Ps. 84.5 (a sovereign's will)

For you / O my Lord / are good and forgiving
abounding in loyal-love / for all who call to you. 

This statement about God’s activity has to be interpreted as a continuation of the petition. It is not, in other words, an isolated statement made by the petitioner, whereby he all the sudden lapses into pure praise to Yhwh. That said, before we can see it as part of the petition, we need to see how it contrasts with the previous verses. Verses 1-4 petitioned Yhwh to act in certain ways in response to the psalmist’s ‘claim’ he has on Yhwh. He was asked to “protect my life”, “save your servant”, “have mercy” and to “bring joy to the soul.” All of these actions would be responsive. Here, by contrast, in the first half of the verse, we have a statement by the psalmist not as to what Yhwh will do but on what he does do. Yhwh is good and forgiving. The second half of the verse places us back again in the realm of ‘call-and-response’: “abounding in loyal-love for all who call to you.” There is no uncertainty in these lines—Yhwh response to petitions, and he not only ‘responds’ but he ‘abounds’. As we have seen in many other psalms, when Yhwh answers the call of his people, the answer is utterly lavish, prodigal and festive. It is, in a sense, almost entirely unnecessary in its overflowing abandon. It is, in other words, the answer of a profound love. How, then, do these lines operate as an aspect of the petition? I think there are at least two answers to this. 

First, we failed to mention in the previous reflection that, although this is a petition, it lacks the ‘darkness’ of those petitions that ask God “how long…” and seem to imply a type of aloofness on God’s part. Instead, there is a calm sense of certainty at God’s graciousness and provision. Indeed, the ‘enemy’ that is the reason for this petition is never even mentioned in the opening of the psalm; he only makes his appearance at the end. The focus is solely on how God responds—on what he is capable of doing. These lines further that sense of calm certainty as the delve into the psalmist serene conviction that God is good and forgiving and that he acts out of abounding love to those who call to him. It is certainly not coincidental that the psalmist identifies himself, in verse 3, as “calling to you all day long”. The psalmist sees himself as embraced within Yhwh’s certain and profound responsive love because he is a caller. It is the dramatic and continuous movement toward Yhwh that convinces him of Yhwh’s abounding and certain movement toward him in loyal love. 

The second follows the first—there is the sense in these lines that as ‘responsive’ as Yhwh is to the psalmist’s petitions, his response is premised on a much more powerful and deep prior commitment to the psalmist. In other words, Yhwh’s ‘answer’ to his people originates from his prior, and utterly powerful, love for his people. We could say it thus: Yhwh’s ‘answer’ is an answer to himself as much as to the petitioner. In the face of an utterly and absolute sovereign and lord one is aware that any petition that is granted, is a petition that participates in the will of the sovereign; it does not anticipate it.