The Rising ‭תורהנ‬ of Psalm 93: Chaotic Order

1. Introduction

The rising תךךהנ (‘depths’) in Psalm 93 have signaled to many interpreters a Chaoskampf. ¹ They represent, in this view, the power of a sea god in opposition to Yahweh. The contention of this study is that the depths are expressive of the power of Yahweh rather than that of an opposing deity. The sea god is Yahweh. There are verbal, stylistic, and ideological links in Psalm 93 to characteristics of Ugaritic literature in general and to the Baal and Yamm myth in particular: (1) the absence of the definite article, (2) tricolon climactic parallelism, ² (3) the relation of Yahweh (or Baal) to םי (‘sea’—Prince Yamm [zbl ym]) and to the תוךהנ (‘depths’—Judge Nahar [tpṭ nhr]), ³ and (4) the context of divine rule. The presence of these features does not necessarily constitute, however, the depiction of a Chaoskampf in Psalm 93.

This study first analyzes the arguments for viewing Yahweh engaged in that type of battle in Psalm 93 and finds them insufficient to establish that thesis. Next, evidence is brought forward to explain the rising תוךהנ, and the roaring waves that result from them, in an attributive rather than a conflictual way. This evidence suggests that the psalmist portrays Yahweh with characteristics of an ancient Near Eastern sea god: the very chaos that Yahweh opposes, with or without a struggle, in other Old Testament creation discourses. ⁴

2. The Basis for the Chaoskampf Thesis

Proponents of the Chaoskampf thesis have argued that the clauses שבלחו אג (‘he is robed in majesty’) and רואתהוע (‘he is girded with strength’) in v. 1ab portray the clothing of Yahweh as that of a warrior. Jörg Jeremias has claimed that the הואג, ןואג, תואג word field shows that תואג (‘majesty’) in Ps. 93.1 refers to God's preparation for battle. ⁵ This evidence is not overwhelming and so should not trump contextual clues as to the meaning of תואג in Ps. 93.1a. Depending on the reading one chooses for Deut. 33.26, ten or eleven times the terms in this word field express an attribute of Yahweh. Five times they are connected to a battle; five times they are not. ⁶

Some view רואתה וע TD (‘he is girded with strength’, v. 1b) as a preparation for battle. ⁷ The term רוא need not mean readying for a struggle, however, but may convey the state of the one girded, as in ‘girded me with joy’ in Ps. 30.12, where girding is not preparatory to any endeavor. In Ps. 93.1b רוא is also used with a quality (זע, ‘power’). In Psalm 93 this quality is established rather than exercised. Thus, the state of Yahweh is stressed in v. 1ab in a chiastic manner. The middle two of the four clauses in v. 1ab each use the term שבל (‘to clothe’)—the latter use left unspecified and so picking up from the former one that immediately precedes it hues of the תואג in which Yahweh is clothed—to treat majesty as the effect of power. The irst and fourth clauses are about the power itself: ךלמהוהי and רזאתה זע. The words ךלמהוהי have been shown to express a durative rather than an ingressive meaning. ⁸ This suggests that the corresponding רזאתה זע in the fourth clause (v. 1b) is also indicative of a state of authority rather than of any preparation for its contestation.

Contextual factors weaken the thesis of a Chaoskampf. There is no sense of a divine struggle in other ךלמהוהי (or םיהלא ךלמ) psalms ⁹ or in Psalm 93 itself. Rather, there is a tone of Yahweh as an uncontested sovereign in these psalms, one that resonates with the presentation of Yahweh in Psalm 93. It has not been explained by proponents of the thesis of a primeval struggle why a preparation for battle (v. 1ab) would be followed by three assertions that the world and God's throne are established, without making reference to any struggle in the interval (vv. 1c-2a). The term ףא (‘firmly’) at the beginning of v. 1c further solidifies this stability. God is not even spoken about as doing the establishing; the world and divine throne are simply presented as established. ¹⁰ The stress on being rather than on activity continues in v. 2b: ‘from eternity you are’. This de-emphasis on divine activity in vv. 1c-2b makes it unlikely that the clothing of Yahweh is a preparation for battle. ¹¹

Although features in vv. 1–3 appear unable to substantiate the thesis of a Chaoskampf in Psalm 93, many have attempted to find the idea of a struggle in an enclitic mem or a misplaced comparative min in v. 4b. An enclitic mem would allow v. 4b to be part of an extended construct chain, beginning in v. 4a, that is compared to Yahweh in v. 4c: םיבדםימתולקמהוהיםורםברידאםי־ירבשמם־רירא (‘[mightier] than the thunder of many waters, mighty breakers of the sea, mighty in the heights is Yahweh’). ¹² The first difficulty with this view is that it breaks up the parallelism between v. 4bc. Each of these three-word clauses has an ריךא (‘mighty’) word for its first word, a second word signifying height, and a third word designating the principal actors in this psalm: םי and Yahweh. The height imagery is contained in םורמב (‘in the heights’) in v. 4c and ירבשמ (‘breakers’) in v. 4b, which implies the crests of waves that break. That this implication of height is present in ירבשמ is clear from v. 3 c where even the crushings (םיבך) that result when breakers strike are said to lift up (ואשי), although they are past their apex. This parallelism suggests that ‘mighty in the heights is Yahweh’ (v. 4c) is complemented by ‘mighty are the breakers of the sea’ (v. 4b). ¹³ Rendering v. 4b as ‘mighty breakers of the sea’ (an extended construct chain) breaks this parallelism by making ‘mighty’ an attributive adjective rather than a predicate adjective, as is the case with this same term in v. 4c: ‘mighty breakers of the sea; / mighty in the heights is Yahweh’.

Also arguing against an enclitic mem are the implications of two sets of parallel patterns in vv. 3, 4bc:

Psalm 93.4a reads, םיבר םימ תולקמ (‘louder than the thunder of many waters’). It has none of the clear formal parallelism exhibited either by v. 3 or by v. 4bc. Yet the presence of a comparative min prefixed to תולק (‘thunders’) shows that v. 4a must invade one of these two patterns because it needs an object to which it is compared. The term תולקמ links v. 4a to the לוק of v. 3b, a fact the LXX recognized as shown by its lack of v. 3c: ἐπῆραν oἱ πoταμoὶ ϕωνὰς αὐτῶν ἀπὸ ϕωνῶν ὑδάτων πoλλῶν (‘the rivers have lifted up their thunder / from the thunder of many waters’, vv. 3b, 4a). ¹⁴ Further linking the תולקמ of v. 4a to the לוק of v. 3b is an alternating pattern in vv. 3b-4b that develops both the thunder (תולקט, לוק vv. 3b, 4a) of the חורהנ (vv. 3b, 4a) and the surf (םיבך םי־ירבשמ vv. 3c, 4b) that causes it. The םיבך (‘crushings’, v. 3c) convey the tremendous size of the surf in order to explain the thunder (v. 3b). Because םיבך is an image of the effects of waves rather than a noun denoting the waves themselves, there is still, after v. 3, ambiguity both on the thunder and on the crushings that cause it. This uncertainty is resolved successively in v. 4ab: the thunder of the חורהנ (v. 3b) is louder than the thunder of many waters (v. 4a), and the crushings (v. 3c) are the results of ‘breakers of the sea’ (םי־ירבשמ v. 4b).

This perspective is conveyed by the חורהנ of v. 3b and the םיכר םימ (‘many waters’) of v. 4a working together to express different aspects of the sea. The origins of the giant waves that cause such a din are the חורהנ. These are the subterranean depths of the sea. This is suggested by the following considerations. Verses 1c-2 contain three statements of fixity, including two about the secure establishment of the world. These are followed by three statements of flux when the חורהנ rise (v. 3). The fixity of vv. 1c-2 is the antithesis of the flux of v. 3 and suggests a connection between them. This relation is best described as the חורהנ being the subterranean depths upon which the earth was established, as in Ps. 24.2, which says that the earth was established (ןוכ) upon the חורהנ. The idea of Pss 24.2; 93.1c-3 and 136.6 is that the earth is established upon chaotic waters. In Ps. 93.3 the חורהנ are the depths of the sea (חולוצמ), an association that Jon. 2.4ab supports: 'You cast me into the deep (חלוצמ), into the heart of the seas, and the חורהנ were round about me'.

The חורהנ are the subterranean depths, and the surging of this huge volume of water causes thunder and crushings (v. 3bc). In Psalm 93 the חורהנ represent the chaotic potential of the םיכר םימ (‘many waters’) of v. 4a, to which they are compared. ¹⁵ The thunder made by the depths (v. 3b) surpasses the thunder ordinarily heard from the sea (v. 4a). The ‘crushings’ of v. 3c and the ‘breakers of the sea’ (v. 4b) are what happen when the subterranean depths have been roused.

Because v. 4a is the termination of a comparison to v. 3b, an extended construct chain in v. 4b would lead to the following translation of vv. 3b-4c: ‘The depths have lifted up their thunder — the depths have lifted up their crushings—louder than the thunder of many waters, mighty breakers of the sea. Yahweh on high is mighty.’ This view renders no comparison of Yahweh to the waters, radically separating the two parallel cola in v. 4bc. This parallelism makes dubious the reading of an enclitic mem and an extended construct chain in v. 4b.

The second way of suggesting a conflict between Yahweh and the waters is by viewing the final mem in םירידא (‘mighty’) in v. 4b as originally being a comparative min prefixed to the following םי־ירכשמ (‘breakers of the sea’). ¹⁶ This would give the reading, ‘Mightier than the breakers of the sea, Yahweh is mighty in the heights’ (v. 4bc). The strength of this view is its relative simplicity. Its first weakness is the fact that there are no examples of this reading with the exception of the interpretive Targum of Psalms, which itself does not place the waves in opposition to Yahweh. ¹⁷ It is improbable that some manuscripts would not have preserved a purported reading that has the appeal of elevating Yahweh over the chaos. Moreover, both the thesis of a comparative min in v. 4b and that of an enclitic mem in this verse provide a literary allusion that is short of measuring up to the Chaoskampf proposal. Given the four references to the secure establishment of the world (v. 1c—twice), the throne of God (v. 2a), and the testimonies of God (v. 5a), it appears awkward to move from security (vv. 1c-2a) to a proposed rebellion (vv. 3–4) and back to security (v. 5) without any mention of either the rebellion itself or its quelling. At best, if either a misplaced min or an enclitic mem in v. 4b is accepted, there is a reference to Yahweh being more powerful than chaotic waters but no hint of Yahweh wielding this strength. ¹⁸

The allusion in Psalm 93 to the Ugaritic Baal and Yamm myth does not translate into a portrayal of Yahweh involved in a Chaoskampf. Another reason must be sought for the rising and roaring חורהנ of v. 3. The following section advances a proposal to explain this feature without recourse to postulating either an action not indicated in Psalm 93 or readings without contextual likelihood, and, in the theory of the misplaced comparative min, without significant textual support and scribal probability. An opportunity to explain the treatment of the חורהנ comes from the figurative connections that the psalmist establishes between the waters and Yahweh.

3. The חורהנ of Yahweh

The thesis to be advanced here is that the chaotic depths represented in Psalm 93 by the חורהנ are the paradoxical sign of the power of Yahweh that stabilizes the world. Psalm 93 does not depict Yahweh as antagonistic to the power of the tempestuous waters. Rather, the power of the chaotic waters is itself part of, and a sign of, Yahweh's power. ¹⁹ The connections between v. 1ab and v. 4bc support this thesis.

We have seen how Yahweh and the ‘crushings’ (v. 3 c) of the ‘breakers of the sea’ (v. 4b) caused by the rising חורהנ are paralleled in v. 4bc. This parallelism is supported and clarified by links between v. 4bc and v. 1ab. The וצ (‘strength’) of Yahweh (v. 1b) is reflected in the twofold use of ריךא (‘mighty’) words in reference both to the sea and to Yahweh in v. 4bc. The תואג (‘majesty’ or ‘exaltation’) of Yahweh (v. 1a) parallels the height imagery of ‘breakers’ (ירכמ) and Yahweh being ‘in the heights’ (םורמכ) in v. 4bc. ²⁰ So both v. 4b and v. 4c connect to the וצ and תואג of Yahweh in v. 1ab. These connections draw in vv. 3–4a as well because the might (םירידד) and elevation (ירכמ) of the waves (v. 4b) are the results of the lifting up of the depths (v. 3) and are demonstrated in their thunder (v. 4a).

Psalm 93.1ab presents Yahweh as clothed with majesty and might. The fact that both Yahweh and the חורהנ in parallel expressions in v. 4bc, have the same two qualities that in v. 1ab Yahweh is said to be clothed with suggests that Yahweh is clothed with the חורהנ Yahweh is clothed with the depths (חורהנ) of the sea whose surgings cause a powerful cacophony (vv. 3–4a). The use of the two ריךא terms, applied both to Yahweh and to the chaotic waters in v. 4bc, is a particularly apt way of alluding to how Yahweh is clothed in v. 1ab because חריךא often means robes. ²¹ It is used of a king's robe in Jon. 3.6. Such a reading makes sense of how Yahweh and the חורהנ could be paralleled in v. 4bc: something that traditional interpretations have been unable to do. Yahweh is robed in the חורהנ The majesty and power of God are symbolized by his kingly attire: monstrous, death-threatening surf.

The idea of God clothed with elements of nature is not one foreign to the Old Testament. In Job 38.34, a question that Yahweh asks of Job implies that ‘a flood of water’ covers Yahweh. ²² Psalm 104.1c states that Yahweh is 'clothed (צשכל) with honor and majesty'. The next colon explains this clothing: ‘You cover yourself with light as with a garment’ (v. 2a). The ‘deep’ is also depicted in Psalm 104 as a צצכל (‘garment’, v. 6a): an element of God's creation that God tailors rather than struggles against (vv. 6–9). In Pss 93.1, 4bc and 104.1c, 2a, references to God clothed with kingly characteristics precede references to this clothing comprising a part of the created world (water or light).

The similarities between, on the one hand, the throne visions in Isaiah 6 and Ezekiel 1, where praise for the uncontested divine power is found, and, on the other, Psalm 93 support this thesis. Both Isaiah 6 and Psalm 93 speak of God as being on high (םורמכ Ps. 93.4c; םר Isa. 6.1), and both call the temple God's תיכ (Ps. 93.5b; Isa. 6.4). Both depict the sovereignty of Yahweh by means of his clothes and his throne (Ps. 93.1–2a; Isa. 6.1, 3). Both link sovereignty to holiness (Ps. 93.5b; Isa. 6.3). Both treat a לוק apparently threatening to undermine foundations (Ps. 93.1c, 2a-4; Isa. 6.4). That the Isaian לוק that shakes the foundations of the temple is a seraphic one shows that in Psalm 93 the לוק of the חורהנ may also be a manifestation of the power of Yahweh. In Ezek. 1.22–28, the לוק of the ‘many waters’ is used to describe the glory of God, who is upon a throne ‘above the firmament’. ²³ The idea of the waters as expressive of God's glory in Ezekiel 1 mirrors the image of the chaotic waters as signifying God's majesty in Psalm 93.

What at first looks like opposition (vv. 3, 4a) to Yahweh's kingly (v. 1ab) act of establishing order (vv. 1c, 2) turns out to be the power by which Yahweh brings stability. ²⁴ Psalm 93 reinterprets the Chaoskampf myth by substituting for a struggle between Yahweh and the חורהנ parallel expressions of their power (v. 4bc). These expressions link in style and in content to v. 1ab to show that chaos is but the robe signifying the power of Yahweh's kingship. By so doing, Psalm 93 unifies the disruptive and the cohesive forces in life. Having securely established the world (v. 1c), and his power being so securely established (v. 2a) that even chaos erupting (vv. 3–4b) is but a manifestation of this power (v. 4c), Yahweh reigns in majesty and power (v. 1ab) without historical or cosmic interruption (v. 5).

In various Old Testament passages, the chaotic waters, its serpent, or the chaotic darkness are instruments of God for destruction or ultimately for salvation. ²⁵ The waves of the sea are at times described as God's waves (Jon. 2.4c; Pss 42.8c; 107.25); the watery chaos monster, Leviathan, is considered but a pet of Yahweh that frolics in the sea (Ps. 104.26; Job 40.29); and the sea serpent is an instrument of Yahweh (Amos 9.3). ²⁶ From these perspectives, it is a small step to considering chaos a sign and manifestation of the power of Yahweh. In Psalm 93 the psalmist took this step to proclaim paradoxically that this chaotic power ultimately grounds (v. 1c) rather than unmakes the world.

So chaos is not, in Psalm 93, simply used by Yahweh. Rather, as the garb of King Yahweh, chaos becomes a sign of the authority of Yahweh. When chaos is such a signifier, then Yahweh is shaded with hues of primal sea gods and the significance of the continued presence of the primal chaos is inverted from a force opposed to order to one ultimately at its service.

4. Conclusion

By alluding to the myth of Baal and Yamm, Psalm 93 portrays Yahweh with features of the God who conquers the chaotic waters. But by modifying this myth, Psalm 93 also depicts Yahweh with hues of sea gods. A number of ancient Near Eastern cultures claimed that water gods were the creator gods, as does Psalm 93. This is the case with Enki in the Eridu Sumerian tradition. ²⁷ In the Akkadian Enūuma eliš, Apsu and Tiamat are the primordial waters that beget all of the gods. ²⁸ In Egypt, Nun, the primeval waters, was sometimes conceived of as the primal god, as in the Book of the Dead. ²⁹ The mother goddess of the Ugaritic pantheon, the consort of El, is Athirat, who is sometimes called Lady Athirat of the Sea. ³⁰ By attributing to Yahweh characteristics of a number of ancient Near Eastern gods, Psalm 93 poetically integrated chaos and Yahwism and constructed a new frame of reference for terror. ³¹ The חורהנ rise and crash thunderously. But the power that threatens to disrupt order is actually a manifestation of the power that establishes order. A seamless world has been created. In the robe of Yahweh threat and lordship are interwoven. Stability is neither achieved by controlling the unabolished chaos, as in Genesis 1, nor wrestled from a primal chaos, as in the Chaoskämpfe. Stability is a larger reality that includes the chaos. The depths are the fountainheads of chaos, which may erupt through natural or historical forces. The power of chaos itself, however, belongs to God. In Psalm 93 Yahweh does not cause chaos. The implicit view is that all power comes from God, even though not all agents express this power in alignment with its divine origins and purposes. From this ultimate attribution comes the hope for eventual well-being. The gain from this conception is the mental reconciliation of the destructive and formative forces in life.