“God / has ruled / over nations; - God / has sat upon /
his holy throne. – The princely ones / of the peoples / are assembled – with the
people / of Abraham’s God; - for the earth’s rulers / belong to God, - who has
been / greatly exalted!” There may be something like a liturgical drama at work
here. In verse 5, God is described as having “gone up with a great shout”.
There, we saw that his ‘going up’ possibly referred to the arc of the covenant
returning to the camp (or, tabernacle), as God mounts his throne. The psalm
then shifts to acclamations and praise at the enthronement and now moves into the
‘gathering of the nations’ around that throne. The importance of seeing this
drama is in how it may shed light on the first verse above: “God has ruled over
nations; God has sat upon his holy throne.” If, in fact, God’s sitting upon his
throne is his enthronement within the camp of Israel, then one realizes that
his ‘worldwide dominion’ (his ‘ruling over nations’) is actually performed in
and through his enthronement in Israel. This point was made yesterday but is
seen again here: that God’s particular enthronement in Israel is not
necessarily grounded in some prior, more expansive enthronement ‘over the
nations’. In an odd way, the closer and more intimate Yhwh moves within Israel,
the more expansive is his reign ‘over the nations’. Perhaps it can be said like
this: the more concentrated he becomes in Israel, the more sovereign is his
rule over ‘all the earth’ (Christian theology could say it thus: the more God
empties himself in kenosis, the more is his power actually made manifest.) This
would, it seems, reverse a tendency in our thinking that the more remote and abstract
one becomes the more one perceives the expanse of the king’s authority. This
dynamic is made clear in the following verses: “The princely ones of the
peoples, are assembled with the people of Abraham’s God.” The power inherent
within the nations (the “princely ones of the peoples”) finds their sovereign
only with “the people of Abraham’s God”. This is a startling and seemingly
massive insight: that the particularly of Israel’s relationship with Yhwh in no
way limits their perception of his sovereign rule over every other nation. Quite
the reverse—the more Israel came to perceive the nature of Yhwh ruling over
them, the more they came to see this as the initiation of his rule over all the
nations. This can, I think, be seen in the structure of the concluding verse: “the
princely ones of the people, are assembled – with the people of Abraham’s God.”.
This verse is almost acrostic:
A.
The princely ones
a.
Of the peoples
i.
Are assembled
b.
With the people
B.
Of Abraham’s God.
This structure is important—Abraham was promised two
things: that he would be a blessing to all nations and that he would father
many nations, and, eventually, the royal dynasty of God. By not referring to
these other rulers as ‘kings’ but only as “princely ones”, we come to see that
their authority to rule is subordinated. Their authority is “of the peoples”.
However, those with whom they are assembled, are “of Abraham’s God”. The only
power they are subordinated to is God. By referring to them as “of Abraham’s
God” we see that they are the seed of Abraham and are those through whom the “blessing
to the nations flow”. This is, in other words, the manifestation of Yhwh
promise to Abraham that he would be both the source of nations and the blessing
to all nations. Finally, in their ‘assembly’ they are now understood as not
owned by their previous overseers (Deuteronomy 28) but, as with Israel, by God.
In assembling with Israel they have been ransomed (as Israel was ransomed from
Egypt) and are now ‘owned’ by God.
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