Ps. 59.8 (the laughter of God)

But you / O Yhwh / will laugh at them
You will scoff / at all those nations. 

The verbal utterances of the wicked and God are important to compare. In the previous verses, the wicked “howled” like dogs who haunted (terrorized) a city after dark. Swords came from their lips. And their attacks were encased within a defiant question of “Who will hear?” As creatures of the night and hidden in darkness these dogs believed themselves invisible and invincible. Here, though, their howl is met by God’s scornful laughter. We looked in depth at this ‘laughter of God’ in Psalm 2. It plays much the same role here as it did there. What we saw in Psalm 2 was the congregating of several “people” (kings, nations, …) and their subsequent march to Zion in order to overthrow the king. Their ‘murmuring’ and commotion as they approached the mountain, indicating a type of unified insubordination and confidence was met with the shattering laughter of God. It descended upon them, hurricane-like, and they never said another word for the rest of the psalm. It utterly disarmed them. Here, the laughter functions in much the same manner. In contrast to their ‘howling’ (a type of beacon call to congregate in a pack), the singular laughter of God emerges. Perhaps more devastating is how this laughter contrasts to the immediately preceding question, “Who will hear?” That question evinced a firm conviction that their actions were performed in utter and impenetrable secrecy. They questioned the ability of any god to defend against or even perceive their actions. As in Psalm 2, however, God’s response is completely disarming by the fact that it is utterly dismissive. What I mean is this: their statement was an act of defiance. One would expect that such a question would be met with a countering act of defiance, as in battle, etc… However, by laughing, God reveals that their sense of security is not only wrong but utterly ridiculous. Their darkness is utter light to God. God’s laugher is the laughter of the absurd. And, to those subjected to it, it would be terrifying as, in a moment, one’s whole foundation would have been removed. Again, what they thought was darkness was, in essence, no barrier to their actions being perceived by God. (We might point out that at creation, the darkness seems pregnant with God’s creative power and, in the Temple, God dwells in darkness.) It is profoundly important, then, to point out that God’s ‘war’ against the dogs is not one of equal partners; God’s laughter reveals his total and utter superiority to them. Which leads to a final point: the description of the ‘dogs’ in the previous verse is not, in light of God’s laughter, to be seen as ironic. It is only in God’s laughter that the fear of their ‘howling’ is overcome. Without it, they are incredibly dangerous. In other words, the shaming of the dogs does not originate from some power on man’s part to realize that “in the end, they are only figments” (or, by looking at them ‘from some great height’, or, through a type of resignation/detachment, or, through any other form of philosophical or religious distancing intended to show how ‘really unreal’ they are). Rather, it is only in the saving power of God that they their question, “Who can hear?”, is answered—and it is ‘answered’ by their defeat. Again, the psalmist is not relieved of his terror of these dogs by some abstract answer to them, but by deliverance from them (as verses 1-5 make clear).