Why read Psalm 94?
Psalm 94 invites joyful praise and a receptive heart. Its call to worship is followed by a warning against stubbornness and an invitation to learn from past disobedience.
You can read this psalm when its themes speak to your circumstances, or as part of your regular reading of the Psalter. This explanation draws on the text itself; the psalm is not reserved for one particular need.
In the 13th Kathisma of the Psalter, Psalm 94 awaits its reader with 12 verses of prayer arising from a real experience. It begins with “Come, let us rejoice in the Lord...” — and from there onwards, everything is a dialogue between the human being and God.
The text of Psalm 94
1. Come, let us rejoice in the Lord and cry out to God, our Saviour.
2. Let us meet His face with praise and cry out to Him in psalms,
3. For the Lord is a great God and a great King over all the earth.
4. For in His hand are the ends of the earth, and the heights of the mountains are His.
5. For the sea is His and He made it, and His hands built the dry land.
6. Come, let us worship and fall before Him and weep before the Lord, who made us.
7. For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.
8. O, if you would hear His voice, which says: “Do not harden your hearts,
9. As in the time of testing, as on the day of temptation in the wilderness,
10. Where your fathers tempted Me; they tempted Me and saw My works.
11. For forty years I hated this generation and said: ‘They always wander in their hearts’.
12. And they did not know My ways, for I swore in My anger: ‘They will not enter My rest’”.
When Psalm 94 is read
- at the beginning of Matins — “Come, let us rejoice in the Lord”.
- At the end of each psalm, tradition adds: «Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.».
Adjacent psalms
The numbering follows the Orthodox Psalter (Septuagint). The same psalm may have a different number in other Bible editions.
