Psalm 24 begins with “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof” in the King James Version.
The verse continues by declaring that the world and everyone who lives in it belong to God. The psalm is traditionally associated with David and reflects themes of divine ownership, holiness, and the arrival of the King of Glory.
Psalm 24 is structured around several movements: the opening proclamation about the earth, a description of who may approach God’s holy place, and the repeated command for the gates to lift up their heads for the “King of glory.” That final section has made the psalm especially important in Jewish and Christian worship.
A common source of confusion is biblical numbering. In the Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate traditions, this same psalm is numbered Psalm 23, because those systems number some psalms differently. In the familiar Hebrew and King James numbering used by this question, however, the opening line belongs to Psalm 24—not Psalm 23, whose famous opening is “The Lord is my shepherd.”