Psalm 66:1-3, 4-5, 6-7, 16+20 (1)

“Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for my soul.” (Psalm 66:16)

Psalm 66 has two halves and two voices. The first, from which three of the four stanzas here are taken, is communal and addressed outward: all the earth is told to shout, to sing, and to come and see what God has done. What it is invited to look at is old rather than recent, for v. 6 recalls the crossing, “He turned the sea into dry land; they passed through the river on foot”, compressing the Red Sea and the Jordan into one saving act and placing the present congregation inside it, since “there did we rejoice in him”. Verse 7, with its warning to the rebellious, keeps the universal invitation from sliding into flattery. The antiphon is taken from the opening line, and the two closing verses shift into the singular, so that a psalm begun as a summons to the nations ends as personal testimony offered in the hearing of the assembly.

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