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Psalms

About this book
Psalm 99

1 The Lord reigns! The nations tremble. He sits enthroned above the cherubim;⁠ the earth shakes. 2 The Lord is elevated in Zion; he is exalted over all the nations. 3 Let them praise your great and awesome name. He is holy!⁠ 4 The king is strong; he loves justice. You ensure that legal decisions will be made fairly; you promote justice and equity in Jacob. 5 Praise the Lord our God. Worship before his footstool.⁠ He is holy! 6 Moses and Aaron were among his priests; Samuel was one of those who prayed to him.⁠ They prayed to the Lord and he answered them.⁠ 7 He spoke to them from a pillar of cloud; they obeyed his regulations and the ordinance he gave them. 8 O Lord our God, you answered them. They found you to be a forgiving God, but also one who punished their sinful deeds. 9 Praise the Lord our God! Worship on his holy hill, for the Lord our God is holy.

Texts in conversation

Compare Psalm 99:5 and 1 Chronicles 28:2

Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Psalm 99 commands worshippers to bow before God’s footstool without saying what the footstool is. In 1 Chronicles, David uses similar language, indicating that the footstool is the temple he wanted to build as a resting place for the ark.

Passages

Psalm 99:5

Hebrew Bible
4 The king is strong; he loves justice. You ensure that legal decisions will be made fairly; you promote justice and equity in Jacob. 5 Praise the Lord our God. Worship before his footstool. He is holy! 6 Moses and Aaron were among his priests; Samuel was one of those who prayed to him. They prayed to the Lord and he answered them.
600–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Psalms

1 Chronicles 28:2

Hebrew Bible
1 David assembled in Jerusalem all the officials of Israel, including the commanders of the tribes, the commanders of the army divisions that served the king, the commanders of units of a thousand and a hundred, the officials who were in charge of all the property and livestock of the king and his sons, the eunuchs, and the warriors, including the most skilled of them. 2 King David rose to his feet and said: “Listen to me, my brothers and my people. I wanted to build a temple where the ark of the Lord’s covenant could be placed as a footstool for our God. I have made the preparations for building it. 3 But God said to me, ‘You must not build a temple to honor me, for you are a warrior and have spilled blood.’
400–301 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Chronicles

References

“... ‘His footstool’. The term is always combined with [...]. In Isa 66.1 we find ‘Yahweh says: Heaven is my throne and the earth my footstool’; in Ps 99.5 the psalmist cries ‘worship at his footstool’; in Ps 132.7 we get ‘let us enter his dwelling, let us worship at his footstool’. In 1 Chron 28.22 we have ‘…a house, a resting place for the Ark of the covenant of Yahweh which might serve as a footstool for our God’. Finally, Ps 110.1 reads ‘I shall make your enemies your footstool’. Clearly, the phrase can be used in different ways. In Isa 66.1 and Ps 110.1 the reference is general and has to do with the status of ‘Yahweh’ and ‘my lord’, but in the Psalms and in 1 Chron 28.2 the reference seems to be cultic in nature. ...”
R. B. Salters, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Lamentations (London: T&T Clark International, 2010), 114.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Psalm 99:5 and 1 Chronicles 28:2

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