I ask the question because this poem sounds as if God needs protection, as if the Lord needs a defender to plead God’s case in the face of defiance.
1Let God rise up, let his enemies be scattered. Let those who hate him flee before him.
He prays that the wicked will perish while the righteous rejoice, all because, it seems, God needs a protective break from these evil doers. They need to disappear. Only the righteous should be allowed to hang around, for God’s sake!
2As smoke is driven away, so drive them away as wax melts before the fire, let the wicked perish before God. 3But let the righteous be joyful. let them exult before God. Let them be jubilant with joy.
All the while he’s seeking to exalt God who is already, according to him, exalted, “4 Lift up a song to him who rides upon the clouds; his name is the LORD”
He still needs to put a good word in, in defence of this already exalted God. See some of the good deeds for which God deserves to be lifted high
5Father of orphans and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation. 6God gives the desolate a home to live in. He leads out the prisoners to prosperity, but the rebellious live in a parched land.
This only shows how difficult it is for us humans to simply love the Almighty God. Just because the Lord is so highly placed, we seem to think that such power should be manifested in the total destruction of the unholy powerful. Yes, that’s what we’d do. If we had unlimited power, would we really use it for benevolence? Would we rather seize every opportunity to let the unholy feel the squeeze?
Would we need, like the psalmist, to remind God of times past when the divine power was so obvious that sinners would dare not mess with it?
7O God, when you went out before your people, when you marched through the wilderness, 8the earth quaked, the heavens poured down rain at the presence of God, the God of Sinai,
Would we need to remind others, rather than our own selves, of God’s past goodness as he does here?
9Rain in abundance, O God, you showered abroad. You restored your heritage when it languished. 10Your flock found a dwelling in it. in your goodness, O God, you provided for the needy.
Would we think this way of coercing unbelievers towards faith, rather than be living testimonies? Well, I pray that, at the end of our thinking this way, we would, like the psalmist realise that the best we can do is to give thanks and praise. And learn trust in this almighty God for our own deliverance when all else suggests that we should give up on hope.
19Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears us up; God is our salvation. Selah 20Our God is a God of salvation, and to GOD, the Lord, belongs escape from death.