The fourth of these five stanzas returns to the theme introduced at the end of the preceding psalm, namely, the righteous judgment of God. Zion and the surrounding villages are rejoicing, and the reason they are rejoicing is that God has intervened in history to establish his righteous kingly rule over the entire earth. 

Why do we appear to serve these "lesser gods"? Probably it is because we know so little of the true God! And the reason we know so little of the true God is that we spend so little time with him. How foolish for us who have the Word of God, the Bible, and who possess the Holy Spirit who has been given to us to help us understand the Bible and obey it. Psalm 119 says, "I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you" (v. 11). And again, "I gain understanding from your precepts; therefore I hate every wrong path" (v. 104).

Psalm 97 begins with two sentences from Psalm 96: "The LORD reigns" (from verse 10) and "let the earth be glad" (from verse 11). It is a way of reminding us that these two psalms, as well as Psalms 93-100, belong together and that their theme is the kingly rule of God. The words "Jehovah reigns” (or “Jehovah is king") are found in nearly all of them.

1. God rules all history now. It is difficult to appreciate this fact sometimes because there is so much unrighteousness and violence in the world. Nevertheless, God does rule in the sense that he both holds the evil in check and also intervenes to judge it in history from time to time.

Derek Kidner calls the first six verses of the psalm "The King's Glory." The first point the psalmist makes about God's glory, that is, why he is "most worthy of praise," is that "he is to be feared above all gods” (v. 4).