Five verses, and the only psalm in the book headed for the thank-offering. There is no complaint anywhere in it and no request: seven plural imperatives in five verses, shout, serve, come, know, enter, give thanks, bless, and one reason at the end. It is said every weekday morning in Pesukei deZimra and left out on Shabbat and festivals, on the eve of Passover and through Chol HaMoed Pesach, and on the eve of Yom Kippur. Verse 3 carries the best known ketiv/qere in the Psalter, where the consonants written and the word read are two different words that sound identical.
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1
מִזְמוֹר לְתוֹדָה
הָרִיעוּ לַיהֹוָה כׇּל הָאָרֶץ
מִזְמוֹר
miz-MOR
a psalm
לְתוֹדָה
le-to-DA
for thanksgiving
A psalm for thanksgiving.
הָרִיעוּ
ha-ri-U
shout aloud
לַיהֹוָה
lai-ho-VA
to the LORD
כׇּל
kol
all of
הָאָרֶץ
ha-A-retz
the earth
Shout aloud to the LORD, all the earth.
The heading names a sacrifice rather than a mood: the toda was the offering brought by someone who had come through danger. Then the address widens past Israel to the whole earth in two words.
Two imperatives with their manner attached to each. Service and gladness are put inside one clause, which is the psalm's whole claim about what worship is supposed to feel like.
The only verse that gives content rather than instruction, and the one with the textual crux. The consonants spell and not, the reading gives and we are His, and the two make opposite claims about who did the making.
Movement in space, then movement stopping. Gates, then courts, then standing still to speak, and the second half of the verse drops the architecture entirely for a name.
and His faithfulness to generation after generation.
The ground for everything above, and the only verse with no command in it. Kindness is measured in time and faithfulness in generations, and neither is measured in what the worshipper brought.
♦ PARDES analysis: פרדס
The four levels of Jewish reading of the sacred text: פשט Peshat (literal meaning), רמז Remez (symbolic allusion), דרש Drash (midrashic interpretation), סוד Sod (mystical meaning). The word פרדס means "orchard", each level is a fruit.
פשט · Peshat: literal meaning
Five verses, seven plural imperatives, one reason. Verses 1 and 2 are the summons, verse 3 is what is to be known, verse 4 is the approach through the gates, verse 5 is the ground. The addressee is not Israel but כׇּל (kol, v.1) הָאָרֶץ (ha-a-retz, v.1), all the earth, which makes this a psalm that opens a national sanctuary to everyone within earshot. Notice that the middle verse is the only one that is not a command, and that it sits exactly where the pilgrim would still be outside: know first, enter second. Notice also that the thanksgiving of the heading, לְתוֹדָה (le-to-da, v.1), comes back as the manner of entering in בְּתוֹדָה (be-to-da, v.4), so the psalm is named after the thing you are told to carry through the gate.
רמז · Remez: allusion
וְלוֹ (ve-lo, v.3) is the crux. The consonantal text writes it with an aleph, which spells the word for not; the Masoretic reading points it with a vav, which spells and to Him. The two are pronounced the same way, and the Masorah lists this among a group of places where the two spellings are exchanged. Written, the verse says He made us and not we ourselves, which is how the King James Version renders it. Read, it says He made us and we are His, which is what the next clause, His people and the flock of His pasture, goes on to continue. Neither is an error waiting to be cleaned up: printed Hebrew bibles still carry both, and most modern translations follow the reading while noting the writing. The other word worth stopping on is לְתוֹדָה (le-to-da, v.1), built on the root for acknowledging, which names both the thank-offering and the act of thanking, so the heading is a sacrifice and a verb at the same time.
דרש · Drash: midrashic reading
Verse 3 is read as a chain in which each clause grounds the next: He made us, therefore we are His, therefore we are His people, therefore we are the flock of His pasture. On that reading the two versions of וְלוֹ (ve-lo, v.3) stop being rivals and become consecutive steps, we did not make ourselves and so we belong to the one who did, which is one traditional way of keeping both. The heading has also carried the psalm's liturgical history, and the reasons customarily given turn on the offering rather than on the words: the thank-offering came with leavened loaves, which is the reason given for dropping the psalm around Passover, and it was a voluntary private offering, which is the reason given for its absence on Shabbat and festivals. These are explanations attached to an existing custom, not the custom's stated source.
סוד · Sod: mystical reading
The end of verse 3 names the community twice, as a people and as a flock, and the two images do not say the same thing. A people has a history and a border. A flock has a pasture and an owner, and the word for pasture, מַרְעִיתוֹ (mar-i-to, v.3), carries a possessive suffix, so what is described is a relation rather than a field. The sequence in verse 4 is read as three thresholds rather than three places, gates then courts then a name, with the innermost being a word and not a room. On that reading the psalm narrows the whole way through: it begins with noise at the edges of the earth, הָרִיעוּ (ha-ri-u, v.1), and ends its movement at a single blessed name, שְׁמוֹ (shmo, v.4), before verse 5 pulls back out to generations. The narrowing and the widening are the same gesture seen from two ends.
Hebrew text: Miqra according to the Masorah (MAM), after the Aleppo Codex, via Sefaria, CC BY-SA. English: The Holy Scriptures, a New Translation (JPS 1917), via Sefaria, public domain. Transliteration generated by this site's own engine (assets/translit.js).