“‘The LORD will rejoice over thee with singing.’ Think of the great Jehovah singing! Can you imagine it? Is it possible to conceive of the Deity breaking into a song: Father, Son and Holy Ghost together singing over the redeemed?
God is so happy in the love which He bears to His people that He breaks the eternal silence, and sun and moon and stars with astonishment hear God chanting a hymn of joy…
If God sings, shall not we sing? He did not sing when He made the world. No; He looked upon it, and simply said that it was good. The angels sang, the sons of God shouted for joy: creation was very wonderful to them, but it was not much to God, who could have made thousands of worlds by His mere will.
Creation could not make Him sing; and I do not even know that Providence ever brought a note of joy from Him, for He could arrange a thousand kingdoms of providence with ease. But when it came to redemption, that cost Him dear. Here He spent eternal thought, and drew up a covenant with infinite wisdom.
Here He gave His Only-begotten Son, and put Him to grief to ransom His beloved ones. When all was done, and the Lord saw what became of it in the salvation of His redeemed, then He rejoiced after a divine manner. What must the joy be which recompenses Gethsemane and Calvary!
Here we are among the Atlantic waves. The Lord God receives an accession to the infinity of His joy in the thought of His redeemed people. ‘He shall rejoice over thee with singing.’
I tremble while I speak of such themes, lest I should say a word that should dishonor the matchless mystery; but still we are glad to note what is written, and we are bound to take comfort from it. Let us have sympathy with the joy of the Lord, for this will be our strength.”
—Charles Spurgeon, “A Sermon for the Time Present,” a sermon on Zephaniah 3:16-18 delivered October 30th, 1887.