Beyond Power
Come and hear, all who fear God, and I will tell of what He has done for my soul. Psalm 66:16 NASB
Who fear God – Although you won’t see it in the English translation, this phrase (“who fear God”) does not contain God’s name. It uses the word ʾĕlōhîm, the general classification of “god.” Perhaps that’s not too surprising since the poem is about the power and majesty of the sovereign ruler of creation, but still, we might have expected to find the specific designation of the Hebrew god, YHVH, in this phrase. After all, the Psalmist isn’t suggesting that those who fear any god should listen to what he has to say. He’s speaking specifically about the Hebrew God. If you want to know what YHVH has done for him (not “his soul”), then come and listen. Of course, this isn’t a matter of storytelling. This is testimony with a difference. To “listen” is also to act accordingly, to obey. If you really hear what the Psalmist is willing to disclose, you will be changed. You will live differently. That’s what it means to “fear God.” God-fearers are those who have listened to the Spirit and changed their direction. They are not afraid because they have become obedient. YHVH is their God.
But that isn’t all that it means. Abraham Heschel reveals the greater depth of fearing God:
“Yet we have finally discovered what the prophets and saints have always known: bread and power alone will not save humanity. There is a passion and drive for cruel deeds which only the awe and fear of God can soothe; there is a suffocating selfishness in man which only holiness can ventilate. Man is meaningless without God, and any attempt to establish a system of values on the basis of the dogma of man’s self-sufficiency is doomed to failure.”[1]
Fearing God means that I no longer expect human systems to bring about restoration. Human systems, no matter how powerful or well-intentioned, are incapable of dealing with the fundamental crisis of humanity, that is, the propensity of human beings to seek their own goals first, no matter what the cost to others or the world. Human beings are in love with the yetzer ha’ra, not because they are essentially perverse but because they are essentially self-concerned. Therefore, the “suffocating selfishness” of man can only be corrected by the holiness of God. Any other attempt will be just one more version of the same self-concern.
The Psalmist doesn’t want you to listen to his testimony. He wants you to absorb it, to let it change who you are, to see that what God has done for one person may be possible for another. This is not an “I was saved on July 22, 1966” kind of testimony. This is more like “My name is Skip and this is what’s happened to me.” The Psalmist invites us, but we must accept the invitation to hear how self-concern became sympathy for ʾĕlōhîm.
Topical Index: fear, yārēʾ, hear, šāmaʿ, Psalm 66:16
[1] Abraham Heschel Between God and Man: An Interpretation of Judaism (Free Press Paperbacks, 1959), p. 74.
