Ps 108 (Part Two--Once Said Or Made Cannot Be Destroyed)

Be exalted above the heavens / O God

And let your glory / cover all the earth

In reply to me / help with your right hand

So that those you love / may be rescued

God himself / spoke in his sanctuary:

I will exult / I will divide out Shechem

And measure out Succoth Valley / into parts.

Gilead is mine / Manasseh is mine,

Ephraim is my head guard

Judah is my baton.

Moab is my wash basin

I throw my sandal onto Edom

And shout in triumph / over Philistia.

Who can take me / to the fortified city?

Who can lead me / to Edom?

Have you ever rejected us, / O God?

Will you not march out / O God / with our forces?

Give us aid /against the enemy

Because human help / is useless.

With God / we shall prevail

He is the one / who will trample down our enemies.

The psalmist is able to perceive within the world, and he is even able to perceive in Yhwh’s realm above the world, Yhwh’s faithfulness and loyal-love. To him, Yhwh’s covenant commitment to him and Israel fills the world and finds it source above the ebb and flow of day and night. It exists within a realm of always light and glory. And, if he is able not only to perceive it but to beckon it, to coax it down to earth, what is the result? What would it look like if this covenant love and commitment became instantiated, or present, fully? It would be—deliverance for Israel and exultation and glory for Yhwh. These two are, in this psalm, wed together. Yhwh’s glory and Israel’s deliverance travel together. We might say, if Yhwh’s glory were to be manifest, that would mean Israel was delivered. Or, if Israel was delivered, Yhwh’s glory would be manifest. But the reverse can also be stated—that Yhwh’s glory will not be fully manifest unless, or until, Israel is delivered from her enemies. One can see here how closely Yhwh and Israel are covenantally tied together. The covenant is what binds these two realities together—deliverance and glory. To state it in marital terms, Yhwh’s bridegroom-glory is not fully realized until Israel’s bridal-deliverance is accomplished.

It is, I believe, because of this covenant commitment that the psalmist moves into what at first seems an odd oracle to cite. It is an old oracle, cited in Psalm 57. What is important is that this particular oracle, although delivered in the past, and seemingly applicable to a previous situation, is here slightly modified to fit the circumstances of this psalm. It is a “living oracle” we might say. Although pronounced once, it is, in a sense, eternally pronounced. Although accomplished once, it, in a sense, will always be accomplished. It will be what it will be, and it is not anchored to time in the past but participates within the sacred always time of Yhwh. 

We mentioned previously how the psalmist stood in this ‘between time’ this ‘already-but-not-yet-time’, when darkness is passing and the dawn is arriving. Here we can come to see what propels the psalmist forward. We know what he is looking toward, but what carries him from the past, as it were? It is this ‘living oracle’. It stands in the past, picks up the psalmist, and, like a wave, carries him into the future. In fact, we might say that this oracle is the music that he will use to ‘wake the lyre and harp’. In this way—rather amazingly—we see that it is both past, present and future. It is both what he refers back to and what he moves toward.

And yet, in this re-deployment of the oracle, it is applied to a different situation and is, accordingly, modified. This is important—although it (in some way) participates within the Always of Yhwh that does not mean that it is somehow ‘stationary’ or incapable of adaptation. It is not a statue that ‘falls from heaven’, but a living reality that enters into Israel in a dynamic way, a participatory way.

One last thing to note—I think it likely that this psalm was composed sometime after the Exile, during a time after the Temple was destroyed. And yet, this part of the psalm while acknowledging that Yhwh is to be “exalted above the heavens” the oracle is one that was “spoken in his sanctuary.” What I find intriguing about this is that the psalmist draws comfort from the fact that this oracle was delivered in a Temple that now stands in ruin. He could have left that detail out (where the oracle was delivered). But, for him, the reality of the sanctuary is something that endures beyond its destruction. Recall that the prophets anticipated a ‘new temple’. They looked forward to its being rebuilt. In other words, just as the oracle itself endures after its original proclamation so too does the temple, in some sense, endure even after it’s destruction. Something Yhwh once said, or once made, cannot be ultimately destroyed.