“The king / is not saved / by a great army – the warrior / is not delivered / by great strength. – The horse / is hopeless / for victory – and by its strength / it cannot deliver. – Lo / Yhwh’s eye / is upon / those that fear him – upon those / that depend / on his lovingkindness – to rescue / their soul / from death –and to keep them / alive in famine.” What an interesting contrast—we descended from heaven to the depths of man’s heart and now we seemingly are jolted back into the realm of national endeavors. Is there a logic to this? The Song of the Sea, as well as allusions to songs contained in Judges, are again evident. This experience of deliverance, though, as we have seen, is more universalized in this psalm: as with the ‘creation’perspective of this psalm, this is not merely the Pharaoh but any king or warrior who trusts in his own strength. The pressure exerted by Yhwh over all of creation by his glance is so total that he has become the only source of victory and ultimate strength; his plans, alone, are those that survive throughout time. But again, what is the logic in this shift back to national stratagems? The answer, I think is two fold. First, we have seen how, overarching much of this psalm are allusions to the Song of the Sea—therefore, the national perspective, has been central throughout. Furthermore, this‘national’ perspective has been closely wed to the idea of national ‘plans’. As we have seen, these ‘national’ plans are met by the God who creates by his word and maintains his own plans. In essence, we see that the psalm has embodied this ‘collision’ between earthly power with the Creator god, Yhwh, and has placed him sovereignly over all by emphasizing the fact he is the one who has created even the heart of man that initiates the stratagems. Notice: Yhwh is the only one who creates; man and Yhwh have ‘plans’. There is a logic then: when Yhwh is understood to be the fashioner of hearts, and those hearts include the ‘hearts of kings’, then it seems as if the ‘heart-maker’ verse was in service more of this national perspective than we first realized. The point is that Yhwh’s creative hands are prior to every king’s motivations; and therefore, Yhwh can act to save those who are his own in a way that is truly profound because it is utterly total—even the ‘kings’, ‘warriors’ and ‘horses’ that array themselves against Yhwh are already conquered by the fact that Yhwh’s eyes and hands were prior to any of their plans or schemes. This leads to the second ‘logic’, and that is the image of the ‘gaze’ or ‘eye of Yhwh’. Before, Yhwh’s eye was upon “all the sons of mankind” and “all the inhabitants of earth”. Here, it is only upon those that fear him, those that “depend on his lovingkindness”. The verse dealing with the ‘fashioning of hearts’ finds, as we saw, a close relationship between this ‘fashioning’ and Yhwh’s ability to“discern all they do”. Here, with the re-emergence of the ‘eye’, we see confirmation of what we said in our first point: that the verse relating to the creation of the heart is in service of this ability of Yhwh to overthrow every power aligned against him. This ‘gaze’, then, and the ‘discernment’ in verse 15, is what ties all of this together and shows that this has been the thrust of the psalm all along: to show that earthly power is pre-empted by Yhwh from nearly every direction in favor of his ‘plan’. And, as we saw, his ‘plan’ are those he has elected, namely, Israel (those that depend on his lovingkindness; those he saves from death and famine).
A second, related, point to be made: these verses emphasize the fact that the king, warrior and horse are not ‘delivered’. It does not say that the king “does not conquer by a great army” but the king “is not delivered by a great army.” Likewise with the warrior (“the warrior is not delivered by great strength”). The focus is clearly on deliverance. What are these men retreating from? Is it “Yhwh’s plan”? The answer, I think, is in the following verse: death and famine. These are forces manifestly greater than any king, warrior or king. They can bring entire nations to their knees. However, for those who have Yhwh’s eye ‘upon them’,lovingkindness surrounds them. This is important as the opening of the psalm indicated that the entire earth was fully of Yhwh’s lovingkindness: here, although the earth may be full of it, only those who stand within covenantal solidarity with Yhwh benefit from its protective embrace. Why this is the case is because the focus of the verse is not on these men but on those Yhwh has his eye upon: it is those who are ‘delivered’ from death and famine (enemies greater than any king/warrior/horse).
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