Ps. 65.10-13 (prodigal power of Eden)

Drench / its furrows
soak down / its ridges
let showers /soften it
bless / its growth. 
You crown / the year / with your bounty 
and your tracks / drip fatness.
Even the pastures / of the wilderness / drip with fatness
and the hills / gird themselves / with rejoicing.
The meadows / are clothed / with the flocks
and the valleys / are dressed / with grain
they shout / and sing / for joy.  

God’s ‘visitation’ is one of life-giving saturation. This stands in stark contrast to the chaos waters: the “raging sea” and the “raging of the waves and turmoil of the peoples” (vs. 7). Here, water in abundance is filled with life. Indeed, saturation fills these concluding lines: God’s tracks “drip” fatness; the pastures “drip” with fatness”. This is, as we said yesterday, not merely ‘water’, but the divine visitation and blessing of the land. It is the power of Eden, and it emerges in astonishing, overpowering ways. Everything in these lines indicates not merely provision but prodigal abundance: “drench…soak…bounty…drip fatness…meadows are clothed with flocks…valleys with grain.” This prodigality is matched by its vocal counterpart: “shouting and singing for joy”; indeed, the “hills gird themselves with rejoicing.” There is in these lines such a sense of propriety, of the absence of threat. We recall how, upon seeing God stilling the “raging seas”, those who “dwelled at the end of the earth” feared God’s sign. They were the almost demonic powers of chaos who were now cowed into submission. Here, these lands of alienation and chaos powers are filled with life: “even the pastures of the wilderness drip with fatness”. There is, in other words, no remainder of chaos to be found. The Warrior King has stilled the snake (vs. 6-8) and removed the sins of man (vs. 2-4). Eden has returned. We must attune ourselves to the sense in these lines of overwhelming, life-giving power. The place of God’s visitation is not simply a place of proportion and necessity; indeed, these lines exude a complete lack of proportion. It is exuberant, festal and celebratory. It is wanton and extravagant. Indeed, it “drips with fatness” (that portion of the sacrifice reserved for God). There is, I think, something crucial to this. Chaos shares the same ‘lack of proportion’. It also ‘overflows boundaries’. That type of overflow is, though, a transgression. God’s ‘visitation’ on the other hand crosses every sense of proportion as well but it is one of exuberant, life-giving. In fact, we might describe it in another way, closer to the images of this psalm—whereas chaos strips the earth of life, God clothes the earth. There is a constant refrain of ‘clothing’ in these final lines: “you crown the year…hills gird themselves…meadows are clothed with flocks…valleys are dressed with grain.” They wear the emblems of God’s prodigality. One wonders whether chaos is but a mockery, or shadow, of God’s exuberance. It mimics the prodigality of God, but in destructive ways. It attempts to consume, whereas God’s prodigality is one of provision. It has been poignantly said that when kings pass through a land they leave behind “in their tracks” a dearth of provision. However, God’s tracks are virile and fruitful. They “drip with fatness” (vs.9). When man (Adam) is therefore told to ‘subdue’ the earth and ‘fill it’, he is commanded to do precisely what God has done in this psalm—still the prodigality of chaos and suffuse the earth with the prodigality of God. He is told to participate within the ‘visitation’ envisioned in this psalm, by “clothing”/filling the earth with the emblems of God’s prodigal power.