...for He Has Done Marvelous Things

Wow! I'm not very comfortable with images of God as warrior either, but doing a little digging on this subject turned up a lot of really trippy information. It may not help me sit with this picture of a martial god, but it gives it better context for me!

Here is what I've learned about the first part of this psalm (and all the psalms in "Book Four" of the psalms: there are 150 psalms, written by different people at different points in Israel's history, so they reflect different aspects of the troubles and joys the Hebrew's experienced over the course of hundreds of years. They were subsequently collected and arranged in five 'books'). Psalm 98 was likely written around the time when Israel was freed from Babylonian captivity by the Persian king, Cyrus in 539 BC. The historical biblical account is given in Isaiah 45 (the whole story of the Babylonian exile can be found in Isaiah 40-55).

So, the author of this psalm is pretty excited to be released from Babylonian captivity, both because it didn't seem like the Persians could defeat the mighty Babylonian empire (so it had to be divinely inspired!), and because once Cyrus defeated the Babylonians, he allowed the Israelites to return to Jerusalem and build their temple. That was a pretty big deal -- he didn't have to do it, and it gave the Israelites (who had a physical attachment to God at God's 'dwelling place') the opportunity to honor and worship their god in a way they had been denied during the exile.

Obviously they would see this as a good thing. When the second part of verse one says "His right hand and his holy arm have gotten him victory," the psalmist is alluding to the 'right hand of righteousness'. In Hebrew scripture, 'righteousness' and 'justice' often go together to describe God's purpose with creation (if you'd like a quick rundown on that, you can check out one of the first posts I ever wrote!)

This victory wasn't an unjust victory over the Babylonians (God mucking around to do whatever God wants) -- it was God using a foreign power (the Persians under Cyrus) to throw off a maurauding oppressor (Babylon). It is the United States in World War II defeating Hitler to liberate the Jews; it's NATO in Kosovo to free the Kosovar-Albanians from Milosevic; it's the international community in the Sudan to free the millions of displaced families from the ravages of the Sudanese military. . . . Wait. . . . Damn. Psalm 98 was written by a concentration camp survivor, or a Kosovar refugee returning home. How could mere people defeat the German military? Or take down Milosevic? It has to be God, acting out of God's righteousness to reestablish harmony within creation.

We read words like 'vindication', 'victory' (and at the end of the psalm 'judge') and often hear Toby Keith singing that hateful song that came out after September 11th. That's not where the psalmist is going here. The psalmist is just saying thanks for the chance the Israelites were given to start their lives over again.

The chance to worship their god in god's temple. . .

the chance to raise their kids in their homes. . .

to visit their parents' graves. . .

to work the same fields their grandparents tilled.

If that were taken from us, and miraculously we got it back, how would we respond?

Love you,

Becky