Ps. 46.8 (Come, see...)

“Come / see Yhwh’s deeds – the declarations / he has done / in the earth.” This verse marks a transition in the psalm and what follows will harness the previous observations and put them in service to a worldwide demonstration of Yhwh’s power. Hence, when it begins with “Come, see…”, we are to note this invitation, this sense that ‘something new’ is about to emerge within the psalm. The psalmist wants our attention and he wants us not only to ‘see’ but to perceive a dimension of Yhwh’s ‘deeds’ and ‘declarations’ that perhaps was either obscured in the previous section or, perhaps, was not yet to occur. It may be, then, that here we see a ‘progression’ in the psalm and not a recapitulation—meaning, this section would represent a type of vision of the future (an ‘eschatological’ vision). There is warrant for this as we will see. The first thing to note in this regard is the expanse of Yhwh’s power: the ‘earth’. The earth has been mentioned already, as the arena of chaotic destruction (‘earth quakes’, vs. 2; ‘earth melts’, vs. 6). It seemed in the previous section that Jerusalem was an island in the midst of the earth that subject to melting and dissolution. Furthermore, when the earth was mentioned in vs. 6 it was in regard to its suffering the Yhwh’s “voice” (“he gave forth his voice, the earth melts”). Here, rather than his ‘voice’, his ‘declarations’ and ‘deeds’ are “done in the earth”. All of this said, we do not yet know the ‘content of these declarative deeds’ that are performed “in the earth”. If the words “Come, see…” could be construed as signaling a shift to ‘recreation’, then there could be a note of healing within these words. In other words, it seems possible that the presence of God within Jerusalem should be something not isolated to this island in the midst of chaos, but, rather, something that should overflow and fill the earth. The ‘river’ and its ‘streams’ (vs. 4) should flow out over the earth, transforming the sea into the ‘river of gladness’; as the river represents the enthronement of God over the chaos waters, so too should the spreading of its streams represent the enthronement of God over all the earth (not cabined in Jerusalem). This is a vision cherished by the prophets (that a river would flow out from the Temple and cover the entire earth). And so we can add to our previous insight: the preservation inherent within judgment (Noah’s ark, Israel in the plagues) is in order to spill out over the entire earth. Therefore, if these things prefigure Jerusalem, Jerusalem itself prefigures the entire earth.