is set free with man into the glorious liberty of the children of God with new heavens and a new earth. Sea and floods and hills and fields and winds and trees join that praise with gentle and mighty sounds, calling God's people to rejoice also, to learn the new song, to proclaim that the Lord reigns, and to prepare to receive their King and share His triumph.
Language and Context
The floods clapping and the hills rejoicing together is poetic imagery and personification that gives hands and voice and joy and song to inanimate water and hills. It belongs with trees rejoicing and clapping, stones crying out, beams answering, and Abel's blood crying from the ground as the familiar figure that gives life and action and speech to inanimate things. It means no literal clapping or singing by water and hills, but sets forth truth through that figure. The same figure shows that the dead speaking and acting in sheol and hades need not be literal, so that one endowed with life and speech in hades can represent a class of living persons for rebuke and instruction rather than teach consciousness in death. The poetic celebration portrays all creation, including seas, brooks, winds, trees, clouds, fields, rocks and plains, joining in joyful praise in both gentle and mighty sounds while people also raise their voices, as a prophetic vision of all creation acclaiming with joy the Lord's coming to earth to judge.
The call for even inanimate nature, the floods and hills, to rejoice before the Lord is a command and not an optional invitation. It is given because he comes to judge the earth with righteousness and the people with equity. Failing to heed it is disobeying the gospel.
The psalm stands grouped with Psalms 96 and 97, which describe the Lord coming to judge the earth. That coming and judgment are described in language as plain and literal as Psalm 50, so that treating those descriptions as figurative while treating Psalm 50 as literal is inconsistent. Millennial times are woven through the whole structure of Psalms 96, 97 and 98, giving one of the strongest descriptions of his coming to judgment and showing a coming and judgment before the millennium. Paul's use of these psalms in Hebrews 1:6 confirms the literal coming.
Judgment at Christ's Coming
The floods clap and the hills rejoice together before the Lord because he comes, for he comes, to judge the earth and the world and its people with righteousness and equity and truth and fairness. This coming is the personal second advent of Christ, a thrice-repeated promise of his personal coming to judgment at which the earth rejoices. Creation's joy accompanies that advent and its righteous judgment, expressing hope in his return and calling God's people to rejoice and begin learning the new song of praise.
His coming is before the millennium and begins millennial glory, proving his coming is pre-millennial. Psalm 98 gives one of the strongest descriptions in Scripture of his coming to judgment, with millennial times woven into the description and through the whole structure of Psalms 96, 97, and 98, showing a coming and judgment before the millennium. That coming and judgment are literal, in language as plain and literal as Psalm 50, confirmed by Paul's use of these psalms in Hebrews 1:6. He comes with clouds and darkness round about him, with fire going before him burning up his enemies round about, with his lightnings enlightening the world so the earth sees and trembles, and with the hills melting like wax at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth.
The seas and mountains that once trembled at his mighty presence will welcome him gladly as King over all in the renewed world. The rejoicing of floods and hills is the joy of the whole lower world of inanimate and sensible creatures at its coming deliverance from the vanity and bondage and corruption and the curse now upon it. That deliverance comes at the time of the restitution of all things, at the second coming of Christ with the manifestation of the children of God, when all curse and filth adhering to the creature is done away. As creation fell with and for man so it is delivered with and for man into the glorious liberty of the children of God with new heavens and a new earth, glory conferred on all creatures in proportion to their natures. The fire of the last day is a refining fire and not an annihilating destruction, and those who suffered with Christ upon earth will reign with him upon earth. Then sorrow and pain and death are ended, and after animals have torn one another apart, mountain and plain and ocean will sound a hymn of deliverance.
Severe natural disasters of flood, fire, and typhoon are an application of the rejoicing of floods and hills before the Lord, as signs that the earth is nearing its end and that Christ's judgment and second advent are approaching.
Praise and Application
The whole created order breaks into glad praise at the coming and reign of the Lord, the sea and everything in it joining with floods and hills and every other part of nature in rejoicing before him. Fields and floods and rocks and hills and plains take up the song and echo it back, so that no place is silent when the earth receives its King. Seas and brooks and winds and trees and clouds also lift their voices, in gentle murmurs and in mighty sounds, while human voices rise with them to God. This universal rejoicing shows that the gospel and the promised redemption bring joy not to people only but to the entire created world.
That joy of creation summons God's people to rejoice as well, because the kingdom is triumphing and the Lord is coming to judge the earth with righteousness and the people with truth. They are to begin even now to learn the new song of praise, to proclaim that the Lord reigns, and to make ready for his righteous judgment and the end of sorrow and pain and death. The floods clapping and the hills rejoicing picture the welcome given to Jesus as King, and those who receive him share in his triumph. The same gladness is echoed in the picture of stars clapping as the redeemed celebrate their eternal home with God.
The abundance of this joy, in which even floods and hills are pictured celebrating, matches the joy known when souls are won, as when a fifth baptism crowns labor for the lost. It is the measure of the longing of the sinner saved by grace, who would praise the Redeemer with voice and musical instruments and would call on all creation to join him, desiring endless years in which to give thanks without limit. In the same strain the clapping of the floods portrays angel hosts sounding a joyful harvest home as the reapers bring their gathered sheaves to heaven.
The giving of hands and gladness and united song to rushing waters and hills is poetic personification, not literal clapping or singing, setting forth truth by giving life and speech to lifeless things. It is a command to even lifeless nature to rejoice before the Lord because He comes to judge the earth and its people with righteousness and equity. That coming is the personal second advent of Christ before the millennium, with fire burning up His enemies round about, lightnings enlightening the world till the earth trembles, and the hills melting like wax at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth. The joy of the lower world is its coming deliverance from vanity and bondage and corruption and the curse, when as creation fell with man so it is set free with man into the glorious liberty of the children of God with new heavens and a new earth. Sea and floods and hills and fields and winds and trees join that praise with gentle and mighty sounds, calling God's people to rejoice also, to learn the new song, to proclaim that the Lord reigns, and to prepare to receive their King and share His triumph.
Language and Context
The floods clapping and the hills rejoicing together is poetic imagery and personification that gives hands and voice and joy and song to inanimate water and hills. It belongs with trees rejoicing and clapping, stones crying out, beams answering, and Abel's blood crying from the ground as the familiar figure that gives life and action and speech to inanimate things. It means no literal clapping or singing by water and hills, but sets forth truth through that figure. The same figure shows that the dead speaking and acting in sheol and hades need not be literal, so that one endowed with life and speech in hades can represent a class of living persons for rebuke and instruction rather than teach consciousness in death. The poetic celebration portrays all creation, including seas, brooks, winds, trees, clouds, fields, rocks and plains, joining in joyful praise in both gentle and mighty sounds while people also raise their voices, as a prophetic vision of all creation acclaiming with joy the Lord's coming to earth to judge.
The call for even inanimate nature, the floods and hills, to rejoice before the Lord is a command and not an optional invitation. It is given because he comes to judge the earth with righteousness and the people with equity. Failing to heed it is disobeying the gospel.
The psalm stands grouped with Psalms 96 and 97, which describe the Lord coming to judge the earth. That coming and judgment are described in language as plain and literal as Psalm 50, so that treating those descriptions as figurative while treating Psalm 50 as literal is inconsistent. Millennial times are woven through the whole structure of Psalms 96, 97 and 98, giving one of the strongest descriptions of his coming to judgment and showing a coming and judgment before the millennium. Paul's use of these psalms in Hebrews 1:6 confirms the literal coming.
Judgment at Christ's Coming
The floods clap and the hills rejoice together before the Lord because he comes, for he comes, to judge the earth and the world and its people with righteousness and equity and truth and fairness. This coming is the personal second advent of Christ, a thrice-repeated promise of his personal coming to judgment at which the earth rejoices. Creation's joy accompanies that advent and its righteous judgment, expressing hope in his return and calling God's people to rejoice and begin learning the new song of praise.
His coming is before the millennium and begins millennial glory, proving his coming is pre-millennial. Psalm 98 gives one of the strongest descriptions in Scripture of his coming to judgment, with millennial times woven into the description and through the whole structure of Psalms 96, 97, and 98, showing a coming and judgment before the millennium. That coming and judgment are literal, in language as plain and literal as Psalm 50, confirmed by Paul's use of these psalms in Hebrews 1:6. He comes with clouds and darkness round about him, with fire going before him burning up his enemies round about, with his lightnings enlightening the world so the earth sees and trembles, and with the hills melting like wax at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth.
The seas and mountains that once trembled at his mighty presence will welcome him gladly as King over all in the renewed world. The rejoicing of floods and hills is the joy of the whole lower world of inanimate and sensible creatures at its coming deliverance from the vanity and bondage and corruption and the curse now upon it. That deliverance comes at the time of the restitution of all things, at the second coming of Christ with the manifestation of the children of God, when all curse and filth adhering to the creature is done away. As creation fell with and for man so it is delivered with and for man into the glorious liberty of the children of God with new heavens and a new earth, glory conferred on all creatures in proportion to their natures. The fire of the last day is a refining fire and not an annihilating destruction, and those who suffered with Christ upon earth will reign with him upon earth. Then sorrow and pain and death are ended, and after animals have torn one another apart, mountain and plain and ocean will sound a hymn of deliverance.
Severe natural disasters of flood, fire, and typhoon are an application of the rejoicing of floods and hills before the Lord, as signs that the earth is nearing its end and that Christ's judgment and second advent are approaching.
Praise and Application
The whole created order breaks into glad praise at the coming and reign of the Lord, the sea and everything in it joining with floods and hills and every other part of nature in rejoicing before him. Fields and floods and rocks and hills and plains take up the song and echo it back, so that no place is silent when the earth receives its King. Seas and brooks and winds and trees and clouds also lift their voices, in gentle murmurs and in mighty sounds, while human voices rise with them to God. This universal rejoicing shows that the gospel and the promised redemption bring joy not to people only but to the entire created world.
That joy of creation summons God's people to rejoice as well, because the kingdom is triumphing and the Lord is coming to judge the earth with righteousness and the people with truth. They are to begin even now to learn the new song of praise, to proclaim that the Lord reigns, and to make ready for his righteous judgment and the end of sorrow and pain and death. The floods clapping and the hills rejoicing picture the welcome given to Jesus as King, and those who receive him share in his triumph. The same gladness is echoed in the picture of stars clapping as the redeemed celebrate their eternal home with God.
The abundance of this joy, in which even floods and hills are pictured celebrating, matches the joy known when souls are won, as when a fifth baptism crowns labor for the lost. It is the measure of the longing of the sinner saved by grace, who would praise the Redeemer with voice and musical instruments and would call on all creation to join him, desiring endless years in which to give thanks without limit. In the same strain the clapping of the floods portrays angel hosts sounding a joyful harvest home as the reapers bring their gathered sheaves to heaven.