Hallelujah
Praise Yhwh’s name
Praise
it / Yhwh’s servants
Who are standing / in Yhwh’s house
In the
courts / of our God’s house
Praise Yah / because Yhwh is so good
Celebrate
his name / with music / because it is so lovely
Because Jacob it was
/ whom Yhwh chose as his own
Israel
as his / special possession
The psalm begins in Yhwh’s house and ends with a
denunciation of the nation’s idols. It is important to see this opening and
closing as, in way, shining a reverse image on each other. Yhwh’s temple
contains no image of Yhwh. The nations’ temples, on the other hand, do.
Israel’s lack of an image was one of its most bizarre aspects. Some even
thought of them as atheists because apparently they didn’t worship any god
because they had no image of one. For these nations, Israel’s worship was the
antithesis of right worship. Israel could not be worshipping a god who could
actually provide divine assistance. For Israel, as the conclusion makes clear,
the opposite is in fact the case. Those who worship idols made by human hands
are the ones worshipping ‘nothing’. They are the ones who have no power.
This is why, sandwiched between these two liturgies is the
story of the exodus and the conquest—that story shows Yhwh’s power. It shows
him to the all-powerful god who “does as he pleases” with the nations. It is
Israel’s history-with-Yhwh which inaugurates them into his omnipotence. They
are structured according to his power because they were literally built up by
it. This story in particular is important
because the way it is told forms the foundation for why Israel worship a
god-without-an-image.
In this way we see how Yhwh’s history with his people shaped
their liturgy and, in turn, how their liturgy enabled them to see Yhwh’s
history with his people.
For I know myself / that Yhwh is great
That
our God / is greater / than all gods
Anything Yhwh pleases
He does
in heaven / and on earth
In the
seas / and all the deeps.
He is the one who gets the clouds / to rise from the ends of
the earth
Who
makes flashes of lightning / for the rain
Who
brings / the wind / out of his storehouses.
He is the one / who struck down Egypt’s firstborn
Of man
/ and beast alike
He sent signs and portents
In the
midst / of Egypt
Against
Pharaoh / and all his servants
He is the one / who struck down / many nations
And
killed mighty kings
King Sihon / of the Amorites
And
King Og / of Bashan
And all
Canaan’s kingdoms
And gave their land / as a heritage
A
heritage / for his people Israel
Yhwh / your name will endure forever
Yhwh /
proclamation of you / for generations
Because Yhwh / vindicates his people
Showing
compassion / for his servants
The psalmist knows Yhwh is great. He knows that Yhwh does
whatever he will in the entire cosmos—heaven, earth, seas and deeps. The
psalmist describes this as alternating between “bringing” and “striking down”.
He brings the storm, rain and lightning. He strikes down the Egyptian first
born. He brings signs and portents. He strikes down the kings of the nations.
Yhwh is the one who makes the clouds rise and brings wind. He is the lord of
the storm. He is also the lord over Egypt. He struck down the firstborn sent
signs in Egypt’s midst. He also struck down many nations and kings. Finally,
Yhwh “gives over” the land to his people.
What we see here is the totality of Yhwh’s authority. While
each of these realms that Yhwh either “brings” or “strikes down” were
understood as being the realm of a pantheon of gods, for the psalmist, they are
all entirely governed by Yhwh’s will—he does “whatever he pleases” in each
realm, unencumbered by any other deity.
This is one reason why the conclusion to the psalm is so mocking in its
tone—the nations’ idols were understood as the idols of these gods. For the
psalmist, though, the entire realm of authority is not theirs but Yhwh’s. Next
to him, they are merely the “products of human hands”. They have mouths, eyes, and
ears but they neither speak, see, hear or breath. Their utter lack of authority
in the divine realm is matched, or displayed, by the utter lack of life in the
idols.
Yhwh, on the other hand, has an ‘idol’, an ‘image’. And it
is man. This is key because the psalmist notes that the idols “of the nations”
are made by “human hands.” In other words, Yhwh’s “idol” is the one who makes
the “idols of the nations”. Even with the realm of “idol making”, Yhwh has this
form of control because it is his idol that is actually fashioning them. There is here a type of “chain of being”. When
Yhwh’s own “idol” creates “idols”, something has gone terribly wrong. They
think they are creating images of deities, but they are in fact creating things
that even below them. Yhwh’s idols can, literally, “speak, see, hear and breath”;
however, when they engage in idol-making they lose their ability to speak
truthfully, see and hear perceptively and, in the end, they lose the “breath of
god” placed in them. They become less than who/what they are—they become
lifeless idols themselves.
This is why the psalm concludes with the Yhwh’s idols turned
to—trusting—not the dead idols of the nations but Yhwh. The House of Israel,
Aaron, Levites, all who revere Yhwh—they bless him. And this is why,
importantly, Zion and Jerusalem are understood as the “objects” toward which
Yhwh’s “idol” can turn. They are the Yhwh-sanctioned locations of his blessing
and Presence.
The nations’ idols / are silver and gold
Products
of human hands
They have mouths / but cannot speak
Eyes /
but cannot see
They have ears / but cannot hear
Nor is
there any breath / in their mouths
Their makers will become like them
So will
anyone / who trusts in them.
House of Israel / bless Yhwh
House
of Aaron / bless Yhwh
House of Levites / bless Yhwh
You who
revere Yhwh / bless Yhwh
Blessed be Yhwh / from Zion
He who
resides in Jerusalem
Hallelujah.
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