Ps. 95.4-5 (geographic theology)

The depths of the earth / are in his hands 
and the mountain peaks / are his
the sea is his / he made it
and his hands formed / the dry land. 

On the ‘level one’ reading, we see here Yhwh the ‘Great King’ as Yhwh the Creator, the Sovereign. The scope of his authority is not just vast; it is total. It spans the entire created realm, from the ‘depths’ to the ‘heights’, from the ‘water’ to the ‘land’. There is, I think, in this totality a parallelism as well. The ‘depths of the earth’ are dark, and the realm of the dead. This parallels the ‘sea’ as the force of chaos that is constantly threatening to overcome the land (and, the ‘warring nations’ are often portrayed as ‘breakers’ and ‘waters’). Likewise, the ‘mountain peaks’ are typically the realm of the divine, where the gods would meet with men and establish their ‘homes’ or sanctuaries. This ‘positive realm’ is matched by the ‘dry land’ that exhibits the ‘form(ing)’ of Yhwh’s hands in contrast to the formless/chaotic waters. The point to all of this is that geography is theological. The psalmist is not merely describing Yhwh sovereignty over a material cosmos, but over the entire created realm that stretches deed into the forces of chaos and disorder and up into its height of the divine and form, shape and beauty (it is qualitative as much as quantitative; or, more so). This entire spectrum—this real totality—is the ‘kingdom’ over which Yhwh stands as the Great King. 

Which begins pointing to the second level. As we saw, the first part of the psalm needs to be read in light of the second, where the psalmist gives a very particular historical account of Israel’s failure to heed her king. The consequence of that failure is a type of futile wandering away from his Presence—that Presence being the Temple-in-the-Land. We know, furthermore, that this psalm is a Temple-psalm; one that was sung as the people progressively moved closer to the Temple and its most holy center. The people-in-the-Temple are a people-at-home, a people who are not wandering. This insight is deepened by the fact that the Temple itself is a type of creation (or, creation is a type of Temple), with the ‘holy of holies’ being Eden. Genesis, Exodus and Chronicles make this very clear, as creation constantly echoes in the Temple-establishment stories. In the Temple, Eden was ‘reborn’ as a place where man and Yhwh could ‘walk together’. It is the Temple that provides the interpretation to these verses at this second level. When one ‘hears Yhwh’, and does not ‘harden the heart’, one can approach his Presence in the ‘new creation’/Temple over which he has utter sovereignty over. Here, in contrast to the disobedient father’s hearts, there is no rebellion, testing or disobedience. Rather, everything expresses Yhwh’s mastery, the ‘shaping of his hands’. 

Conversely, there is an implicit warning—if you ‘harden your hearts’ you will suffer exile and, Adam-like, be cast (again) out of the Garden/Temple, with a sworn flaming-sword blocking reentry.