Ps. 68.15-16 (descent and revealing)

O Mountain of God / Mount Bashan
O mountain of peaks / Mount Bashan
O mountain with peaks / they watch / so enviously
the mountain / God has chosen / for his dwelling
Yhwh / will dwell there / forever. 

The jealousy of the mountains is not a result of the fact that God has chosen a mountain but that he has chosen this mountain. And, unlike the more mighty and powerful mount of Bashan, God has chosen Zion, a mountain that is neither the highest nor the most impressive. In this we see the work of the God of Sinai and the fact that he elects and chooses whom he will apart from the normal modes of expression of power (as in Egypt). By bringing the Israelites out of Egypt, God was in effect moving them away from Bashan—a bastion and symbol of authority, dominion and glory—and taking them to himself in the wastelands (a place of poverty and disgrace). However, in choosing to reveal himself on Sinai, we can see a foretaste of the choice of Zion—the freedom of God to display his power outside of the expected avenues of expression. Sinai and Zion, in this way, are very closely related by the fact that they both exist outside these realms of earthly power. But, and this is crucial, by choosing that which is lowly (either in Israel, Sinai/wilderness or Zion), God effectively displays his absolute authority over every realm of power. The more he condescends, the more his powerful freedom is revealed. He is revealed to not be shackled to the modes of expression but can, in fact, reach down to the very depths. It is for that reason that such jealousy would be found among the mountains. We might even say a violent jealousy. For God to ‘pass by’ their glory is seen, by them, to be a snub, an almost intentional act of disgrace. They feel that they are more fitting dwellings for the God of glory. (One can almost touch the incarnation.) But in their jealousy they are mistaken. The full span of his powerful glory would not have been revealed. Again, the more Zion, a lowly mountain, is raised up by his permanent dwelling, the more the entire earth is revealed to be his domain (the higher Zion is raised the more the earth is drawn to God…as in the gospel of John). This is crucial: it is in the freedom of God’s election that one comes to perceive the freedom of his creative mastery over all of creation. The more one is wed to a merely powerful-god-within-creation, the more one is, inevitably, wed to the jealousy of the mountains. For, that election is mere favoritism; it is, in fact, a snub and disgrace. But, in God’s election of the lowest, he is not displaying a partisan choice: he is revealing himself, in his powerful choice, to be the King of kings, the Most High, the electing-creator-God. And, importantly, this ‘dwelling’ is understood to be one that persists ‘forever’. The location of permanence (physical stability) is matched by temporal permanence (‘forever’). The freedom of God to make an irrevocable choice is the greatest display of, now, his mastery over time as well. “I will be who I will be…”. As in his descent to Israel, Sinai and Zion, so too, now, does God descend to the temporal point of irrevocable choice. Other gods-within-creation cannot reveal their freedom through an irrevocable choice. They must constantly descend and ascend, revealing their ability to not be shackled by time. However, just as with God’s choice of the lowest, so too with his descent to an irrevocable choice. If all of creation is pulled up by Zion, then, in Zion too, is all of time now pulled up as well.