Psalm 111 is part of a Psalm that extends through Psalm 112.
Psalm 111 and Psalm 112 contain one acrostic psalm, each half verse containing the next letter of the alphabet. Each of the 22 mini sections begins with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It may have been a mnemonic device to aid in the memorization of the psalm.[1] It is a literary device that, in context, may be God’s way of saying, “I will look after you as you follow my ways from A to Z.” See the “I am the Alpha and the Omega” (first and last letters of the Greek alphabet) passages of Revelation 1:8; 21:6; 22:13), in which God and the risen Lord Jesus Christ are saying essentially (in passages that contrast those who are with God to those who are away from God), “I am A to Z and everything in between.”
Psalm 111-112 is a hymn of praise to the Lord for the works of the Lord in nature and history. The psalm begins and ends with praise, and the reasons to offer up such praise to the Lord are the content of the psalm. The author composed it for recital at a festival. If the psalm views the blessings of the godly as the Lord bestowing them on the godly, then one may need to consider the connection between worship and wisdom. The psalm is full of optimism about present and future. It was an offering made when everything was OK. It is not so much a prayer as it is a proclamation. We should note the repetition of "forever" in v. 3, 5, 8, 9, and 10. The psalm has a dual emphasis on the nature and the activity of the Lord in human life. One can discover who the Lord is by examining what the Lord has done, a theme consistent with the wisdom community. The affirmation is there that the observation of the world leads to a misunderstanding of the Lord. When we look at the two canonical poems as one poem, the psalmist proposes that we praise the Lord (112:1a) by becoming like the Lord we worship, in Righteousness, in Generosity, and in Deliverance. The parallelism between the two psalms is striking, with the attributes of the Lord in 111 becoming attributes of the godly in 112.
Psalm 111 Psalm 112
Righteousness stands firm forever Uprightness stands firm forever
Honor Blessings
Yahweh is mercy and tenderness Upright, generous, tender-hearted
The Lord gives food to all All goes well
The Lord delivers the people The upright give to the needy
His praise will continue forever Upright stand firm forever
Psalm 111:1-6 is the first unit of thought. It begins with the invitation to 1 Praise the Lord (hallelu-yah)! The injunction occurs some 24 times in the OT, especially in the psalter, where it is the opening words of several psalms (e.g., 106, 111-113, 117, 135, 146-150). It may have been a liturgical instruction for temple worship and not simply a generic summons to praise.[2] The Hebrew verb halal can also mean "boast" (as in Psalm 75:4 (Hebrew verse 5), and in its sense of "praise," the Old Testament text does not restrict the verb to the deity (e.g., Genesis 12:15, "and they praised her [Sarai] to Pharaoh"). The rest of the Psalm offers reasons for offering such praise. The Psalmist then says I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, the seat of a person's passion and will (as distinct from the mind, which is the locus of rational thought). While much of the Psalm focuses on the commandments, we are aware here that heeding them arises from a heart attuned to the Lord. In the anthropology of the OT, the whole heart is the seat of the passion and will (as distinct from the mind, which is the locus of rational thought) of a person. The intent was certainly to evoke the words from Deuteronomy (6:4-5) that would later form the Jewish liturgical prayer known as the Shema and the Great Commandment of the NT (see Matthew 22:36-40 and parallels). Whole-hearted devotion to Yahweh was the precondition of the covenantal obligations the people of Israel took upon themselves; without exclusive allegiance to Yahweh, little else mattered in the religious life of ancient Israel, as the prophets never ceased to remind their contemporaries. He will give thanks in the company of the upright, in the congregation (`edah, 'great congregation' at Psalms 22:25; 26:12; 35:18; 40:9-10; 68:26). The Hebrew word, "congregation," derives from the verb ya`ad, "to appoint, assign," and is a technical term for the people of Israel as those appointed by God to the mission given first to Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3), repeated to Moses (Exodus 3:6-10), and for which the people as a whole were delivered from Egyptian slavery (used thusly approximately 115 times by the priestly writer in the books of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers). Although the term can be used generically to simply mean a bunch of something (such as a swarm of bees, Judges 14:8), its more customary usage in the OT is to designate the community defined by and devoted to Yahwism. As such, it is an explicitly religious term, and in Psalm 111:1, it refers to those who share the psalmist's sense of gratitude for divine deliverance and protection. In verses 2-3, the author knows the greatness of God in the acts of God. 2 Great are the works (ma'aseh) of the Lord (also in verses 6 and 7), studied by all who delight in them. The psalm focuses upon God's wondrous deeds for the people as a whole, a perspective also found in Psalms 18, 22 and 30, among others. The Lord is transcendent over the world, but is also imminent in history, affecting the divine purpose through divine acts. Only those who take pleasure in them know them! This is faith. From the earliest stages of the version of Israelite religion preserved in the OT, Israelite theologians made a point of insisting on study, and not mere acknowledgment, as an essential component of discerning divine activity in the world. Modern readers of the Bible are prone to stereotyping ancient peoples as uniformly and unreflectively religious, but the text itself suggests a more nuanced set of beliefs among ancient Israel's population, ranging from atheism through skepticism to profound devotion to fanaticism. Study of the religious tradition was a vital component of mainstream biblical thought, as it remains in Judaism today. The writers of the Bible never understood revelation simply as ecstatic possession. Revelation still calls those who see and hear to examine it rationally. Revelation must show itself to be a reasonable response to the hopes, fears, and questions of humanity. 3 Full of honor and majesty (Tanakh: "His deeds are splendid and glorious") is the work of the Lord and the righteousness of the Lord endure, of course, forever. In verse 4, the author contemplates the acts of God in the perspective of the saving history. The Lord 4 has gained renown by wonderful deeds; the Lord is gracious and merciful 5 the Lord provides food referring to manna in the wilderness for those who fear the Lord. To fear the Lord characteristically means to revere God and to hold God in awe. In a sizable number of passages, to fear the Lord means to obey the Lord by following the will and ways of the Lord, as expressed in the commandments. To do so is to live righteously before God and people. The Lord is ever mindful of the covenant (berit) the Lord established. The Lord 6 has shown the people the power of the works (ma'aseh) of the Lord, in giving them the heritage of the nations. The poet has pride and gratitude at the conquest of Canaan!
Psalm 111:7-10 forms another unit of thought. It begins with affirming that 7 the works (ma'aseh) of the hands of the Lord are faithful (emet) and just (mispat). We can trust what the Lord has done and said, because the Lord is faithful to us and fair to us, just as the Lord has been faithful and fair to the people of the Lord in the past. Only the works of God are fully stable and trustworthy. Further, all the precepts of the Lord are trustworthy. Thus, only the word of the Lord is stable and trustworthy. The Lord establishes them, of course, 8 forever and ever. Therefore, the psalmist proposes that those who want to have a firmly established life will do so in the Lord.[3] The people are to perform the precepts with faithfulness (emet) and uprightness (yasar). One is to take equally seriously the promises and threats as the foundation of the works of the Lord. The Psalm has a concern for right living, and the Lord has shown Israel that way in the covenant. The Lord 9 sent redemption (peduth, λύτρωσιν) to the people of the Lord; the Lord has commanded the covenant (berit), of course, forever. Holy and awesome is the name of the Lord. We find here a summary that focuses on the deliverance of the Lord and on the covenant. Thus, consistent with a familiar theme of wisdom literature, 10 the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. Those who have wisdom follow the commandments of the Lord. Yes, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge (Proverbs 1:7). Clearly, this does not mean mindless terror; it means the appropriate sense of mystery, awe, reverence, and respect that characterizes all genuine relationships between humans and the divine. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight (Proverbs 9:10). The Lord said to humanity that the fear of the Lord is wisdom (Job 28:28). Our wisdom begins when we look up to the Lord with awe and respect. A deep understanding of the Lord and humans begins when we put our trust in a faithful, just, trustworthy, and eternal God. When we are willing to trust, the Lord shapes us into people that are more faithful. Thus, divine wisdom is the meaning and ground of the creation and therefore of the sphere in which humanity can live. The art of living and understanding life consists in heeding divine wisdom. Such heeding and accepting consists in the fear of the Lord, which directs us to the creative and sustaining power of the Lord.[4] The praise (tehillah) of the Lord endures forever.
To use an analogy, a well-known view is that Michelangelo could call forth a figure out of stone. The Lord is working with flesh and blood to bring us to life, freeing us from all that would block our experiencing of the fullness of the life the Lord has given us. If the Lord is artist bringing us to life, then the Lord seeks a fully living and authentic figure or person to emerge, fully capable of doing being the true, good, and beautiful presence the Lord intended. Such persons will bring life, truth, goodness, and beauty into the world. The works of the Lord in our history have the purpose of bringing such new possibilities into our lives and into the lives of others.
[1] Mitchell Dahood Anchor Bible commentary, Psalms 111 [Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1970], 172.
[2] Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906], 238b).
[3] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 136.
[4] Barth, Church Dogmatics II.1 [30.3] 430.
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