Ps. 105 (Abundance and obedience)

Abundance and Obedience

Closely related to the previous reflections are the images of abundance. They appear throughout the psalm, but they cluster much more toward the end of the psalm. In some ways we covered this in our reflection on the movement from obscurity to glory, but here we should pause and take special note of how abundance works in this psalm.

What I mean by ‘abundance’ is physical blessing—whether in agriculture or in wealth. The first instance of this is what we might expect—the covenant blessing of the Land that is the engine of the psalm. Yhwh promises to Abraham “I will give you Canaan, allocating it you to possess.” We note here the giving of the Land to them. It is “allocated” to them as their “possession”. There is something akin here to a transaction, a change of ownership, from Yhwh to Abraham/Israel.

The fact that Yhwh still owns and controls the land is immediately noted—He strikes it with a famine, thereby depleting it of its abundance and vitality. This lack of vitality is mirrored in Joseph’s status as a slave—just as the land is robbed of its glory, so too is Joseph. However, just as the Land will eventually become an abundance, so too does Joseph. When Joseph is “proved right”, abundance flows. Joseph is set free, made ruler of peoples, in charge of the palace and is made “to rule all his [king’s] possessions.” Importantly, this rise in physical blessing puts Joseph not simply in a position of wealth, it puts him in a position of authority—he “instructs” and “teaches wisdom.” Again—Joseph here in many ways will mimic the end of the psalm, where the blessing the land is quickly followed by “observing his [Yhwh’s] rulings and his commandments.”

Abundance next appears when Israel is in Egypt and Yhwh “made his people abundantly fruitful and too numerous for their foes.” It is key to recognize here that Israel’s fruitfulness is not simply their own—it is also Yhwh’s, or, maybe better said, primarily Yhwh’s. We should recall here that when Yhwh promised Abraham that he would have descendants as numerous as the stars, Yhwh told Abraham that he, Yhwh, would make Abraham fruitful. Whereas everyone before Abraham had “children in their own image”, here, the covenant power is now unleashed within Abraham and his family. Their physical fruitfulness would itself be a display of Yhwh’s power and fruitfulness. That is what happens here in Egypt.

This abundance is challenged and Yhwh makes Egypt desolate through the plagues. Note here how the plagues are themselves a type of anti-abundance. Egypt “teemed” with frogs, “even in the royal apartment.” Their came flies and gnats “throughout their territory.” Everything is aimed at showing the totalizing power of Yhwh. He is, in a way, “abundantly destructive” of Egypt. For Israel, however, there is life. Yhwh brings them out “with silver and gold”. “No one stumbled”. All of abundant destructiveness is reversed for Israel. Even in a dessert—the epitome of absence—Israel is abundantly taken care of with “quails” and “food from heaven” and water “gushing from a rock”.

And, finally, when they reach the Land, they receive “the lands of the nations” and the “fruit of the people’s toil”. They are given what they have not earned or worked for. Just as the covenant promise to Abraham was a type of abundant “land grant”, a free transfer of ownership (an abundant gift), so too is what they receive when they enter the Land—gift upon gift, abundance upon abundance.

The final lines summarize the entire trajectory of this abundance—“to the end that they might observe his rulings and obey his laws.” Again, with Abraham the Land was given him for the purpose of obedience. With Joseph, abundance was given so that he “would teach the nations” wisdom. With Israel-in-Egypt, they are made abundantly fruitful so that Egypt would turn against them and the exodus would occur. The entire purpose of the exodus is to fulfill the promise to Abraham, give them the Land and its spoils, so that they would “observe his rulings and obey his laws.” We can note here that in Exodus, the first reason Moses gives to Pharaoh for leaving is liturgical—not to leave permanently. He simply wants to take Israel into the dessert so that they can worship Yhwh. As the story progresses, though, and Pharaoh’s heart becomes increasingly stubborn it is clear that Israel cannot worship Yhwh in Eygpt and the exodus occurs. The Land, therefore, becomes the “stage of Yhwh’s liturgy”. In this psalm, all of that is condensed into the final two lines.

It is crucial to grasp—the physical abundance that is the Land, the people’s physical glory of Yhwh’s blessing, must be wed to obedience to Yhwh. In a way, physical abundance (glory) is the outward display or manifestation of obedience to Yhwh. Creation and obedience, abundance and instruction—they show Yhwh to the world. But there is something more important to grasp—the Land’s abundance and glory is meant to be not simply an enticement to obedience, a type of ‘shell’ that holds obedience. Rather, Yhwh’s instruction is as glorious and abundant as the Land itself. Yhwh’s instruction is to be ‘seen’ as being as glorious as “the land of the nations” and the “people’s toil”. It is as much a delight as the “fruit of the land”. That is why the psalm begins and ends in rejoicing. It is not a rejoicing simply as their prosperity and abundance—it is a rejoicing in the instruction from Yhwh. Recall that Yhwh envisions the nations coming to Israel, bringing their abundance, because there is no other nation that possesses such wisdom and instruction. Yhwh’s instruction is the most prized of all possessions.