Psalm 67 – “Blessing”

Hebrew-English Text
I. Summary
The people praise God and hope for his blessings.

II. Photo
The psalmist makes a wish: “May the earth yield its produce; may God, our God, bless us!” (v. 7)

III. Select Verses
2-3: May God be gracious to us and bless us; may He show us favor, Selah, that Your way be known on earth, Your deliverance among all nations.
4-5: Peoples will praise You, O God; all peoples will praise You. Nations will exult and shout for joy, for You rule the peoples with equity, You guide the nations of the earth. Selah.
7-8: May the earth yield its produce; may God, our God, bless us. May God bless us, and be revered to the ends of the earth.

IV. Outline
1. Superscription
2-3. Wish/blessing and Rationale
4-6. Anticipated praise from the nations
7-8. Wish/blessing

V. Comment
No comment today. Stay tuned.

VI. Works Used
(see “Commentaries” page)
Collins, John J. “Introduction to the Hebrew Bible,” (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004).
Craigie, Peter C. “Psalms 1-50” Word Biblical Commentary vol. 19 (Waco, Texas: Wordbooks, 1983).
Gerstenberger, Erhard S. “Psalms Part 1 with an Introduction to Cultic Poetry” Forms of Old Testament Literature (Michigan: Eerdmans, 1988).
Photo taken from http://www.greglatza.com/blog/images/harvest.jpg

Psalm 66 – “Communal/Individual Thanksgiving”

Hebrew-English Text
I. Summary
The people praise God and give him thanks.

II. Photo
The psalmist recalls God’s kindness: “He turned the sea into dry land; They crossed the river on foot; We therefore rejoice in him!” (v. 6)

III. Select Verses
1-4: Raise a shout for God, all the earth; sing the glory of His name, make glorious His praise. Say to God, “How awesome are Your deeds, Your enemies cower before Your great strength; all the earth bows to You, and sings hymns to You; all sing hymns to Your name.” Selah.
6: He turned the sea into dry land; they crossed the river on foot; we therefore rejoice in Him.
10-12: You have tried us, O God, refining us, as one refines silver. You have caught us in a net, caught us in trammels. You have let men ride over us; we have endured fire and water, and You have brought us through to prosperity.
13-15: I enter Your house with burnt offerings, I pay my vows to You, vows that my lips pronounced, that my mouth uttered in my distress. I offer up fatlings to You, with the odor of burning rams; I sacrifice bulls and he-goats. Selah.
18-19: Had I an evil thought in my mind, the LORD would not have listened. But God did listen; He paid heed to my prayer.

IV. Outline

1a. Superscription
1b-4. Call to worship
5-7. Communal Hymn
    5. Introduction to hymn
    6-7. Hymnic praise
8-12. Communal thanksgiving
    8-9. Exhortation for foreigners to praise God
    10-12. Account of trouble and salvation (communal)
13-19. Thanksgiving of an individual
    13-15. Account of vow and sacrifice (personal)
    16-19. Account of trouble and salvation (personal)
20. Blessing of God

V. Comment
Psalm 66 contains many of the elements of the communal thanksgiving genre, i.e., a call to worship, accounts of trouble and salvation, a description of sacrifice, and a blessing. In terms of structure, the word סלה appears in verses 4, 7, and 15. Also, while the psalm begins with a plural voice, verses 13-19 have the voice of an individual. This contrast has led some scholars to suggest that the psalm was originally two individual units.

Verses 1-2 contain a call to worship with the Hebrew root רוע “to shout”: “Raise a shout for God, all the earth; sing the glory of His name, make glorious His praise!” This phraseology appears at the beginning of other psalms as well:

All you peoples, clap your hands, raise a joyous shout for God. (47:2)
Sing joyously to God, our strength; raise a shout for the God of Jacob. (81:2)
Come, let us sing joyously to the LORD, raise a shout for our rock and deliverer; let us come into His presence with praise; let us raise a shout for Him in song! (95:1-2)

Verse 6 appears to link our psalm to the Pentateuch: “He turned the sea into dry land; they crossed the river on foot; we therefore rejoice in Him.” While it isn’t clear if this verse is referencing Joshua’s crossing of the Jordan (Josh 3-4) or Moses’ crossing of the Red Sea (Ex 14-15), it is interesting to note that the words ים “sea,” יבשה “dry land,” and עבר “to cross” appear in Ex 14:16,22,29;15:16,19. Yet, it is also important to note that some scholars suggest that the Joshua and Moses stories were derived from our verse, not the other way around.

Psalm 65 – “Hymn for Sustenance”

Hebrew-English Text
I. Summary
The psalmist praises God for listening to man’s prayers, forgiving him, and providing him with grain and pasture.

II. Photo
God is praised: “He fixed the mountains firmly with his power, he is girded with might!” (v. 7)

III. Select Verses
2-4: Praise befits You in Zion, O God; vows are paid to You; all mankind comes to You, You who hear prayer. When all manner of sins overwhelm me, it is You who forgive our iniquities.
10-14: You take care of the earth and irrigate it; You enrich it greatly, with the channel of God full of water; You provide grain for men; for so do You prepare it. Saturating its furrows, leveling its ridges, You soften it with showers, You bless its growth. You crown the year with Your bounty; fatness is distilled in Your paths; the pasturelands distill it; the hills are girded with joy. The meadows are clothed with flocks, the valleys mantled with grain; they raise a shout, they break into song.

IV. Outline

1. Superscription
2-5. Praise/adoration
    2-3. Praise: God listens to man
    4. Confession/praise: God forgives man
    5. Beatitude/religious request
6a. Petition
6b-14. Hymnic praise
    6b-8. God rules nature
    9. Anticipated praise from distant lands
    10-14. God blesses the land to support man and cattle

V. Comment
Psalm 65 contains two hymnic sections that surround a short petition in v. 6a. The first hymnic section praises God’s attentiveness and forgiving nature, and the second section praises God for providing grain and pastures for the cattle. While hymnic praises are abundant in the Psalter, the second section of our psalm has very few parallels, e.g., Ps. 104:10-18:

You make springs gush forth in torrents; they make their way between the hills, giving drink to all the wild beasts; the wild asses slake their thirst. The birds of the sky dwell beside them and sing among the foliage. You water the mountains from Your lofts; the earth is sated from the fruit of Your work. You make the grass grow for the cattle, and herbage for man’s labor that he may get food out of the earth — wine that cheers the hearts of men oil that makes the face shine, and bread that sustains man’s life. The trees of the LORD drink their fill, the cedars of Lebanon, His own planting, where birds make their nests; the stork has her home in the junipers. The high mountains are for wild goats; the crags are a refuge for rock-badgers.

While most psalms contain positive and negative aspects, Gerstenberger notes that “No animosity transpires in the poetic lines. All human beings seem to be in the same predicament: either they keep on wholesome terms with their deity and prosper, or they do not pay attention to the Lord of nature, in which case they wither. But this possibility is not considered in our psalm.”

Who would have recited this psalm? While one can never be sure, perhaps it was recited by/for farmers and shepherds in the temple. This is because (1) there is a reference to Zion in v. 2 and (2) vv. 10-14 mention grain and cattle. It is interesting to note that this hymn begins with the word shir, like other hymns such as Psalm 30, 45, 67, 68, and 149