Rejoice, Yhwh Reigns - Psalm 97

Continuing my stroll through Book IV of the Psalter, Psalm 97 is a fun one. There's lots of interesting imagery, and also lots of repeated vocab and/or synonyms.

The imagery of the heavens and earth is particularly invigorating, as we think about the earth and coastlands rejoicing, about cloud and darkness surrounding Yhwh, about creation being lit up by his lightning, and the earth in response writhing and mountains melting.

The pantheon of gods also feature, as their existence is not so much denied as relativised. Yhwh here is Yhwh Elyon - most high - who is over all the earth, far above other gods (97:9). Worship of their images is shameful, for even those gods worship Yhwh (97:7)!

In terms of the vocabulary of this psalm, we have rejoicing (2x), be glad (3x), worship (1x) and praise (1x). This vocab alone pushes us to think of this psalm as a song. The other area of repeated vocabulary are in terms of the character and actions of Yhwh, with righteous/ness (4x), judgements/s (2x), uprightness (1x), glory (1x) and holiness (1x). Some of these are Yhwh's, others are reflected in his people .

The structure of this psalm is certainly tricky, but I think I've got some idea. If this works, after the heading (Yhwh reigns!), it's a two-part psalm, with both halves in an ABCBA structure.

Heading 1a Yhwh reigns!

A1 1b-c Earth and coast: rejoice!

B1 2 Yhwh's righteousness and judgement

C1 3-5 Yhwh is boss over creation

B1` 6 All have seen his righteousness and glory

A1` 7 Idolaters, be ashamed; gods, worship!

A2 8a-b Zion and Judah: rejoice!

B2 8c Yhwh's judgements

C2 9-10 Yhwh Elyon guards and delivers his people

B2` 11 Light sown to righteousness, gladness to upright heart

A2` You righteous: rejoice!

The two halves tell a similar story regarding the character of Yhwh and how it is reflected and embodied among his people. The focus is however different. In the first section (1b-7), the key idea is "Yhwh is boss over creation" with the ethical implication, "Don't commit idolatry." In the second section (8-12), Yhwh is still sovereign, but this is to do with the hope for his people. So the idea is more, "Yhwh Elyon guards and delivers," with the ethical implication, "Don't love evil."

Although this psalm is very elevated in its subject matter, in the heavens and with the pantheon, the rubber certainly hits the road in both instances. Flee idolatry and flee evil are evergreen commands, just as relevant then as now.

Psalm 97 as an Exodus psalm

Reading various commentators, the majority of focus is on how this psalm is grounded in or responds to Canaanite mythologies. While I don't deny that may be part of it, what I don't see is an attempt to ground the reading of this and similar psalms in the imagery we are already provided in the Scriptures. In particular, the language of v2-5 seem easily linked to Exodus 19:16-19, as Sinai is covered in cloud and smoke and there's fire and trembling mountains, followed by Yhwh's self-revelation in the giving of the Decalogue. So while there may be other things going on, it seems a mistake to so quickly ignore the key moment in Israel's history: a theophany followed by the law. 

Jonah's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

 Jonah 2 used to be one of my favourite passages in the Bible. For now, let's just say, it's complicated. If I was an editor, I would have told the author, "Lose either chapter 2 or chapter 4; you can't keep both." Chapter 2 makes Jonah pious; chapter 4 makes him sound racist. Chapter 2 makes him sound like he was converted in the belly of the fish; chapter 4 makes it sound as if the fish never happened.

Chapter 2 (in the Hebrew numbering, which is one ahead of the English) begins with the explanation, "And Yhwh provided a great fish, to swallow Jonah," and the chapter concludes, "And Yhwh spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah upon the dry ground." What happened in between? 2:1[1:17] continues, "Now Jonah was in the stomach of the fish, three days and three nights." Now, for me, as the editor, I would have again explained, "that's enough - less is more - I like it just as is." Chapter 2 would then read:

"And Yhwh provided a great fish, to swallow Jonah. Now Jonah was in the stomach of the fish, three days and three nights. And Yhwh spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah upon the dry ground."

Silence is golden, and the silence of the three days would speak to the reader: what happened those three days in darkness? Were those days informative? Was he just whingeing? Did he have an epiphany? Those questions would then be answered, first positively (Jonah did indeed preach in Nineveh, ch 3) but then negatively (he did not want them to repent, ch 4). Instead, by including the psalm of chapter 2, we are left trying to figure out what its point is, and how these words, which on the surface sound theologically sound, could come from the mouth of one who behaves so abominably in chapter 4.

Anyway, enough about the theology. What's going on in the structure?

There are a pair of bookends: 2:1[1:17] And Yhwh provided a great fish to swallow Jonah // 2:11[10] And Yhwh spoke to the fish and it vomited Jonah upon the dry ground.

In the body of the prayer, there is the narrator's introduction, and, possibly, at the end, his summary conclusion: 2:1c-2[1:17c-2:1] Now Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights, and Jonah prayed to Yhwh his God from the stomach of the fish. // 2:10c[9c] Salvation comes from Yhwh. The reason I could include the end of v10[9] is because, contra the NIV, there is no introductory speech there, and it doesn't flow from v9[8]. But what it does do is mirror the introduction to the psalm, indicating that salvation is indeed from Yhwh, the right object of all our prayers.

The remainder of the psalm is divisible in two, with two subsections, each half concluding with "to your holy temple," (2:5[4], 8-10[7-9]), while the first parts theologically describe the experience of drowning (2:3-4[2-3]; 2:6-7[5-6]). The body of the psalm is then an ABAB structure.

What is not clear in English is the four times something is said to be at the very centre, albeit with three different Hebrew words, each referring, in different ways, to the bodily centre:

Now Jonah was in the stomach מעה
And Jonah prayed to Yhwh his God from the stomach of the fish מעה
From the belly of Sheol I called for help בטן
You hurled me [...] into the very heart of the seas לבב

He is not on the edge, on the cusp, but at the most inward part of the fish, of Sheol, of the seas. His view of his conundrum is that it is the worst it could possibly be.

Regardless of language, another thing which stands out is the manifold ways water is described:

• the depths
• the very heart of the sea
• the swirling currents
• waves and breakers sweeping over me
• engulfing water
• the deep
• seaweed
• roots of the mountains
• bars of the earth

And that's not even mentioning the great sea creatures able to swallow and sustain human life for three days and three nights (do you remember this bloke who lasted almost 90 seconds in a whale's mouth?)! Now I'm not a particularly great swimmer (I've nearly drowned four times), but I still don't think I'm as hydrophobic as Jonah's prayer shows him to be. He really hates the stuff. 

Not least is because, as this prayer demonstrates, at the bottom of the sea lies the gateway to Sheol, the place of the dead. Whether you get sucked down a hole (cf Numbers 16) or down the bottom of the ocean, down below lies the "realm of the dead" (as per the NIV), a place no one wants to end up.

What I haven't discussed is what it all means. As one of my interlocutors on Twitter noted, "there isn't a line from him in that prayer that isn’t proved wrong elsewhere in text of Jonah." I think he's probably right.