Not to us / Yhwh / not to us
But to
your name / give glory
For the
sake / of your loyal love / your faithfulness.
The openings lines, as seemingly straightforward as they
are, summarize the entire psalm. The psalmist wants glory to go “to Yhwh’s name”,
and “not to us”. He wants Yhwh’s name to be the exclusive, gravitational pull
for glory. “Us” or “we” are not to be given any. And yet, Yhwh’s name is to be “given
glory” “for the sake of” Yhwh’s “loyal-love” and “faithfulness”. So, in the
first line, all glory is to go “up” to Yhwh and yet the reason is because of
Yhwh’s “downward” “loya-love” and “faithfulness”. There is a type of circular
movement here. As the “earth” sends all glory up to Yhwh, who is above the
heavens, Yhwh responds with “loyal-love” and “faithfulness”.
This dynamic is crucial to grasp—that Yhwh’s exclusive
receipt of “glory” does not mean that the earth is somehow understood as lacking.
Quite the opposite. The more glory is given to Yhwh, the more Yhwh pours down
to the earth. That is why the psalmist says “not to us”—they actually receive
more from Yhwh the more they exclusively give glory to Yhwh. And the cycle
continues. The more they receive from Yhwh, the more glory they give to him,
and the more they, in turn, receive, and then the more they give. The reason
this dynamic can be circular is because Yhwh is an infinite source of being and
life. His receipt of glory does not “add to it” for the same reason that his
giving of “loyal love” and “faithfulness” does not deplete him. There is
nothing ‘competitive’ between Yhwh and “us”. He is not like a divine
slot-machine that one puts in the glory-coin in the hopes of receiving a
payment. As pithy as that is, it is the way many divine beings are ultimately understood
as operating (either with sacrifices, with life, or with praise). Yhwh is the
ever-new and infinite fountain of being and existence and loyal-love and
faithfulness. When Yhwh ‘draws from himself’ he does not draw from a limited
warehouse. He draws from his own Infinite.
This is why a psalm that is asking for Yhwh’s aide actually
begins not with an asking but a giving.
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