These passages push us into considerations of biblical intepretation and the nature of the Bible.

 

For the short passage from Genesis, we consider if the bible is a science textbook. We make a decisionabout creation from nothing or is it forming chaotic material?

Is the presence of light without the sun a scientific statment? Is it a theolgoical one, where light denotes the presence of God, apart from any physical issue? Is light a sign that god is making room for creation?

The orderliness of the Priestly material is evident quickly. it opposes chaos, see Is. new creation motif, esp. ch.

It is about making divisions, separations, distinctions.

Bara is the word used for creation. it reapears in Is.41, 65, and Ps.102.

Chaos here is tohu and bohu-formless and empty/void of purpose, meaning, production.

I read the deep as at least resonating with mythical views of the Babylonian creation story that this account fights. It is against the idea of the cosmos emerging from bloody conflict, but from planning.

At the beginning, God evaluates. God sees it as good.

 

Psalm 29 is considered to be ancient, an adaptation of a Canaanite hymn to Baal, a god of weather and fertility.

(see NIB, p. 792)

Its global reach goes to both heavenly beings and to all peoples. One is left to wonder if these are angels, lesser gods, heavenly forces, stars. It osunds like the divine council perhaps of Job or Ps. 89.

My sense of ascribe to to offer what someone is due.

Glory is a tough one too, I tend to use it as a sense of God's holy presence. It has a sense of gravitas, of weight.

Worship here has the sense of bowing before the throne.

Voice is sometimes thunder, another sign of God's presence as in Exodus 19.

I tend toward seeing the waters mythically, as a sign of chaos, anything that opposes God's order.

Amidst all of the storms of life, God remains stable.

This has a rare use of the word flood (mabbul).

The blessing is shalom=peace, well=being, health, harmony.It has a creation/environment push for all of the world, not just the good, not just human beings, but creation.

The reflection question at 793 of the NIB is a good one on seeing creation material reminding us of our limits to power, especially technology or even fully understanding the intricacies of nature.

 

Mays is quoted from 138 of his Psalms Commentary. The linkage to baptism is appopriate. "Christology is not adequate unless is setting in somology is maintained. Teh OT doxology is necessary to the gospel." In other words, the incarnation and work of Jeuss becomes the incarnation of God's glory, work, and goals.