Summary
My central claim is that Psalm 33 is a joyful communal hymn (possibly New Year/festival use) that celebrates God’s creative power and faithful governance of history, inviting trust and praise.
This study presents Psalm 33 as a joyful hymn for a New Year festival, emphasizing the Lord's faithful care and the joy of trusting in Him. It highlights the divine power in creation, where God's word brought the heavens and waters into being, contrasting this with human limitations. The psalm stresses that while human plans falter, the Lord's counsel stands forever, blessing the nation chosen by Him.
Ultimately, it encourages glad reliance on the Lord and calls for reflecting on our love and praise for Him, drawing a beautiful parallel to the depth of romantic love expressed in Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poetry to illustrate the psalmist's profound devotion.
Introduction
The psalm praises the faithful care of the Lord and the joy of trusting in the Lord. The creator of the world maintains control of it. All human power pales in significance to divine power. As a joyful hymn, it celebrates the gracious action of the Lord in creation and in the life of the world.
Verse-by-verse study
Psalm 33: 1-5 are an introduction, a call to sing a hymn. This call indicates the worship focus of the psalm. Music is a form of worship. 1 Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous. Praise befits the upright. Rejoicing and offering praise are in parallel construction, both suggesting a relationship to the Lord that is intensely personal and transforming. The appeal is to the righteous and upright, also in parallel construction, describing those who gather those for worship. The psalmist then reveals the corporate worship context of this psalm. 2 Praise the Lord with the lyre; make melody to him with the harp of ten strings. 3 Sing to him a new song, namely this hymn that matches the coming of the New Year; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts. A choir may have sung verses 4-5. The world that the Lord created by a word, which is right, is full of the faithful care of the Lord. As a result of how it was created (verse 6), the world is a place of rightness, justice, and hesed. 4 For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness. This phrase suggests a total view of the acts of God as a sequence or series in which we can well speak of the history of the acts of God.[2] 5 He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord. The psalm does not arise out of dogmatic concerns. Rather, it arises from religious experience.
Psalm 33: 6-9 are the hymn, testifying to the power of the word of the Lord at creation. We would do well to review the opening verses of Genesis 1. Note the parallel construction of word and breath here. [3] Word and Spirit are divine creative activity.[4] As in Genesis 1, creation is by the divine word, the making of the heavens, the confinement of the chaotic waters, and the peopling of the earth. 6 By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host [angels] by the breath of his mouth. To show the truth and efficacy of the word of God, he goes back to creation and the view of the tradition that only the word created the world. Unlike the gods who had to fight to create. 7 He gathered the waters of the sea as in a bottle (Exodus 15:8 says the water of the Sea of Reeds is piled in a heap; Job 38:37 refers to the tilting of the waterskins of the heavens); he put the deeps in storehouses. 8 Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. All inhabitants of the world must be in awe of the creator. 9 For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm. This verse is a particularly impressive formulation of the creative power of the word of the Lord. The Lord spoke and it was done. The Lord commanded and it stood fast.[5] The creative power of the word is structurally different from the prophetic word in verse 9.[6]
Psalm 33: 10-12 refer to the counsel of the Lord in history. 10 The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he frustrates the plans of the peoples. 11 The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations. Human plans can easily come to nothing while the plans of the Lord are eternal. 12 Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage. He stresses the special relation of the Lord with Israel. We do need to note the sharp contrast between “the nations” and “the peoples” on the one hand and Israel on the other. While the Lord frustrates one, the chosen people are happy. Behind the apparent disorder of history, the poet sees the hand of God with the eyes of faith. From Israel first emerged a great vision of the divine purpose inherent in history.
Application
We can rely gladly on the Lord, who is watching over those who are in awe of the Lord. It invites us to reflect upon the love we have for the Lord and the extent to which we offer proper praise. Our failure to mark moments that occasion praise to the Lord may well be a sign that we are not paying attention to the works of the Lord in either history or in our lives.
In rising out of religious experience, the psalm is the religious side of romantic love. I am thinking of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s famous Sonnet XLIII in which she writes of her love for Robert: “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways./ I love thee to the depth and breadth and height/ My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight/ For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.” The poet loves the Lord he is describing. He wants to the count the ways. The actions of the Lord are reliable, so the individual can trust.
[1] The date is uncertain. It is too general in terms to refer to some great act of deliverance. Nor is it eschatological.
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