Rejoice in the Day Made by the Lord

This is the day the Lord has made;
We will rejoice and be glad in it.

My Thoughts

The Lord has created a day meant for rejoicing and gladness. This day symbolizes significant events in Christian faith, particularly Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem and His resurrection, marking a new era of grace and redemption. The commentaries below highlight the importance of the Sabbath as a divine creation meant to uplift believers, calling for joyful observance in the light of God’s blessings and deliverance.

The day stands as a continual celebration of the gospel and serves as a reminder to rejoice in God’s mercies and the joy found in fellowship and worship, framing it as a time free from sorrow, especially those days when we feel down, depressed, and are at the point of giving up. These are the days and times that we need by faith to rejoice in the Lord and thank Him for all that He has done for us……..Bill

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Commentaries:

Charles Spurgeon

“This is the day which the LORD hath made.” A new era has commenced. The day of David’s enthronement was the beginning of better times for Israel, and in a far higher sense, the day of our Lord’s resurrection is a new day of God’s own making, for it is the dawn of a blessed dispensation. No doubt the Israelitish nation celebrated the victory of its champion with a day of feasting, music, and song; and surely it is but meet that we should reverently keep the feast of the triumph of the Son of David. We observe the Lord’s day as henceforth our true Sabbath, a day made and ordained of God, for the perpetual remembrance of the achievements of our Redeemer. Whenever the soft Sabbath light of the first day of the week breaks upon the earth, let us sing,

This is the day the Lord hath made,
He calls the hours his own;
Let heaven rejoice, let earth be glad,
And praise surround the throne.

We by no means wish to confine the reference of the passage to the Sabbath, for the whole gospel day is the day of God’s making, and its blessings come to us through our Lord’s being placed as the head of the corner.

“We will rejoice and be glad in it.” What else can we do? Having obtained so great a deliverance through our illustrious leader, and having seen the eternal mercy of God so brilliantly displayed, it would ill become us to mourn and murmur. Rather, will we exhibit a double joy, rejoice in heart and be glad in face, rejoice in secret and be glad in public, for we have more than a double reason for being glad in the Lord. We ought to be specially joyous on the Sabbath: it is the queen of days, and its hours should be clad in royal apparel of delight. George Herbert says of it:

Thou art a day of mirth,
And where the weekdays trail on ground,
Thy flight is higher as thy birth.

Entering into the midst of the church of God, and beholding the Lord Jesus as all in all in the assemblies of his people, we are bound to overflow with joy. Is it not written, “then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord”? When the King makes the house of prayer to be a banqueting house, and we have grace to enjoy fellowship with him, both in his sufferings and in his triumphs, we feel an intense delight, and we are glad to express it with the rest of his people.

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Enduring Word

This is the day that the LORD has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it: When Jesus quoted Psalm 118:22 (in Matthew 21:42, Mark 12:10-11, and Luke 20:17), He did so in response to the praise and hosannas given to Him at what is commonly called the triumphal entry. Since this psalm is prophetically connected with that event, the day mentioned here can be prophetically understood as the day Jesus formally entered Jerusalem as Messiah and King.

i. It is true in a general sense that the LORD makes every day, and there is reason to rejoice and be glad in every day. Yet specifically, the day the LORD made to rejoice and be glad in was the day Jesus entered Jerusalem with hosannas welcoming Him as Israel’s Savior. If on that day human voices failed to rejoice and be glad, Jesus said that the very stones would cry out their praises and hosannas (Luke 19:40).

ii. There is also reason to believe, based on the chronology of Sir Robert Anderson, that the particular day of the triumphal entry was prophesied in Daniel’s prophecy of the Seventy Weeks (Daniel 9:24-26). Anderson’s chronology is controversial and rejected by some, but as John Walvoord noted, “No one today is able dogmatically to declare that Sir Robert Anderson’s computations are impossible.”

(Guzik)

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Albert Barnes

This is the day which the Lord hath made – As if it were a new day, made for this very occasion; a day which the writer of the psalm did not expect to see, and which seemed therefore to have been created out of the ordinary course, and added to the other days. He was in danger of death; his days were likely to be cut off and ended, so that he should see no more. But God had spared him, and added this joyous day to his life; and it was meet that for this he should be praised. It was so full of joy, so unexpected, so bright, so cheerful, that it appeared to be a new day coming fresh from the hand of the Almighty, unlike the other days of the year. So the Sabbath – the day that commemorates the resurrection of the Redeemer – is God’s day. He claims it. He seems to have made it anew for man. Amidst the other days of the week – in a world where the ordinary days are filled up with so much of earth, so much toil, trouble, care, vexation, vanity, wickedness – it seems like one of the days that God made when he first made the world; before sin and sorrow entered; when all was calm, serene, happy. The Sabbath is so calm, so bright, so cheerful, so benign in its influence; it is so full of pleasant and holy associations and reminiscences, that it seems to be a day fresh from the hand of God, unlike the other days of the week, and made especially, as if by a new act of creation, for the good of mankind. So when a man is raised up from sickness – from the borders of the grave – it seems to be a new life given to him. Each day, week, month, and year that he may live is so much added to his life, as if it were created anew for this very purpose. He should, therefore, regard it not as his own, but as so much given to him by the special mercy and providence of God, as if added on to his life. Compare Isaiah 38:5.

We will rejoice and be glad in it – The psalmist, and all who united with him in his thanksgivings. So the Christian Sabbath. It is a day of joy – all joy, and no sorrow. It is a day to be happy in; a day of rest; a day, when the cares and toils of life are suspended; a day, when we are no longer harassed with those things which vex us in the worldliness of the week; a day, when we think of God, of redemption, of hope, of heaven. The Sabbath should be a day of joy, and not of gloom; it would be the happiest of all days to weary and jaded people everywhere, if they observed it aright. In a world of toil and sorrow, it is among the richest of God’s blessings to people; it strengthens, refreshes, and cheers the heart of burdened and sorrowful man here; it lifts the soul to joyous contemplation of that eternal Sabbath where wearisome toil and sorrow shall be no more.

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John Gill

This [is] the day [which] the Lord hath made,…. Famous and remarkable for the above events. Meaning either the day of Christ’s entrance into Jerusalem, in order to be delivered up to the Jews, and suffer and die in the place of his people; to which the following words agree: or the day of his resurrection {g} from the dead; when God gave him glory, and was matter of joy to those for whose justification he rose; or the Lord’s day, kept in commemoration of it: or rather the whole Gospel dispensation, made a bright day by the sun of righteousness; and which is the now present day of salvation;

we will rejoice and be glad in it; because of the blessings of grace, peace, pardon, righteousness, and salvation, which came through the humiliation and exaltation of Christ, and are published in the everlasting Gospel. The Targum is, “This day the Lord hath made, said the builders; let us rejoice and be glad in it, said the sons of Jesse.”

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Matthew Henry

Let the day be solemnized to the honor of God with great joy (v. 24): This is the day the Lord has made. The whole time of the gospel-dispensation, that accepted time, that day of salvation, is what the Lord has made so; it is a continual feast, which ought to be kept with joy. Or it may very fitly be understood of the Christian sabbath, which we sanctify in remembrance of Christ’s resurrection, when the rejected stone began to be exalted; and so,

(1.) Here is the doctrine of the Christian sabbath: It is the day which the Lord has made, has made remarkable, made holy, has distinguished from other days; he has made it for man: it is therefore called the Lord’s day, for it bears his image and superscription.

(2.) The duty of the sabbath, the work of the day that is to be done in his day: We will rejoice and be glad in it, not only in the institution of the day, that there is such a day appointed, but in the occasion of it, Christ’s becoming the head of the corner. This we ought to rejoice in both as his honor and our advantage. Sabbath days must be rejoicing days, and then they are to us as the days of heaven. See what a good Master we serve, who, having instituted a day for his service, appoints it to be spent in holy joy.

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The Pulpit Commentaries

THE LONG BRIGHT DAY OF GRACE AND GLADNESS. (Psalms 118:24.) The position of Jesus Christ as “Prince and Savior, giving redemption and remission of sins,” is a long, bright day, succeeding the darkness of heathendom or the twilight of “the Law;” it is a day which “the Lord has made” for the nations of the earth. We may well “rejoice and be glad in it;” not thinking and speaking and singing of it as if it were a dispensation of dreariness and gloom, but realizing that it is one of close fellowship with God, of holy and happy service, of ever-brightening, hope (see Philippians 3:1; Philippians 4:4; Ephesians 2:6; Ephesians 3:19; Revelation 1:6). “The joy of the Lord” is that which becomes us; it is our duty and it is “our strength.”

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Cross-References

Isaiah 49:8 (KJV )

⁸ Thus saith the Lord,

In an acceptable time have I heard thee,

And in a day of salvation have I helped thee:

And I will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people,

To establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages;

Psalm 31:7 (KJV )

⁷ I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy:

For thou hast considered my trouble;

Thou hast known my soul in adversities;

Psalm 84:10 (KJV )

¹⁰ For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand.

I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God,

Than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.

Nehemiah 8:10 (KJV )

¹⁰Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the Lord is your strength.

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Geneva Bible 1560

Psalm 118:24

24 This is the (l) daie, which the Lord hathe made: let us rejoyce and be glad in it.

(l) Wherein God has showed chiefly his mercy by appointing me King, and delivered his Church.

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Closing Thoughts

“The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.” ’ Numbers 6:24-26 NKJV