Biblion Bible Commentary
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Let the Peoples Praise You
Psalms 67:1-7
1 For the Chief Musician. With stringed instruments. A Psalm. A song. May God be merciful to us, bless us, and cause his face to shine on us. Selah. · WEB
Seven verses built symmetrically around the nations, and the blessing asked for in the first line is requested for someone else's benefit.
May God be merciful to us, bless us, and cause his face to shine on us Psalms 67:1.
The opening is the priestly blessing of Numbers 6:24–26, turned from a pronouncement into a request. What the priests said over Israel, Israel now asks for.
That your way may be known on earth, and your salvation among all nations Psalms 67:2.
And immediately the reason, which changes the character of the request entirely. The blessing is not asked for its own sake. It is asked so that something can be known somewhere else, which makes a blessed Israel a means rather than an end.
Let the peoples praise you, God. Let all the peoples praise you Psalms 67:3.
The refrain, and it returns word for word at verse five. Between the two statements of it stands the psalm's center.
Oh let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you will judge the peoples with equity, and govern the nations on earth Psalms 67:4.
This is the only verse in the psalm that is not either a request for blessing or a call to praise, and its position — alone, between the two identical refrains — is what marks it as the point. The structure is exact enough to be checked: blessing, refrain, this, refrain, blessing.
What it says is the surprising part. The nations are told to be glad, and the reason given is judgment. Equity and government are offered as good news to the peoples being governed, which only makes sense if the alternative on offer is the government they currently have.
The earth has yielded its increase. God, even our own God, will bless us. God will bless us. All the ends of the earth shall fear him Psalms 67:6–7.
The closing pair answers the opening. What was requested is now stated as fact, three times, and the harvest is mentioned as the visible form of it — a good year, which the surrounding nations would notice.
The psalm's argument, taken as a whole, is that Israel's blessing was always instrumental. A people prospering under a God who governs fairly is the advertisement, and the last line names the intended result: not that the nations submit, but that all the ends of the earth come to fear him — which is where the second psalm's raging kings were headed too.
It is the clearest statement in the Psalter that the covenant was never meant to terminate on the people who received it, and the shape of the poem says it before the words do.
settled What this mark means