Texts in Conversation
Psalm 98 echoes Isaiah 42 in its focus on universal praise for God. The similarity suggests the psalm was shaped by the language of Isaiah and its emphasis on God's exclusive rule as Israelite theology began to see God as a universal God.
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Isaiah 42:10
Hebrew Bible
8 “I am the Lord! That is my name! I will not share my glory with anyone else or the praise due me with idols. 9 Look, my earlier predictive oracles have come to pass; now I announce new events. Before they begin to occur, I reveal them to you.” 10 Sing to the Lord a brand new song! Praise him from the horizon of the earth, you who go down to the sea and everything that lives in it, your coastlands and those who live there. 11 Let the wilderness and its cities shout out, the towns where the nomads of Kedar live. Let the residents of Sela shout joyfully; let them shout loudly from the mountaintops. 12 Let them give the Lord the honor he deserves; let them praise his deeds in the coastlands.
Date: 7th-5th Centuries B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Psalm 98:1
Hebrew Bible
1 A psalm. Sing to the Lord a new song, for he performs amazing deeds. His right hand and his mighty arm accomplish deliverance. 2 The Lord demonstrates his power to deliver; in the sight of the nations he reveals his justice. 3 He remains loyal and faithful to the family of Israel. All the ends of the earth see our God deliver us.
Date: 6th-3rd Centuries B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Many hymns of praise declare God’s “world rule.” Like Second Isaiah and Job, they affirm him as the one and only God, and in style and content they seem later than the creation psalms 29, 19A, and 104, noted earlier. Psalms 93– 99 form an interesting collection. We have seen how parts of Psalm 93 (verse 3), 96 (verse 4), and 97 (verse 9) may be early because they acknowledge the existence of other deities. However, as a collection they have been adapted to create a more monotheistic outlook: they suggest the influence of Second Isaiah, for example, in the references to the “new song” in Psalms 96:1 and 98:1 (see Isaiah 42:10) and the renunciation of idols in Psalms 96:5 and 97:7 (as in Isaiah 40:18– 20). Psalms 145–50 also affirm God’s rule as creator and king: paradoxically, like Psalms 93–100, they also serve to express faith and hope at a time when morale was low, under foreign rule ..."
Gillingham, Susan
"The Psalms and Poems of the Hebrew Bible" in Barton, John (ed.) The Hebrew Bible: A Critical Companion
(pp. 206-235) Princeton University Press, 2016
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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