Psalm 98
King James Version
A psalm of praise for God's victory and righteous judgment, later echoed in the hymn "Joy to the World."
Download the handwriting worksheet (PDF)Printable, ruled for handwriting: copy it by hand, then type it here.
About this text
Psalm 98 is another "new song" psalm, closely related in language to Psalm 96, and its opening line about God's "right hand" and "holy arm" winning victory is echoed centuries later in Isaac Watts's hymn "Joy to the World," which borrows the psalm's imagery of fields, floods, and rocks bursting into praise. Watts's hymn is, in a sense, a free paraphrase of this psalm.
The final verses personify nature — the sea roaring, floods clapping their hands, hills singing together — asking the reader to picture the physical world responding to God the way a crowd would. Copying that sequence of unusual, physical verbs (roar, clap, be joyful) attached to non-human things is a good way to notice how the psalm turns an abstract idea into concrete action.
What to watch for
- 4 semicolons: a semicolon joins two complete thoughts that belong together, a pause longer than a comma but shorter than a period.
- 6 colons: a colon points ahead to what explains or completes the first half of the sentence.
- Capital letters in the middle of a sentence: LORD, Israel, God, King. Ask why each one is capitalized before typing it.
- Old-fashioned words: unto, hath, cometh. These are easy to "correct" by accident into modern spelling, so copy them exactly as written.
- Longest word: "righteousness" (13 letters). Try spelling it aloud once before reaching it.
- 9 lines averaging about 19 words each. Long lines: a younger child may do half the text per sitting.
Full text (reference)
1O sing unto the LORD a new song; for he hath done marvellous things: his right hand, and his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory.
2The LORD hath made known his salvation: his righteousness hath he openly shewed in the sight of the heathen.
3He hath remembered his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel: all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
4Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.
5Sing unto the LORD with the harp; with the harp, and the voice of a psalm.
6With trumpets and sound of cornet make a joyful noise before the LORD, the King.
7Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.
8Let the floods clap their hands: let the hills be joyful together
9Before the LORD; for he cometh to judge the earth: with righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity.