Ps. 66.6-7 (creation's persistence blessing)

The earth / yields its harvest!
Continue to bless us / O God / our God.
May God bless us
and all the ends of the earth
will fear him! 

This final transition seems stark. The psalm has progressed from: call for blessing – call for world-wide recognition of God’s work in Israel – call for world-wide recognition of God’s role as King/Judge within nations –  (and here) recognition of harvest and call for continuance of blessing. The question is how the harvest relates to the preceding verses. We noted at the outset how the slight modification of Aaronic, high-priestly blessing refocused the ‘stance’ of the psalm—rather than it being one imposed on Israel from the high priest, Israel itself has, in some way, become its own high-priest. We noted how, in this shift of focus, Israel now operates like the high-priest to the world. This lead into, and justified, the change in perspective to the “peoples” and the vision of world-wide liturgy to God. In other words: Israel as high-priest engendered a vision of totalizing redemption (in some fashion). The blessing contained in Israel has overflowed into the “peoples”. It is, I think, at this point that the harvest imagery can be best understood. With the entire world engaged in liturgy, the earth itself is now responding likewise. The harvest is the world’s liturgy and praise. In some way, the harvest of the earth is a manifestation of, or participation in, the potentiality of the world’s unity in liturgy. However fractured the “peoples” may be, the harvest of the earth signals to the ‘blessing of God’ that continues not only unabated but as a ‘real sign’ (almost sacramentally) of the world’s (the peoples) intended union. When Israel observed its (…the) harvest it didn’t simply see the blessing of God in themselves, but the Eden power of the earth that is a blessing to all peoples. We might say it thus: the persistence of the blessing in the earth, as seen in the harvest, signals to the persistence of Adam in all man. And, therefore, when the psalmist envisions the dissolution of all division in man (as in verses 2-5) he sees Israel as the Aaronic high-priest, now dispensing the blessing of God to all man. The emphasis, however, must fall where it does in the psalm: blessing. The harvest would be a clear manifestation of this: the power of the earth to bring forth life. There is something, so to speak, about the earth and its ability to bring forth life that would speak to God’s primal blessing (act of redemptive creation) on (within) all the world. Like the (powerful) blessings transmitted to the sons of the patriarchs, so too was the power of God’s vitality transferred to the earth in the act of creation. We might say, creation was this act of blessing.  And it is a blessing that has not been lost but persists.