Psalm 100 is the closing hymn of a small collection (Psalms 93–100) that celebrates the LORD as king over all the earth. It is a temple psalm, sung by pilgrims as they came up through the gates with thank offerings. The instruction know is not addressed only to Israel; the psalm opens by summoning all the earth to shout. Israel is the choir leader, but the congregation is the nations. The verse draws the line where Genesis 1 drew it: there is one Maker, and we are not him.

From the writers we read together

Carmen Joy Imes

Old Testament scholar, author of Bearing God's Name and Being God's Image

Imes' work centers on what it means for Israel — and now the church — to bear the name of the LORD. Her argument is that the third commandment is less about cursing and more about representation: a people who carries God's name into the world must live like the God whose name they carry. Psalm 100:3 is the doctrinal floor under that vocation. Before Israel can represent the LORD, Israel must know that the LORD alone is God, and that their existence is not self-generated. He made us, and we are his. Vocation flows from creaturely recognition, not the other way around.

This matters for a Tuesday. The temptation of modern life is to live as self-made — our calendars, our identities, our accomplishments all signed in our own hand. The psalm interrupts that signature. You did not make yourself. You are sheep of his pasture, which is a humbler image than we usually want, but also a safer one. Sheep belong somewhere. They have a shepherd who knows the territory. Imes would press us to ask: whose name am I bearing into the room I am about to walk into? The answer the psalm gives is settled before the day begins.