Ps 147

It is indeed good / to make melody / to our God

                It is indeed pleasing / to engage in fitting praise

Yhwh is rebuilding Jerusalem

                And gathering Israel’s outcasts

He it is who heals the broken-hearted

                And bandages / their wounds

Counts the number of the stars,

                Calling them all / by their names

Our Lord / is great / and most powerful

                His wisdom / defies enumeration

Yhwh / relieves the oppressed

                He brings / the wicked / low to the ground

The psalmist begins with the goodness of “making melody to ‘our God’”. We stand here not within the horizon of ‘God’ in general, but Yhwh, the covenant-god of Israel. He is “our God”. And it is to him that the melody is played. The giving of praise is, itself, pleasing. It both goes up to Yhwh and, in its being handed over, it fills the psalmist and the covenant community with pleasure. That the praise is “fitting” is important—because the community is given to Yhwh what Yhwh himself has provided. He gave them the Temple and the laws and instructions regarding how he is to be worshipped. In so doing, he brought them into his realm of praise. They were not gesturing to him, but he was opening himself to them so that they could enter into his own divine, heavenly praise. It is a ‘treasure’ given over to them.

This ‘treasure’ is now most pleasing because Yhwh is in the process of rebuilding Jerusalem, the liturgical center of the cosmos. The covenant community will again be able to enter into ‘fitting praise’ of Yhwh; again be able to participate within this heavenly liturgy. As we see in many other psalms, the culmination, or completion, of the praise is only obtained when the entire community is united and gathered together. The rebuilding of Jerusalem is only complete with the ‘rebuilding’ of Israel—with their gathering. The City-and-the-People are an integral whole, a single reality, both established by Yhwh.

Just as he is binding up Jerusalem after its destruction so too is he healing the ‘broken-hearted and banding their wounds.’ We see here how the rebuilding of the destroyed Temple’ is, simultaneously, the rebuilding of the body of the People of God.

This rebuilding of the City-and-the-People is done by the same god who can do what no other being, diving or otherwise, can do—count the number of the stars. More astonishingly, he not only counts them, but Adam-like with the animals, he calls them by name. They are not a mass of stars, numbered, but each individual star receives its own identity, that which binds it with all others while, at the same time, making it forever unique and unrepeatable. This god is same god who is rebuilding, reconstructing and binding up City-and-People. And, as such, the care and concern that he would take in rebuilding them would partake of the same immensity and intimacy with which he numbers and knows the stars. Perhaps more deeply still is the fact that the Israelites see their rebuilding as comparable to Yhwh’s ability to count and name the stars. In other words, their regathering is a thing beyond comprehension. For them, then, the rebuilding of Jerusalem-and-the-People would be so joyous that it would be beyond any analogy. It would ‘defy’ comparison within anything else, just as Yhwh’s wisdom “defies enumeration.” We might say, the two feed each other—just as they know Yhwh to take an intimate concern for them and their rebuilding, do they know that he takes an intimate concern for the stars; and, as they look up and see Yhwh’s creation, and know that it all springs from his word and regard, they too know that this same God is their covenant-partner.

Respond with thanksgiving / to Yhwh

                Make melody / with the lyre / to our God

Who covers the sky / with clouds

                Who provides rain / for the earth

                Who makes grass grow / on the mountains

Gives to animals / their food

                To young ravens / when they call

Not in the horse’s strength / does he find joy

                Not in man’s legs / does he take pleasure

Yhwh’s pleasure / is in those who revere him

                In those who put their hope / in his loyal love.

The psalmist begins a different stanza and this time he focuses on similar themes to the first but chooses to ignore others. Specifically, he looks to Yhwh’s providential care for the cosmos and the animals. He begins with the provision of rain which allows for the grass to grow. The rain is like food for the earth. He then turns to animals, young ravens in particular, and witnesses Yhwh providing them food.

But, from this, he immediately shifts to a caution as to animals. Although Yhwh feeds them, he does not find joy in horse’s strength or in man’s legs. Yhwh’s pleasure, instead, is in reverence, and those who hope in him. Notice what is occurring here—Yhwh’s gaze is arrested by man’s reverent gaze. The horse’s strength and man’s legs do not, themselves, return the gaze. The gaze ends there, with their strength. It is not returned. But for Yhwh, his joy is in the returned, reverential gaze. At this point we should point out that the opening lines emphasized the psalmist’s pleasure in praising Yhwh. So the psalmist’s pleasure is in praising Yhwh and Yhwh’s pleasure is in those who revere him.

Laud Yhwh / Jerusalem

                Praise your God / Zion

Because he has braced the bars / of your gates

                And blessed your sons / within you

He it is who makes your territory prosperous / and secure

                Fills you with the finest of wheat

Who sends his command / to the earth—

                His word / runs fast

Who gives snow / like wool

                Scatters frost / like ashes

Throws his hail / like morsels of bread

                Water standing frozen / before his cold

He sends his word / and it melts them

                He blows his breath / the water flows

He declares his word / to Jacob

                His laws / and rulings / to Israel

He has not done this / for any of the nations

                He has not made such rulings / known to them.

In this final stanza the psalmist calls upon Jerusalem and Zion herself to laud and praise Yhwh. She should look to her gates, and her sons within her; her territory, and see how be both provides and protects it. And not merely provides—but gives in abundance. This Yhwh who not only counts and names the stars, and who feeds all the animals, but within the earth, the seasons themselves are but obedience to his command and will. This same seasonal command, is the command given and declared to Jacob, the same command that makes itself known in the human realm as laws and rulings. Only in Israel has this command come and taken shape, shaping the people. They are the ones, the only ones, in whom obedience and reverence can be fully found and, as such, the only ones who are most beautiful to Yhwh.

That the psalmist addresses Jerusalem and Zion should not be understood as symbolic or metaphoric. The psalmist sees the city as a living thing, in its own way. Just as the stars have names, and just as creation responds to Yhwh, so too does the City partake in this obedience. It is not mere stone. Like the stars, it has a name, and a name given by Yhwh. This is why Jerusalem’s reverence to Yhwh—her rejoicing in Yhwh’s abundant provision for her—is a participating within the covenant communities reverence. Again—City-and-the-People.

This final stanza recapitulates the first by first focusing on the praise offered to Yhwh—there, it was by the people for the rebuilding of Jerusalem, here it is by Jerusalem herself. Then, it moves into a meditation on Yhwh’s governance in the cosmos—there, it was to his numbering and naming the stars; here it is by his seasonal working within the earth. And, finally, with his focus on his covenant partner and his acts as judge—there, to the judgment of the wicked; here, to the special privilege given to Jacob/Israel, and its absence in other nations.

It is important to note that Yhwh, who governs and provides for the Cosmos and the earth, who can name each start and provide food for young ravens, also acts as a protector and defender of his people and of Jerusalem. There is something within the cosmos and the earth that stands opposed to Yhwh, even though he stands as its sovereign. We see in particular by the fact that he “braces the bars of Jerusalem’s gate”.

Another important element here is the mixture of this martial defense of Jerusalem with the playfulness of Yhwh’s control of the seasons, all within a single stanza. The stanza begins with Yhwh fortifying Jerusalem against attack, and with providing them with ‘finest wheat’. There is the sense here that Yhwh both protects against incursion and defilement and also strengthens them in order to repel any attack. The focus is on battle, war and survival. But then the tone completely shifts. From Yhwh taking this defensive, guardian position, he now is portrayed as the supreme governor of the Cosmos who can change the seasons by simply “sending forth his word”. And, now, within that context, Yhwh is portrayed as almost a child “gives snow like wool”, who “scatters frost like ashes”, and “throws hail like morsels of bread.” One can recall here how, in Job, Leviathan is described as Yhwh’s “play-thing”, with the Cosmos being his playground. When winter turns to summer, Yhwh sends his word again and it “melts them” and the frozen water now “flows again”.

The connecting image of ‘bread’ or ‘wheat’ is important. In the first portion, the ‘finest wheat’ is given to the Jerusalemites/Israelites. Then, the psalmist describes Yhwh as “throwing hail like morsels of bread”. What we see here is that it is the same Yhwh—from his martial protection to his playful control of the seasons, bread connects the two images.