Ps. 97.3 (Flame and light)

Fire / goes up / before him
and burns his foes / all around. 

This verse operates in a type of parallel with the previous verse. Like this: Clouds and darkness surround him – fire and goes up before him; righteousness and justice are the foundations of his throne – and burns his foes all around. What we see here is the ‘cloud and darkness’ have become a consuming flame, and the ‘righteousness and justice’ are enacted through the destruction (the burning up) of his foes. In a sense, verse 2 is a type of revelation of Yhwh, more of a ‘presentation’ so to speak. Verse 3 is that presence “in action”. Here, Yhwh is ‘on the move’, and as he comes to the earth, his ‘coming’ is an act of judgment, of “righteousness and justice” and ‘putting the world to right’. It is a battle with his ‘foes’, even though there is no real dilemma as in war; the ‘foes’ seem to be simply engulfed by his fire, unable to resist or fight. What is key is that Yhwh’s presence actively establishes a (his) moral order. This is the king coming to his kingdom who, upon his entrance, immediately, and without complication or much effort, masters his entire realm. The authority, and glory, of his person is absolute. And that authority is here portrayed as an all-consuming and absolutely powerful Flame. This is a divine, Yhwh-flame, whose fuel is the very presence of Yhwh himself in opposition to his foes. 

There is another, structural, point to this verse. It would seem that the psalm is arranged in something like a chiastic structure. The ‘mirror’ of this verse would be verse 11: “Light shines out for the righteous and rejoicing for the upright in heart”. It is a profound point—whereas ‘flames go up before Yhwh’, here it is a “light for the righteous”. And whereas the flame ‘burns up his foes’, this “light” causes rejoicing for the upright in heart. What see here is something reminiscent of the burning bush and of the flame in Daniel: Yhwh as flame that the righteous can ‘walk within’ and not be consumed, but that judges and ‘burns up’ his foes. In other words, the effect of Yhwh’s presence is conditioned on the one who is ‘before him’. For his foes, it consumes them; for the righteous, it is a light that one can dwell and rejoice within. “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.”