Ps. 89.1 (Pt. 1, intro, reversing the order)

I want to sing forever / of Yhwh’s deeds / of loyal-love
sing of them / to one generation / after another
use my mouth / to make known / your faithfulness. 

This psalm has a single burning center: the Davidic covenant. It is the sun and heart of the psalm, that which casts light on every verse and what flows through every verse. The reason I point this out here is that these opening lines could be read in a general fashion, as a praise of Yhwh’s (general) faithfulness and loyal-love. That, however, I do not think is what the psalmist is doing. Rather, he sees the David covenant itself as a particular expression of these qualities of Yhwh. There are a few reasons why I think this is important. It seems to me that I often give priority of place to a more ‘general’ enactment of Yhwh’s ‘loyal-love’. What I mean is that his particular expressions (whether in healing, or in redemption, or what-have-you), are like ‘pointers’ to his person. The particular act by Yhwh, though, is overshadowed by what it says of him generally. Often, in fact, I think this is the case. However, there are instances where this approach can obscure something very profound. For example, Abraham, Mosaic covenant, Davidic covenant, Zion and the Temple—all of these are not generalized ‘pointers’. They are more like sacraments than metaphors. They actually are what they represent and, as such, the ‘movement’ of ‘particular-to-general’ needs to be reversed. 

A few analogies I can think of: a child can only be the son of a father through a particular woman (unless, importantly, the child is adopted). No matter how much the man loves the child, he will never be part of the father’s family unless he is born from the particular woman. Likewise, a parent instantiates reality to a child to such an extent that an act of betrayal by the parent can fundamentally shape the child’s view of reality. Similarly with a spouse—through the wedding vow the two have become ‘one flesh’ to such an extent that they ‘give each other’ reality (or, enact reality to each other). There are moments (covenants in particular) that work like this—they become the ways by which Yhwh ‘fathers’ his people by ever greater intense avenues through which he hands himself over to his people. As such they become, to his people, objects of extreme devotion and love. For Yhwh to abandon one of these instantiations of his love (to ‘break covenant’) would be tantamount to a disowning of his children. I believe this is why, for example, the destruction of the Temple or, as in this psalm, the fall of the Davidic house, were utterly horrifying. 

And it is also, I think, something that sits furthest away from me. I have tended to think that because Yhwh is the ‘father of all’ that the general almost necessarily is more important in the hierarchy. In fact, the particular smacks almost of superstition and magic to such a degree that I almost invariably read them only as metaphors. As such, the particular can be removed for what it ‘points to’. The goal is not to descend into the particular but ascend to the general. But, that is not what happens in covenant making. In covenant making the reverse happens—Yhwh ‘weds himself’ to the particular by way of an oath. Swearing himself to this particular person. In a sense, Yhwh hands himself over in covenant to such a degree that to abandon the covenant partner would be, in a real way, a denial of himself; abandoning the particular would completely call into question all of his ‘general’ qualities. In other words, this covenant does not only ‘represent’ Yhwh’s faithfulness or loyal-love; it enacts it to such a degree that it is his loyal-love and faithfulness (this is the huge difference between metaphor and sacrament). Cleaving to these covenants is cleaving to Yhwh. This requires, of me, a fundamental shift in perspective. However, it also puts me, it seems, much closer to the biblical man, those ‘within the family’, and the concomitant anxiety caused when these covenants seem to be called into question.