Saturday, April 26, 2008

Psalms: God and Nature

I think that the Psalms strategically incorporate God into nature in some passages. It is a way of juxtaposing the two so that the readers can put into perspective that one is above the other in power. For example:

“His is the sea and He made it, and the dry land His hands did fashion…” 95:5

“… and He turned their rivers to blood, their currents they could not drink.” 78:44

"He blasted the Sea of Reeds, and it dried up, and He led them through the deep as through wilderness." 106:9

It makes God look like such an incredibly powerful, creative being. He created it and the earth is his possession, which he granted to humans. Especially the Psalms that illustrate how he has the ability to manipulate his creations magnifies his position in the world, which is higher than that of humans. As a result, he can inspire fear and respect in his followers, which in turn motivates them to comply with his principles. If they disobey, they will experience disasters. If they obey, they’ll experience prosperity and help as in the form of water (which is essential to life) coming from rocks.

The Psalms involving nature are similar to paintings that use hierarchic scaling. Hierarchic scaling is depicting people in an artwork a certain size which corresponds to their importance in society, to a group, or the artist himself. In the Psalms, a verbal form of hierarchic scaling is used. The Psalms depict God as an omnipotent being that controls nature resulting in fortune or chaos for humans. In a painting, God would be the dramatically larger person because he has absolute control over nature; humans would be the smaller subject in the painting because they depend on God’s will. This strategy helps people or his followers understand his power while functioning as a tool that inspires both fear and respect.

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