Psalm 65

Israel farmed without a river. Egypt had the Nile flood and Mesopotamia had canal irrigation, but Canaan drank rain out of the sky, which is exactly how the Law describes the difference. Two rains mattered: the early rain in autumn that softened ground baked to concrete so a plough could enter it, and the latter rain in spring that filled out the grain. Miss either one and the year was lost.

The ploughing lines are technical. A wooden ard pulled by a pair of oxen scratched shallow furrows and threw up ridges between them; heavy rain knocked the ridges down into the furrows and settled the whole field level. The psalm watches God do the second half of the farmer's job.

The year the psalm celebrates ran on a fixed calendar. Barley came in first in spring, then wheat about seven weeks later, and Israel's two spring feasts sat on exactly those dates — the sheaf of firstfruits, then the Feast of Weeks. The vows the psalm says will be paid were paid at those gatherings, with a shared meal in the courts.

One line reaches past the farm: the God who stills the roaring of the seas also stills the tumult of the peoples. Israel's neighbours told long stories about a storm god who had to fight the sea for his throne. This psalm has no fight in it. He quiets the sea the way a man quiets a room.