¹The Lord reigns, He is clothed with majesty; The Lord has clothed and girded Himself with strength; Indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved.

Two kinds of praises come from the heart of the believer who is caught up with the greatness of our God. Declarative praise focuses on what He has done for us. Descriptive praise emphasizes God for who He is in His character and general working in the world. Of course, these categories admit to a spectrum of praise between the two, for one can hardly think of God without contemplating what He has done for us. On this side of glory, it is doubtful we can praise Him wholly isolated from His activity among us. Such praise will be our aspiration for eternity, but we can begin training ourselves for it now.

God is praiseworthy, in the first place, because He is a loving, forgiving, gracious, merciful, and reconciling Sovereign over all of creation and life—this is true even if He never did anything for us. But God reaches out to us in specific beneficial ways before we recognize Him in His character. As faith awakens, we become overwhelmed by what He does for us. We speak of having a personal relationship with God because we sense His presence, and we witness and experience His reality in our lives. Thus, we declare our praise of God for what He has and is doing for us.

As we grow in our knowledge of God and in the intimacy of our personal relationship with Him, we enlarge our vision and understanding of His praiseworthiness. The things about which we declare our praise to God morph into extolling Him for His character. We praise Him not just for what He does for us but for who He is. Our praise upgrades from declaring that He is great because we benefit from the relationship, to describing God’s character back to Him in the form of praise. He works on our behalf because He is that kind of God.

Psalm 93 is a descriptive praise. We live today in a practical-leaning world, even among Christians. What makes life work better, as though the Bible is a self-help approach to life with a spiritual veneer? Declarative praise comes more easily, though even that can challenge our natural bent to being self-focused. Descriptive praise seems to provide no practical benefit; we can be tempted to think, “I don’t get anything out of doing that, so it is not important to me.” We do well to heed the warning of the previous psalm:

How great are Your works, O Lord! Your thoughts are very deep. A senseless man has no knowledge, nor does a stupid man understand this … (Ps. 92:5–6)

Let us learn from our current psalm (93) about describing God in our praise. But, how does one describe an infinite God? Anything we say will betray adulation that is insufficient, inadequate, and woefully unbecoming of Him whose majesty is far above what we can imagine—and this no matter how eloquent our invocations may sound. The psalmist, nonetheless, needs only a few words (five verses), for it is not the length but the depth of praise that matters. Using metaphors, as is customary with poetic literature, he describes God as being clothed with the regalia of a king and accouterments of war. We can picture in our mind a sword at his side, symbolizing his military strength. The image is not one of war but of victory, for His throne is fully established, He is ruler over all, and His enemies are subject to Him completely (vs. 2).

As King over all, His throne was and is eternal—there never was or will be a time when the security of His kingdom is threatened. In a possible allusion to the Noahic flood, the praise in this psalm speaks of the assault of flooding waters (vss. 3-4). This imagery serves as a backdrop to how fully established God’s authority and rule is, even over the most powerful natural phenomenon.

The psalm concludes all that has been said about God’s greatness and His sovereignty over all creation (testimonies) is “fully confirmed” (vs. 5), of which the impotence of flood waters is just one example. God’s dwelling place, the home of the regal Potentate, is described as “holiness.” When we think of holy things and people, we consider them to be set apart for a particular religious purpose or standing. With God, holiness is taken to the infinite degree of separation. To be sure, He is immanent, that is, with us. A name given to Jesus was Immanuel, which means “God with us.” But in terms of God’s intrinsic being, He is in a completely different category than all else that exists—this is because He is the Creator, and everything else that exists is created by Him. There are, therefore, only two categories of existence: God and everything else.

The phrase “Holiness befits Your house” is interesting. The Hebrew word for “befits” carries the sense of beautifying. In its adjectival form, Solomon describes his beloved’s beauty as “lovely” (S.S. 6:4). That’s the same word as in Psalm 93:5. The NET Bible translates it more picturesquely: “Holiness aptly adorns your house.” God is so completely different than all else that He is beautifully and fittingly holy. That is how it ought to be, and that is how it is eternally so.

Lord, You are amazing, high and lifted up, in complete control and authority over all that exists. I want to know You better in all the aspects of Your character, the nuances and subtleties, the hues and shades, and the inferences and implications of all You are and all You do. I want to know You better so I may praise You more purely.