Psalms in chronicles

Currents in Theology and Mission, August, 2005 by Ralph W. Klein

Petition for Israel's Deliverance
35. And say,
      "Save us, O God of our salvation,
      Gather us and deliver us from the nations
      to thank your holy name,
      and glory in your praise.
36. Blessed be Yahweh the God of Israel,
      From everlasting to everlasting.

By adding the words "And say" (v. 35) to the quotation from Ps 106:47 the Chronicler emphasizes that his hearers are to make the following prayer their own. Instead of referring to "Yahweh our God," as in Ps 146:47, the Chronicler refers to the deity as "O God of our salvation." This may have seemed more appropriate in a petition asking God to save or deliver the people.

"Gather us and deliver us from the nations." In Ps 106:47 the imperative "gather" reflected the scattered or exiled condition of the people addressed. Exile had already been threatened in the wilderness (106:47) and had become a reality later in the psalm (vv. 40-46). To this quotation the Chronicler added the words "deliver us." Deliverance from Persian domination may have been a more burning issue than Israel's dispersal at the Chronicler's time even if, for political reasons, the author avoided a direct criticism of or attack on the Persians. Gathering Israel from the nations, of course, is appropriate for almost any time when the Chronicler may have been writing.

"Blessed be Yahweh the God of Israel" (v. 36). The Chronicler's psalm concludes with the same divine title--Yahweh the God of Israel--which was the object of the invocation, thanksgiving, and praise of the singers in the narrative introduction to this chapter, v. 4, just before this new psalm began. This blessing, with this full divine title, later appears in the mouth of Hiram, king of Type (2 Chr 2:11 [12]) and of Solomon himself (2 Chr 6:4).

Summary Petition
  And all the people said, "Amen," and they praised Yahweh.

These words are part of the doxology at the end of Psalm 106 and not really part of the psalm itself. They indicate to us that the fourth book of the Psalter was completed by the time of the Chronicler. All the people, according to the Chronicler, had joined David in bringing the ark back to Jerusalem--however unlikely that is historically--and now they endorse the song of the Levites. This final doxology serves as a bridge passage to take the Chronicler back to his ark narrative.

This psalm is a good example of the doxological character of worship in Chronicles. While in the century before the Chronicler both Ezra and Nehemiah had expressed a narrow view of Israel that required forced divorces from those who were not recognized as true Israelites, the Chronicler has a more expansive view of Israel, beginning with his providing genealogies for all of the twelve tribes of Israel at the beginning of his work. He invites all Israel to rally around the temple in Jerusalem, and he breaks through even the boundaries of Israel in this psalm as he exhorts the nations and even the entire cosmos to praise Yahweh.

2 Chronicles 6:40-42

We move now to the brief excerpts from Psalm 132 that appear as the conclusion of Solomon's long prayer at the dedication of the temple in 2 Chr 6:14-39. In the course of his prayer, Solomon had prayed that Yahweh fulfill his dynastic promises to David (vv. 16-17), and then he prayed in general that God would hear prayers that would be spoken in or toward the temple in Jerusalem (vv. 18-21). Solomon cited seven different examples of prayers that Israelite individuals or the entire community might bring to Yahweh (vv. 22-39), and Solomon asked that Yahweh would hear in heaven, the place of his enthronement, and then forgive, act, and bring back to the land. This lengthy prayer, originally written for the book of Kings, is taken from 1 Kings 8 into 2 Chronicles 6 with a few minor changes that need not occupy us here.