Ps. 48.4 (united kings: anti-Zion)

“For lo / the kings have assembled – they have / crossed over / together.” The joining together of nations into a unified goal is something that almost universally reverberates through Scripture as an omen. The tower of Babel is the first, and most obvious, instance. There, in part, their congregating for a single purpose is characterized as an act not only of rebellion but a type of anti-creation (they are attempted to ‘put together’ what God had ‘separated’ in creation: heaven and earth). In the psalms, we saw in Psalm 2 in particular how their ‘joining together’ worked as a foil to the one anointed king of Yhwh. There, their joining together was, explicitly an act of rebellion; they were attempted to lose the covenant-cords they had been subjected to by Yhwh and his king. This idea, in Daniel, will take on, literally, massively disturbing proportions as the kingdoms unite into a single (un-holy; admixture) statue. The point to derive for purposes of our psalm is that their unity represents a form of integrity, power and stability. They work as one. And, in their unity, they are more than the sum of their parts. Daniel is particularly effective in this regard as he emphasizes that they, although differing nations, are a single statue. For Israel, by contrast, the only means to unity is through God/Yhwh. God desires unity more than perhaps anything; it is the undergirding origin (Adam-Eve) and goal (Israel-Church). But, it will be a unity that is forged by and through him. This is why any other form of unity is, almost by definition, subject to condemnation and understood to be a rebellion against God. It is, with this in mind, that we must approach this verse. This verse comes long into the psalm and follows the description of the proper unity that is forged by God: Zion (God’s “holy city”). This is important on several levels. First, and something we have seen before: there is the sense that their congregating (their ‘rebellion’) comes, absurdly, long after the fact of God’s establishment of his holy city. This chronological deployment of rebellion is similar to what we see in the Garden with the snake—Eden is established long before the snake emerges, signaling the fact that whatever work he accomplishes will be dwarfed and is already overtaken by his late appearance. Which leads to the second point: evil emerges ‘unawares’ and seemingly without warning, just as the snake simply appears in the Garden. Rebellion is ‘why-less’; it doesn’t come from anywhere, except from the chaos that it is a medium for. In this regard it is mockery of creation itself by mimicking creation’s own ‘why-less’ origin. Third: the point of introducing these kings is not to draw attention to them, but to highlight a particular feature of Zion. The kings are foils to the proper unity and stability forged by God in making Zion his home/city. This is why the psalm can, in a seemingly odd way, say that Zion is the “exultation of the whole world” but, when the first people in the psalm make their appearance (these kings), they are arriving at Zion in an attempt to overthrow it. The universal dominion that Zion has over the world must take into account the false unity (the false Zion) that the earth constantly attempt to erect in its face. Which leads to the final point: Zion as a city is a political reality (and, more than a political reality). It is a kingdom. Its unity is total in this regard. Which is why the unity emphasized in this verse is of ‘kings’, an opposing political force. The ‘clash’ that will emerge will be of ‘powers’ against each other (as in the Exodus with Yhwh verses the Pharaoh). In other words, the “city of man” verses the “city of God”. And, one final final point: Zion has been portrayed thus far as solid, mountain-like. It is, therefore, significant (and will become more so) that these kings are the first indication of mobility in the psalm. Again, they serve, through their need to “cross over”, that they are already much less rooted, firm and unshakable than Zion herself.