Ps. 98.2-3 (display and nakedness)

Yhwh has made known / his saving-work
to the eyes / of the nations,
he has revealed / his righteousness.
He has remembered / his loyal-love for
and his faithfulness / to the house of Israel
All the ends of the earth / have seen
the saving work / of our God. 

These verses are a single unit. They begin and end on the same note—the nations and ends of the earth see the saving work of God. The substance of this ‘seeing’ is Yhwh’s remembering of his loyal-love and faithfulness to Israel. What we see, then, is that Yhwh’s relationship with Israel is a type of beacon to the entire world. His love of Israel is something that is not meant for her alone, but rather is meant to be something “seen” by the “eyes of the nations” and “all the ends of the earth”. What happens to her reveals Yhwh to the world. There is a crucial dynamic to this—that Yhwh’s particular love of Israel actually more fully reveals himself to the nations. It may seem like a paradox, but properly understood it is not. So long as we start with the premise that Yhwh’s acts, his ‘saving-works’, are meant to be public displays there is nothing inherently confusing about this. Israel is, in herself, Yhwh’s beacon. She does not reside in herself and for herself, but has been appropriated by Yhwh, as his special partner, to be a ‘light to the nations’. Yhwh wants to be seen, and he does this by and through his love (his election, his covenant with) of Israel. 

We might compare this to Adam and Even’s nakedness in the Garden. There, their bodies were ‘fully displayed’; they were fully public, not just to each other but to all of the Garden. Everything was, in this sense, a ‘beacon’. Now, this is not merely Adam and Eve’s ‘display’ but also the display of Yhwh; they were ‘images of God’. As such, they simultaneously fully displayed themselves and Yhwh. With the Fall, however, this ‘display’ is covered; it is withdrawn. Yhwh is, in some sense, also ‘covered’ because his image is covered. With Israel, however, the clothes that hide both man and Yhwh begin to be removed. Yhwh has ‘betrothed’ Israel. And in his ‘unveiling’ of her, he is ‘unveiled’ as well. In the language of today’s psalm—when he ‘remembers Israel’ he ‘reveals to the eyes of the nations his loving-kindness and faithfulness’. The ‘display of Eden’ is reborn in Yhwh’s relationship with Israel, and they both, again, become ‘naked’. And, in that revealing, Yhwh is ‘unveiled’ to the nations and the world. 

We might say this—since the Fall, Yhwh has steadily sought to remove the clothes that hide his ‘image’, so that he can be revealed to the cosmos he created. Each covenant (Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David…) removes more and more of the barrier. The progression is of ever-greater ‘display’—marriage, family, tribe, nation, kingdom/empire. And, he does this through a progressive ‘washing’ (leading up to the giving of the Torah and finally the Temple). Here, the ‘people of Israel’ become a type of Eve to Yhwh-Adam. And, at that point of greatest expansion (Israel), Yhwh is most expansively unveiled to the world. 

Now, we need to mention this—there is a final covenant, and a final unveiling. On the Cross, Yhwh fully ‘unveils himself’ and his ‘image’ in nakedness. And he does so ‘in the sight of all the nations.’ In the Resurrection, that ‘final unveiling’ becomes the moment of Yhwh’s ‘remembering his faithfulness and righteousness’. This entire dynamic gives birth to the new Israel—in his death, the Church is ‘born from his side’ as his water flows out, and at Pentecost when he delivers over his Spirit. As such, the Church becomes the new Eve, taken from ‘his body’ and made into his body, of which he is the head. She becomes his ‘display’, his ‘image’, and his ‘unveiling’ to all the nations.