Catholic Commentary
Final Refrain: Exalt the Lord Our God
9Exalt Yahweh, our God. Worship at his holy hill, for Yahweh, our God, is holy!
Psalms 99:9 commands the assembled community to exalt Yahweh their God and worship at his holy mountain, with the foundational reason that God is holy. The imperative to exalt represents an active, liturgical act of communal elevation acknowledging God's transcendence and moral perfection, not merely internal sentiment or emotion.
God's holiness is not a distant attribute but the foundation of reality itself—and worship is the act of reorienting your entire life toward that truth.
Typological and Spiritual Senses
In the allegorical sense, Zion and its "holy mountain" point to the Church, the new Jerusalem, where Christ the eternal King is enthroned and continually worshipped in the Eucharist. In the tropological (moral) sense, the imperative to "exalt" God calls every Catholic to an interior reorientation — placing God above all competing loves, achievements, and anxieties. In the anagogical sense, this verse anticipates the unending doxology of Heaven, where the saints and angels exalt the thrice-holy God for all eternity (Rev. 4:8–11).
Catholic tradition illuminates this verse with singular richness at several levels.
The Holiness of God and the Catechism. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that "God alone IS" in the full sense — His holiness is not a quality He possesses but the very ground of His being (CCC 213). To "exalt" Him is, therefore, an act of adoration, which the Catechism identifies as the first and foundational act of the virtue of religion: "Adoration is the first attitude of man acknowledging that he is a creature before his Creator" (CCC 2628). Psalm 99:9 is thus not merely poetic praise but a school of authentic Catholic spirituality.
The Church Fathers. St. Augustine, in his Expositions on the Psalms, treats the holy mountain as the body of Christ — the Church — upon which worship is truly rendered: "Worship at his holy mountain, that is, worship in the Church, which is built upon the holy mountain, Christ." St. John Chrysostom sees in the repeated refrain a pedagogical insistence: God must be continually re-exalted in the heart because the human mind tends always downward toward earthly preoccupations.
Liturgical Theology. The Council of Trent's teaching on the sacrifice of the Mass underscores that the Eucharist is the supreme act of latria — the exaltation and worship due to God alone (DS 1740). Every Mass is, in effect, the living liturgical performance of Psalm 99:9: the People of God, gathered at the new holy mountain of the altar, exalt the Lord in the only sacrifice worthy of His holiness.
St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 81) defines the virtue of religion as rendering to God the honor (cultus) He is due by reason of His supreme excellence — precisely what this verse commands.
For a contemporary Catholic, Psalm 99:9 arrives as a counter-cultural summons. In a culture that reflexively centers the self — its feelings, its achievements, its brands of spirituality — this verse insists that the primary orientation of a human life is upward and outward toward God. The word "exalt" demands something concrete: showing up for Sunday Mass even when it is inconvenient, spending time in Eucharistic adoration, choosing liturgical prayer over self-generated religious sentiment.
Practically, a Catholic can pray this verse as a daily "reset" — particularly in moments of anxiety, ambition, or self-absorption. When work pressure, family conflict, or social comparison tempts us to enthrone ourselves or our fears, the psalm's imperative cuts through: Exalt Yahweh, our God. Not your career. Not your reputation. Not your political tribe.
Parish communities can use this verse as a lens for examining whether their liturgical life actually prioritizes the exaltation of God or has drifted toward entertainment, comfort, or self-expression. The "holy mountain" is still present — in every tabernacle — and the command to worship there remains as urgent as ever.
Commentary
Verse 9 in Its Immediate Context
Psalm 99 is the last of a cluster of "enthronement psalms" (Pss. 93–99) that celebrate the Lord's kingship over all creation and history. The psalm is structured around three refrains, each of which culminates in a declaration of God's holiness (vv. 3, 5, 9). Verse 9 is the final and most solemn of these refrains: "Exalt the LORD our God, and worship at his holy mountain; for the LORD our God is holy!" (RSV-CE). In the Hebrew, the imperative rômemû ("exalt," "lift up") is a Piel imperative of rûm, carrying the sense of active, intentional elevation — not merely an emotional sentiment but a liturgical act of the assembled community.
"Exalt Yahweh, Our God"
The divine name Yahweh — rendered as "LORD" in most Catholic translations — appears with the covenantal possessive "our God," binding this universal call to worship within the specific relationship Israel holds with the God of the Exodus. To exalt (rômemû) the Lord is to acknowledge in deed and voice that He stands infinitely above all creation, all rival claims to sovereignty, and all human pride. The Septuagint renders this hypsōsate Kyrion ton Theon hēmōn, and this Greek verb hypsōsate resonates deeply with the New Testament theology of Christ's exaltation (hypsōtheis, John 3:14; Acts 2:33), forming a bridge between the Old Testament praise of God's sovereignty and the New Testament proclamation of the risen and ascended Lord.
"Worship at His Holy Mountain"
The command to worship at his holy mountain — Zion/Jerusalem — situates praise within a specific, sacred geography. This is not abstract spirituality; it is embodied, localized worship. The mountain is holy not because of its geology but because of God's chosen dwelling there (cf. Ps. 2:6; 48:1–2). The Fathers saw in this "holy mountain" a type (typos) of the Church, the new Zion, and ultimately of Heaven itself — the place where perfect worship is eternally offered.
"For the LORD Our God Is Holy"
The refrain closes with the foundational reason for all exaltation: kî-qādôsh YHWH ʾĕlōhênû — "for holy is the LORD our God." The Hebrew qādôsh (holy) denotes radical otherness, transcendence, and moral perfection. This is no mere attribute added to God; as Aquinas would later systematize, holiness is constitutive of the divine nature itself. The triple deployment of this holiness refrain across the psalm (vv. 3, 5, 9) unmistakably evokes the Trisagion of Isaiah 6:3 — — and finds its fullest liturgical expression in the Sanctus of the Mass.