Falling Into the Mountain and Praising God from Far Away (Psalm 138)

Speed leaving without warning
I need someplace to sleep tonight
blowing in the rocking of the pine.

So sings Black Francis – the pseudonymous leader of the post-punk The Pixies – in the song “Bird Dream of the Olympus Mons.” He described the song as a being about a little bird who went to sleep and dreamt that he had travelled to the Olympus Mons of the rusty red planet Mars. (Obviously, this is not your typical Sex-Drugs-and-Rock-and-Roll kind of song.)

Speed leaving without warning
the sunlight is going
into the mountain
I will crawl
into the mountain.

Sun shines in the rusty morning
Skyline of the Olympus Mons
I think about it, sometimes.

Why does this little bird dream of the Olympus Mons of Mars? Well, wouldn’t you? The volcanic Olympus Mons (Latin for “Mount Olympus) is the largest, tallest mountain in the solar system – three times taller than measly ol’ Mount Everest.

Sun shines in the rusty morning
Once I had a good fly
into the mountain
I will fall
into the mountain
I will fall  (1)

Once I had a good fly. I think about it sometimes. This place I’ve not yet been, this place I’ve always known. What is this homesick longing for a place I know, but haven’t seen? How do I describe it to you?

Mountains are frequently used in the bible (and in cultures all around the world) symbolic home of the gods – Mount Olympus being the home of the Greek gods. In these lofty and rarified locals we come in contact with the supernatural. The mountain is a symbol of all that is transcendent - a symbol of all those things that exceed our experience and the limits of our understanding, a symbol of the unknowable. (Is it any wonder that the little bird dreams of the Olympus Mons? What better symbol of the transcendent unknowable approachable only in dreams?)

In the bible we find God high and mighty on his mountain, THE mountain at the edge of the world. There’s even a sense in scripture that the Garden of Eden was located on this mountain. To climb the mountain is to reach towards God, to return home.

King David seems to have experienced this kind of longing. In Psalm 138 we find the king far from home – perhaps he’s on a military expedition of some kind. He is surrounded by a foreign culture, by pagan kings and by their plethora of gods and goddesses. He is dislocated in place and time. He is troubled. He is lonely.

And here in this strange and uncomfortable place surrounded by danger and trouble the little bird King David sings a psalm of praise:

I will praise you, O Yahweh, with all my heart;
before the gods I will sing your praise.
I will bow down toward your holy temple
and will praise your name for your love and faithfulness
for you have exalted above all things
your name and your word.
When I called, you answered me;
you made me bold and stout hearted.

If the author is, indeed, King David (and there is scholarly debate about it) then this “holy temple” toward which he is bowing would be the tent that he established in Jerusalem for the Ark of the Covenant. Several of the psalms attributed to King David refer to this “temple.”

Unlike the later, permanent temple built by David’s son, King Solomon, this tent that housed the Ark of the Covenant was approachable. When David became King of Israel, he brought the Ark to Jerusalem and set it up in a tent that he had specially prepared for it. One might have expected David to establish the Ark in the Tabernacle of Moses which had been set up in Gibeon, but he didn’t. Instead, he brought it to Jerusalem and he instituted worship before the Ark. He provided for singers and musicians to praise the Lord continually in the tent. And what is especially striking is that there was no veil in this tent; so the praise, worship, and intercession continued before the Ark — in other words, directly before the Throne of God. The people who came to the tent to worship could actually approach the throne of God without barrier.

King David –far from home, encircled by enemies and surrounded by idols and shrines to pagan gods – bows down toward home, toward Mount Zion and the Ark of the Covenant. He orients his entire body towards the place where he knows that he can come into direct contact with God, and he praises that God with “all his heart.”

King David knows that even though God is Transcendent – that God is above and beyond anything he could ever know or hope to know – he knows that God is also Immanent; he knows that God is close and that God is near. He knows that God is here and now. And this gives him strength. This emboldens the troubled king to confidence.

God is Transcendent – He is far removed like the snowy peaks of the Olympus Mons – and at the same time God is Immanent – close and near and approachable, like the ark in the tent David established in the city of Jerusalem.

Though Yahweh is on high, he looks upon the lowly
but the proud he knows from afar.
When I march amid my adversaries
you will keep me alive before the fury of my foes.
Stretch forth your left hand
and give me victory with your right hand.
Yahweh will fulfill his special purpose for me;
your love, O Yahweh, endures forever –
do not abandon the work of your hands.

Even far from home David knows that God is near to protect and to defend him – this would have been an unusual kind of faith in the ancient near east, when gods and goddesses were presumed to be mere local entities. Stronger gods might have a larger sphere of influence, of course, but the gods stayed home. They had their city or their country and that was it. If you left their area, you left their protection and blessing. Yet David is confident, even far from home, even surrounded by powerful enemies and the symbols of their gods, that Yahweh will hear him, will answer him, will protect and defend him.

“Distance of place cannot hinder God to show mercy to his, and so judge the wicked though they think that he is far off.” (2)

Those lofty and arrogant kings who thought they could crush David, those who thought they could overwhelm the servant of Yahweh because he was far from home would be brought low by the hand of God. But this isn’t a cause for celebration for David. Instead he wishes that they would come to recognize for themselves the goodness as well as the power of Yahweh.

May all the kings of the earth praise you, O Yahweh,
when they hear the words of your mouth.
May they sing of the ways of Yahweh
for the glory of Yahweh is great.

David wishes that these enemies that surround him and oppose him would come to worship God with him, that they would join him in his praise of Yahweh. He prays that they will discover for themselves this God who is both Transcendent and Immanent, this God who is powerful and merciful, this God who is on high, but who takes notices of the lowly.

Sun shines in the rusty morning
once I had a good fly
into the mountain
I will fall
into the mountain
I will fall.

And having fallen down into that mountain, I will, with King David, praise the God who lives there.






(1)“Bird Dream of the Olympus Mons” by The Pixies, Words and Music by Black Francis (Charles Thompson), from the 1991 album Trompe Le Monde, Elektra Records


(2)from the Geneva Bible Notes