The joining of voices to sing with understandable words and a melody that keeps the words of many people together, thinking the same thoughts and saying the same things, can be a time of unique beauty. When the words of praise are simple and meaningful, yet with many voices singing as one, it can move the hearts of both those who participate and those who listen. That is the nature of this psalm.
It is a psalm of millennial blessings and the praise that will sound worldwide when our Lord Jesus Christ reigns. This is a prophetic psalm, and it is true, but there are applications we can make for ourselves even though its interpretation is to us as we look ahead. As we read the words of the psalm, we are motivated to praise God. His relationship with people is not limited to Israel only, but in an individual way to us personally who live in the scattered nations of the earth. It will not be universal among the nations until Israel is restored to the Lord and He reigns.
Some reasons for praise in the coming day and us now as the people of God and as individual believers are given in this psalm. Our God is merciful, and His face of compassion shines upon us even in our deepest needs. Because of that, His way is not mysterious even though we do not know the outcome of events. He goes before us, and we must follow closely enough to know that we are on His scriptural path, beginning with our salvation, which has brought real life to us. We have His kind of life – eternal life. When we need an advocate, we experience God’s just judgments. So even though we don’t know what will happen from one day to another, we know He does that which is right and fair. His blessings to us are real, and many of them are tangible.
God’s relationship with His people, Israel, will reach all nations in the millennium. Today, it reaches individuals in the world's nations through the exercise and commitment of His people who respond to the commission our Lord Jesus gave just before He ascended into heaven. Three times in this psalm, we read the simple prayer, “Bless us.” Four times, we read “Praise Thee.” In every endeavor we are engaged in, the purpose is to glorify God so that “all the ends of the earth shall praise and fear Him.”
In the millennium, universal praise will happen when the Lord Jesus Christ reigns. Israel will have been restored to the Lord. Even the curse of sin will be lifted so the earth can “yield her increase.” Our blessed hope is that not only will the church be taken when our Lord Jesus comes to the clouds, but at His appearing earth will praise Him. The blessings that have been given us as those He has saved by His grace, and the blessings of God’s earthly people being where He wants them and with Him, will extend worldwide as the glory of our Lord will be manifest to all nations.