Like Psalms 65, 118 and 124, this is a Psalm of national thanksgiving, possibly used at the Hebrew New Year. At this time, Israel were exhorted to be joyful (Deut. 16:15; Lev. 23:40)

The opening verse recalls the Aaronic Blessing that we frequently use in Christian worship (Num. 6:24-26). The Psalm first attends not to human experience but to God and to God’s grace. We look beyond human limitations to God to find a truer perspective on human life. Although conventional Christian perspectives, including notably that of Martin Luther, created a false dichotomy between law in Judaism and grace in Christ, both ancient and modern forms of Judaism do not lack a deep sense of divine grace.

The common purpose of Jew and Christian in the earth is to be agents of divine blessing (Gen. 12:3). Without a deep sense of this purpose, our desire for our own blessing lacks legitimacy. We know the greatest blessing of God for ourselves when we experience being a blessing to someone else.

Reference to ‘his face’ (v. 1) speaks of God acknowledging ‘us’, as distinct from being turned away. It also indicates that the hidden is revealed. Contrast the Sinai story where Moses is not permitted to see the face of God (Exod 33:12-23).  This verse is strengthened with the thought that God not only acknowledges us but causes divine light to shine upon us. This meets the need of the faithful to see things as God sees. Divine light shines to make known the way of God. This way certainly encompasses the idea of ‘will’ but ‘way’ is a much richer notion. Life with God is far more than obeying a set of rules to please a distant God; rather it is a dynamic journey of faith in the company of God in which the way of God is made known as we go. All nations, Gentiles and Jews, are to witness the way of God in the journey of the faithful with God.

The frequent biblical references to God’s saving power (v. 2) demand careful interpretation for today’s reader. Following the theme of a memorable sermon by Martin Luther King Jr., ‘The love of power and the power of love’, we are wise always to think of both divine and human power in terms of love. Equally, our notion of divine salvation needs to be linked, as in the Gospel, to an understanding of transforming love, both God’s love and human love. This requires us to free our conception of salvation from the dominant Hebrew Bible theme of deliverance from human enemies, and from the legacy of those Christian notions of atonement that think of the Cross as some cosmic transaction of a legal or juridical nature.

Out of a sense of the equity of God as judge, the song writer is lifted up with a sense of joy in God to offer praise in song (v. 3-5). It is difficult to know whether some human experience of the community of Israel lies behind the writer’s affirmation of divine justice and equity, or whether it is only a formal repetition of an ideal concept. For the modern reader, this affirmation begs many questions. One is the question whether the idea of God as judge any longer has meaning, let alone what it means to declare that God ‘guides the nations on earth’ (v. 4).

Another question is summed up most succinctly in the book title: ‘Why bad things happen to good people’. Through the experiences of Babylonian exile, the Roman occupation of 70 CE and the holocaust, Jewish people have agonised toward a faith in God that does not expect justice always to prevail on earth. In the crucifixion, Christians see a God sharing with humanity in suffering injustice, rather than a God who sits above and dispenses justice according to whim. In this sense the crucifixion is not just an event in time but a statement of how God is now.

Finally, the Psalm reveals what has prompted it – a good harvest, of wheat and barley, grape and olive and fig (v. 6). Thanksgiving for the fruit of the earth comes naturally to all people, and many cultures, like Israel, have their own ways of celebrating harvest. The parallelism in v. 6 shows that the psalmist considers this increase as a divine blessing. This understanding is consistent with texts such as Gen. 24:34 that conceive of blessing in the most material way. God is to be seen in the workings of all creation, even though nature and the weather will not always produce the expected harvest. The challenge to the faithful is to perceive the blessing of God even in circumstances that are painful rather than fruitful.

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