Hills Clothed in Gladness: Review of Psalm 65

[Image Deleted: see http://peregrinatorphoto.blogspot.com/]

Sunset over Salerno, Italy.

October 2007.

I've read through Psalm a couple of times. Generally, when reading through the poetry, I'll read one psalm a day until I'm finished with the book. The problem is that I end up speed reading through all the passages without actually sitting down and meditating upon what the psalmist is trying to say. It's easy to skip over the powerful metaphors and sincere emotions. Each work is usually shorter than a single column in my Bible, so skimming over one just before bed has become routine. The psalms also tend to say the same thing over and over again unless I take my time with them, so it can get a bit boring, at least for me. Therefore, I decided to change my routine and pick one psalm to sink into. I chose Psalm 65. I treated it like a prayer I would repeat over and over when I'm in turmoil. I first read the psalm in its entirety. Then, each night I would read one verse at a time and meditate heavily upon that verse. Whereas normally I would have breezed through this psalm in one night, I have spent a little more than a week on the passage.

I figured I'd share some of my notes and thoughts on Psalm 65 here. I mean, why not? It's not like I have a job to go to or anything like that. I also picked one of my old photos that reminded me of the passage because, well, that's just how I roll.

Praise awaits you, O God, in Zion;

To you our vows will be fulfilled.

O you who hear prayer, to you all men will come.

When we were overwhelmed by sins,

You forgave our transgressions.

Blessed are those you choose

And bring near to live in your courts!

We are filled with the good things of your house,

Of your holy temple.

You answer us with awesome deeds of righteousness,

O God our Savior, the hope of all the ends of the earth

And of the farthest seas,

Who formed the mountains by your power,

Having armed yourself with strength,

Who stilled the roaring of the seas,

The roaring of their waves,

And the turmoil of the nations.

Those living far away fear your wonders;

Where morning dawns and evening fades,

You call forth songs of joy.

You care for the land and water it;

You enrich it abundantly.

The streams of God are filled with water

To provide the people with grain,

For so you have ordained it.

You drench it furrows and level its ridges;

You soften it with showers and bless its crops.

You crown the year with your bounty,

And your carts overflow with abundance.

The grasslands of the desert overflow;

The hills are clothed with gladness.

The meadows are covered with flocks

And the valleys are mantled with grain;

They shout for joy and sing.

"Praise awaits you." Though this psalm screams joy, happiness, and thanksgiving at first glance- there is still an undertone of longing and perhaps loss. There is still a waiting for God. Wherever there is 'hope' and 'waiting,' then something is missing. "But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently" (Romans 8:24-25). Therefore, even though the psalm sounds joyful, there is still misery and groaning in the psalmist's voice. Yet he is confident. He knows that praise awaits God. This first verse alludes to the future. Not only do we wait for God, but He also waits for the fulfillment of His plans. The psalmist confidently knows that God will do something worthy of praise. Even in our current situations, we can look forward to the day when God will receive this praise and go ahead and give Him praise.

"To you our vows will be fulfilled." At first glance I think about our vows to God: we will be obedient to Him, love others selflessly, follow Him always even unto death, et cetera, et cetera. There are also vows God has made to us: He will never forsake us, give us good things, sanctify us, et cetera, et cetera. God continuously fulfills His vows to us today just as He fulfilled His vows long ago. When I think about the author, perhaps David, I can imagine that he was not in a safe place. Praying "praise awaits you" or "our vows will be fulfilled" while enemy soldiers chase or surround him is a brave statement.

"Blessed are those you choose and bring near to live in your courts!" Sometimes, being close to God's courts doesn't exactly feel like a 'blessing.' Sometimes, those outside the courts (i.e.- those with swords trying to kill the psalmist) seems like the more 'blessed' location. Again, this line is a brave statement when someone is in turmoil. The verb tense is striking: it's talking about the present and not about a future hope. We are blessed, right now; we are filled with good things, right now. Being in His presence is a blessing enough. Any other 'court' will fail. Every man and woman we've ever met or will encounter will fail us. There is no technology, institution, or philosophy that can save us from our turmoil. He can use our tools, but He is the only one who can bring righteousness or justice through them. God's court is the only court in which there will be resurrection, the raising of a 'New Jerusalem' from the ashes of the creation we've broken. Blessed are those in His courts.

"The hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas." Whenever I see the word 'sea' in scripture, I remember that the Israelis were not a seafaring people. The Philistines were the ones who fished far into the Mediterranean Sea or shipped goods across the waters. The seas terrified the Israelis, so the term 'sea' became a regular metaphor for 'turmoil,' 'trouble,' 'helplessness,' and so forth. This may or may not be the case here, but I like to think it is. I imagine someone who cannot swim lost and drowning in the 'farthest seas.' The waves are rolling over him. He is so far from land that no man-made invention can save him. God is the only one who can save him. Why can He save us from this earthly hell? Because He is the only one who has the strength. This point in the passage looks towards the past in order to have hope for the future: millennia ago, God created mountains from his own strength. We have been misfits desecrating His mountains, and we can only arm ourselves with measly tools fashioned from the dirt. Yet He is the one with the power to breathe life into clumps of mud.

"Who stilled the roaring seas, the roaring of the waves, and the turmoil of the nations." It's not man-made lessons about treading water that saves us from drowning the in the farthest seas. It is God who has the power to still the roaring seas and stop the waves from crashing over us. Yet the verse goes a step further away from our selfish focus and mentions the 'turmoil of the nations.' There is trouble not only in our house but across our neighborhoods and across the nations. The Great Recession has affected billions of people and has spurred bloody revolutions and civil wars across the Middle East and North Africa. And that is only one example of the 'turmoil of the nations.' I've spent a lot of time over the past couple years thinking about how man-made philosophies have tried to heal this turmoil. Neo-marxism tries to alleviate structural violence that oppresses the poor; neo-liberalism tries to open up the free markets so that the poor can move into the middle class; neo-classical realism tries to make states so fearsome that war is unthinkable; cosmopolitanism tries to get everyone to be respect each other. Yet, as a Christian, I cannot foresee a future in which man can use social science that creates a world without economic depressions or bloody wars. Man is still sinful: we make mistakes because we are selfish. We can only be 'good' if we define the adjective 'good' with such a low standard that the term becomes nonsensical. All men and women would have to become better than our general definition of 'good.' We'd have to become selfless. We'd have to be willing to give up what we cherish most so that others may live and prosper. We may even have to die. In other words, we would have to become like the God of Judeo-Christian scriptures. From a New Testament perspective, we'd have to live like Christ. Yet who is really willing to live like Christ if that means carrying a cross up to Calvary? Almost no one is willing, even those who claim to be 'Christian.' Ergo, I have no hope for man, unless God saves us.

"The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain." If the psalmist is in turmoil, then he is now looking to nature for an example of hope. God enriches for the land so that it may be abundant. Why would he do this? He has ordained the land to feed the people with grain. This point is critical for the rest of my interpretation of the psalm: the streams are not watering the land so that the land can prosper without giving anything back to God; the land is supposed to feed God's children, His creation. The grain would just wither and die unless the land fed the people. Likewise, when God fills our streams with rain so that the grasslands overflow onto the desert (i.e.- when He allows the economy to prosper), we are supposed to then use our abundance to bless others. At least that's how I read this verse.

"The hills are clothed with gladness. [...] They shout for joy and sing." I imagine the psalmist looking from a hilltop at the grasslands and deserts around him. The hills are glad for what God has done: He has used them to bring glory to Himself and to feed His children. We should clothe ourselves with gladness whenever God uses us to further His kingdom on earth. At the end of this psalm, the grasslands, hills, meadows, and valleys all shout for joy and sing. One of my new running trails in Virginia gives me a good view of several hills. When I see these views of nature around sunset, I can imagine them 'singing' and 'shouting.' If the psalmist wrote this part of scripture while in great turmoil, while 'drowning' in the 'farthest seas,' then he may not have felt liking singing a joyful song. Yet looking at nature reminded him of God's promise, power, and glory. Nature reminded the psalmist of the creator's earthly mission. If He can bring water to the hills so that they may shout for joy, then there is reason to rejoice and hope in Him.