Ps. 94.1 (the god of vindication)

O God of Vindication / O Yhwh 
O God of Vindication / shine forth. 

We have encountered the plea of ‘O God’ or ‘O Yhwh’ before although I do not recall it in such concentration: three times in two lines. And it is repeated throughout the psalm (vs. 3, 5, 12, 18). It is difficult to render in this reflection format what, in my mind, exists largely in poetic form . This simple call, or plea, of “O God…”, and its repetition, combine to give an impression of both deep communion between the psalmist and Yhwh and a deep sense of almost desperation by the psalmist. He is pleading with ‘his Yhwh’. It is as if he were formulating his soul into words, so as to make them an arrow that would be shot directly at Yhwh’s heart. The intimate repetition is a deepening intensification. 

The reason for the plea is the fundamental theme of the psalm: vindication. However, what we need to recognize is that the psalmist aligns vindication with Yhwh. Yhwh is the ‘god of vindication’. He is its enactment. It, in a sense, ‘resides’ in him, and flows from him. In other words, vindication is an expression of Yhwh’s personal faithfulness (something that will become more apparent later). We might say that ‘vindication’ is not something, in a sense, outside of Yhwh that he then appeals to (here, Yhwh is the “god of vindication”, not the ‘god who vindicates’). This is key for what will emerge later when the psalmist surveys the entire scope of humankind and of nations and says that when this entire span of activity is subjected to ‘vindication’ it is subjected to Yhwh (whether it knows it or not; vs. 8-11). Yhwh is the ‘gravitational center’ of Vindication, the divine source, the ‘god of vindication’. It is his to perform (and no one else’s). 

When Yhwh ‘vindicates’, he “shines forth”. There is much to contemplate in this image of a sudden, bursting forth of light and the act of vindication. On the one hand, vindication is here associated with an overwhelming light. Light, then, is associated with this moral quality of justice, rectification, and blessing, and hence, of banishing the darkness (echoes of John begin to emerge: “and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it…the true light was coming into the world…and the word became flesh”). Further, the ‘shining forth of Yhwh’ is often associated with the theophany of Yhwh at Sinai, when he appeared to Israel. There is the sense of the Divine “I” of Yhwh now ‘stepping forth’ in a unique and intimate fashion. Both of these point, I think, to an expectation of Yhwh’s personal act in history, whereby he will ‘make the first last, and the last first’. He will end the current period of instability and disruption and he will establish justice. And this, I think, is what the psalmist is yearning and pleading for Yhwh to perform.  


One final note is on the word ‘vindication’. The word carries with it almost a type of economic transaction. When the wicked are subject to ‘vindication’ they are paid back what they have earned—judgment. When the righteous are subject to vindication, they are paid back what they have earned—blessing. The same act—vindication—engenders both, “each according to his works”. This will be more fleshed out as we proceed but it points to a type of synergism between Yhwh and humankind/the nations