NOTES for Psa 96
The greatness of the God of whom the Bible tells us lies in the fact that He is real. It must have been difficult for the inhabitants of the ancient world, which seemed filled with a multitude of gods, to accept that God is one, that the Lord stands not above other, less powerful gods, but above the products of human hands and imagination.
But the One who is the sole Creator and King of the universe relates to the world's diversity differently from the rulers of separate elements worshiped by pagans. Pagan gods can wage war against one another, disrupting the unity of the world they govern and threatening to destroy it; they can help people, but in essence they do not love them and try to manipulate them. Paganism has gods of love, but it has no God who is Love.
Before the one Creator, however, the world appears as one Creation in which everything is interconnected. He alone can judge the world justly, for He alone sees the truth in all its fullness. And so the call to joy and gladness flows so naturally from the psalmist's lips.