Sing unto the LORD, bless his name; show forth his salvation from day to day.
All Commentaries on Psalms 96:2 Go To Psalms 96
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
3. "Sing unto the Lord, bless His Name: be telling good tidings of His salvation from day to day" (ver. 2). How doth the building increase? "Be telling," he saith, "good tidings of His salvation from day to day." Let it be preached from day to day; from day to day, he saith, let it be built; let My house, saith God, increase. And as if it were said by the workmen, Where dost Thou command it to be built? Where dost Thou will Thy house to increase? Choose for us some level, spacious spot, if Thou wish an ample house built Thee. Where dost Thou bid us be telling good tidings from day to day? He showeth the place: "Declare His honour unto the heathen:" His honour, not yours. O ye builders, "Declare His honour unto the heathen." Should ye choose to declare your own honour, ye shall fall: if His, ye shall be built up, while ye are building. Therefore they who choose to declare their own honour, have refused to dwell in that house; and therefore they sing not a new song with all the earth. For they do not share it with the whole round world; and hence they are not building in the house, but have erected a whited wall. How sternly doth God threaten the whited wall? There are innumerable testimonies of the Prophets, whence He curseth the whited wall. What is the whited wall, save hypocrisy, that is,pretence? Without it is bright, within it is dirt. ...A certain person, speaking of this whited wall, said thus: "as, if in a wall which standeth alone, and is not connected with any other walls, you make a door, whoever enters, is out of doors; so in that part which hath refused to sing the new song together with the house, but hath chosen to build a wall, and that a whited one, and not solid, what availeth it that it hath a door?" If thou enterest, thou art found to be without. For because they themselves did not enter by the door, their door also doth not admit them within. For the Lord saith, "I am the door: by Me they enter in." ..."Declare His honour unto the heathen." What is, unto the heathen? Perhaps by nations but a few are meant: and that part which hath raised the whited wall hath still somewhat to say: why are not Getulia, Numidia, Mauritania, Byzacium, nations? Provinces are nations. Let the word of God take the word from hypocrisy, from the whited wall, building up the house over the whole world. It is not enough to say, "Declare His honour unto the heathen;" that thou mayest not think any nations excepted, he addeth, "and His wonders unto all people."
