Ps 115 (Creating the Cosmos)

Yhwh has remembered / he will bless 

He will bless / the house of Israel

He will bless / the house of Aaron

He will bless / those who revere Yhwh

Young / and old alike.

May Yhwh / add to you

To you / and to your children

May you be blessed / by Yhwh

Maker of heaven and earth

It is here where we see how the original “giving glory” to Yhwh and “not to us” results in a prodigal outpouring from Yhwh. Again, to consign all glory to Yhwh is not to belittle the earth, nor is it to see a type of negative duality between creation, or “us”, and Yhwh. For Israel, to consign all glory to Yhwh is bring everything into Yhwh’s authority, to bring everything in Yhwh’s sphere. We might say, to retain any glory “for us” would be foolish in the extreme because “we” cannot be the source of divine blessing in the same way that the idols, made from the earth, cannot. 

This strikes me as a rather profound point—the psalmist’s rejection of glory so that it can all be given to Yhwh is similar to his rejection of idols. “We” cannot be proper receptacles of glory in the same way that the, the idols, cannot. For both, to retain any glory would be an eclipsing of Yhwh. But this is not simply neutral. To retain glory is to retain death. All glory not given to Yhwh becomes a type of curse, it “does not meet its purpose”; it is misused. Given to Yhwh, or ‘in Yhwh’, it turns into blessing but in “us” or in idols, it tuns into death and the beginning of the great Silence. “We”—Adam-like—can be our own idols in so far as we attempt to retain glory for ourselves. And if so, “we” would become like those who worship idols—we would not become like Yhwh, but we would caught within a vicious cycle with ourselves. This is it—glory given to Yhwh enters us into the cycle of glory-given, blessing-received, but glory retained or given to idols enters us into a closed circle with the earth and/or with demons, a closed circle of death. 

Note here what is not stated but implied—if idolaters become like the idols (silent like Sheol), then the trusters-of-Yhwh will also become like him. They would be his images. They will be brought within his sphere, not of silence and Death, but prodigal, divine blessing. 

So here we see how the more “glory” given exclusively to Yhwh results in Yhwh remembering and blessing the entire realm of those who trust in Him. Glory and blessing—that is the circular dynamic we spoke about above. There is an added layer here, though, that we can begin to grasp. The ‘blessing’ of Yhwh is a type of creation, a type of prodigal fruitfulness. Yhwh “adds to you”, “to you and to your children”. From the divine, he empowers them, as a community to fruitfulness. 

So a deeper connection can be made—that this cycle of glory-given and blessing participates in and reflections creation itself. All of creation—not simply the historical reception of blessing—is an act of this Yhwh-blessing, this “adding to”. And that is why the psalmist concludes with Yhwh being described as the “maker of heaven and earth”. To be a people-blessed, is to be brought within the creative action of Yhwh and, indeed, to be brought within the original, primal act of Creation itself.

That said we are also given a vision of the wonder of Creation—because it came not from a primal glory-given, but, rather, it came from Yhwh’s own why-less blessing. Nothing “seeded” Yhwh’s heaven to bring forth the Cosmos. The Cosmos, in all its glory, came, without cause, from Yhwh’s own abyss. And by bestowing glory on the Cosmos (there has to be ‘glory’ there in order for it to be given to Yhwh), he created the possibility of creation returning that glory to Him so that he could perpetuate the act of Creation throughout time. This ‘dialogue’ between Israel and Yhwh—this given of glory and blessing—begins in the ‘monologue’ of Yhwh’s act of creation, this act of opening up a space within himself for his creation to dwell.