Joyful invitation to faith

The Jews who returned from exile were marginalized and despised in their own land, much like Christians in the West today. This psalm reminds them of who their God is and, wonderfully, does so with playfulness, not anger.

¹ Praise YHWH!
When Israel came out of Egypt—
when Jacob’s family escaped
from a people babbling in a strange tongue—
² Judah became his sanctuary
and Israel his domain.

³ The sea saw it and bolted
the Jordan River turned tail and ran.
⁴ The mountains jumped like rams
and the hills skipped like lambs.

⁵ What was wrong with you, sea
that you bolted?
And you, Jordan
that you ran away?
⁶ Why, mountains
did you jump like rams
and you hills, skip like lambs?

⁷ Tremble, Earth
before YHWH!
Tremble before the God of Jacob!
⁸ He turned solid rock
into a pool of water
hard stone into a gushing spring.

My paraphrase moves Psalm 113’s final “Praise YHWH” to the start of this psalm for three reasons. First, without this correction, the pronoun “his” in 114:2 has no antecedent, which Hebrew grammar demands. With “YHWH” restored to the beginning of verse 1, we fix a grammatical error the psalmist wasn’t likely to have made. Second, the scribal error behind my correction was very easy to make. Third, the fact that the Psalms compiler placed this psalm among the book’s Hallel, or Praise, Psalms suggests that it originally included an explicit call to praise. Uncorrected, it’s the only Hallel psalm without one.

Returning from exile, the Jews were suppressed by their pagan overlords. This made praising YHWH an act of defiance. This psalm uses the Exodus, Israel’s signature story, to exalt YHWH. And it does so with playful pugnacity, by ridiculing the river, sea, and mountains and then calling the whole earth to submit to the omnipotent God who cares for his people.

Instead of saying what terrified the waters and made the mountains quake, the psalmist taunts the natural formations, leaving them mute before her taunts.* She also brings us on stage as we join her taunting and relish the resultant silence. Only when the earth is commanded to tremble do we see what overwhelmed it in the Exodus. But since these were Israel’s best-known stories, the psalmist’s audience knew the secret all along, the dramatic irony making her jibes livelier and more fun.

The psalm’s images of YHWH’s controlling water evoke the region’s creation myths, in which Baal subdued creation’s chaos to permit his ordering of it. The psalm’s images of mountains evoke the region’s pagan shrines, its “high places.” These images make the psalm’s demand that Earth submit absolute. The psalm ends with God’s tender care for his people, telling us he’s on Jacob’s side, is as compassionate as he is powerful, and is fully deserving of our praise.

Prayer:

Lord, you defeated all the powers of darkness degrading and dehumanizing your people in Egypt. And Jesus, you defeated evil itself in your death-and-resurrection Exodus. When I feel powerless, against the evil around me, help me believe you have absolute agency and you live in me. Amen.

In your free moments today, meditate on these words:

Tremble, Earth, before YHWH!
Tremble before the God of Jacob!

* I imagine the psalmist here as a woman of faith, like Miriam, Deborah, Hanna, or the Virgin Mary (see further, my answer to the question: Who wrote the psalms?).

The high and humble God

The rich and powerful domesticate religion, making it an opiate to control the masses. But YHWH will have none of it. He sides always with society’s outcasts and most vulnerable against their oppressors.

¹ Praise YHWH!
You who serve YHWH
praise YHWH for all he’s shown himself to be.
² May YHWH’s good name
be blessed both now and forever.
³ YHWH’s name is to be praised
everywhere on earth.
⁴ YHWH reigns supreme over all the nations
his glory transcending the heavens.

⁵ Who can compare with YHWH our God?
He’s enthroned on high
⁶ yet he stoops down low
to behold the heavens and earth.
⁷ He raises the poor up from the dust
and lifts the wretched from the garbage pile
⁸ seating them with the very best
the rulers of his people.
⁹ To the woman grieving her childlessness
he gives a home
making her the happy mother of children.[1]

Jews still use this psalm in celebrating Passover, when God rescued the Israelites from slavery. Beginning a series of five hallel, or praise, psalms, it calls YHWH’s servants to praise him because the name he’s won in all his dealings with Israel is like no other. By calling for universal praise, the psalm is both missionary and polemical, implying that no other power has a prior claim on us.

Everyone in the surrounding nations sought the sort of exaltation they saw in their gods, who were extremely arrogant and aloof. By contrast, though YHWH is the highest of the high, he cares enough for the lowest of the low—implicitly, the enslaved Israelites and their descendants—to bend down and lift them up out of the gutter. In a world that valued wealth and children above all else, garbage pickers and childless women were scorned and shunned. But not by YHWH.

Combining such extremes of exalted majesty and humble condescension in one person was no less shocking in ancient times than it is to us today. And YHWH doesn’t just extract the outcast from their mess. He creates astonishing new possibilities for them, seating them among the nation’s rulers. He empowers the weak and completely reverses their fortunes, underscoring the fact that he’s like no rival god and deserves everyone’s praise everywhere on earth, both now and always.

Jesus’ disciples may well have sung this song the night he washed their feet and wept alone in Gethsemane. But if they did, they didn’t know they sang of him, though they knew they sang of themselves, believing as they did that he’d come to rescue them—a tax collector, a Canaanite, and mere fishermen—to raise them up to rule with him in God’s kingdom.

Prayer:

Jesus, how amazing that you left heaven’s glory to save lost souls like me, that you washed your disciples’ feet, that you died alone, all to raise us up! I’m so grateful that you came not just to save us from ourselves, but also to reign with you forever. I worship you alone. Amen.

In your free moments today, meditate on these words:

Who can compare with YHWH our God?
He’s enthroned on high
yet he stoops down
to behold the heavens and earth.

[1] The Hebrew text ends with “Praise YHWH,” but it seems more likely that that call to praise belongs at the start of Psa. 114 instead. For more on this, see the note at Ps. 114:1.

The flourishing life

The “prosperity gospel” says we all deserve a Cadillac or two—to be claimed by “faith.” This psalm says life’s goodness is measured by God’s presence and power in our lives, not the number of trinkets we own.

¹ Praise YHWH!
How blessed are those who revere YHWH
and treasure his commandments.
² Their descendants
will be powerful in the land
the children of God-seekers will be blessed.
³ Their family will have wealth and to spare
and their saving justice endures forever.
⁴ Light dawns in the dead of night
for those who live to please God—
who are gracious, compassionate, and just.
⁵ Good comes to those who lend freely
and do all their business fairly.
⁶ The just aren’t rocked by disaster
and their sterling reputation never fades.
⁷ They don’t live in fear of bad news
because their hearts are confident
trusting in YHWH.
⁸ They’re unafraid
unfazed by threats
knowing they’ll see their enemies’ downfall.
⁹ Since they give liberally to the needy
and their saving justice endures forever
they gain lasting respect and influence.
¹⁰ The wicked will be so furious on seeing this
they’ll gnash their teeth in frustration
seeing all they’re after come to nothing.

Like its pair, Psalm 111, this acrostic psalm gives the full view from its perspective. While Psalm 111 focuses on God’s side of the divine-human relationship, this psalm focuses on the goodness of life lived in reverence for God. The submissive believer views God’s commandments as a delight, not a burden, since they mark the path to both individual and communal wholeness.

This psalm starts and ends with the same words as Psalm 1. In fact, Psalms 111-112 restate in Israel’s new post-exilic context many foundational truths found in Psalms 1-2, mirroring those early psalms in reverse. Surprisingly, Psalm 112 also applies to the devout believer things Psalm 111 says of God—especially, that their “saving justice endures forever.” Living by his values, believers are being transformed into the likeness of the God they worship.

Facing enemies and discouragement, post-exilic Israelites struggled to believe God was fully committed to them. The psalmist stresses their need to be totally committed to living graciously, generously, and justly in response to God’s gracious, generous, and just embrace of them.* She calls them to believe it will one day be clear they’re on the winning side. She contrasts the richness of their lives in God with the frustrating existence of the self-seeking, whose dreams utterly fail them.

Prayer:

Lord, you invite me to a life without lack, as I share in the work you’re doing here. Help me not to make fleeting prosperity my focus, but to live out of your generosity, knowing that what matters most is pleasing you. Strengthen my faith and make me gracious and just, as you are, Jesus. Amen.

In your free moments today, meditate on these words:

Light dawns in the dead of night
for those who live to please God—
who are gracious, compassionate, and just.

* I imagine the psalmist here as a woman of faith, like Miriam, Deborah, Hanna, or the Virgin Mary (see further, my answer to the question: Who wrote the psalms?).

Where wisdom’s path begins

Some think we know the best path to take in life by being objective. Others by renouncing objectivity or just following the latest influencer. This psalm says it’s only by submitting ourselves humbly to our gracious God.

¹ Praise YHWH!
I will thank YHWH with all my heart
in the assembly of those who seek him.
² So fantastic are YHWH’s deeds
that those who delight in them
devote themselves to studying them.
³ Glory and majesty mark everything he does
and his saving justice endures forever.

⁴ Renowned for his miracles
YHWH is gracious and compassionate.
⁵ Ever mindful of his covenant
he provides food for those who revere him.
⁶ He showed his people his power in action
by giving them the lands of the nations.

⁷ With truth and justice as his stock-in-trade
all his instructions are trustworthy.
⁸ They’ll endure forever and ever
and are to be obeyed faithfully and sincerely.
⁹ He redeemed his people
establishing his covenant with them for all time
and revealing himself to be holy and awe-inspiring.

¹⁰ Reverence for YHWH
is where the path of wisdom begins.
All who take it live life in the real world.
His praise endures forever!

Psalm 111 and Psalm 112 are both tight acrostics, presenting a comprehensive view, but from opposite perspectives: the former focuses on God’s redemptive acts, the latter on the response of God’s people. Together, they introduce a series of praise psalms that serve as responses to calls to praise given in earlier psalms.

The psalmist commits to heartfelt public praise of God. She says those who long to be in tune with him reflect thoughtfully on what he’s done.* They align their lives with his purposes since his deeds demonstrate his holy character.

Due to its brevity, this psalm says a lot by allusion. As their king, God memorably rescued his people from their Egyptian oppressors. He cared for them in the wilderness and then gave them the lands of other nations. Having redeemed them, he gave them his law—their national constitution—to guide them into just and healthy relationships. The Psalms anthologist includes Israel’s formative stories here in Book V to then present Israel’s return from exile as another instance of God’s liberating and redeeming his people.

The psalmist implicitly calls us to respond to the ongoing story of God’s revelation of himself. His awesome holiness calls for our reverent submission. This is where wisdom’s path to understanding the world and the good life God has for us begins.

Prayer:

Rescuing us from sin’s oppression, Jesus, your life, death, and resurrection accomplished the greatest exodus of all. I praise you for dying and rising for me. Help me live in holy reverence, walking the path you walked to all the freedom and joy you have for me. Amen.

In your free moments today, meditate on these words:

Reverence for YHWH
is where the path of wisdom begins.
All who take it live life in the real world.
His praise endures forever!

* I imagine the psalmist here as a woman of faith, like Miriam, Deborah, Hanna, or the Virgin Mary (see further, my answer to the question: Who wrote the psalms?).