He Rides the Clouds: The Oldest Psalm?
Ps. 68:5
“Canaan is captive with all woe.
Ashkelon is conquered, Gezer seized,
Yanoam made nonexistent;
Israel is wasted, bare of seed.”
This text is included in The Merneptah_Stele, dating back to the 13th century BCE, on display in Cairo since it’s dramatic discovery in 1896, inside a temple in the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes.
The stele’s chief significance lies in the fact that it contains the first mention of the name “Israel” outside of the Bible, but not in favorable terms. The relatively minor Egyptian king boasts that he vanquished Israel, along with the other coastal nations. While scholars still ponder the historical facts, today’s psalm, according to some, directly refers to this story - with a different perspective on what seems to be an important historical war that we know very little about. But Psalm 68 is not just about the history of forgotten wars. It is also one of the richest and most complex of the entire Psalms - with theological and cultural layers that place it as also one of the oldest, if not the most ancient of the entire collection. The overall theme of the chapter is the aftermath of a great victory, attributed to the ancient God of Israel, with surprising names that go back to our oldest mythologies:
שִׁ֤ירוּ ׀ לֵאלֹהִים֮ זַמְּרוּ שְׁ֫מ֥וֹ סֹ֡לּוּ לָרֹכֵ֣ב בָּ֭עֲרָבוֹת בְּיָ֥הּ שְׁמ֗וֹ וְעִלְז֥וּ לְפָנָֽיו׃
Sing to God, chant hymns to the divine name;
extol the One who Rides the Clouds,
the One whose name is Yah -
Exult in the Divine presence!”
Ps. 68:5
“One who Rides the Clouds’ and ‘Yah’ are known to be some of the oldest names for the deity who will at some point become known as YHWH. So what else is hiding in this layered poem that can give us guidance as to how the national and theological story of israel evolved?
Prof. Israel Knohl has written extensively about this psalm and its connection to the Merneptah Stele. In this article he shared his research, and here are some highlights:
“psalm 68 is perhaps the most difficult chapter in the book to understand. There are many hapax legomena (words that are singular to the text) and archaic linguistic forms that complicate its analysis. Its main thrust is a hymn that celebrates a divine victory on the battlefield…The account of the battle is preceded by a call to sing and rejoice before God, as well as a depiction of the moral virtues of the deity, who is “the father of orphans and the champion of widows.” The psalmist then enumerates the many kindnesses that God has shown his people in the past, as a preface to the celebration of deliverance in the present war..The battle itself concludes with the enemy generals defeated and fleeing. According to the psalmist’s praise, God smites the heads of his enemies. After the carnage, a victory parade is held, in which the revelers sing and play, and young women gaily dance: “First come singers, then musicians, amidst maidens playing timbrels.”
Following the description of the war and the defeat of the enemy, the psalmist voices his expectation that the nations will recognize the supremacy of the God of Israel: “Kings will bring you tribute…. Sing to God, O kingdoms of the earth.” In this context, he refers to only two nations by name: “Tribute-bearers shall come from Egypt, Cush shall hasten to stretch out her hands to God.”
Why were Egypt and Cush singled out? It is quite plausible that the enemy described in this psalm, as many scholars have argued, is Egypt. Hence the author’s specific mention of the Pharaonic kingdom and its ward, Cush, as the nations that would ultimately recognize the sovereignty of God.
..The denunciation of Egypt as a violent and predatory kingdom may illuminate the historical background of the confrontation depicted in Psalm 68, but it does not provide us with a date of the events. Indeed, scholars have struggled with this difficult question.
…The language of the psalm suggests that at the time of its composition, Egypt was still the dominant power in the land, although its hold over its northern neighbors was already beginning to weaken. This indeed was the geopolitical situation in Canaan at the end of the twelfth century B.C.E., when the decline of the mighty Egyptian empire led subjugated kingdoms and peoples to turn against it, hoping to rid themselves of its burden.
This psalm—probably one of the most ancient texts in the Bible—is both a rare historical document and an innovative theological manifesto. It provides invaluable information about the history of the People of Israel as they took their first steps in settling the land, and about biblical religion as it formulated its first expressions of monotheism. Crucially, the psalm reveals that, contrary to popular opinion within academic circles, such belief was not forged over hundreds of years, during which a particular tribal and national god gained ascendancy over other deities. It seems that, already in the early stages of their conquest of the land, when they were just beginning to embark on their path to nationhood, the Israelites experienced a genuine revolution in religious consciousness, evidenced by the merging of various supernatural entities from neighboring cultures into a single deity bearing multiple names.
The God to whom the psalmist devotes his triumphal hymn is at once the heavenly patron of the People of Israel and the universal sovereign, whom all the nations are called upon to worship and praise: “Sing to God, O kingdoms of the earth.”
Poetry meets triumphalism and theological, archeology and history as ancient drum beats echo through this chapter to hint at so much more than words, so much more than wars and who won or not.
The first mention of Israel on the ancient steele and the songs of today’s poem remind us today that stories take time to evolve, that ideas change, just as the names of gods and nations do, and that at the core of all of it is the universal sense of something greater, more important, and more sacred, than our territories, claims for fame, and tribal aspirations. Sing a new song, drum in hand, a song of infinite hope for kinder, better, peaceful days.
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