It’s Epiphany, a wonderful moment to celebrate the arrival of Jesus, who brought light to everyone, without exception. Yes, that means you too! Embrace this joyous occasion and bask in the universal love and illumination that Jesus bestowed upon all people.

Psalm 66 is a song of praise in the psalter, where most of the other songs are all about lamenting. Even though it’s supposed to be by David, according to some, it’s not actually written by David. How do we know? Well, in verses 10-12, it starts talkin’ about the whole Babylon captivity thing, which happened long after David’s time. But don’t worry, we’ll get into the structure of this psalm later.

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Psalms in Book 2 are like Book 1 in that they are mostly lament and distress although they now include a communal voice in addition to the singular voice of the first book.

The books of Psalms are roughly themed like this:

Book 1: Psalms 1 – 41: God is beside us.
Book 2: Psalms 42 – 72: God goes before us
Book 3: Psalms 73 – 89: God is all around us.
Book 4: Psalms 90 – 106: God is above us.
Book 5: Psalms 107 – 150: God is among us.

To the choirmaster. A Song. A Psalm.

66 Shout for joy to God, all the earth;
²     sing the glory of his name;
    give to him glorious praise!
³ Say to God, “How awesome are your deeds!
    So great is your power that your enemies come cringing to you.
⁴ All the earth worships you
    and sings praises to you;
    they sing praises to your name.” Selah

⁵ Come and see what God has done:
    he is awesome in his deeds towards the children of man.
⁶ He turned the sea into dry land;
    they passed through the river on foot.
There did we rejoice in him,
⁷     who rules by his might for ever,
whose eyes keep watch on the nations—
    let not the rebellious exalt themselves. Selah

⁸ Bless our God, O peoples;
    let the sound of his praise be heard,
⁹ who has kept our soul among the living
    and has not let our feet slip.

¹⁰ For you, O God, have tested us;
    you have tried us as silver is tried.
¹¹ You brought us into the net;
    you laid a crushing burden on our backs;
¹² you let men ride over our heads;
    we went through fire and through water;
yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance.

¹³ I will come into your house with burnt offerings;
    I will perform my vows to you,
¹⁴ that which my lips uttered
    and my mouth promised when I was in trouble.
¹⁵ I will offer to you burnt offerings of fattened animals,
    with the smoke of the sacrifice of rams;
I will make an offering of bulls and goats. Selah

¹⁶ Come and hear, all you who fear God,
    and I will tell what he has done for my soul.
¹⁷ I cried to him with my mouth,
    and high praise was on my tongue.
¹⁸ If I had cherished iniquity in my heart,
    the Lord would not have listened.
¹⁹ But truly God has listened;
    he has attended to the voice of my prayer.

²⁰ Blessed be God,
    because he has not rejected my prayer
    or removed his steadfast love from me!

Psalm 66 ESVUK

In Psalm 66, we hear about how the Jews, who were held captive in Babylon in the east, got freed and went back to their land. During Epiphany, we remember those super weird people (maybe some of the Magi were actually women?) who came all the way from the east just to worship a little baby. Seriously, who does that? But you know what’s interesting? Both stories involve a journey from the east and giving mad praise to God. Pretty cool.

Psalm 66 is a song in seven parts. I have added paragraph endings and some bold text to the psalm above. There are three initial parts, a central part about Babylon then the themes of the first three parts are repeated in the same order.

The first part of the psalm is unlike David’s writing as it is a corporate song. David’s songs are typically personal. The second part is personal and written in David’s style.

I’ll start in the middle. Even in a rejoicing, the song pulls no punches as to how badly the Jews, enslaved and exiled, were treated. It is in three sets of two lines, each on a different aspect of the captivity, with the words “you have brought us out to a place of abundance” as a conclusion. The bad stuff that has happened is not something to grumble about but the reason for their praise.

The three sections are
a) worship (v4 and v13)
b) a call for others to join in, “Come and see.hear” (v5 v16)
c) adoration (v8 v20).

Epiphany

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The first half says that worship of God is for everybody, it is in all three parts of the first half. Verse 4 says, “All the earth worships you,” verse 7 says, “[God’s] eyes keep watch on the nations,” and verse 8, “Bless our God, O peoples.” The message is the same as what we celebrate at Epiphany. God’s light is for all people. Everybody, no matter what their skin tone, language, political persuasion, sex, gender, sexual orientation or sexuality. Or anything else. The church should be open for all and to all. Everybody.

Resurrection

Psalm 66 is also a song of resurrection. It feels weird writing about resurrection when Easter is almost three months away, but the story is about the resurrection of the Jews as a nation, talking about the birth of the nation in verses 5 to 7, about the Exodus from Egypt, and the resurrection of the nation in verses 8 to 10. The corporate nature of this song extends to all national resurrections, and I pray here for the resurrection of Ukraine to be freed from Russia and for the Palestinian people that they will be freed from the aggression of both Israel and Hamas.

Answered prayer

“Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer,” says the Psalmist. In this song of national deliverance, there is room for our own songs of escape. We can celebrate our personal Easters and celebrate together. Some commentators, amongst them Rabbis, say this is a song for a journey. They sing about the exodus from Egypt and the return from the Babylonian exile while traveling to Jerusalem. The restored nation was small, nowhere more than a day’s journey from Jerusalem, about 30 km or 20ish miles. How better to arrive at worship than by praising God along the way?

Within the beautiful context of corporate worship, we find ample room for expressing our individuality. And in our personal prayers, we discover a profound connection to the broader community. We are never alone in our prayers; we unite with angels and saints, both here on earth and in the heavenly realms.

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