Canter Bridge

* Dedicated to my friend Rev. Robert Eyman, Spokane, Washington, USA

One of the finest of the so-called ‘Hallelujah Psalms’, the one hundred forty-seventh speaks an encouraging word to the broken-hearted among us. The poet angles in on the appropriateness of praise, recognizing that a universe governed in the way this one is ruled has become a venue where gratitude is the fitting response.

How good it is to sing praises to our God;
for he is gracious, and a song of praise is fitting. (Psalm 147:1 NRSV)

One does not arrive at such a response unreflectively. From every corner evidence presents itself that might well seem to render praise anything but the proper sound in a broken world where blood flows too freely and sorrow gathers in silent, menacing clumps. Yet the psalmist has fought his way to a hermeneutical angle from which his gaze takes in reasons for gratitude rather than resentment. He is convinced his angle is the proper one, not a cheap analgesic, no psychological trick crafted merely to dull the pain.

From where the writer stands (and sings), YHWH appears compassionate, patient, and majestic. A chain of Hebrew participles evokes the revelation of the divine name in the third and sixth chapters of the book of Exodus, probably intentionally. Who is YHWH?

YHWH is the one who builds up Jerusalem;
he gathers the outcasts of Israel.
He who heals the brokenhearted,
and binds up their wounds …
He who determines the number of the stars;
he gives to all of them their names …
Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;
his understanding is beyond measure.
Yahweh is he who lifts up the downtrodden;
he who casts the wicked to the ground. (Psalm 147:2-6, slightly modified by author)

Those who consider themselves among the ‘shattered of heart’ will find in YHWH a loving physician, we are told. Language nearly identical to this poignant phrase is employed in the great, fifty-first psalm of remorse. There it turns sacrificial convention on its head with consequences that the broken-hearted may find something near to exhilarating:

For you have no delight in sacrifice;
if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.
The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (Psalm 51:16-17 NRSV)

Curiously these two psalms—the fifty-first and the one hundred forty-seventh—counterpose their startling conclusions about who actually attracts the thoughtful, active attention of YHWH to common expectation. In the former, cultic sacrifice becomes the rhetorical foil for the shattered heart. In contrast to a broken spirit, it fails to delight YHWH.

In the latter, we learn that YHWH remains unimpressed by conventional displays of strength:

His delight is not in the strength of the horse,
nor his pleasure in the speed of a runner;
but the LORD takes pleasure in those who fear him,
in those who hope in his steadfast love. (Psalm 147:10 NRSV)

It is no wonder—even if it is wonderful—that a governing deity who acts in this unsettling manner should become the object of this kind of Hallelujah. This YHWH, we are asked to believe, finds himself irresistibly attracted to those who go about with shattered hearts, fearing YHWH out of the depths of their fragility. So it is fitting that such people should recognize his beauty and praise him.

If the world is ruled in this way, then everything about who we are, whether we fail, and how we succeed is deconstructed under our feet. YHWH then remakes it all with mysterious, penetrating, up-ending mercy. A Jerusalemite poet can imagine no other response than the good, fitting song that we call praise.