Psalm 62:11-12 & 147:10-11

Sisters and brothers in Christ,

This evening’s Bible passages are both from the Psalms: 

Once God has spoken;
twice have I heard this:
that power belongs to God,

and that to you, O Lord, belongs steadfast love. (Ps. 62:11-12)

His delight is not in the strength of the horse,
nor his pleasure in the legs of a man,
 but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him,
in those who hope in his steadfast love. (Ps. 147:10-11)

Poetry in the Hebrew Bible employs parallelism rather than meter or rhyme. In the simplest form of parallelism, the second line in each pair paraphrases or otherwise riffs on the first line. Thus, in the verses from Psalm 62, “Once God has spoken” is expanded to “twice I have heard this,” while “power belongs to God” is paraphrased as “to you, O Lord, belongs steadfast love.”

Parallelism isn’t just an aesthetic device; it clarifies meaning, especially for those of us for whom biblical Hebrew is not just a foreign language but a bearer of ancient ideas that can sound strange to modern ears. In these verses, the “power” of God is clarified as the Lord’s “steadfast love.” We can find this puzzling. We rarely think of “power” and “steadfast love” as synonymous. All too often, human power is exercised in the interests of those who wield power and is enforced with manipulative rhetoric, unjust laws, or outright violence. Faced with this broken reality, human beings (including Christians) have too often worshiped a false god made in the exaggerated image of powerful men.

Paying careful attention to the parallelism here, we see that the God of the psalmist exercises power not by brute force or (to use a twenty-first century metaphor) by some kind of divine technology of total control, but by his steadfast, unwavering, tender love. Love alone may seem at times like weakness, but the “weakness of God,” displayed most dramatically in Christ’s crucifixion, “is stronger than men” (1 Cor. 1:25). Christian faith certainly includes the belief that God’s “weak” power of steadfast love has made possible our salvation, but it goes further. Christian faith also believes that the same “weak” power of divine love will in the end triumph over all forms of power that trust in physical, verbal, or spiritual force. The “great red dragon” (Rev. 12:3) will be defeated. So will the monstrous “beast … with ten horns and seven heads,” resembling a “leopard,” a “bear,” and a “lion” (Rev. 13:1-2). The final victor, ruling in loving peace over all creation, will be “the Lamb who was slain” (Rev. 5:12).

Christians are called to live out our faith in “the Lamb who was slain” by trusting in the “weak” power of steadfast love. Psalm 147 tells us that God’s “delight is not in the strength of the horse,” the war-horse being the most important marker of military strength in those days. Now we might say, “His delight is not in the strength of the gun, the tank, or the guided missile.” Nor does God take pleasure in the sheer physical strength of an individual, represented here by “the legs of a man.” Instead, “the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love.” Here we have another of those clarifying parallels: to “fear” God is not to cower in terror before what we imagine to be his raw power. It’s to “hope in his steadfast love.”

As human beings, we crave power, at least in part, because we fear that others will misuse power against us. In some situations, it’s a justifiable fear. Christ himself was unjustly condemned to an agonizing death by the combined power of the Jewish religious leaders and the Roman imperial governor. Both acted out of a fear of losing their own political power. God “takes pleasure” in those who, following the example of Christ, face unjust human power fearlessly, not because they are naïve about the possible consequences, but because they first fear God. To fear God is to “hope in his steadfast love.” Christ, tempted in every way just as we are (Heb. 4:15), chose the pain of crucifixion and the much greater agony of bearing divine judgment on human sin because of his infinitely greater love for humankind. 

It’s mighty hard to follow Christ’s example of steadfast love. None of us manages it with anything remotely close to perfection. Which is why Christ died for us, and why by God’s grace we are clothed in Christ’s righteousness rather than having to appear before God dressed in our own rags. Even so, in all our brokenness, we are called to choose the power of love for others rather than the lure of self-serving power. Love is the first and essential blossom of the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22). May God give us grace to grow in such love.

Your brother in Christ,

Max