Yhwh’s oracle / to my master:
“Sit
enthroned / on my right
Until I
make / your enemies
A stool
/ for your feet.”
Typically, when a prophet speaks, he speaks Yhwh’s words to
the people. Jeremiah, Amos or Isaiah would proclaim, “Thus says the Lord…”. The
oracle, or prophetic word, proceeds from Yhwh, to the prophet, and then to the
people. The “word” is then meant to shape the people, to mold them in some
fashion, after Yhwh’s own heart. In a way, the prophet is a type of tool, used
to fashion to people. If we compare the oracle to a seed, Israel is the
‘ground’ it is to be planted within and grow to a harvest. The prophet is a
type of seed bearer. He is not (in this way) the field.
But, that is not what happens here. Here, Yhwh delivers the
oracle to “my master”. He is the goal. The oracle is meant for him. It is meant
to shape him in a particular fashion. The oracle is more closely identified
with him, in particular. As Yhwh’s king (or, image), he is a type of
Adam-of-God. He is the field because he is the source, or origin. He is the
field, the one who is going to be impregnated with the seed-oracle.
Given this, the point of the oracle is not surprising. It
infuses a tremendous amount of power into the psalmist’s master. This ‘oracle’
is to lift him into Yhwh’s own realm of sovereign power. He is to sit up on a
throne at Yhwh’s own right side. And, from him, will flow Yhwh’s ruling power.
In a sense, the higher is the king is raised into Yhwh’s realm, the greater
will Yhwh’s power flow through him into the king’s realm. Heaven will now flow
down to the earth. All ‘enemies’ will become a footstool to the master. We
should not miss this tremendous point—this master will be the gateway through
which Yhwh’s heavenly power will flow into the earth, refashioning it, bringing
justice, restoring order to the Garden of Yhwh. He will be the portal, the
Gate, the ladder and the way through which Yhwh will descend.
When Yhwh’s descends through the master, the ‘outworking’ of
this will be the king’s “day of power” (v 3). Yhwh will “wield the master’s
strong scepter” from Zion. That “day” will be the “day of anger”, when kings
will be shattered the “wide world over”. This is heaven being manifest on earth
in and through the master.
Your
strong scepter
Will Yhwh
extend / from Zion
So that
you rule / over your enemies around you.
Just as the “enemies” are the master’s, and they will be
made a footstool for “his feet”, so too now is it the master’s “scepter” that
Yhwh will extend from Zion. Something similar to this happened with Abraham.
From Adam to Abraham, the men and women were fruitful and they multiplied. That
momentum continued until Abraham’s and Sarah’s old, frail and, essentially,
‘dead’ bodies. But then came the covenant power of Yhwh. When Yhwh covenanted
with Abraham he said that he, Yhwh, would make him fruitful and multiply. The
extraordinary power of Abraham that would now be unleashed upon the world,
through his children, would be seen, fundamentally, as Yhwh’s children. This is
resurrection, covenantal power.
Now, in Abraham, that power took the form of prodigal,
life-giving power extending into the ‘family of Yhwh’. Here, the master is the
priest-king of Yhwh and, thus, the covenant power will take a different shape.
It will be the power granted to every king—to rid the land of enemies, protect
its boundaries, and to establish shalom and justice within its borders. Yhwh
himself will extend this scepter, but He will do so in order to establish the
master, so he “can rule over your enemies around you.” That this ruling
authority will extend from Zion is significant. Zion is always ground-zero for
Yhwh’s reign and ruling authority over the earth. The prophets will
continuously return to Zion as the source and beginning of the Day. Zion will,
in this way, zion-ize the entire earth. The Master is the Master in Zion. When
his rule extends beyond the borders to the ‘enemies around you’, Yhwh is
beginning to establish not just the kingdom of Israel, but his empire. The cosmos
is now in his sights. And this cosmos-wide rule will begin in Zion, through
this master priest-king. In other words, it is not simply that Zion will be ground-zero—so
too will the master priest-king, because it is through him that Zion will
spread.
Your
people / will volunteer
On your
day of power
On the
holy mountains
From the
womb of dawn
You will
have / the dew of your youth.
The previous passage dealt with the external threat to the
master, and how Yhwh will address it. Here, we look at the internal threat to
the master—his own people. Throughout the Scriptures, the people of the king
are rarely unified. There is always dissension. At its origin, that dissension resulted
in a civil war that split the kingdom in half. It did not end there, but
continued through the centuries. The prophets would look forward to a time when
the twelve tribes would be united again. Shalom, peace and justice is not something
that needs to happen ‘out there’ in the world of the nations. It also needs to
happen internally, within the tribes (the sons of Abraham).
Yhwh’s oracle-power, this heaven-power, is now seen from the
vantage of inside of Israel. The “Day of Power” will not just be one enforced
on the nations; it will be one that also manifests itself in an active and
desired unity from within the master’s people. The master’s people will
actively organize and mobilize themselves behind the master. This is, it must
be understood, the people’s participating within Yhwh’s momentum of
establishing the master’s reign. In other words, there is a divine power being
manifest in and through not just a unification that is imposed on them, but one
that they actively participate in.
This heavenly unity, will be deepened when, on the holy
mountains, an army will emerge as if from the dawn itself. On the one hand,
this image is so poignant that one hesitates to try and explicate it. But a few
things need to be said. The ‘dawn’ was often understood, as we have seen in
other psalms, as the time when Yhwh acted. Here, this is heightened by the fact
that the psalm looks toward a particular day and not just a dawn in general.
Here, they look forward to the “day of power” and priest-king’s “day of anger”.
This will be a day when Zion will spread. It is this day in particular, that
will be the womb of dawn from which this ‘dew of your youth’ will come to the
master. Again, we must see here the ‘mists’ from which the dew arrives as being
the ‘mist of heaven’ as it descends through the Master and begins to spread
Yhwh’s sovereign control over the earth. It will bring to the Master’s aid
these ‘volunteers’ who become an irresistible force; that is what the ‘dew of
your youth’ refers to. It is a prodigally given army, unitified behind the
Master, that will not be able to be conqured by the enemies. The day will
spread from Zion, through these ‘youth’, to cover the earth.
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