Ps. 103.8 (lavish overflow)

Yhwh is affectionate / and dutiful

patient and lavish / in loyal-love. 

This verse begins what I would call the ‘inner-life’ of the covenant. It reveals to them “his ways”. We might even say, it opens up the ‘heart of Yhwh’. Here, Yhwh is “affectionate and dutiful and patient and lavish in loyal-love”. These qualities of Yhwh are not, within the context of the psalm, simply an excited outpouring by the psalmist. They are, rather, thematically important for what has preceded and what follows. First, we need to look back to the first section. There, the psalmist recounts Yhwh’s personal act of deliverance toward him and his subsequent crowning in ‘loyal love and affection’. Importantly, this ‘crowning’ follows Yhwh’s act of forgiving iniquity. In the current section there will likewise be a focus on Yhwh’s act of “dealing with our sins and iniquities”. Moreover, if one imagines this psalm being recited within the Temple, then this “affection and loyal-love” are to be, here, intimately tied to and as an expression of the sacrifice system establishing forgiveness of sins. This being the case, we come to a deeper understanding of the nature of Yhwh’s establishing the sacrificial cult in Israel—it is an expression of Yhwh’s covenantal ‘inner-life’ of loyal-love and affection toward his people. We will come to this verse later, but we must hear the deeply loving gratitude for the sacrificial cult in these words: “As far as east is from west has he removed from us punishment for our rebel ways.” The psalmist’s language is, quite literally, crossing the boundary of language to reach toward an expression of gratitude that he cannot adequately provide. This is manifest in our verse today when he describes Yhwh’s loyal-love as “lavish loyal-love”. Everything here speaks about Yhwh’s regard for his people as abundant, prodigal and lavish. It is, in other words, excessive. It is overflow.