Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 316 · November 12
Fear Before Him
“O worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness: fear before him, all the earth.”
Psalm 96 asks God for nothing. Thirteen verses and not one petition in them, and the singer's own situation never comes up. What it does instead is recruit. Declare his glory among the heathen, his wonders among all people. Give unto the LORD, O ye kindreds of the people, give unto the LORD glory and strength. Say among the heathen that the LORD reigneth.
Your verse holds two words together that most of us keep in separate rooms. O worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness: fear before him, all the earth. Beauty first, then fear, with a colon between them doing nothing whatever to soften the change. The same pair stands in the psalm David handed over on the day the ark came up to Jerusalem: worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness. Fear before him, all the earth. Sung by a man who had watched Uzzah die touching that box, and who then danced before it in a linen ephod.
Everybody is being summoned to a court date, and the psalm says so at the end. For he cometh, for he cometh to judge the earth: he shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with his truth. The odd thing is who is glad about it. Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof. Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein. The fields have no anxiety at all about the verdict. He is coming. When he does, the judging will be done right.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 316 is Taste and See (Psalm 34:8).