The Word That Makes and the Counsel That Lasts

Only four psalms in the first book of the Psalter (1–41) carry no heading, and this is one of them. “Comely” is naveh, fitting or lovely: praise suits the upright the way a garment suits the one it was made for. The psalm has twenty two verses, the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet, though it is not an acrostic.

The harp is the kinnor, a small lyre, the instrument David played before Saul (1 Samuel 16:23). The Hebrew has one instrument where the King James has two: “with a ten stringed nebel sing unto him”, the nebel being a larger harp or lute.

This is the first “new song” in the Bible; the phrase returns in Psalms 40, 96, 98, 144 and 149, in Isaiah 42:10, and in Revelation 5:9. “A loud noise” is teruah, the battle shout or trumpet blast, the word for the great shout that brought down Jericho’s wall (Joshua 6:20).

“Right” is yashar, straight or level, a road without a bend. “Done in truth” is literally “in faithfulness”, emunah, the word Exodus 17:12 uses of Moses’ hands held “steady” until the going down of the sun.

Righteousness and judgment, tsedaqah and mishpat, are a standing pair in Hebrew for right order and the enforcing of it. “Goodness” is chesed, the same word the King James renders “mercy” in verses 18 and 22, and Psalm 119:64 repeats the line almost exactly: “The earth, O LORD, is full of thy mercy.”

“Breath” is ruach, the word for wind and spirit that hovers over the waters in Genesis 1:2. “All the host of them” is the phrase Genesis 2:1 uses to close the account of creation, meaning the stars and everything that fills the sky.

“As an heap” uses ned, the word for the Red Sea waters standing upright in Exodus 15:8 and the Jordan heaped up in Joshua 3:13. The ancient Greek translation read a near-identical word meaning a wineskin, the sea gathered as though into a bottle. “Storehouses” are treasuries, like the treasuries of the snow in Job 38:22.

The call widens. Verse 1 addressed the righteous, and now it is “all the earth” and “all the inhabitants of the world”, tevel, the inhabited and cultivated land. The fear commanded here is the reverence due a maker, and the next verse gives its reason.

Hebrew does it in six words: he said, and it was; he commanded, and it stood. “It was done” is the same verb as “there was light” in Genesis 1:3, and the pattern of command followed at once by result is the pattern of that whole chapter.

“Heathen” is goyim, simply nations, with no suggestion yet of irreligion in the word. “Bringeth to nought” is the verb 2 Samuel 17:14 uses when the LORD appointed “to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel”: plans that were sound in themselves, broken from above.

“Thoughts” is machshevot, the same word the King James rendered “devices” in verse 10. The two verses set the nations’ plans and God’s plans side by side with one noun, and only the second pair outlasts a generation.

“Inheritance” is nachalah, the word for a family’s allotted land. Here the direction runs the other way: the people are the LORD’s allotment, as Deuteronomy 32:9 puts it, “the LORD’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.”

The watcher is placed as high as possible, “from heaven”, and the watched as broadly as possible, “all the sons of men”, literally the children of Adam. “Looketh” is nabat, a steady and deliberate gaze rather than a glance.

“Looketh upon” here is a different and rare verb, shagach, to peer, used only twice elsewhere: of the beloved looking through the lattice in Song of Solomon 2:9, and of those who narrowly look on the fallen king of Babylon in Isaiah 14:16.

“Fashioneth” is yatsar, the potter’s verb of Genesis 2:7, where the LORD formed man of the dust. “Alike” is literally “together”: he forms the hearts of all of them, every one. The maker of a thing is in a position to understand how it works.

“Host” is chayil, an army’s strength in numbers, and “mighty man” is gibbor, the single champion. The verse covers both ways ancient battles were won, by the mass and by the hero, and neither is enough to save a king.

In Israel’s world the horse was a weapon, the chariot animal of Egypt and Canaan, and Deuteronomy 17:16 forbids Israel’s king to multiply them. “A vain thing” is sheqer, a lie: the horse is literally “a lie for safety”, a promise it cannot keep.

After the kings and horses, a single eye, and the King James keeps the singular. “Hope” is yachal, to wait with expectation, and the phrase “them that hope in his mercy” will come back almost word for word as the psalm’s last line.

Death and famine are the two things an army cannot solve. “Keep them alive” is the causative verb Joseph uses of the famine in Genesis 50:20, God meaning it “to save much people alive”.

“Waiteth” is chakah, to wait with longing, a different verb from the yachal of verse 18. “Help and shield”, ezer and magen, becomes a refrain in Psalm 115:9–11, where it is sung three times over Israel, the house of Aaron, and those who fear the LORD.

The Hebrew has two “for” clauses side by side: for in him our heart rejoices, for in his holy name we trust. The command of verse 1, “Rejoice in the LORD”, has become a statement; the singers are doing what they were told to do.

The last line gathers the words of verse 18, mercy and hope, and turns description into petition. “According as” means in measure with. The Te Deum, the old Latin hymn of the church, ends on this verse: “O Lord, let thy mercy lighten upon us, as our trust is in thee.”