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Psalms

About this book
Psalm 33

1 You godly ones, shout for joy because of the Lord! It is appropriate for the morally upright to offer him praise. 2 Give thanks to the Lord with the harp. Sing to him to the accompaniment of a ten-stringed instrument. 3 Sing to him a new song. Play skillfully as you shout out your praises to him. 4 For the Lord’s decrees are just, and everything he does is fair. 5 He promotes equity and justice; the Lord’s faithfulness extends throughout the earth. 6 By the Lord’s decree the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all the starry hosts.⁠ 7 He piles up the water of the sea; he puts the oceans in storehouses.⁠ 8 Let the whole earth fear the Lord. Let all who live in the world stand in awe of him. 9 For he spoke, and it came into existence. He issued the decree, and it stood firm.⁠ 10 The Lord frustrates the decisions of the nations; he nullifies the plans of the peoples. 11 The Lord’s decisions stand forever; his plans abide throughout the ages. 12 How blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen to be his special possession. 13 The Lord watches from heaven; he sees all people.⁠ 14 From the place where he lives he looks carefully at all the earth’s inhabitants. 15 He is the one who forms every human heart, and takes note of all their actions. 16 No king is delivered by his vast army; a warrior is not saved by his great might. 17 A horse disappoints those who trust in it for victory; despite its great strength, it cannot deliver. 18 Look, the Lord takes notice of his loyal followers, those who wait for him to demonstrate his faithfulness 19 by saving their lives from death and sustaining them during times of famine. 20 We wait for the Lord; he is our deliverer and shield. 21 For our hearts rejoice in him, for we trust in his holy name. 22 May we experience your faithfulness, O Lord, for we wait for you.

Texts in conversation

Compare Psalm 33:6 and Jeremiah 10:12

Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Jeremiah 10 and Psalm 33 both describe creation as shaped by divine wisdom or word, a theme that later Jewish traditions developed into the idea of God's wisdom or word as a distinct agent that participated in creation.

Passages

Psalm 33:6

Hebrew Bible
4 For the Lord’s decrees are just, and everything he does is fair. 5 He promotes equity and justice; the Lord’s faithfulness extends throughout the earth. 6 By the Lord’s decree the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all the starry hosts. 7 He piles up the water of the sea; he puts the oceans in storehouses. 8 Let the whole earth fear the Lord. Let all who live in the world stand in awe of him.
600–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Psalms

Jeremiah 10:12

Hebrew Bible
11 You people of Israel should tell those nations this: ‘These gods did not make heaven and earth. They will disappear from the earth and from under the heavens.’ 12 The Lord is the one who by his power made the earth. He is the one who by his wisdom established the world. And by his understanding, he spread out the skies. 13 When his voice thunders, the heavenly ocean roars. He makes the clouds rise from the far-off horizons. He makes the lightning flash out in the midst of the rain. He unleashes the wind from the places where he stores it.
500–401 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Jeremiah

References

"... Although no Jerusalem Targum to Genesis 1:26 is extant, the Jerusalem Targum to Genesis 1:27 casts light upon the preceding verse. Accordingly, the act of creating human beings was attributed to the Word of the LORD (מימרא דײ), while human beings were created in the likeness (דמות) of the Word of the LORD, namely, in the “likeness from before the LORD”. Such an interpretation articulated that the LORD used his Word as the instrument mediating between the intangible and the tangible, while creating the world and while acting in the created realm. This approach coincided with the Philonic concept of λόγος and it could be traced back to the biblical literature (e.g. Jeremiah 10:12; Psalm 33:6; Proverbs 3:19, chapter 8 or Job 28) which recorded the idea of God’s Wisdom (חכמה, σοφία) or God’s Word prominent in Hellenistic Judaism ..."
Matthew Oseka, “History of the Jewish Interpretation of Genesis 1:26, 3:5, 3:22 in the Middle Ages,” Scriptura 117 (2018): 1–24.

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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Psalm 33:6 and Jeremiah 10:12

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