Ps. 95.6 (man in Yhwh)

Enter / let us prostrate ourselves / and kneel
let us kneel / before Yhwh / our maker. 

I want to focus on a few things in these verses. The first, is the fact that it is here where the people “enter”. This word is key, both thematically and dramatically. This is the ‘goal’, the point to which the entire psalm and the people have been moving. We should keep in mind that this is describing the entrance into a physical place; it is not a metaphor. They are entering into the sacred presence of Yhwh, in the Temple. This reality (as we have said before) “has an address”, a specific location. Here, ‘space’ is sacred, as elevated into the divine realm, by the presence of Yhwh. This is where, literally, and unlike any other location, ‘heaven and earth’ meet. Here, ‘theology and geography’ as so intertwined as to be inseparable. The full weight of this reality needs to be grasped—the people are, literally, entering into the sacred presence of Yhwh. They are entering into the presence of the One whom they just acclaimed was not only the sovereign over creation, but the Creator of the entire spectrum of creation. It is from him and through him that everything that is, is. His Presence, then, must stand far and above every ex-pression, and enactment, of both creaturely and divine glory. And now, they are entering this Presence. 

A second insight is that this Presence-of-Yhwh is open to them. The Temple itself, and Yhwh’s presence within it, is deeply significant simply by the fact that it exists as a place of communion between Yhwh and his people. It is a place of (communal) sacrifice, festivity and liturgy. It is a place not simply to be approached, but ‘to-be-entered’. Yhwh’s presence is not an object to be observed (i.e., only approached) but a Face (to be entered). His presence as Beauty is not merely attractive (like an object unaware of its observer); His presence as Beauty is an invitation, a calling, a desire on his part for communion with his ‘observers’. In other words, he is a Lover looking for his Beloved. And the Temple-with-its-Doors is the expression of this. 

Which leads to the third point, and how these verses tie into the rest of the psalm, specifically the second half. In the second half, the focus is on how to avoid being ‘like our fathers’ who tested Yhwh and were, consequently, sworn-exiled from Yhwh’s rest. In other words, they could not ‘enter’, as they people are now doing. This realty—that Yhwh’s presence can be ‘closed’, much like Eden was ‘sworn-closed’ with/by the Cherubim—is part and parcel to Yhwh-as-Lover and not Yhwh-as-Object. His Temple as a call-to-communion carries with it the potential of exile, frustration and ‘wandering’. The fact that Yhwh’s presence now ‘has an address’ also means that one could be prevented from obtaining it. The burning heart of all of this is the same as in the Garden—the moral command and obedience to Him. In other words, creation itself is good; that which causes exile (that which wicked) is moral. Which is why, upon ‘entering’ the Temple, what is at focus is obedience and reverence. 

Time and exile. I don’t want to spend too much on this as it will be more appropriately reflected on in regard to verse 8 and following, but we need to note that in the Temple ‘time’ itself becomes sacred. In the Temple, there is ‘today’. Outside the temple, and, particularly, in exile, the people ‘wander like their fathers’ in futility for forty years. This contrast between the ‘today’ and ‘that day’ and the ‘forty years’ is important. Temple-time is of a fundamentally different order than time-in-wandering. It is sacred time; it is elevated time; it is, more to the point, ‘time-in-communion’. In the Temple, both time and space are made sacred by the Presence; simultaneously, heaven comes to earth and earth is raised to heaven. 

Prostration and kneeling. Within this sacred Temple-sphere, where time and space are made sacred, man must bodily acknowledge the tremendum (the overpowering heaviness that accompanies the sacred) he now encounters. Man’s body, too, must conform to the sacred. And, it does so through prostration and kneeling. These acts are not uncommon—they are what Moses does, and what the prophets do (and, what the disciples do) when Yhwh appears. When the sacred-Presence is made manifest, man falls and is overwhelmed. Importantly, however, here it is commanded. This is not inconsequential, as it begins to hint at the commands/warning of the second section of the psalm. There, the fathers who question the presence of Yhwh in their midst, confront Yhwh and challenge/test him. Their attitude is utterly opposed to ‘prostration and kneeling’. They see the ‘form of God as something to grasped’. Here, we must orient all of the above reflections: prostration and kneeling is man-in-the-Temple. It is man physically responding to Yhwh’s presence in deep reverence. By contrast, man-in-wandering is man setting his face against Yhwh in challenge and in testing.