Ps. 33.13-14 (the dominion of Yhwh's gaze)

“Yhwh has looked / from heaven; - he has seen / all the sons of mankind. – He has gazed / from his established throne – at all the inhabitants / of the earth.” ” Yhwh has spoken his word, breathed his breath, gathered the waters, frustrated the plans of nations and now he “looks and gazes from his established throne in heaven”. As with his ‘word’, though, this gaze is not a passive activity; it accomplishes and effectuates an aspect of Yhwh’s reign as king. Without looking ahead we can gather this simply from the fact that, for a king to ‘gaze upon’ his subjects is not to simply ‘look’ at them in abstracted observation. Rather, his gaze is the gaze of justice, of making sure his kingdom is ‘well ordered’. Just as Yhwh’s ‘plan’ emerges from his word, so too does justice/judgment emerge from a king’s gaze. Notice too that this ‘gaze’ is as total as the ‘word’; meaning, just as everything finds it source in Yhwh’s word, so too is everything seen by Yhwh’s gaze: “all the sons of mankind”, “all the inhabitants of the earth”. Notice too that we are now zeroing in on more particular parties. The psalm has progressed thus: heavens, earth, nations, ‘sons of mankind’. What this accomplishes is the sense of the complete sovereignty of Yhwh. Not only is everything made by his word. And not only do entire nations have to submit to his heart’s plan and schemes. Now, every individual stands underneath the ‘gaze’ of Yhwh. By becoming more particular the psalm is allowing us to see how complete Yhwh’s control actually is. Although Yhwh elects Israel, his gaze and kingship is universal. Lastly, the designation “inhabitants of earth” is interesting—standing in contrast to the enthroned King of heaven this term draws a picture of how small man is under the throne of Yhwh. The contrast between the ‘Enthroned One’ in ‘heaven’ and the ‘sons of man’ and ‘inhabitants of earth’ is stark as conjures up an image similar to that encountered in the story of Babel when Yhwh ‘looks down from heaven’: there is a latent sense here of Yhwh’s gaze as almost mockingly superior to the workings of man. That it utterly penetrating and total and that man is perhaps (very) unaware of the dominion exerted over him by such a gaze.