Ps. 33.20-22 (conclusion)

“We long / for Yhwh; - he is our strength / and our shield. – For in him / our heart rejoices – for in his / holy name / we have trusted. – May your lovingkindness / be upon us / O Yhwh – as we / have depended / on you.” At the conclusion of the psalm we have come to a rather different place than when we began. At first, the psalm gives the appearance of being a hymn to creation as Yhwh’s creative will begins in the heavens and steadily descends to fashion the heart of man himself. However, as we saw, as that descent was made we came to realize that the creation imagery was also in service of another goal: that of Yhwh’s covenantal protection of his people. Towards the end of the psalm the focus had shifted almost entirely to this national/protective perspective. Indeed, so much so that Yhwh’s creative powers in fashioning man’s heart was understood to be Yhwh’s preemptive power over all nations that rebel against his plans and the schemes of his heart. And yet, this transformation is something theologically advanced by the psalm: the creative ‘word’ of Yhwh carries within it the ‘plan’ of Yhwh with such power that as it is realized over time it comes into battle and conflict with ‘the nations’. And so we see that ‘creation’ and ‘history’ mutually in-form one another. It is not the case that one must first start with ‘creation’ and then proceed to Yhwh’s sovereign control over history; nor is it the other way around. They build each other (sometimes in subterranean and secret ways and sometimes quite explicitly). Arguably, as we have said in the past, the real ‘source’ of both is the name of Yhwh itself: it both stands in relation to Israel as a ‘name among names’ and yet it rebuffs every attempt to place it in the category of identifiable names; and, furthermore, the name itself was given for the purposes of deliverance and for the ‘creation’ of the nation of Israel (its being given itself embodied both this ‘creative’ and ‘historical/sovereign’ aspect of the psalm). In these concluding lines we see all of these various strands come together in a very tight way: “out strength and our shield” (picking up on the national redemptive aspect); “for in him our heart rejoices” (picking up on the fact that the ‘heart’ is what is fashioned directly by Yhwh as well as the opening of the psalm that calls for exultation and praise); “in his holy name we have trusted” (adopting the language of covenantal trust and picking up on Yhwh’s “eye” and “blessed is the nation whose God is Yhwh); “may your lovingkindness be upon us” (the psalm began with a praise to Yhwh’s ‘lovingkindness’ filling the earth; it then progressed to focus this lovingkindness upon on those who “depend on Yhwh” perfectly embodying this ‘creative/redemptive’ dynamic); “as we have depended on you” (again, the sense that Yhwh’s creative power is one put in service of his covenantal obligations to those he has elected).