Psalm 67 Overview
Welcome to the Overview of Psalm 67
This page will introduce and provide orientation to Psalm 67 as a whole. It includes the following sections:
Introduction to Psalm 67
Author:
Purpose:
- To ask God to bring the nations to himself by blessing Israel.
Content:
- Bless us, God, so the nations will know you and all the nations (including Israel) will worship you.
Message:
- As God blesses us in ways like giving us a good harvest, the other nations will come to know him and worship him.
Psalm 67 At-a-Glance
These sections divide the content of the psalm into digestible pieces , and are determined based on information from many of our layers, including Semantics, Poetics, and Discourse. The columns, left to right, contain: the verse numbers; the main title of the section; a brief summary of the content of that section (quote marks indicate the text is taken directly from the English text of the psalm (as per our Close-but-Clear translation); and an icon to visually represent and remember the content.
Background Orientation for Psalm 67
Following are the common-ground assumptionsCommon-ground assumptions include information shared by the speaker and hearers. In our analysis, we mainly use this category for Biblical/Ancient Near Eastern background. which are the most helpful for making sense of the psalm.
- People everywhere experience that they cannot completely protect or provide for themselves (including making rain fall or crops grow); they are ultimately dependent on divine intervention.
- God promised Abraham that he would bless him and bless the families of the earth through him (Genesis 12:1-3); Abraham's descendants became the nation of Israel. Blessings covered many aspects of life (Deuteronomy 28), including the production of crops, which would provide food for people and their animals.
- Israel was commanded to bring their firstfruits of harvest to YHWH (Leviticus 23:9-14; Exodus 34:22). There they would encounter both the priests of YHWH, who would give his blessing (Numbers 6:22-27), and music (1 Chronicles 16 and 25).
- Israel was surrounded by nations that did not know YHWH, but they knew that others would be drawn to him when they heard about his care for Israel (e.g., Joshua 4:24; 1 Kings 8:41-43; 1 Kings 10; Psalm 102:16).
Participants in Psalm 67