Tag Archives: Monotheism

Psalm 135 The Living God of Creation and the Exodus Contrasted with Lifeless Idols

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The Temple by Radojavor@deviantart.com

Psalm 135

1 Praise the LORD!
  Praise the name of the LORD;
  give praise, O servants of the LORD,
 2 you who stand in the house of the LORD,
  in the courts of the house of our God.
 3 Praise the LORD, for the LORD is good;
  sing to his name, for he is gracious.
 4 For the LORD has chosen Jacob for himself,
  Israel as his own possession.

 5 For I know that the LORD is great;
  our Lord is above all gods.
 6 Whatever the LORD pleases he does,
  in heaven and on earth,
  in the seas and all deeps.
 7 He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth;
  he makes lightnings for the rain
  and brings out the wind from his storehouses.

 8 He it was who struck down the firstborn of Egypt,
  both humans and animals;
 9 he sent signs and wonders
  into your midst, O Egypt,
  against Pharaoh and all his servants.
 10 He struck down many nations
  and killed mighty kings—
 11 Sihon, king of the Amorites,
  and Og, king of Bashan,
  and all the kingdoms of Canaan—
 12 and gave their land as a heritage,
  a heritage to his people Israel.

 13 Your name, O LORD, endures forever,
  your renown, O LORD, throughout all ages.
 14 For the LORD will vindicate his people
  and have compassion on his servants.

 15 The idols of the nations are silver and gold,
  the work of human hands.
 16 They have mouths, but they do not speak;
  they have eyes, but they do not see;
 17 they have ears, but they do not hear,
  a nose, but there is no breath in their mouths.
 18 Those who make them
  and all who trust them
  shall become like them.

 19 O house of Israel, bless the LORD!
  O house of Aaron, bless the LORD!
 20 O house of Levi, bless the LORD!
  You who fear the Lord, bless the LORD!
 21 Blessed be the LORD from Zion,
  he who resides in Jerusalem.
 Praise the LORD!

This song of praise contrasts the LORD the God of Israel who is over the heavens, the earth, and the seas, who humiliated Egypt and brought the people through the wilderness and into the promised land with the ineffectual idols worshipped by their neighbors. The imageless God of Israel who crafted creation is contrasted with these lifeless images which are the products of human hands. This song calling the people to praise echoes much of the themes and language of Psalm 115 and it may have built upon that psalm, but it plays on two central themes which permeate the psalms words about God: creation and the exodus.

Although Psalm 135 does not have the call and response structure of Psalm 136, its structure is designed for gathered worship assembly. The opening four verses and the final three verses have the priests and people declaring their allegiance to the LORD and against the idols of the nations while the center of the psalm acts like a recitation or sermon passing on central knowledge to the people about the LORD that they worship. Those gathered from Israel are called to praise the LORD who is good and has chosen this people as his possession from among the nations.

The LORD is good, but the LORD is also great. The God of Israel is the God of the heavens, the earth but also the sea with its depths. This is the God who answers to no one and who is capable of doing whatever God desires. The chaotic sea and the storms of the heavens are all within this God’s hands and all other gods are subordinate to the God of Israel. Israel does not live in a monotheistic world but a pluralistic one, but the great LORD of Israel who creates the heavens and the earth, the seas and the storms is subordinate to no other gods and certainly not to the idols of the nations. One of the primary Canaanite gods that the Israelites encountered was Baal, a storm god who tamed the chaotic seas, but now this psalm usurps the characteristics attributed by their neighbors to Baal for the LORD the God of Israel who makes clouds rise and makes the lightning and brings out the winds.[1]

There is for Israel the general knowledge of their God as the creator, but there is also the specific knowledge of the God who took them out of Egypt and led them to their place in the promised land. The LORD brought the signs and wonders against Pharoah and Egypt which culminated in the death of the firstborns (Exodus 7-12). This God journeyed with them through the wilderness and then when kings like King Sihon of the Amorites and King Og of Bashan marched out to resist them God fought for Israel (Numbers 21: 21-35) as well as driving out the people of Canaan (Joshua). Israel’s position within their land is a gift from their God. The God who can do whatever God pleases throughout creation chose to take the people from their slavery in Egypt into their heritage within the land of Israel.

As mentioned above, Israel lived in a polytheistic world not a monotheistic one. Israel was always tempted by the gods of the nations around them, and the retelling of Israel’s history is full of times where the idols of the nations were worshipped alongside of or instead of the God of Israel. The faithful continued to resist and deride the pointless worship of idols, and here these gods shaped by human hands with silver are gold may have a face, but there is no breath (ruach) within them. These images formed by people created in the image of God lack the animating force of life that only the LORD can give. Those whose hands and devotions turn away to these lifeless images of silver and gold become futile like them.

Like the pilgrims of the songs of ascent (Psalms 120-134) the people have gathered together to praise and bless the LORD. The house of Israel, the descendants of Aaron who serve as priests, the Levites who work in the house of the LORD, and all those who fear the LORD are called to bless the LORD. Zion is the place where the people gather to send up their blessings and praise because the LORD has chosen to dwell among them in the city of Jerusalem. They gather together to praise the living God unlike the inanimate idols of the nations. They send up blessings to the God who presides over creation and who brought God’s chosen people out of Egypt and to the promised land with mighty acts. They join with their brothers and sisters in the act of praising the LORD.

[1] Psalm 29 also recasts the language of the worship of a storm god to worship the LORD the God of Israel.

Psalm 82 The God Who Upholds Justice for the Vulnerable

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Council of the Gods Giovanni Lanfranco (1582–1647), Galleria Borghese By Architas – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=70138442

Psalm 82

<A Psalm of Asaph.>
1 God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:
2 “How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah
3 Give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute.
4 Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”
5 They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk around in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
6 I say, “You are gods, children of the Most High, all of you;
7 nevertheless, you shall die like mortals, and fall like any prince.”
8 Rise up, O God, judge the earth; for all the nations belong to you!

The vision of a council of gods presided over by the God of Israel seems strange to many modern readers who view the world through a secular lens. The activity of one God who remains active in the midst of the creation may seem difficult to imagine, much less numerous gods responsible for various regions or powers. Despite the distance between the ancient view of the world and our own this short poetic vision of a divine council reiterates the central Hebrew idea of justice and the role of God in ensuring justice for the vulnerable. The foundations of the creation are sunk into this justice for the weak and needy. The neglect of justice by these gods has undermined the foundations upon which the world rests.

Most modern readers of the bible assume that the Jewish monotheism meant that they did not believe the gods of the other nations existed, but throughout the Hebrew scriptures it assumes the existence of the gods of the nations while maintaining the superiority of the God of Israel. The signs and wonders[1] that the LORD the God of Israel used to bring the people out of Egypt are written in a way that demonstrates the LORD triumphing over the gods of Egypt. Elijah’s victory over the prophets of Baal likewise demonstrates the superiority of the LORD over Baal. Elijah may ridicule Baal for being busy or asleep, but Elijah never claims that Baal does not exist. There are moments where the Hebrew scriptures do move towards a monotheism where the idols of the nations are merely the work of human hands, but the faith of Israel grows in a polytheistic world where different nations worshiped a collection of gods and where the people of Israel continually struggled to maintain their trust in the LORD the God of Israel when these other gods were viewed as attractive alternatives.

Psalm 82 is a vision that presumes the superiority of the LORD, the God of Israel, over the gods. The God of Israel summons all these deities, asks them how long they will remain unjust and partial to the wicked, and charges them to maintain justice. For Israel The role of leaders in society was to be modeled on God’s role of protecting the vulnerable. As Brueggemann and Bellinger state:

The proper role, so defining for Israel’s faith and ethics, is to be guardian, protector, and guarantor of the vulnerable—the weak, the widow, the orphan, the lowly, the destitute—all those who lack the resources to sustain and protect themselves. (Brueggemann, 2014, p. 355)

Yet, one of the persistent dangers of religion and its proximity to power is to reimagine the ‘gods’ of the nations as authorizing the rule of the powerful. The gods, and by extension their servants in the nations, have served the powerful and those who have not upheld justice. Instead, these gods and their representatives on earth have become powers of oppression instead of justice. They have corrupted their calling and now they are called to judgment in the divine council.

In verse five the pronoun changes from second person plural to third person plural (you to they) and this may represent a change in tone or a change in voice. I am reading this as a change in voice, where we see the entrance of an unnamed accuser[2] who declares that these gods are so corrupted that they lack the knowledge to change. These gods exist in darkness unable to see how their unjust ways jeopardize the foundations of the creation. It is possible that the poet stays with the God of Israel speaking and changes the tone moving from charge to realization of the gods’ inability to embody the justice they are called to defend.

The voice shifts in verse six back to the God of Israel pronouncing judgment upon the assembled gods. They are all lifted up as children of the Most High, but they will not reign forever. Being ‘gods’ has not granted them immortality and they are told they will perish like mortals. They have been unfaithful in their administration and appear unable to change. Rather than continually imperiling the foundations of the earth and the practice of judgment their time they, and the systems they represent, will come to an end. Finally, another voice, perhaps the poet who has this vision revealed to them or a member of the LORD’s party, calls for the God of Israel to rise up and judge the earth and the nations in the ways of justice. The LORD is to establish justice for all the nations.

Neil Gaiman’s creative fantasy American Gods imagines the American landscape as a polytheistic space where the ‘old gods’ which the immigrants brought with them from their homeland come into conflict with the ‘new gods’ of technology and power. All of the gods in Gaiman’s story are interested in their own power and often stand behind the powerful and authorize their actions. The God of Israel has a ‘preferential option for the poor’ to use the famous phrase of Liberation theology. The biblical witness points to the God of Israel as the protector of the lowly and destitute and the one who brings down the might from their thrones when they become the oppressors of the vulnerable. Within this brief poem any religion whose gods authorize the oppression of the powerless by the powerful is a danger to the foundation of the earth and stands under God’s judgment.

[1] Most people refer to these as the plagues, but Exodus continually articulates these as being signs and wonders.

[2] This is the role of Satan in the book of Job, but it could be any member of the council of the LORD. This short poem leaves the figure unnamed and merely suggested.