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Psalms

About this book
Psalm 103

1 By David. Praise the Lord, O my soul. With all that is within me, praise his holy name. 2 Praise the Lord, O my soul. Do not forget all his kind deeds. 3 He is the one who forgives all your sins, who heals all your diseases,⁠ 4 who delivers your life from the Pit, who crowns you with his loyal love and compassion, 5 who satisfies your life with good things, so your youth is renewed like an eagle’s.⁠ 6 The Lord does what is fair, and executes justice for all the oppressed. 7 The Lord revealed his faithful acts to Moses, his deeds to the Israelites. 8 The Lord is compassionate and merciful; he is patient and demonstrates great loyal love.⁠ 9 He does not always accuse and does not stay angry. 10 He does not deal with us as our sins deserve; he does not repay us as our misdeeds deserve. 11 For as the skies are high above the earth, so his loyal love towers over his faithful followers. 12 As far as the eastern horizon is from the west, so he removes the guilt of our rebellious actions from us. 13 As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on his faithful followers. 14 For he knows what we are made of; he realizes we are made of clay. 15 A person’s life is like grass. Like a flower in the field it flourishes, 16 but when the hot wind blows, it disappears, and one can no longer even spot the place where it once grew. 17 But the Lord continually shows loyal love to his faithful followers and is faithful to their descendants, 18 to those who keep his covenant, who are careful to obey his commands. 19 The Lord has established his throne in heaven; his kingdom extends over everything. 20 Praise the Lord, you angels of his, you powerful warriors who carry out his decrees and obey his orders.⁠ 21 Praise the Lord, all you warriors of his, you servants of his who carry out his desires. 22 Praise the Lord, all that he has made, in all the regions of his kingdom. Praise the Lord, O my soul.

Texts in conversation

Compare Deuteronomy 32:8 and Psalm 103:20

Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Deuteronomy 32 and Psalm 103 describe God ruling through the intermediaries of a divine council. In Deuteronomy, God sets boundaries according to the number of divine beings, while Psalm 103 refers to divine agents who carry out God's commands.

Passages

Deuteronomy 32:8

Hebrew Bible
7 Remember the ancient days; bear in mind the years of past generations. Ask your father and he will inform you, your elders, and they will tell you. 8 When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided up humankind, he set the boundaries of the peoples, according to the number of the heavenly assembly. 9 For the Lord’s allotment is his people, Jacob is his special possession.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Deuteronomy

Psalm 103:20

Hebrew Bible
19 The Lord has established his throne in heaven; his kingdom extends over everything. 20 Praise the Lord, you angels of his, you powerful warriors who carry out his decrees and obey his orders. 21 Praise the Lord, all you warriors of his, you servants of his who carry out his desires. 22 Praise the Lord, all that he has made, in all the regions of his kingdom. Praise the Lord, O my soul.
600–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Psalms

References

"... As king, God is represented as the supreme power in the cosmos, surrounded by a divine council of heavenly attendants and ministers, a heavenly parallel of the court setting in the Israelite monarchy (Deuteronomy 32:7–8; Psalm 82:1; 89:8–9; 103:20). Though in one stream of tradition God’s manifestation as king precluded a human counterpart (Judges 8:22–23; 1 Samuel 8), for the most part it gave divine legitimation to the rule of the Israelite monarch (Psalm 2; 89; 132). The laws which governed Israelite society were not considered human conventions, but divine decrees issued by the heavenly king. Thus, the revelation of the law is a crucial part of the theophanies of Yahweh as king (Exodus 19–24; Psalm 132; Isaiah 2:2–4). The announcement of the divine will is frequently conveyed to individuals in the form of visions or dreams, a phenomenon particularly frequent among the prophets (Jeremiah 24; Amos 7:1–9; 9:1–4; Zechariah 1–6) and later apocalyptic authors (Daniel 7–12) ..."
David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), 8867.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Deuteronomy 32:8 and Psalm 103:20

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