At the risk of sounding a bit too much like an English teacher, take a quick skim through Psalm 104 and notice the narrative mode or, specifically, the grammatical person. The way to do this is to look at the action verbs and discern who or what is receiving the action. Is the verb describing the action of the speaker? Or some other person? Or … you? The poet of Psalm 104 keeps us busy.
Lyric poets do not often do this. The lyric poet is often the selfish sort of bloke only concerned about their own feelings. An experience strikes their feelings in some way, and off they go writing floridly about their florid feelings. The feelings are seldom meant for others. Of course, as Steven Johnson says, “better to have minds actively composing the soap opera of their own lives than zoning out in front of someone else’s” (Everything Bad is Good for You, 120). Well, perhaps. In William Wordsworth’s, “The Solitary Reaper,” he is completely lost in his own feelings regarding the “yon solitary lass.” Sure, he invites us to help him determine what “plaintive” melody she is singing but, mostly, he is in his own world.
In the lyric poetry that we find in the Bible, the poet will very often shift around the perspective of his intended listener. This is critical. Is there a difference between the exclamation, I flipped over the drink, and that person over there flipped over my drink, and, Hey, you flipped over my drink? Of course there’s a difference, the difference between a lovely meal with contented kids and a maelstrom of science fiction proportions.
The first verse of Psalm 104 begins with the poet speaking to his audience, if one can call one’s own soul an audience. He says, “Bless the Lord, O my soul.” This is odd, but we will return to it later since the same expression appears in the last verse as well. But notice that in the second line the poet stops speaking to his soul and begins speaking directly to God: “O Lord, you are very great,” and again, “you are clothed with splendor.”
And almost immediately, in verse 3 the poet speaks to someone else, a nondescript audience, by beginning with, “He lays the beams of his chambers on the waters.” In this stop-motion pause between verse 2 and verse 3, the poet was originally looking at God and now turns to look towards an audience as he describes what his gaze of God should teach us all. As we have seen before, the poet is pleased for his relationship with God to be observed by others, and pleased to teach others. This is the role of an agent, representing his client before the potential boss, while also instructing his client in how to act before the potential boss.
The poet begins by speaking to his soul (1a). Then the poet is enwrapped in face-to-face worship (1b-2). Then the poet turns to invite the audience to contemplate the reasons for his reverie (3-5). And then, as if we didn’t see it coming, in verse 6, the poet once again turns his gaze upward to speak with God directly in the phrase that begins with “you covered it with the deep” and ends with “you cause the grass to grow.” He does this for a whole ten verses (6-15).
Contemplate, for a moment, this back-and-forth cycle. Yes, we have seen this already in the Psalms. The poet’s role is like that of an intercessor or a contract negotiator or an agent. He is representing his audience in his own worship, and he is also instructing his audience by providing a proper rationale for worship. He is instructing in 1a, representing in 1b-2, instructing in 3-5, representing in 6-15, instructing again in 16-19, and representing again in 20-30. How will this end? Where will the cycle finish its path: looking upward, or looking to the audience?
There is well-timed instruction for the audience beginning in verse 31: “May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works, who looks on the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountain and they smoke.” This instruction section (31-35) brings us to the end. It also includes the poet’s own personal example. In this instructional section, verse 33, the poet surprises his audience using the first person (more grammar): “I will sing to the Lord as long as I live.” Again, in verse 34, he says “may my meditation be pleasing to him.” His grand instruction to his audience is both commanding and vulnerable. He offers himself as an example. He pleads with them: this is what I do, you do it, too! And because poets do this sort of thing, his outburst of command is directed not merely to his audience, but directed even to his own soul.
And so, reader, for your own sake, the poetic agent or intercessor or contract negotiator commands you (“praise the Lord”) even as he commands his own soul (“bless the Lord”).
