YHWH reigns!

Despite how messed up our world is, God is fully committed to redeeming it, healing our fractured humanity, making us one in him, and filling us with perfect joy.

A descendants of Korah psalm.

¹ Clap your hands, all you peoples!
Acclaim God with joyful shouts!
² For YHWH is most high and to be revered—
a great king over all the earth.
³ He subdues peoples under us
the nations under our feet.
⁴ He chooses our inheritance for us
the proud possession of Jacob, his beloved.
⁵ God has ascended amid the crowd’s jubilant roar
YHWH with the sound of the ram’s horn.

⁶ Sing praises to God, sing praises!
Sing praises to our King, sing praises!
⁷ For God is King over all the earth.
Praise him with a psalm.
⁸ Seated on his holy throne
God reigns over the nations.
⁹ The world leaders gather
as the people of the God of Abraham.
For all of earth’s rulers belong to God
who is exalted over all.

The psalmist here celebrates two great events, God’s victory over hostile nations and his ascension as earth’s undisputed king. These events are inseparable since YHWH reigns not as a mere figurehead, but in power, as seen in the Israelites’ conquest of Canaan.

We may feel uneasy today about the fact that God’s chose an ethnic people—the far from perfect Israelites—establishing his rule on earth through them. But God has always chosen to work through particular people, despite their flaws. It may seem easier to think of God fulfilling his purposes remotely, without messed up humans, like Jacob, involved. But thankfully for us, beginning with Abraham, God has always worked with and through just such humans. The only kind available.

This psalm builds on Psalm 146. As the Jewish Midrash recognized, it points ahead to humanity’s restored oneness under the Messiah, God’s only perfect representative. The psalm’s climax envisions the day when all the world’s leaders gather as one people, all belonging to Abraham’s God. This was God’s promise to Abraham from the start: to extend his perfect blessing to all humanity through Abraham’s family. We see that promise’s fulfillment here in the Messiah’s ascension to the throne and the universal harmony it ultimately produces. This is cause for the joyful celebration described here.

Prayer:

Who is like you, Jesus, graciously working through Abraham and Jacob—through me—to redeem your world? Thank you for ascending to your throne, that you will yet rule over all, make all things new, and restore your world to perfect harmony. I worship you, Lord God. Amen.

In your free moments today, rejoice in this truth:

YHWH is most high and to be revered—
a great king over all the earth!

The God of Jacob reigns

In the spiritual—if not the physical—realm, we’re surrounded by noisy forces determined to diminish and destroy us. So, we can take comfort in Jacob’s God, who is always unfailingly on his people’s side.

To the music director. A descendants of Korah psalm. According to alamoth.

¹ God is our refuge and strength
always fully present to help us
when we’re in trouble.
² So we won’t fear
though the earth itself gives way
and its mountains
come crashing down into the sea.
³ Though its waters rage and roar
and the mountains quake
with their surging.  Selah

⁴ Brimful of joy
a river streams through God’s city
holy residence of the Most High.
⁵ With God himself at its heart
it won’t fall
for he’ll come to its aid at break of dawn.
⁶ Superpowers rant
and superpowers roil.
But he merely speaks
and the earth melts.
⁷ YHWH, Commander of Heaven’s Armies
is for us.
Jacob’s God is our fortress!

⁸ Come, behold what YHWH has done
what devastation he’s wreaked on earth:
⁹ breaking bows
snapping spears in two
burning chariots to ashes
he’s banned war the whole world over.
¹⁰ “Be still
and acknowledge that I am God
supreme over the din of empires
supreme over all the earth!”
¹¹ YHWH, Commander of Heaven’s Armies
is for us.
Jacob’s God is our fortress!

However hostile or chaotic the world is, God is for us. So we need not fear, even if the ground beneath our feet gives way and earth’s towering mountains come crashing into the sea. Because he’s here for us, he is our peace and is fully committed to establishing universal peace.

God is also our joy. In contrast to the chaotic waters of verse 3, Zion’s joy-filled river here reminds us of Eden, whose multiple streams produced the garden’s rich abundance. Likewise, God’s presence with us produces overflowing confidence despite our obvious weakness. Since he’s made his home among us, we can count on him to defend us at first light. Whatever threats we face melt away in terror when he speaks. As Jacob’s God, YHWH wrestles us into submission when, like Jacob, we need to be freed from all our egocentric efforts to run the universe our way. God also blesses us, transforms us, and commands heaven’s armies to protect us from our foes.

Inviting us to revel in YHWH’s military exploits, the psalmist then turns everything around, declaring that it’s war itself he’s destroyed. There’s only one fitting response to so great and so good a God: to stop resisting, be still, and let him rule our lives. Since everyone on earth will submit to Jacob’s God in the end, the only question is whether we’ll postpone it or submit to him freely right now.

Prayer:

When all around my soul gives way, you then are all my hope and stay! Jesus, I know I can trust you since you’ve come to live among us and fill the earth with peace. So help me to let go and grant you your absolute right to rule my life and to fill it with your peace. Amen.

In your free moments today, meditate on these life-giving words:

“Be still
and acknowledge that I am God
supreme over the din of empires
supreme over all the earth!”

To the bride and groom

Love is at the core of who we are and why we’re here. Yet in life’s busyness, we can easily forget to love—especially, to love our divine Lover. But love is too vital to forget.

A love song. A descendants of Korah psalm.

¹ My heart overflows with beautiful thoughts
poured out in song to the king.
My tongue now puts my thoughts into words
with all the verve of a gifted writer’s pen.

² You are the most excellent of men
your every word a gift of grace.
God has bestowed eternal blessing on you!
³ Strap your sword to your side
glorious and majestic defender!
⁴ Ride on to triumph
in the cause of truth, humility, and justice
your strength performing marvelous deeds.
⁵ Your sharp arrows
pierce the hearts of your enemies
making nations fall at your feet.
⁶ Your throne, O God
endures forever and ever.
Your royal scepter is a scepter of justice.
⁷ Because you love justice and hate evil
God, your God
has anointed you with the oil of joy
exalting you above your peers.

⁸ All your robes
breathe of myrrh, aloes, and cassia.
Wafting from ivory palaces
the music of lutes delights you.
⁹ With the daughters of kings
as guests of honor
your queen stands on your right
glittering in the purest gold from Ophir.

¹⁰ Listen, princess bride
take my words to heart:
Forget your people and family of origin.
¹¹ Let the king be ravished by your beauty.
Bow before him for he is your lord.
¹² The people of Tyre
will court your favor with gifts
the rich and the powerful with lavish wealth.

¹³ The princess makes her entrance
in a dazzling gold-threaded gown.
¹⁴ Arrayed in the richest brocade
she’s led in to the king
her bridesmaids in her train.
¹⁵ They all enter the king’s palace
filled with joy and delight.

¹⁶ In place of your ancestors
you’ll have children
whom you’ll make rulers over all the earth.
¹⁷ I’ll make your name renowned
throughout all generations
with nations praising you forever and ever.

Distinctly Middle Eastern in flavor, this psalm presents the king as Commander-in-chief and his bride, who derives her royal position from him, bowing before him. In other respects, the psalm is not typically Middle Eastern at all. Instead of being a law unto himself, this king defends humility. While kings often claim to be on the side of justice and truth, kings in the honor-shame cultures of the Middle East never aspire to humility as this king does. Of course, a national leader who humbly submits and answers to God is equally radical in the West.

In addressing the king as “God,” the psalmist likely means that David’s successors represent God on earth. Just as God told Moses, “I have made you God to Pharaoh” (Ex. 7:1), so each of David’s successors were in a sense “God” to their people and the surrounding nations. However, the psalmist likely also points beyond David’s immediate successors to his ultimate successor, his “greater son,” the Messiah, who would uniquely reign over the earth in God’s stead. So, the psalm can be taken as describing the Messiah.

Beyond its being a royal wedding song, the psalm speaks to the whole theme of love and marriage, which is why Jews have traditionally used it as a wedding song. Since the king pictures the Messiah, Christians will see his bride as picturing Christ’s bride, the Church. Thus, modelling our relationship to Jesus, the psalm invites us to forsake all others, submit to Christ, and “be ravished” by him. Our reigning under him flows always from our intimate relationship to him, not vice-versa. Thus, we enter his presence with joyful celebration.

Prayer:

I’m never free, Jesus, till I submit to you, nor ever chaste unless you ravish me. Help me renounce every competing loyalty. Captivate me with your beauty that I may embrace you and your reign with wild abandon. Grant me humility and joy in your service. Amen.

In your free moments today, meditate on these powerful words:

Your throne, O God
endures forever and ever.
Your royal scepter is a scepter of justice.

Face down in the dirt

When God allows us to suffer despite our faithfulness, we can think that, though faith may work for others, it doesn’t work for us. This is when we need to lean in, like the psalmist, with full honesty.

A descendants of Korah psalm.

¹ O God, we’ve heard it ourselves—
the story our ancestors told us
of what you did in their day
long ago.
² How you planted them in the land
dispossessing nations by your power.
Suppressing their enemies
you made our ancestors flourish.
³ Not by their swords
did they take possession of the land
nor by their strength did they triumph.
No, it was by your hand
your strength in them
and the light of your face streaming down on them
because you delighted in them.
⁴ You are my King, my God:
you command victories for Jacob.
⁵ Only by you do we drive back our enemies
only through you do we trample our foes.
⁶ I put no faith in my bow
nor do I trust my sword to save me.
⁷ You’re the one
who gives us victory over our enemies
humiliating those who hate us.
⁸ We constantly praise your name, God
and endlessly boast about you.

⁹ Yet you’ve spurned us and humiliated us
and no longer march out to battle
with our armies.
¹⁰ You make us run from our enemies
and those who hate us plunder us.
¹¹ You’ve consigned us
like sheep to the slaughter
and scattered us among the nations.
¹² You’ve sold your people for a pittance
making nothing on the sale.
¹³ You’ve made us a joke to our neighbors
an object of ridicule and sneering
¹⁴ a standing joke to everyone around
so they shake their heads at the sight of us.
¹⁵ With “SHAME” tattooed across our foreheads
we live in constant disgrace
¹⁶ thanks to the taunts of vengeful enemies
who constantly revile and berate us.
¹⁷ And all this has happened
even though we never forgot you
or violated your covenant.
¹⁸ Our hearts never turned back
our feet never left the path.
¹⁹ Yet you’ve crushed us in this haunt of jackals
and shrouded us in death’s dark gloom.
²⁰ If we’d forgotten God’s name
or spread out our hands to a foreign god
²¹ wouldn’t God have found out
since he knows the secrets of every heart?
²² But no, it’s on account of you
that we’re being killed all day long—
consigned as sheep to the slaughter.

²³ Wake up!
Why do you sleep, Lord?
Rise up! Don’t reject us forever!
²⁴ Why do you hide your face from us
ignoring our suffering and oppression
²⁵ as we lie here
flat on the ground
face down in the dirt?
²⁶ Rise up and help us!
Redeem us for the sake of your covenant love!

Like Job of old, the psalmist grapples with undeserved suffering. In flashbacks, he sees Israelite soldiers fleeing their oppressors and lying broken, beaten on the battlefield. He sees his people plundered at will, sold for a song, scattered among the nations, led like sheep to the slaughter, lying disgraced in the dirt and ridiculed all the while.

But none of this computes because the covenant set these disasters out as punishments God would inflict on its violators—which they are not, as God knows well. They don’t rely on themselves: they know that, just as God gave their ancestors the land, they can’t defend it without him. And they praise God for all he’s done. But despite all their faithfulness, their divine commander has abandoned them in battle.

The psalmist sets out half of the problem here: God cares deeply and is all-powerful, yet he lets his people suffer unjustly. The other half he implies: the God of Jacob isn’t an idol we can move at will. He doesn’t jump when we say, “Jump!” How then will God respond? The psalmist has no answer. But instead of drawing back, he leans in, crying out to the God he knows is himself the answer, though the psalmist doesn’t yet know how.

Prayer:

Lord, I know all my best efforts are useless unless you grant success. Where else can I turn when dispossessed and exiled than to you? Wake up and see my plight! Why subject me to disgrace and ridicule? Redeem me by your unfailing love, for the glory of your name. Amen.

In your free moments today, pray this prayer:

You are my King, my God:
you command victories for Jacob!