Ps. 50.3 (God is a flame needing no fuel)

“Our God comes / and will not be silent! – A devouring fire / is before him, - and a tempest / rages around him.” We indicated in our previous reflection that God’s ‘shining forth’ from Zion pointed to his emergence from the host of servants (the ‘world’ and Zion herself) he has summoned. Here, that momentum is made explicit. God is coming. And, as with every ‘coming’ of God, his momentum is made manifest in a powerfully theophanic way. Here, it is a “devouring fire before him” and a “tempest raging around him”. These sensory manifestations of God’s ‘surroundings’ are very reminiscent of God’s descent upon Mount Sinai. Furthermore, and even more importantly perhaps, is the fact that his ‘coming’ is understood to be his speaking—he “will not be silent”. The force of his ‘person’, as made evident by command and judgment, is simultaneous with his manifestation. There are (at least) three things to note about this. First, God is here described as “our God” which immediately calls to mind the covenant: “you will be my people, and I will be your God.” This ‘coming God’ then is the covenantal God of Israel. He is, in a sense, coming to his own, his elected people. Second, when he ‘comes’ his voice is the only thing that, in a sense, is a direct manifestation of him. ‘He’ is surrounded by flame and storm. But what emerges, clearly, from the midst of these is his utterly authoritarian ‘voice’ of command. Although one cannot ‘see’ him, one can hear him, clearly. There can be no confusion when it comes to the clarity of his ‘voice’. They, his words, are naked, and unadorned. Third, even with the clarity of his voice, we are, simultaneously, made aware that his ‘presence’ or ‘person’ is utterly hidden. The psalmist here, as in almost every theophany, cannot and will not describe God directly. He is only ‘made manifest’ in his being covered by the tremendum of flame and storm.  Here, the ‘world’ that has been ‘summoned’ is both hiding and making him manifest to ‘his people’. Fourth, the actual manifestation of God as being preceded by ‘flame’ is something that resonates throughout the scriptures and almost always carries the connotation of a consuming judgment.  Although we will explore this idea more fully later, it should be said here that God is a flame that needs no fuel. He himself is fire and flame. The image of the ‘tempest’ is also something we have seen before as God displays his regal authority over the power of the storm and actually harnesses it as a manifestation of himself. Beyond the abstractions, however, is a purely terrifying image. Not only do we see here the objective manifestation of a ‘coming’ mass of flame and storm but we realize that within that mass is a God who speaks. There is a God even more interior to the manifestation. And that, indeed, is even more threatening than the flame and tempest itself.