In these times when billionaires are visibly amassing wealth, politicians are bowing before their powerful shot callers, the world’s most vulnerable people and creatures are under assault, Psalm 113 tells us of the higher, unstoppable reality of the Creator’s agenda, which we are invited to contemplate and join.
Praise is called for, to the Master of the universe, in the face of impending darkness.
“Praise, O servants of the Lord. Praise the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and forever. From the rising of the sun to its setting the name of the Lord is to be praised. The Lord is high above all nations; his glory is above the heavens” (Ps 113:1-4).
The Psalmist then offers surprising reasons for this call to worship, asking:
“Who is like the Lord our God, who is enthroned on high?” (v. 5).
We don’t yet know if anyone is like the Lord— until we read the next very un-demigod-like description (quite unlike modern day authoritarians!) of God in the second half of the question:
“Who humbles himself to behold the things in the heavens and in the earth.”
The God here, called Lord (the divine name in Hebrew, YHWH) is “enthroned on high”—that is, in the place of the highest governing power. Yet this God humbles himself—something unheard of for a powerful sovereign—and especially for God (the way many view God).
The Hebrew verb shaphal is sometimes translated here “he stoops down”- which portrays someone who is still standing above (enthroned in heaven), bending forward. I wonder whether translators choose “stoop” because “humbling himself” when applied to God may have seemed to some as going too far, sounding even scandalous. Yet the meaning also includes “being abased” and “low,” and a related word applied to geography. Shephelah means “lowlands”— inviting us to contemplate a truly humble God.
God goes low, humbling himself “to see”– the best translation of the underlying Hebrew raah. And what does God see when God comes low?
There’s no mention of God seeing “the things”—which is added into many translations. The Psalm in fact literally reads “to see in the heavens and in the earth.” The “in” can be translated “in,” “inside,” or “within”—inviting us to contemplate God seeing quite deeply, even intimately. Who God sees shows God’s lowliness, which becomes clearer in the next line.
“He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap” (v. 7). God sees the poor and needy—the victims of our racial and class divisions, violence and oppression. God’s seeing involves direct action—as God is looking towards the new heavens and the new earth. Do we see who God sees? Are we joining God in this proximity to the lowly?
God sees the poor in the dust and does not leave them there. God raises the poor up and out of their deprivation. God lifts the needy up and away from the ash heap. The term “raise up” in the Greek version of Psalm 113 means “to get up” (Mt 9:6,25; 17:7), and to be raised from the dead (Mt 11:5; 17:23; 20:19). God lifts up the needy, and the verb used in the Greek version, anuphoo, means “to lift up, be extolled, made tall.” God raises and lifts up “to make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people.”
This is hard to understand— as this movement is the opposite of what we now see accelerating in our world. These days the rich and powerful are distancing themselves further and further from the poor and marginalized— whom they often exploit, oppress and scapegoat. Here in this vision of the new heaven and new earth, the poor and needy “sit with” and not “work under” or “for” the princes/rulers—and they are not incarcerated or deported by them!
Here in the Greek version, “princes” designates non-human powers, as in Ephesians 6—which states that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against “rulers” (archon).
God’s work here is to raise up the poor and needy and make them sit with princes, erasing the historic distance by bringing equality. Mary’s radical song when pregnant with Jesus, the “Magnificat,” appropriates Psalm 113 and Hannah’s song (1 Sam 2), announcing judgment of the powers. She prophesies God’s scattering of the proud, bringing down rulers, reversing the fortunes of the rich– and lifting up the humble to an even higher place, and filling the hungry.
“He [God} has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their heart. He has brought down rulers from their thrones, and has exalted those who were humble. He has filled the hungry with good things; and sent away the rich empty-handed” (Lk 1:52-53).
The Psalmist calls God’s people to worship the God who is unlike any god. This God humbles himself to see, and to raise up the poor and needy— inviting us to do likewise. We are now called to resist the movement of human history around us in confident hope in God’s final victory, in alignment with Jesus and his kingdom.
We are invited to see as Jesus sees, who upon “seeing the people, he felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd” (Mt 9:37).
We are invited to hear with Jesus’ disciples his call, and to respond: “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beg the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest” (Mt 10:37-38).