Ps. 98.4-6 (enfolding the nations)

Raise a shout / to Yhwh / all the earth;
break forth / shout joyfully / sing praise!
sing praise / to Yhwh / with the harp
with harp / and the sound of song,
with trumpets / and the sound of the horn. 

The psalm now, in a sense, begins again. The first verse’s call to “raise a shout to Yhwh” is substantially similar to verse 1’s “sing to Yhwh a new song…”. There is a crucial deepening, however, in this verse over verse 1. Firstly, the call here is to “all the earth”. This picks up on the immediately preceding verse which described Yhwh’s redemption of Israel as being “seen by all the ends of the earth”. In other words, the “shout” of “all the earth” is grounded, fundamentally, in Yhwh’s marvelous work on behalf of Israel. 

The second point is that the first section focused on what Yhwh has done to Israel, and how that has been made manifest to the earth. This section’s praise, while being grounded in Israel’s redemption, looks forward to Yhwh’s coming. What concludes this section, and hence is the double-source of praise, is that Yhwh is “coming to judge the earth with equity” (vs. 9). And this is the point—what began in Israel, and was manifest to the earth, is now going to be established across the entire spectrum of creation, when Yhwh’s comes. Israel is, in this regard, an anticipation, a beginning to, what will happen when Yhwh arrives as King of “all the earth”. Israel is the ‘ground zero’, the Eden, of Yhwh’s redemption. The more ‘visible’ his redemption of Israel is, the more the world’s redemption becomes manifest. In other words, “all the earth” can look forward to participating within the same redemption wrought for Israel, the same ‘marvelous works’. This is precisely the reason why Israel’s redemption is not a private redemption of a people but a fully public deliverance—because it points forward to the redemption of the earth that can witnesses to it. Yhwh’s redemption will coincide with the extent of the manifestation of Israel’s redemption.  Earth will be, in a sense, enfolded within Israel’s redemption and within Yhwh’s loving-kindness, faithfulness and righteousness. 

It is this praise that began on Pentecost and it is within this praise that the Church now dwells (and looks forward to). This also serves as an analogy for the relationship between the Old and New Testament. It is like this: in this psalm, Israel is to the nations, what the Old Testament is to the New. The more deeply the nations “see” Israel’s redemption, the more deeply they will come to “see” their own “when Yhwh comes (now, in Christ)”. Or, as other have said, the New is hidden in the Old, and the Old is revealed in the New.