He concentrates instead on the seeming limitlessness of the Lord's mercy towards those who fear Him. While the psalm presents a comprehensive view of God's forgiveness, the purpose of the psalm is not to describe forgiveness.
INTRODUCTION AND METHOD
Introduction
- Motivation and approach
- Thesis question
Another motivation is the mentioned use of Ps 103:11–12 as words of absolution in the Church of Norway. It is not my intention to challenge or defend the use of Ps 103 in the text.
Method
- In-the-text approach
- Motif study
The most significant methodological decision I made, however, is to conduct my reading of Ps 103 as a study of the motif of "God's forgiveness". However, divine forgiveness fits the first part of the definition well, as it is indeed a recurring theme in Ps 103, as well as in the Psalter and the Hebrew Bible as a whole.
Outline
STRUCTURE, GENRE, AND DATING
- Structure
- Meter and verses
- First Stanza
- Second Stanza
- Third stanza
- Expanding perspective
- Summary
- Textual unity
- Form/Genre
- Dating
- Summary
Also in favor of the (communal) hymn is the praise of God's character that begins in 103:6, and 1.pl. However, the personal character of the psalm should not be underestimated to the degree that Eaton does.
STANZA 1 – FORGET NOT HIS BENEFITS
Strophe 1: Forget not his benefits (103:1–2)
And while this is a rather tenuous link to forgiveness, Ps 103 invites the search for such connections through its extensive use of repetition and wordplay. The use of לוּמ ְג in 103:2 anticipates the forgiveness motif already in the first stanza, and this term can be said to belong to the associative cluster of the motif.
Strophe 2: Reasons for blessing (103:3–5)
- The one who forgives all your iniquity (103:3a)
- Forgiveness and healing (103:3b)
- Redemption from death (103:4a)
- Crowning with steadfast love and compassion (103:4b)
- Renewal of life and good gifts (103:5)
- Interconnected concepts
This parallel illustrates the close connection between forgiveness and healing in the language of the psalm. At the beginning of the psalm, the psalmist also asks for a reprieve from God's rebuke and discipline caused by God's anger (38:2). After this brief overview of the connection between forgiveness and healing in the language of the psalter, we return to Ps 103.
The psalmist's praise of the Lord in 103:3-5 may be the result of the healing of an actual illness experienced as a series of life-restoring gifts. In the language of the Psalter, being sick is already in the realm of death. The enemies of the psalmist in Ps 41 seem to assume that the psalmist will (or should) die immediately (41:6, 9).
This section can therefore be read as a tapestry of well-being caused by the Lord's "benevolences".
Summary
The Old Testament, Stamm claims, "does not know forgiveness in the modern sense of a spiritual phenomenon; rather, it only knows it as a concrete, comprehensive process that also affects the individual or society externally".110 Here we see the concrete, tangible effects of forgiveness as experienced by the psalmist in Psalm 103. As Hausmann puts it: "forgiveness expresses itself in a concrete event of change towards a positive future."111 However, we remember the caution from Psalm 32: these concrete effects can also be an expression of poetic metaphor In this stanza we have therefore seen how forgiveness in the Hebrew Bible can be seen as more than a spiritual phenomenon.
We have seen how the psalmist experienced forgiveness and its tangible results: healing, salvation from death, good gifts, and renewal of life. However, we also considered whether these gifts might be better viewed as metaphorical expressions of the joy of receiving forgiveness.
STANZA 2 – COMPASSIONATE AND GRACIOUS IS THE LORD
Strophe 3: The grace formula in context (103:6–8)
- The grace formula (103:8)
The revelation is placed after the great sin of the golden calf (Ex 32), and immediately before the renewal of the covenant (Ex 34:10ff). Before discussing this, however, we will examine the wording of the formula more closely. Indeed, the rest of the psalm takes up both words and concerns of the formula in 103:8.
However, the influence of the grace formula is most noticeable in the remainder of stanza 2, which can be read as an exposition of the formula. However, the focus on the "positive" part of the formula may not be entirely due to the thanksgiving setting. The psalm then goes on to praise the seeming infinity of the Lord's forgiveness, compassion, and compassion.
The rest of the stanza can thus be read as an explanation of the grace formula.
Strophe 4: Treating us better than we deserve (103:9–10)
The following two stanzas comment on the formula, focusing first on the negative and then on the positive. 103:9 goes further: even when his anger is rightly roused, he does not hold it long. The only text listed with anger as a clear object is Am 1:11, but this requires the reading רֹט ִי ו for ףֹר ְט ִי ו (based on the Peshitta and Vulgate).
- Three similes
- He knows our form (103:14)
In this stanza, three incredibly potent images, ranging from the height of heaven to the intimacy of a father's love, are used in the interest of depicting God. For our purposes, the combination of the three images is as important as any message the parables may carry individually. In 103:3–5 we saw that ד ֶס ֶח and compassion belong to the associative cluster of the forgiveness motif (along with healing, etc.).
In this stanza we have seen the poet marvel at the extent of the Lord's forgiveness, compassion and ד ֶס ֶח. The last verse of the stanza ends with a rationale for the Lord's forgiving nature. We see similar reasoning in Ps 78:38-39 in a summary of the events in the wilderness and the many transgressions of the Israelites.166 As in Ps 103, it is emphasized that God is compassionate (םוּח ר) and that he forgave ( covered, רפכ, piel) iniquity (ןוֹ ָע).
103:14 also serves as a transition to further treatment of the motif of human frailty in the third stanza.
The beneficiaries of God’s mercy
- Who are we?
- Those who fear him
Its meaning varies from numinous fear of the Lord's holiness, to loyalty to (i.e. exclusive worship of) the covenant god, and to fear of the Lord as a moral response, e.g. In the psalms, however, "Yahweh-fearers" always refers to the community that worships Yahweh."170 According to Fuhs, the phrase "those who fear the Lord" uses the verbal adjective to modify the Lord as subject, and is an idiom possessing Express. According to Fuhs, the term originally referred to the cultic community that gathered in the sanctuary, but was later expanded to include the entire people of the Lord.172 And in certain late psalms influenced by the wisdom tradition, in which group he Ps 103 include. , the term denoted the "pious" or "those who are faithful to the Lord".
In the designation “those who fear him” (recipients of his ד ֶס ֶח) this is paralleled with “those who keep his covenant (תי ִר ְב) and remember his instructions (םי ִדוּק ִפ)173 so that they carry them out” (recipients of his righteousness). Above all, it is not sins such as idolatry or the worship of false gods that place a person outside the sphere of grace and threaten the basis of the covenant. The only attempt to explain why God is so lenient is in 103:14, where the believer's merit is not in the picture.
Instead, it is God's knowledge of the human condition, our weakness, that inspires his mercy.
Summary
We have seen how the psalm's use of Ex 32-34 affects our interpretation of the motive of forgiveness. By alluding to the narrative context in which the formula of grace appears in Exodus 34:6-7, the psalm draws our attention to the story of sin and forgiveness that is told there. Moreover, the subtle criticism to which the "negative" part of the formula in Exodus 34:6-7 is subjected makes the psalm's testimony of the Lord's forgiveness even clearer.
By focusing only on the “positive” part of Ex 34:6-7, and by expounding the formula in the remainder of the stanza, the psalmist reinterprets Ex 34:6-7, eliminating the focus on forgiveness is strengthened. However, we have seen that “those who fear the Lord” is a group designation in the Psalms, which names those who worship the Lord in the sect, or the devout. It seems that in Ps 103 the indication “those who fear Him” is a group identification, but that demands are also made on those who want to belong to the group: they must be faithful to the Lord and His covenant.
The last verse of the stanza provides a rationale for God's forgiving nature: As creatures we are frail and prone to sin.
STANZA 3 – HIS DOMINION RULES OVER ALL
- Connections across the stanzas
- Strophe 6: Human impermanence and God’s eternal ד ֶס ֶח (103:15–18)
- Humanity as grass: a familiar image (103:15–16)
- The endurance of the Lord’s ד ֶס ֶח (103:17–18)
- Strophe 7: The divine king (103:19–22)
- Divine kingship in strophe 7
- Divine kingship in Book IV of the Psalter
- Kingship and forgiveness
- Summary
The poet again uses a powerful image, which prepares for a stark contrast with the constancy of the Lord's ד ֶס ֶח in 103:17–18. In recent decades much attention has been given to reading the Psalter as a book. The combination of the motifs of divine kingship and divine forgiveness, while not unprecedented, is unusual.
Although the Lord's kingship is predominant in this psalm, forgiveness is not explicitly mentioned. The Lord's forgiveness in this psalm is explicitly given only to the community of the godly, and to the individual who is supposedly part of this group. Even in this last stanza, with its universal outlook, the recipients of the Lord's ד ֶס ֶח are “those who fear Him.”
However, we should not conclude that the stanza is unrelated to the rest of the psalm.
CONCLUSION
- How is forgiveness described in Ps 103?
- More than a spiritual concept
- Exemption from negative consequences
- Preservation of relationship
- Who is forgiven?
- The psalmist’s “self”
- Those who fear him
- Is forgiveness universally accessible?
- What is said about the one who forgives?
- He knows our form
- Forgiveness flowing from the Lord’s character
- Bless the Lord
- Tools
- Lexica
- Grammars
- Literature
- Bible Editions
- Secondary Literature
In the previous section we saw how Ps 103 emphasizes the apparent limitlessness of the Lord's forgiveness. The psalmist's rescue experience is simply an example of the Lord's forgiving nature which is set forth in the second stanza. However, what is said in the rest of the psalm indicates that God's lavish grace would once again prevail.
I suggested that even God's forgiveness could be seen as an expression of the king's concern for his people. The concern of the psalmist is what happens in the relationship between God and the worshipers who belong to him. The psalmist points us in the direction of another reason: God's forgiveness stems from his character.
In fact, the very first description of the Lord in Ps 103 is that he is the one who forgives all the psalmist's iniquities (103:3).