Ps. 46.9 (from water to fire)

“He / makes wars cease / to the earth’s ends; - he / breaks the bows / and shatters the spear – and burns war-wagons / in the fire.” Rather than a return to the chaos waters of de-creation, here the powers of destruction are harnessed in the service of peace. The ‘earth’ re-appears, but, rather than quaking and melting, they are overshadowed by a cessation of war; shalom has covered the earth rather than war. The ‘roaring’ of the nations (vs. 6) has been silenced. And the ‘voice’ which caused melting, is here perceived to be engaged in the same destructive force but it is aimed at the implements of war. This is a profoundly important point as we look back at the first half of the psalm: contained within the swirling chaos that was engulfing the earth was a hidden purpose/goal of peace. Here, rather than the raging chaos sea, we find the fire of God that devours the ‘war-wagons’. The nations are not merely disarmed; the weapons are ‘broken’ and ‘shattered’. There is clearly the sense that Yhwh’s establishment of peace is one obtained through destruction of those implements at odds with him. Here, perhaps, we see why the psalmist issued the command, “Come, see…”. As one looked down from Jerusalem at the encroaching ‘sea of chaos’ (the nations and kingdoms) and witnessed their ‘sliding into the sea’ and their ‘melting’, one may not perceive within God’s voice (vs. 6) the fact that what was coming to birth were his ‘declarations’ (vs. 8) of peace. In other words, after the psalmist draws our attention to actual perception we move from ‘chaos-sea’ (vs. 2-3) to the purgative ‘fire of God’ (vs. 9); God is destroying the tools of chaos (and whereas before it seemed as if he was simply the force of chaos itself, we now see that he was deploying chaos in order to destroy it, which is why, at this juncture, water isn’t mentioned but ‘fire’).  Now, the sea is no longer mentioned, but only the “ends of the earth”. This phrase, “ends of the earth”, points to another important insight. While the ‘earth’ has been mentioned already as the arena of destruction, here, when God’s purposes are more fully revealed, so too is the description expanded—to earth’s ends. I think we are to catch here the sense that this expanding destructive peace is one that reveals God’s expanding kingdom—from Jerusalem (where already fear does not exist, vs.1) to ‘earth’s ends’.  This sense will be highlighted in the following verse such that the ‘fear’ that is to be stilled in verse 1 is rooted not in Jerusalem alone but in its power to expand God’s reign over the entire earth.