Psalm 93: God And The World, Between Chaos And Order
The eternity of cause and effect
There is a curious parallel within Psalm 93, between stability and chaos.
We read the same verb “kōn”, to be stable or established, used to describe both the world (93:1) and God’s throne (93:2). The word does a double duty, attesting to their longevity and their current characteristic of being firm.
And then we come to the rivers, seas, and oceans. By definition, they lack stability. They are constantly in motion, and unlike the terra firma, if you try to walk on it, you will most likely sink. (Unless it’s frozen, and then you may slip and fall.)
One way to read 93:3-4 is as a polemic against the pantheon of the gods of the seas, like Yam (the Canaanite god of the sea) and Poseidon (the Greek king of the sea gods), that God is greater than them.
If we were to do that, we would examine Jonah 1:5, and see that each of the sailors had their own god. And Jonah 1:9 where he explains that God created both the sea and the land. And we would question why Jonah thought he could flee God by going to sea.
While it’s a very valid and interesting way to study this psalm, it’s not the way I’m choosing to read it today. Instead, I’m reminded of Albert Einstein’s view of randomness in nature. According to him,“God tirelessly plays dice under laws which he has himself prescribed.”
If you have all the data, like the gravitational effect of the moon on the tides and the mating habits of the sea gulls, you could potentially understand why every molecule of the vast ocean is acting the way it is. That’s at least the conclusion that Edward Lorenz arrived at in “The Essence of Chaos.”
It was also how Jonah understood the waters; he was the butterfly flapping its wings and disrupting the sea. The storm didn’t cease from prayer, the waters became calm because of another action.
The waters seem chaotic by nature, but indeed, it is an example of causality. Just like the testaments to the eternity of God’s existence in 93:2 and 93:5, understanding that current thunder is both the effect of the past and a cause of something in the future, another example of eternity.
With that in mind, a reading of this psalm could be that God is god of both the stable and the seemingly chaotic, because both contain the essence of order. It’s probably not what the original psalmist thought or intended with this psalm, but it’s a reinterpretation based on how we currently understand how the world operates.