Ps. 90.2 (before the birth of mountains)

Before the mountains / were born
and before you travailed / with earth and world
from everlasting to everlasting / you are God. 

We have seen how the psalm’s opening is an appeal to Yhwh’s ‘establishing help’, that which elevates the vanity of man’s work into itself, thereby making it participate in his own perpetuity. Here, that theme is embodied in a concrete fashion as the psalmist turns his attention to Yhwh ‘before’ he gave birth to the world. It is important for what follows that the psalmist is now in a ‘before-time’. In the following verse he will move into the ‘after-time’ of death. In both situations, before and after, Yhwh is God. He displays an utter mastery over both ‘times’ as he both ‘gives birth’ and then ‘assigns death’. Here, the focus is on the ‘birth of the mountains’ and the ‘earth and world’. The ‘mountains’ reference is not accidental as it stands as the pinnacle of created things, in both physical stature and in importance. The ‘mountains’ are where God meets his people (Eden, Sinai and Zion, for example and just to name a few) and where heaven meets earth. In the following verse, the focus will be on humans, those who are the ‘mountains’ of living things in that they are clearly the pinnacle of Yhwh’s creative design. Here is the point, though, before these most important of all non-living created things were born, Yhwh is God. The psalmist is reveling in a vision of Yhwh that stretches into a glory of his that dwarfs created things. Even the most magnificent of all created things only stands ‘after’ Yhwh’s might and glory. This is key: there is a perception of Yhwh’s power (his ‘help’) that utterly transcends creation. We are in the realm of Genesis, where all created things are completely de-mythologized, in order to more accentuate the utterly profound glory and mastery of God. The realm of myth is severed in Genesis precisely because creation is understood as flowing from this ‘before’ of Yhwh rather than Yhwh being a part of creation.  There is no 'everlasting' mountain; only Yhwh is everlasting. 

At the point where Yhwh's 'before' emerges is the point, also, where he is perceived as Creator, the one who 'gives birth' to the mountains. In other words, when Yhwh is severed from creation he is perceived as Creator. This (seems to me) a striking and important point: that when Yhwh is understood as reigning 'before' the birth of the mountains, he is, in fact, very intimately connected with the creation of the mountains. Here, unlike in Genesis, Yhwh is portrayed in the act of childbearing: he 'travails' and 'gives birth' to the mountains (and the rest of creation). His 'before' of creation actually creates a greater intimacy with creation--we might even say the greatest intimacy. 

And one final point, in light of the above what we see here is that the 'help' of Yhwh flows from this primal 'before' of creation. When Yhwh 'establishes' the work of his peoples' hands, he is establishing them from the point of this 'before'; they will be established in the same fashion as the mountains themselves.