The opening verses of Psalm 5 are a prayer by David, pleading with God to thwart the evil plans of his enemies and to defeat them. The two verses, which conclude Psalm 5, are the end of this prayer. Here, David envisions the rejoicing that comes to one who is protected by God as he witnesses the downfall of the wicked.
Loving God’s name?
The final phrase of the first of these two verses states:
let those who love Your name exult in You
There are many verses in the Bible that mention love of God. Deuteronomy 6 famously commands:
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your resources.
But what is the difference between loving God and loving His name? Why doesn’t our verse simply say, “those who love You will exult in You”?
What’s in a name?
In my first book, Cup of Salvation, I explained the significance of praising God’s name, apart from praising God Himself.
Think about what a name is. If you lived alone on a desert island you would have no need for a name. In fact, you wouldn’t really have a name at all. I mean, you’d have a name but only in theory. It would never get used. A name is a means by which we are known and addressed by others. To have a name means that someone is interacting with me and recognizes me. More specifically, it means that my identity – what makes me who I am and what defines – me is known. This is what makes a name different from an attribute.
An attribute is one aspect of who I am. For example, my kids call me Dad. Lots of people are called Dad. Dad is not a unique name to me. Moreover, it is only one aspect of my identity. Dad is not who I am to my wife or to my students. The title Dad refers to one attribute of my total self. My name is a different story. My name is who I am. My name encompasses the fullness of my persona. Pesach Wolicki is my name. Pesach Wolicki is a Dad, a husband, a Rabbi, an excellent scrambled egg maker (according to my kids), etc. Dad and Rabbi are attributes; Pesach Wolicki, on the other hand, is not an attribute; it’s my name. It is the fullness of my self.
To sum up, a name means two things:
1. It means that others see me and are interacting with me. (Think of the desert island).
2. It means that the fullness of who I am is perceived and not merely a single attribute.
Now we can understand the difference between praising God and praising His Name. When I praise God I am praising the creator and ruler of heaven and earth – whether I see Him or not. When I praise God’s Name I take it a step further. I am saying, in effect,
1. God is perceptible, I see Him in the world and in my life. I am interacting with Him.
2. All of His attributes are One. I am praising the totality of who God is. All of the different aspects of His creation, of life, and of the complicated reality around me are One. They are all contained within Him. They are all parts of the same ultimate Will, plan, and purpose. They are all expressions of the same Living God.
Loving the revelation of God
Let’s apply this idea to the phrase, “those who love Your name.” To love God means that I love God, plain and simple. God is the creator and ruler of heaven and earth. He is the essence of pure truth and good. All this is true whether or not He is revealed and perceptible. To say that I love His name means that I love the revealed presence of God in the world. I yearn for God to be visible and perceptible; it is my highest aspiration.
Our verse is one of only 3 verses in the Bible that refer to love of God’s name. The other two are:
And foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant; these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. – Isaiah 56:6-7
for God will save Zion and rebuild the cities of Judah. Then people will settle there and possess it; the children of his servants will inherit it, and those who love his name will dwell there. – Psalm 69:36-37
The relationship between these two passages is easy to see. The subject of both is the end-times restoration of Zion and the Temple in Jerusalem. Based on what I wrote regarding the difference between loving God and loving His name, this makes sense. The fullest revelation of God is, of course, the ultimate redemption. That is when He will be most visible in our world. In our terms, that is when His name will be seen most clearly.
In Psalm 5, David prays to God to defeat his wicked enemies. But David is not concerned only about being personally saved from the danger of attack by these adversaries. He is not pleading to God to defeat his enemies only as a way to remove him from danger. David looks forward to the revelation of God that will result from this victory.
There is a powerful lesson for all of us. For most people, when we pray to God to save us by defeating the wicked, our sole concern is our own well-being. But David points us to the higher aspiration in our struggles with our enemies. In their defeat, God’s name, His presence in the world, is revealed.
We must become lovers of God’s name. We must yearn for revelation of God in the world so that all will see Him clearly. To love God’s name means that we pursue this vision instinctively and passionately.
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