① 1The Lord reigns and the nations tremble. He is enthroned upon the cherubim; the earth gets distraught.
2Great is the Lord in Zion; he is high over all the nations.
3May they give glory to your name, great and terrible: “Holy is he: 4this is the mighty King who loves justice.”
For you come to install fairness, to establish in Jacob right and justice.
5Extol the Lord, our God; worship at his footstool. Holy is he! And mighty!
6Among his priests were Moses and Aaron, and Samuel among those who called on his name. They called to the Lord, and he answered them.
7In the pillar of cloud he spoke to them, and they kept his statutes and the decrees he gave them.
8O Lord our God, you responded to them; you were a patient God for them, but you punished their wrongs.
9Extol the Lord our God; worship at his holy mountain. Holy is the Lord our God!
- Yes, he is holy! This exclamation will appear three times in the psalm. Let us take the vision of Isaiah if we want to find the meaning of the word “holy.” It signifies, according to some, that God is totally different, removed from what is not “of him”: he is the “totally other.” That is true. It might be necessary to add here what the word “high tension” means for us: a mysterious power which upsets all our mechanisms, magnetizing all its surroundings, drawing sparks from bodies thought to be inert, striking down whoever approaches it (2 S 6:7).
This sovereign holiness has a beauty which leaves us speechless with a love that dispels our resistance and oppressive heaviness. It will not prevent God from giving himself totally to us in definitive marriage. The true fear of God, the fascination that his mystery has on us (we shall live it for eternity) has nothing to do with fear or defiance. The formidable aspect of death – necessary for returning to God – helps us to gauge what separates us from him.
