Ps. 33.8-9 (the word's genesis)

“Let all the earth / fear Yhwh; - let all the world’s inhabitants / be in awe of him.” Again we are very much within the language of the Song of the Sea. This ‘fear and awe’ is something that the exodus through the Reed Sea inspires within the world around the Israelites (Ex.15:14-15). Here, the psalm is steadily revealing greater depths than originally contemplated (as we saw in our last post). Creation and Yhwh’s ongoing and sovereign control over history are so intertwined as to almost impossible to separate. This can be seen as well in this fact: here, the verse speaks of “the earth” and “the world’s inhabitants”. This dynamic is identical to the “the heavens” that were created by Yhwh’s word and “their hosts” that were created by his ‘breath’. In the creation of the heavens, we did not detect this ‘exodus’ understanding—here, though, it is very much at the forefront but still very much resonating with images of creation. As I have said before, what I think happens is that the two stories (the Exodus and Creation) are very much in dialogue with each other. They (in)form the other. The reason being that Yhwh’s creative word is not something spoken and then lost, but spoken and ongoing in its subservience to Yhwh. As Isaiah will say (paraphrasing), “Yhwh’s word does not ‘return to him void but produces a harvest.” So Yhwh’s original creative word that initiates creation itself is something that also persists in its (re)creative power—from Creation to the Exodus (to Isaiah and, eventually, to the Resurrection itself and into the Bride). The following verse is, in this light, illuminating: “For he spoke / and it was – he commanded / and it stood forth.” This is rather fascinating in light of what we have said: in isolation the verse looks like something from Genesis, perhaps referring to the separation of the water from the land (the land ‘standing forth’). In context, it seems as if it could also be referring the land that ‘stood forth’ after Yhwh separated the waters of the Reed Sea; this would make sense, especially following the verse on “fear and awe” (how would the world stand in ‘fear and awe’ if we are speaking only of creation?). Clearly, we are not in either ‘realm’ but in both. This verse, in contexts, witnesses to what we have been delineating: that creation and (re)creation/redemption are dialogue partners; that Yhwh’s word is not something that merely establishes but retains, in its ‘truth’ and ‘rightness’, Yhwh’s power; Yhwh’s word doesn’t ‘die’ when it leaves his mouth—rather, that is just its beginning (it’s, shall we say, genesis).