Canter Bridge

It would be a mistake to read into the Psalm’s rhetoric of the soul—in Hebrew, the נפשׁ (nefesh)—Greek conceptions of an invisible, enduring segment of the human creature. That is not in view, not least when the psalmist gives commands to his soul: ‘Praise the Lord, o my soul!’, ‘Awake, my soul!’, and the like. (more…)

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In the biblical milieu, love for God is far from sentimentalism. One attaches himself to YHWH, one adores him, one finds his own story as a subset of YHWH’s adventurous engagement with the world for reasons that are only remotely connected to feeling and what might in some circles be called religious ardor.

These things have their place. Memorably, the prototypical king David dances half-naked around YHWH’s primary piece of furniture as it is making its trek to the place in Zion that it would one day seem always to have belonged. When criticized for his lack of decorum, David responds that he ‘will become even more undignified than this’. Yet it is not the strength of one’s religious affections that matters in the biblical story. They are well and good when they respond accurately to YHWH’s activity in his world. But they are far from a cause. (more…)

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The crescendo is a central feature of biblical praise. The dynamic of adoration is such that increasing numbers of worshippers become caught up in its centering force.

Yet if it centers—by this I mean that it fixes the creature’s gaze on what is most true about the created whole of which he is a member—it also de-centers, for its force flows outward. Almost by definition, praise is a centrifugal force, its contagious potency captivating ever larger circles in its noisy work. (more…)

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The psalmist in his predicament will sometimes quote the Lord’s recorded words back to him, at times with an audacious tone of holding YHWH accountable to his prior commitments. At other times, as in the eighty-sixth psalm, the intention seems more benign. Stricken by the persistent assault of his adversaries, the poet places YHWH’s self-revealing words—traced by the biblical witness back to the revelation to the divine name recorded in the early chapters of the book of Exodus—over against the unyielding facts of his distress.

But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.  (Psalm 86:15 NRSV)

It is curious that the psalmist should counterpoise YHWH’s patient love to relentless attack. Clearly he is not invoking the slow pace of divine anger with regard to his enemies, for he should doubtless prefer to see them vaporized in a moment. Rather, there may be a covert admission of his own unworthiness for God’s rescue. He makes his rather urgent appeal in the language of slow provocation because he hopes that YHWH’s own patience with him will have kept him on the list of persons for whom God’s favor can reasonably be anticipated.

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