The Temple
On some level, all of the previous reflections lead to
this one on the Temple. Because it in the Temple that Yhwh’s Presence is most
directly engaged through the people’s memory. It is in and through the Temple
that the land becomes the Land. It is through the Temple that what is manifest
about Yhwh—his Glory—is housed and perceived by Israel. And, it is through the
Temple that abundance and obedience are absolutely wed together.
That being said, where is the Temple referred to in
the psalm? It is, I believe, in the opening where the leader tells the people
to “come to Yhwh and his might, seek his presence always.” Yhwh, his Might, and
his presence are in the Temple. This is why a pilgrim can, literally, “come to
Yhwh”. This is not a metaphor for an inner, spiritual “coming to Yhwh”, but a literal
journey to him in the Temple. As such, the entire psalm is one that is “lived
out” in the Temple. The people’s memory of the Jospeh-and-Moses story, and of
Yhwh’s abiding covenant-memory of those events, is enacted while in Yhwh’s
presence and Might.
In a very real sense, then, the psalm’s conclusion
with the people being “brought out…with rejoicing and signing”, and their
“enjoying the fruit of the people’s toil”, brings them squarely into the
Temple. The end of the psalm, in a very real sense, ends at the beginning, with
pilgrims moving, again, into the Temple to remember Yhwh’s abundant
deliverance.
This should be seen in conjunction with our reflection
on the Land. There, we saw that the closer Israel came to the Land, the more
radically abundant Yhwh became toward them. Although they were in an “arid
place” “water gushed from a rock” and “quails and food from heaven filled
them.” If this occurs in the dessert, the Land must be truly astonishing. It
must be more abundant than anything that has been intimated up to this point.
It would dwarf the abundance and riches of Egypt. Its ability to produce would
be magnificent. But this astonishing abundance is rooted not in the Land’s
ability to produce from itself, but because the Land is impregnated with Yhwh’s
Presence, and that Presence is housed in the Temple. That is why when the
prophets envision the ‘day of the Lord’ it begins in the Temple. An ocean of
life pours forth over the Land, and then the world, but it begins in the
Temple. It is a wellspring of all Life. In a quite amazing fashion—that final
day of Life can be understood as the entire world going through an exodus, with
the Temple being the “rock that is struck” and from which a bubbling water
emerges bringing life to everything in its path. As we see in this psalm, it is
because the Might is there, this almost atomic power that brings life to
everything around it. And not just life but Life.
That is both the beginning and end of the exodus. It
began as Moses’ call to let the people worship Yhwh. It ends with the people
entering the Land and then establishing the Temple (as in Chronicles). And here
we see how it ties into the people’s memory. If Yhwh’s abiding covenant-memory
is housed in the Temple, then we can, with the psalm, describe that
covenant-memory-Presence as the “Might”, the astonishing power of Yhwh. When
the people therefore come into the Might, and they remember Yhwh’s acts, they
call forth that Might to act again. Their memory, so to speak, fuels the flame
of Yhwh’s Might. It keeps the Land from becoming simply the land, just as Adam
was called to till Eden and keep it. In this ‘sacred history’ the past is never
really past because its underlying engine (the “Might”) is forever and
enduring. Its author never dies.
Here we come to see that the abiding astonishment that
the acts of Yhwh have in this psalm (the plagues, the dessert ‘miracles’,
Joseph’s rise to glory, etc..) become an abiding astonishment of his Might in
the Temple. In other words, if all of the acts in this psalm have been leading
up to the fulfillment of Yhwh’s covenant promise to Abraham to give him the
land of Canaan, and if the consummation of that “gift” is the establishment of
the Temple in the Land (when the gift becomes truly secure), then all of the
acts of Yhwh leading up to that point are, in a sense, gathered together and
exceeded when Yhwh chooses to abide within his people, in the Temple. In other
words, the Temple itself is to be seen as the archetype, the model, the
pinnacle, and the consummation of all of these acts of abundance on Yhwh’s
part.
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