The Psalms capture the complete range of human experience. Personal and collective, sorrowful and rejoicing, remembering God’s faithfulness and wondering what has develop into of it—the biblical book, prayed by generations of believers, invites us to enter God’s presence with piercing honesty.
For those of us weaned on the positivity of American evangelicalism, the psalms of lament can take us aback. The authenticity of their angst pushes the boundaries of what we now have witnessed in corporate prayer. It calls us to reject toxic positivity and embrace godly grief. And while this wake-up call to embrace the psalms of lament continues to be badly needed, I believe we’d like the same reckoning in the case of the psalms of praise.
The claim of the praise psalms is startlingly unique in its context and powerfully relevant in ours, especially in an election 12 months that’s charged with political energy. As candidates vie for our votes, Christians hotly debate which contender best reflects our values and which issues most deserve our attention. On top of this, as Jared Stacy noted in a recent article for CT, we’re experiencing an increase in politically motivated violence.
While lament is definitely appropriate in times like these, perhaps the most effective thing we are able to do is engage in audacious praise!
I’ve often felt in regards to the praise psalms the best way a mom feels about getting a store-bought Mother’s Day card proclaiming in all caps that she is the “BEST MOM EVER.” We know the corporate has printed 1000’s of those cards—and I’m the one mom my children have ever had, so how would they know any higher?
But when Israel exclaimed, “Praise the LORD!” they were making way more audacious claims than that of a generic greeting card. As Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann points out in his excellent book, From Whom No Secrets Are Hid, “an act of praise shouldn’t be an innocuous ‘spiritual’ act. It is reasonably a taking of sides for this God against all other gods.” He explains that “hymns of praise are acts of devotion with political and polemical overtones … [and] acts of defiance of the world that’s in front of us.”
One reason we regularly fail to understand the ability of praise presented within the Psalms is that almost all English translations render the unique divine name, Yahweh, as LORD (in all caps). Lowercase “Lord” shouldn’t be a reputation, but a title indicating an individual of status. Most Bible readers miss the excellence. And so, in our try to honor God’s name by calling him Lord, we inadvertently erased his divine name, Yahweh. So, the phrase “Praise the Lord” finally ends up sounding like a Hallmark card—or a Christian version of the “live, laugh, love” creed.
A second reason the impact of the Psalms’ invitation to “Praise Yahweh” is commonly watered down is that in monotheistic contexts, where lots of us grow up being (rightfully) instructed that there is just one God, praising the Lord can appear to be stating the apparent. Of course he’s the just one worthy to be praised—because what other creature could compete?
But Israel’s psalms were far grittier than we realize. Every time they sang a psalm, they were making a daring claim that was concurrently for Yahweh and against other gods.
This is important, since the Israelites lived in a world crowded with other possible deities to worship. Several thick books on my office shelves catalog these gods alphabetically, explaining what every one was known for. In Egypt, there was Re, the sun god; Isis, the goddess of protection and healing; Hathor, goddess of fertility; Osiris, whose bloodstream was considered the Nile; and lots of dozens more. In Canaan, Baal and Asherah, the god and goddess of fertility, were worshiped, together with El, the supreme God, and an entire pantheon of other options. The gods of Mesopotamia included Marduk, Isis, Ashur, Enlil, Ea, Tiamat, and Adad, to call a number of.
More than that, ancient cultures didn’t worship these deities to precise affection but as a matter of necessity. They believed the gods were chargeable for the success of their crops and the survival of their children. They believed kings ruled under divine patronage, and that the rulers’ task was to do the bidding of the gods and to keep up order of their realm. Most ancient Near Eastern gods weren’t absolute but had a specific specialty or a particular jurisdiction.
When we read the praise psalms against that backdrop, an entire recent world opens as much as us—a world with the potential of reshaping our own. Let’s consider Psalm 96 for instance. I’ve quoted from the NIV here, but replaced “LORD” with the divine name Yahweh to assist us experience the ability of the unique Hebrew in its context:
Sing to Yahweh a recent song;
sing to Yahweh, all of the earth.
Sing to Yahweh, praise his name;
proclaim his salvation day after day.
Declare his glory among the many nations,
his marvelous deeds amongst all peoples. (vv. 1–3)
Psalm 96 shouldn’t be generic. It can’t be utilized in just any worship context, but only to worship Yahweh, the God of Israel. But that’s what makes this psalm so radical: It calls “all of the earth” to praise Yahweh, not only the Israelites! All the nations must hear the story of “his salvation.”
Yahweh’s salvation shouldn’t be something that Israel looked forward to in the long run but something they’d already experienced when Yahweh defeated Pharaoh at the ocean and brought them to safety. The salvation of Yahweh doesn’t offer merely a person sense of reassurance however the decisive defeat of Egypt and its gods on the world stage (Ex. 12:12; 15:2). Psalm 96 continues:
For great is Yahweh and most worthy of praise;
he’s to be feared above all gods.
For all of the gods of the nations are idols,
but Yahweh made the heavens.
Splendor and majesty are before him;
strength and glory are in his sanctuary. (vv. 4–6)
The smackdown of this psalm is deliberate and obvious, once to search for it. To exalt Yahweh is to demote every other claimants to divine prerogative. Yahweh has all of the splendor, while the gods of the nations are nothing greater than mute objects. To sing that is to disclaim the validity of the muse myths of all of Israel’s neighbors.
Ascribe to Yahweh, all you families of countries,
ascribe to Yahweh glory and strength.
Ascribe to Yahweh the glory due his name;
bring an offering and are available into his courts.
Worship Yahweh within the splendor of his holiness;
tremble before him, all of the earth.
Say among the many nations, “Yahweh reigns.”
The world is firmly established, it can’t be moved;
he’ll judge the peoples with equity. (vv. 7–10)
What’s remarkable about these verses in Psalm 96 is that they call for the nations to worship on the temple in Jerusalem. It’s not enough for them to confess Yahweh’s power from afar. Their acknowledgment should translate into motion of probably the most humbling variety—to make a pilgrimage to a foreign land overseen by one other ruler and occupied by one other people.
To say that Yahweh reigns not only undermines the authority of each other god in the traditional pantheons of Israel’s neighbors but additionally calls into query the legitimacy of each human monarch aside from the one Yahweh anointed. Since no king ruled except by divine appointment, one in all any king’s first priorities was to ascertain the legitimacy of his rule by showing how the gods had chosen him. If those gods were unseated from their heavenly thrones, then the kings who identified with them were also illegitimate. Psalm 96 concludes with these words:
Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad;
let the ocean resound, and all that’s in it.
Let the fields be jubilant, and all the pieces in them;
let all of the trees of the forest sing for joy.
Let all creation rejoice before Yahweh, for he comes,
he comes to evaluate the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness
and the peoples in his faithfulness. (v. 11–13)
Israel’s neighbors depicted their gods using the symbols of animals and saw divine representation in trees and oceans—whereas Psalm 96 portrays every created thing as celebrating Yahweh’s rule and standing before him as the last word judge. In the top, all will answer to Yahweh. These are fighting words!
Perhaps an illustration will help us appreciate the audacity of praise psalms. The 1965 classic film The Sound of Music offers an analogy. Captain von Trapp is a retired naval officer in Austria raising his seven children with the assistance of 1 governess after one other. The children are hard on these substitute moms, so the captain turns to a close-by abbey for help—perhaps a nun can keep his children in line! The abbey sends him a novitiate, Fräulein Maria, who wins over the hearts of the youngsters in addition to that of their father.
Captain von Trapp and Maria’s romance is about against the backdrop of a growing threat of occupation by Nazi Germany in 1938. They return home from their honeymoon to see a Nazi flag flying over their front door, together with a summons to serve in Hitler’s navy and an (unrelated) invitation for the musical family to perform within the Salzburg Festival. Attempting to flee to neutral Switzerland that very night under the quilt of darkness, the family is caught within the act. But considering quickly, they pretend they’re heading to perform within the music festival as an alternative.
That joyous evening of music is strained by the presence of Nazi soldiers guarding the exits. In the front row sits the officer who was sent to escort Captain von Trapp to his recent post in Hitler’s navy. While the judges evaluate the outcomes of the competition, Captain von Trapp sings alone within the highlight, regaling the waiting crowd with an easy song a couple of white alpine flower native to Austria.
The lyrics will not be in themselves seditious, but sung on this context, his audacity is apparent. The lilting melody of “Edelweiss” evokes for the group a eager for Austrian independence from Nazi Germany. The captain is overcome with emotion and finds himself unable to complete the song. Maria, the youngsters, and the whole audience join him for the ultimate few stanzas, which end with a hopeful prayer: “Bless my homeland without end!”
The Psalms are very similar to the captain’s song. On their very own, they don’t sound rebellious, but set against the backdrop of Assyrian or Persian rule, they represent a type of spiritual revolt—a type of energetic protest to the powers that be. Psalms of praise exalt Yahweh above all human rulers and rival gods, diminishing their right to sovereignty. As we read them today, they call us to reimagine our ultimate citizenship—reminding us that even our elected government officials must at some point bow the knee to Yahweh and that each one our allegiance belongs only to him.
During this election 12 months within the United States, or wherever we discover ourselves, allow us to re-engage the Bible’s psalms of praise with eyes wide open—recognizing their unyielding summons to bow to our sovereign king.
Carmen Joy Imes is associate professor of Old Testament at Biola University and creator of Bearing God’s Name and Being God’s Image. She’s currently writing her next book, Becoming God’s Family: Why the Church Still Matters.
