Psalm 99 – Sons of Korah
Today I want to bring to you an Australian band who I’ve loved for a long time who are doing something quite courageous. They are called Sons of Korah and have named themselves after a group who wrote a number of the psalms and as such they reimagine the songs found within the book of psalms. Most of their lyrics are taken verbatim and they put new music to them. Psalm 99 is one of my favourites of theirs.
Musically they are incredibly skilled and the sounds they create are hugely inspiring to me, as a musician I love to simply play along and add my own flavour to the music.
As part of their work in the psalms they have created a number of short explanations about the background to the psalms and the author’s original intent. Studies for more than 100 of the psalms can be found here; https://sonsofkorah.com/study/
They say this about Psalm 99
Psalm 99 picks up a theme that was important to the Jews particularly during and after the Babylonian exile (586-537 BC). It speak about God’s sovereignty over all the nations. In this period the Jews were a very small and seemingly insignificant people group in the midst of vast and powerful empires at war with one another. But it was in this period that they also received prophecies about their place in world events. They were reminded at this time that their God was not just a local deity as with the various gods of the ancient world. Rather their God is the God who is sovereign over the nations and draws all history toward his own ends. And though they suffered great abuse and persecution as a nation yet their God who is just would one day vindicate them. This is the theme that is expressed in Psalm 99. It calls all nations to tremble before the God who will call them to account on the day of his just judgement. This was an important confession for the Jews and it was encapsulated vividly in this psalm.
You can found the song on Youtube here or in our spotify playlist.
If you like it, here’s a couple of songs of theirs I particularly enjoy
Spotify has a limited number of their albums but they’re all hidden throughout youtube or available on itunes.
Many blessings,
Disney