The love that cannot fail
We must all choose between two kinds of power: self-centered, coercive power and the power of God’s love, which bears all for love’s sake. This psalm assures us God’s love will ultimately triumph.
1 Praise YHWH, all you nations!
Extol him, all you peoples!
2 For YHWH’s unrelenting love for us is strong
and his faithfulness endures forever.
Praise YHWH!
As the shortest psalm in the Psalter, this poem is nevertheless enormous in scope, calling everyone on earth to praise God. The Hebrew word rendered “strong” has clear military connotations. Thus, the psalmist implies that God must be worshipped universally because his unfailing love will triumph over evil and his faithfulness outlast all opposition: God will yet fulfill his promise to bless the whole world through Abraham.
We see two kinds of power at work in the world. That of Pharaoh and the gods of Egypt, determined to maintain their egocentric existence through ruthless, dehumanizing coercion. And that of YHWH, whose commitment to the enslaved Israelites was unrelenting, though they’d done nothing to earn his compassion for them. Pharaoh’s gods stood for the cruelty that would destroy anyone not totally loyal to them. By contrast, YHWH repeatedly forgave the Israelites’ unfaithfulness.
The thought here is that the power represented by Pharaoh and his ilk will ultimately fail, while YHWH cannot help but realize all his loving designs for creation. Earth’s peoples and nations will remain confused, warring, chaotic, and self-destructive till they heed the psalmist’s call to submit to the God whose love alone is strong enough to hold everything together. So, singing or reading this psalm with heart is really an act of faith in the God who will yet heal the nations and bind all earth’s peoples together as one.
Prayer:
You call us to live by the power of your love, Jesus, to believe it will yet triumph over every rival power. Help me do that, Lord. And hasten the day when every people sees the love poured out triumphantly in your passion and worships the Lamb who died for them. Amen.
In your free moments today, meditate on these words:
YHWH’s unfailing love for us is strong
and his faithfulness endures forever.
Praise YHWH!