Honey from the Rock
Psalms of Creation in Judaism and Christianity
I’m excited to introduce you to a new and essential project that I’m presently painting and writing, in partnership with the renowned Anglican theologian and scholar, Susan Gillingham, of Oxford. We live in a time when misunderstanding and mistrust among religious communities undermine our societies, and hope that Honey from the Rock: Psalms of Creation in Judaism and Christianity, will encourage the open and respectful dialogue, and facilitate the mutual understanding and tolerance essential to healthy civil society.
Honey from the Rock offers an entirely unique—and timely—interdisciplinary and inter-religious dialogue exploration of the Psalms in the history of Christian-Jewish dialogue. The two of us, Anglican theologian and expert in the reception history of the Psalms, and Hebrew manuscript artist, scholar and author, present you with the fruits of our unique collaboration exploring, in art and word, the often-conflicting Christian and Jewish understandings of this body of biblical poetry at the root of both our traditions. While Judaism and Christianity share a love for this poetry, core tenets of our beliefs lead us often (but not always) understand their meanings in entirely different ways. In our paintings and commentaries we do not hide or paper-over the differences and similarities, but fully recognize and explain them, embodied in the symbolic imagery in the paintings according to our respective religions. It is important to understand that our approach seeks to de-mystify Jewish and Christian beliefs to our communities—not to persuade or proselytize.
The book includes Hebrew and English illuminations of a selection of Psalms, each followed by extensive essays on Jewish and Christian theology of the Psalm, commentaries explaining the symbolism of the paintings from each point of view, and finally a comparison and contrast. The original paintings are accomplished on kosher calfskin vellum, in ink, gouache (opaque watercolor), gold and palladium. Honey from the Rock has already met with excitement at academic conferences, and we look forward to sharing more information as publication approaches. We hope you will find joy and illumination in this work.
Enjoy this gallery of a handful of the pairs of Hebrew and English illuminated paintings, and the discussions, abridged from their full essays, of the similarities and differences in Christianity’s and Judaism’s readings of these beloved poems.
Within Jewish tradition, the illuminations present an allegory of the promise expressed in first psalm that the righteous person, who lives by his her good choices and avoids sin, will flourish within the shelter of divine wisdom, embodied in the Torah, and the sacred space of the Temple. The two illuminations are bordered by a design adapted from an opus sectile (large-scale mosaic) pattern from the Second Temple, as excavated and reconstructed as part of the Second Temple Sifting Project. In the foreground a flowing stream, a ubiquitous symbol of Torah across the Hebrew Bible and all Jewish tradition, embraces the flourishing garden filled with trees and flowers. The stream’s arc reaches out to the lower corners of the paintings, suggesting the willing embrace of those coming into the scene. Fruiting branches of a fig tree reach into painting from the left, considered the side of evil in kabbalah, as a snake, symbolizing the tension of free-will,winds down from the branches and slithers out of the scene—but hides behind the scene, ready to return in case of foolish choices. Chaff reminding us of the wasted life of the wicked fools blows around the twisting snake, and elsewhere. The small figs on the tree symbolize many qualities of both humankind and divine law: the medieval midrash, Yalkut Shimoni, compares the fig tree to divine law.
In Christian tradition, it is likely that Psalm 1, as a late psalm, has been influenced by a number of biblical texts from the Law, the Prophets and other psalms. Jeremiah 17.5–8 has a similar extended simile about the tree by the waters. In Jeremiah, this serves as an indictment against those who trust in human power: they will become like a dried-up shrub (17.6), while those who instead trust in God’s purposes will be like a well-watered tree. However, while the key focus in Psalm 1 is the importance of the Torah, in Jeremiah 17 there is no explicit interest in the Torah at all. Psalm 1 might have borrowed the idea from Jeremiah, but changed the focus so that it is about explicit obedience to the Torah.
With a few exceptions, Christian commentators used the Greek and later Latin translations. As far as the LXX goes, the additional definite article to the Hebrew כְּעֵץ in verse 3 suggests an allusion to Gen. 2:17 in its well-watered garden (Gen. 2:10). The two most significant changes are the greater emphasis on future eschatological hope (verse 5a) and the role of the synagogue (verse 5b). In the Vulgate, there is an allusion to doctrinal controversies verse 1: “et in cathedra pestilentiae non sedit” which evokes an image of teachers in session imparting harmful Christian heresies to their students; in verse 3, the use of ‘lignum’ (‘wood’) and ‘aquarum’ (‘waters’) suggests (to later interpreters) the ‘wood’ of the cross and the ‘waters’ of Christian baptism. As a general overview, Psalm 1 was not only used to teach the community of faith, but also to establish Christian doctrine. It achieved this by question and answer, as in Jewish tradition, found in Midrash Tehillim. In answer to the question ‘Who is the man who is blessed?’ there were usually two answers: that the man was Christ or the Christian believer – sometimes individual, sometimes a particular church community, including faithful Jews as well. In answer to the question ‘what is Torah?’ this had at least three different answers: it could the New Testament alone; or the Bible as a whole; or Christ as the living Logos. Another recurrent question was about the significance of the tree in the v. 3: depending on how the question of the identity of ‘the man’ was addressed, the answer was that it referred either to the believer, or Christ’s obedience to God on the cross which reverses Adam’s disobedience to God in taking the fruit of the tree in the garden of Eden.
In Jewish tradition Psalm 1 teaches about the centrality of the laws of the Torah as the essential path to leading a good life. As we saw above, beginning the Book of Psalms in this way is remarkable for several reasons. First, the Psalmist here addresses humankind—this poem does not involve the kinds of pleas to or praises of God that the psalms mostly express as Temple poetry these six verses are remarkable for their emphasis on learning and living by the law, rather than the ritual sacrifices that were the daily public-facing role of Temple function. The Psalm employs metaphors found throughout the Hebrew Bible; similarly Jewish interpretation of this psalm rests within inter-textual readings of concepts and metaphors expressed in the simple meanings of texts found throughout the Bible.
Christian interpretation has focused on the meaning of the different metaphors in the psalm—the Blessed Man, the Torah, the trees, the waters, and the leaves and fruit; also the day of judgement, and the congregation of the righteous. Sometimes a more specifically Christian answer is given, focusing on the nature of Christ, the crucifixion, and on particular Christian discipleship, such as in reading the New Testament, being baptized, and belonging to the church. At other times answers are given which are in tune with Jewish interpreters—the ‘Blessed Man’ is about all of humanity, and the Torah is about all scripture, and the tree and its fruits are about the morality of all the righteous, and the day of judgement affects all peoples, and the congregation is about all kinds of worshippers, Jewish and Christian alike.In brief, this is a psalm which can divide or unite: the latter option is of course preferable, and more in tenor with the teaching of the psalm about the resistance of evil by people of faith; and this is what is so admirably achieved in the image of the garden, discussed above. As we have seen, in this remarkable beginning to the Psalter, Judaism and Christianity agree on much about the centrality of wise living in finding spiritual happiness. Where our traditions differ, the streams part, predictably, in metaphorical, rather than simple meaning, interpretations that read the centrality of Jesus as the source and voice of the divine wisdom that can best guide humankind. Yet each of us strive to “be like a tree planted by streams of water.”
The introductory and closing refrains make it clear that this is a hymn praising the name of God. Psalm 8 is an evening hymn, as seen in the references to the moon and stars (verse 3, Hebrew verse 4). There several correspondences here with Gen. 1:14-19. Other correspondences are in the description of humans at the apex of creation, and the description of maintaining the natural world, which is like Gen. 1:29-30. Psalm 8, however, has a more anthropomorphic view of God than in Genesis 1. Here he creates with his ‘fingers’ and hands’ (verses 3 and 6, Hebrew verses 4 and 7), and this compares with the impassive divine fiats in Genesis 1 (‘And God said… ‘).
In Jewish tradition the Psalmist’s verses in this eighth psalm ring out an exuberant celebration of Creation and joy in humankind’s powerful place just a little lower than the angels—yet utterly (and joyfully) subject to God—all evident in the glory of the night sky. The divine ability to thwart Israel’s enemies, the psalmist further exults, is proof of the providential God’s infinite mastery over the created world. Inspired by the grandeur of God’s heavens, the psalmist joyfully balances humanity’s comparative insignificance with the remarkable ability with which God has endowed us to enjoy, indeed command, the fruits of all creation. These powers not only crown us with “glory and honour” but also further exalt God’s omnipotence. The mention of the gittit in verse 1, enables some Jewish commentators to introduce another side of the providential God into the psalm’s meaning. Gittit, which appears in three psalms, seems to indicate that the psalm was to be included in services for Succot, or perhaps performance by stringed instruments. However, the word may also be understood as meaning “wine-press.” Tehillim Rabbah related the wine-press to other agricultural harvests (Succot is one of Judaism’s three harvest festivals, celebrated in autumn), regarding the harvests as the divine crushing of a succession of Israel’s enemies and the destroyers of Jerusalem, namely Babylonia and Rome. The final crushing of the latter by the wine-press, the rabbis suggested, would ultimately enable redemption. The psalm celebrates God’s generosity in sharing wisdom with humankind, as well as God’s confidence that we can use it well. It is helpful here to recognize the breadth of the term wisdom in the Hebrew Bible. Wisdom encompasses not only intellectual command of psychological, metaphysical, philosophical or theological concepts; in many biblical contexts practical, material skills also embody wisdom. The illuminations express the awe-suffused joy of contemplating the royalty of God’s dominion over heaven and earth with imagery of a royal crown imagery painted in rich blue and gold, while the palmette imagery alludes to the Temple, God’s earthly palace, where this poem was first sung.
On the text page the two initial words sparkle together within a golden diadem, a symbol of both divine and human royalty. Jewish mystical tradition suggests that all existence emanates ultimately from God’s loftiest, most secret emanation, keter, or Crown. The micrographic border offers a design of palmettes and grape vines. The words of the micrography present the English of the 8th and 9th chapters of Proverbs, which, given the feminine gender of the Hebrew word for wisdom, hokhma, characterize Divine Wisdom as an all-competent woman, who charges humankind, like a child, to obey the divine law and discipline that She represents. A bridge between the divine and material worlds, Wisdom describes herself as both God’s companion since even before the Creation of the world and also as humanity’s loving playmate. Throughout the illuminations of these psalms, the grapes express not only to the joy and sanctification that they symbolize across Jewish textual and celebratory traditions, but also to divine judgment against Israel’s enemies. The grapes allude to the wine-press that much rabbinic tradition associated with the word gittit, comparing wine-pressing to divine revenge on kingdoms that have tormented Israel.
In Christian tradition the key differences with the Jewish reading of Psalm 8 is that (1) Christianity sometimes assume this is not a hymn to God as Creator, but a prophetic text about a ‘redeemer figure’. This is out of kilter with the ‘plain sense’ reading if Psalm 8: it was clearly composed as a hymn of creation, probably with Genesis 1 in mind. The key issue is about how to understand the meaning of gittit, as a musical instrument or a wine-press, which brings to mind questions of judgment and the Church. (2) the Hebrew terms for “man” and “son of man,” and the terms’ relationship to Jesus.
There are an intriguing number of associations between Psalm 1 and Psalm 8. Although there is a play on sunrise in Psalm 1, and onmoonrise in Psalm 8 (and here, with an intimate view of the lunar landscape) each image has a significant emphasis on Creation - alongside Torah. The creation themes are found in the allusions to Genesis in each psalm. In Psalm 1 this is through Genesis 2-3 and the story of the Garden of Eden, and in Psalm 8 it is through Genesis 1 and the poetic account of the Cosmos. The image to Psalm 1 offers a certain poignancy in its reflecting on the events in the garden; in Psalm 8 I find an exuberance in the praise of God’s presence in the cosmos, where the imagery is more expansive, as we view the land, the city, the seas, the mountains, as well as the dolphins and the waterfall. This is about the infinite details of creation, hidden in the poetry of the psalm.
Psalm 8’s celebration of the beauty of Creation and the Creator’s power, evident in the endless majesty of the night sky, is beloved in both Judaism and Christianity. The two interpretive traditions, however, also have significant differences, in large part based on the two traditions different uses of Hebrew, Greek and Latin.
In Judaism, the Hebrew psalm is understood literally as a song of praise of the providential Creator. Its verses sing of humankind’s gratitude at being made just slightly less powerful than God’s own self, and at being given dominion over all the world’s wondrous life-forms. Humankind is described by the Hebrew term, ben adam, “son of man,” a common synonym for mortal humans in late Hebrew biblical texts. Further, the psalmist praises God for using divine power to protect Israel from its enemies. Some rabbinic midrashic traditions carry this theme of divine protection into an allegorical interpretation of the word, gittit, understanding it as meaning a wine-press that will harvest, (by crushing) the nations that endanger Israel, instead of its literal meaning as a musical instrument or perhaps, musical instruction.
Christian interpretation mostly also reads the psalm literally, as a Hebrew poem as a praise of the Creator. However, commentators both from the eastern and western churches, using both Greek and Latin versions, develop Christological readings of the heading, and of verses 1-2 and 4-5. The gittit is a winepress, with judgmental overtones both of God over the church, and the church over the world; the praise of the children (verses 1-2) is associated with Jesus riding into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, where this psalm is cited; and ben adam (verses 4-5) signifies Jesus as the Son of Man, made 'lower than the angels' in his incarnation and 'crowned with glory and honor' in his resurrection. In Christian tradition little is made of the links between Creation and Torah, or between Creation and Wisdom.
Jewish and Christian traditions thus join the Psalmist in wondering at the splendor of the vast night sky that God created. We celebrate the intimations of humankind’s importance embedded in the sparkling cosmos, whether our traditions focus on the transcendent glory of one divine individual, or on our uniquely gifted earth-bound selves.
Crashingly loud or whisper-quiet, the divine power over all matter is manifest in the noises of nature and celebrated in these illuminations of Psalm 29. Sound as well as sight plays a large part in the poetry of the Psalms. In Psalm 1 we heard the ‘blessed man’ murmuring in quiet reflection on the Torah; in Psalm 8 we heard the praise of ‘babes and infants’ singing praise to God’s name. Psalm 19:1-2 paradoxically refers to the speech of the heavens (four times: telling, proclaiming, pouring forth speech, declaring) but also affirms that this is heavenly discourse which no human ear can hear (verse 3: no speech, no voice, no words). But now in Psalm 29 the heavens speak forcefully and audibly, seven times, their voices being heard as claps of thunder (verses 3, 4 [twice], 5, 7, 8, 9). The sevenfold voice in the heavens echoes the many names of God - Awesome, Mighty, Almighty, Holy, One and Only, Exalted, Knower of Innermost Thoughts. Furthermore, three times (verses 1-2) we hear heavenly calls to prayer, and in verse 9 we hear the cry of ‘Glory’ from worshippers in the Temple, followed by the double affirmation of his kingship in verse 10, and two prayers for their own wellbeing (verse 11). Seventeen times the name of God is repeated, with the reference to the ’God of Glory brining the total to eighteen; we hear too the repetition of mystical names qadosh, kabod and melek in[SG1] verses 1-2 and again in 9-11. So this psalm reverberates with sound. The challenge here is capturing the sounds through visual representation.
Jewish tradition hears the voice of the Lord as He created the world and shakes the world, the Psalmist exclaims! Jewish sources, from the first words of Genesis, to the Psalms to classical Jewish mysticism and Lurianic Kabbalah emphasize that it was through sound, in particular, the sounding of God’s name, that the world was created—and the power of Israel’s God has no parallel in the heavens or on the earth. For these reasons Jewish congregations have sung Psalm 29 as part of the procession accompanying the Torah scrolls back to the ark following the Sabbath readings since the beginning of the twelfth century, and as part of the kabbalistic Kabbalat Shabbat service, welcoming the Friday evening arrival of the Sabbath, since the mid-sixteenth century.
Dr. Gillingham has mentioned the psalm’s correspondence to Canaanite hymns to the storm god. Jewish tradition, however, finds the power of the one God expressed in the verses. Amos Haham suggests that the Psalm alludes specifically to the Creation and Exodus. He relates the psalm to similar imagery in Psalms 104 and 106, Nahum 14 and Ezekiel 43:2, including the lightning that precedes thunder. The voice of the Lord is strong and majestic.
In classical Kabbalah, sound—the first pronouncement of God’s name and shortly afterward, the first pronouncement of the Hebrew letters— initiates the primordial world of the emanations of the divine. [In the] ‘beginning,’ is ‘the first utterance that preceded all the others,’ in an early sixteenth century summa of more than a millennium of Kabbalistic thought. In the strain of Kabbalah developed by the later sixteenth century Rabbi Isaac Luria, which is the basis of modern Hasidic traditions, divine energy created the heavens and the earth through a giant explosion. That energy, known as the “shefa,” the divine everflow, continues flow through the world at all times, but doubly on the Sabbath. In Psalm 29 the divine energy reverberates throughout physical Creation in the form of the powerful sounds of thunder, lightning and earthquakes, flames, floods, splintering trees, and even the lowing of gazelles as they give birth amidst the commotion—all of which signal the Creator’s power over the natural world. Only the single God possessed of this total power over creation can bless the people with calm and peace.
In Jewish tradition, these noises signal not terror of the Creator, but the matchless power with which the providential God offers justice and support to Israel. Imagery of the clamor of divine power in the human world, centered upon Jerusalem, surrounds the Hebrew and English texts of this psalm. Small samplings of jagged seismic waves divide the verses. The Hebrew and English texts are set apart by the line of music beginning the introductory measures of the last part of Elgar’s 1914 choral work, “Give unto the Lord,” Op 74[SG2] , composed during the first year of World War I, which expresses the composer’s hope that “the Lord shall give his people the blessing of peace.” The deep night sky stretches above the texts, reminding us of the divine energy that suffuses the physical world as fearsome and wondrous natural events occur below.
The full page painting presents additional ideas of the explosive creative and destructive noises of the natural world. In the painting at center, imagery of star-forming nebulae whirls together with volcanic eruptions and the speeding, crashing waves of a tsunami, generated by seismic activity. The micrographic ring surrounding the painting suggests the communal “Jerusalem of Gold” wedding rings shared by impecunious brides in traditional Jewish communities.and[SG3] In the context of Psalm 29, the ring alludes to the historical bond between the Judaism and Christianity formed by sharing the Psalms. Seven band of micrography composed of verses from Genesis and Exodus involving form the ring.
There are at least four different ways in which Christian readings of this psalm differ a little from Jewish interpretations. The first concerns festivals, involving Sukkot, the Orthodox Epiphany, and the Feast of Christ’s Transfiguration in the churches of the West. A second key difference is in the interpretation of the ‘voice of God’. Psalm 29 is not cited in the New Testament, although it is possible that the so-called ‘Call of Ten Thunders’ in Rev. 10:3-4, using storm god imagery, may be akin to the (sevenfold) voice of God which imitates thunder. However, within the Early Church this sevenfold ‘voice’ of God takes on a Trinitarian emphasis, associated with either God the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit. A final difference, albeit somewhat closer to the Jewish readings, is the more political or ecclesial re-reading of the themes of both the destructiveness and creativity of God portrayed within this psalm by commentators such as Erasmus and Luther. These differences illustrate just how many Christian readings of psalms search for hidden meanings, such as finding in it the Trinity, the Seven Sacraments of the Church, and even reading the literal storm as about the destruction of enemy forces.
Whereas Jewish tradition stays with the creation theme of this psalm and explores related ideas of a God as Creator-- for example, how this is an expression of his love for his people as well as the world Christians, being concerned with inner meanings which relate to the person of Christ, tend to take the creation theme further, so that, for example (in Psalm 8) the human who is made a little lower than God is seen to refer to Christ’s incarnation. The same process takes place in this psalm, albeit with more difficulty, because whereas Psalms 8 and 19 consistently praised God as Creator, Psalm 29 also praises God as Destroyer. Even so, the sevenfold voice announcing destruction through the storm becomes the voice of God the Father to the Son, or God the Son to the nations, or God the Spirit to the church. This is a feature brought to the psalm rather than read from it. This is perhaps the key ‘hermeneutical’ difference in reading creation psalms. Together, as Jews and Christians, we learn that only God—no human, no physical force of nature—has the power to create and shape our world. Only God—no human, no earthly wealth—can protect us and redeem us from destruction. Psalm 29 teaches us that we flourish ultimately by virtue of belonging to the covenant of those who believe in God’s unseen—but heard—presence in all nature.
Psalms celebrating God as Creator often appeal both to what we can see in our imaginations and to what we can inwardly hear. Psalm 29 sees the destructive power of the storm conveyed through the sound of God’s thunderous voice, evoking a sense of terror and awe. Psalm 33 also connects these two senses in helping us to appreciate God’s sovereignty over the cosmos. Here, however, the psalm begins with the sound of human voices – rejoicing, praising, making melody with the harp, singing, and playing on stringed instruments (verses 1-3). We then hear the divine voice, and then our hearing is then complemented by our seeing, as we first catch a glimpse of the vast hosts of heaven above the world and the deep waters of the sea below it (verses 6-7). We are awed at God’s universal power (verses 8-9); in this particular psalm it is not only in relation to the vast cosmos but also to God’s sovereignty over human history (verses 10-12, 16-17). Somewhat paradoxically, as has been the case with all the creation psalms thus far, God’s utter transcendence is described by the use of anthropomorphisms: for instance, God, too, is described as both speaking and seeing. The psalmist leads us into this celebration of the divine power in creation through a succession of sounds. In the first six verses we hear and sing music, we hear the sounds of creation, we hear the words of divine law. As we witness God’s power we hear and celebrate the laws of loving-kindness that guide us into fair and righteous conduct. All humanity, the Psalmist declares, should venerate God and God’s law—and God will protect “those who have trusted in His holy name” from nations that use worldly force for conquest. Together we believers, and our very world celebrate God’s creative and protective power in joyful sound.
The sound of the pronounced word is the key to the relationship between the creation of the universe and the creation of law. In classical Jewish mysticism, as summarized by the great early sixteenth century Kabbalist, Rabbi Meir ibn Gabbai, all of creation springs from divine word; Psalm 33 serves as a proof-text for this idea. The mystical lore suggests that the world was created by ten divine utterances; these served as the intermediaries between divine thought and the divine acts of creation. In modern physics, the creation of light at the dawn of the universe described in the Bible encompasses all electromagnetic radiation, including sound. Sound waves, such as we produce in vocal and instrumental music, or in simple speech—are part of the electromagnetic spectrum, a continuation of the energy of physical creation. The ecstatic sounds we produce through music heighten our expression when our words alone cannot fully convey our joy in God’s dominion.
As Ibn Ezra declares regarding verse 8, “it is fitting that the people of the earth fear Him and quake at His word” rejoicing in God’s creation through the sound of word and law, with the sounds of our own song, our earthly music, and the sounds of parents and child, and the words of a just and loving society. The rabbis expand their analysis of the impact of divine law in the world as they explore the implications of the psalm’s ongoing celebration of divine power. Viewed from Jewish tradition, the Hebrew illumination fuses the Psalmist’s celebration of the Creator with imagery inspired by modern astrophysics. At top center, the oval painting is adapted from the famous diagram of the 3 degree microwave background radiation that dated the Universe at 13.7 billion years old. Imagery of sound waves in the rainbow colors of the electromagnetic spectrum travel among the waving lines of the psalm’s verses, toward, around and from the “blue marble” of Earth, as the Apollo 17 astronauts described the view of our planet’s surface, brilliant with blue oceans and white cloud. Below, lines of micrography assume a pattern of opposing pyramid forms that suggest the waves of the primal sound we still hear from the microwave background.
The English illumination offers imagery of the divine energy transformed into human songful praise of the Creator. At top, the initial word, “rejoice,” rests above the biblical harp, the kinnor. Waves of the harp’s joyful sounds flow among the also-waving lines of poetry, to join with the music of the shofrot (ceremonial ram’s horns), drums, flutes, and silver and golden horns. The strident blast of the shofar was not only a part of Temple music, but in far earlier times was used as a military trumpet conveying divine power; for instance, consider Joshua’s use of shofrot under the walls of Jericho. Today, services of blowing the shofar form a signature part of Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) liturgies, awakening the soul to divine power and judgment. The physical energy of the instruments swell together with the human voice to celebrate the divine words of Creation and the law embodied in Torah.
Christian commentaries, in the main, focus on two main issues. The first is the place of music in celebrating God as Creator (verses 1-3); the second is about how we are to understand the references to the 'Word of the Lord' in verses 4 and 6. Perhaps surprisingly, early Christian commentators were not always positive about the role of musical accompaniment (and with this, the place of polyphony) in the performance of psalms. This was in part a fear of imitating pagan practices. However, by the ninth century and as a result of the resurgence of interest in music and the arts in Carolingian times, Christian interpretations of these first three verses changed, as evidenced by illuminated manuscripts of the day that highlighted musical performance.
A second preoccupation in Christian commentaries is the interpretation of the 'word of the Lord', especially in verse 6, as a witness to the Trinity. The ‘word’ which created the heavens is identified with Jesus, the ‘Logos’. Furthermore, because the word ‘breath’ in the same verse uses the Hebrew word ruach, which can also mean ‘spirit’, this suggested the third member of the Trinity. Early Christian commentators understood that in verse 6 the Lord, the pre-existent Word, and the Spirit of the Lord was a reference to the Trinity at the beginning of creation, bringing the cosmos into being. Christian commentators have not always read verse 6 in this way, and it is interesting to note that the most virulent commentators are writing at a time when questions about the nature of the Trinity were tearing apart the unity of the Church. Many of the other observations on this psalm correspond more with Jewish interpretations. The interest in the Law, for example, is found not only in the allegorizing of verses 1-3 but in the reading of the ‘Word’ as ‘Scripture’ or ‘Torah’. The emphasis on God’s mercy being greater than his judgement (verses 4-5) is of equal concern in the Christian commentary tradition.
The musical imagery in the psalm and these illuminations, the emphasis on celebrating divine power in human song shows the entire psalm as the 'new song' (sir khadash) whereby the words are now heard as music: and although we might not be able to hear the melody, we can sense the rhythm, and we can intuit the tune. All this makes the fear of the effects of music in that early Christian tradition somewhat misplaced: the music in Psalm 33 is not in imitation of any pagan practice, but rather it is a means of bringing light and life into the divinely spoken words, as is most appropriate for a psalm about rejoicing in the goodness of creation. And setting aside those early Christian allegorisers, we remember the countless Christian composers who have set the words of this psalm to music, especially the words of the first three verses. We think of Catholic composers such as Giovanni Gabrieli, Reformed Calvinists such as Claude Goudemel, Protestant Lutherans such as Heinrich Schütz, English court musicians such as Thomas Weelkes and Thomas Ravenscroft, and English and American psalm-composers such as Isaac Watts and William Billings respectively.
Jewish tradition, from the period when the Psalms resounded within the Temple, to singing in the synagogue today, wholeheartedly embraces human music-making in prayer as a celebration, even an echo, of God’s glorious creation and power in the universe. Psalm 33 highlights the way sound brings us memories of the first moments of Creation, vibrating today in the flow of energy across the universe, and reminding us of how the utterance of divine law is carried to human ears by sound.
We noted earlier that the two key differences in the ways Jews and Christians read this psalm are the lack of emphasis in early Christian tradition on musical performance, and hence the allegorizing of the musical instruments in verses 1-3, and the more detailed emphasis on God as the Trinitarian Creator in verse 6. But we have also seen how the fear of musical expression gave way to a vast resource of musical compositions, focused on the first three verses, whether for singing by scholia at the Mass or by the congregation at a daily office. As for the Trinitarian reading of verse 6, this is not the view of all Christians; and even when this is the case, what unites Christians with Jews is the belief in God’s sovereign purposes in bringing about creation and the human response to the glory of creation in the singing of a new song. Furthermore, both traditions unite when it comes to other themes found in this psalm: not least in the affirmation of God’s mercy being greater than his judgement.