Ps. 100.3

Acknowledge that Yhwh / he is god
he made us / and we are indeed
his people / and the flock he shepherds. 

I cannot recall whether it was mentioned in the previous reflection, but there are seven actions to be performed by “all the earth”: raise a shout; serve Yhwh; come before him; acknowledge him; enter his gates; give thanks; bless his name. There is, intriguingly, and it begins in this verse, seven descriptions of Yhwh and what he does for his people: Yhwh is god; he ‘made us’; we are his people; we are his flock; he is good; his loyal-love is forever; his faithfulness is for generations. This is not, of course, merely a literary device. Rather, Yhwh’s people and Yhwh are ‘perfectly expressed’: Yhwh in his goodness toward his people; his people, in their liturgy and praise to him. It is a perfect “call and response”; a liturgy perfectly enacted. Everything that Yhwh is and does are returned to him in praise. This is the proper activity of earth in response to heaven—to ‘bear fruit’ upon receipt of heavenly waters. We will come to this in the following verse, but this ‘perfect call and response’ is accomplished and fulfilled when Yhwh’s people ‘enter his presence’; in other words, there is a sense of ‘nuptial’ mystery at the center of this perfection (something like the Song of Songs where ‘presence’ is sought above all else). Here, however, before we actually ‘enter the presence’ we begin the ‘liturgy of Yhwh’s works’ in seeing him “as god”, “as creator” and “as shepherd”. What we find here is a gradual intensification of Yhwh’s personal devotion to his people. “Yhwh as god” invites his people to see in Yhwh the realm of divine power and authority. “Yhwh as our creator” is intriguing on two levels. First, it means that in Yhwh one comes ‘home to oneself’ without remainder; it is not the case that some other god created us, but we have been graciously overtaken by Yhwh. Rather, in Yhwh one’s entire being is engulfed because one’s entire being came from him. Second, Yhwh ‘created his people’, Israel, through covenanting himself to them; this covenant was their being ‘born again’, so to speak. In this sense, there is an intimate (almost identical) relationship between creation and covenant. Both of them point to Yhwh as the one in whom one’s entire being (from beginning to end) is consumed. Within this ‘sphere of Yhwh’s creative godhood’ is Yhwh as shepherd—in other words, to be ‘in Yhwh’ is to be in a realm of protective sheltering and guidance. Israel is not only ‘born from Yhwh as god’ but is ‘born from the Shepherd’. They are, in their creation and their covenant, made as sheep of the Shepherd. The realm they walk within (in Torah and Temple) is that of Yhwh as loving provider, and protector. The deeper one delves into Yhwh, the more one sees the face of the Shepherd (the Shepherd-King-Yhwh-as-God).