I’m not a Hebrew scholar so anything you see me do with it ought to first be discounted and then questioned and questioned again. With that disclaimer I note the word “salvation” and an indication that its root can be read as either causative (to save) or passive (be saved). I am stimulated by the friction between two forms, energized by seeing elemental particles escaping from a collision of words, as well as atoms.

Presumably both forms point the action of salvation from G*D (causative) to us (passive). If you are intrigued by turning that model around, you may be interested in Nikos Kazantzakis’ Saviors of God: Spiritual Exercises and Bernstein's Kaddish: Symphony No. 3.

Does a reversal of salvation verbiage bother or energize you? Can Christmas or a “Second Coming” (as if this were not an every moment experience/possibility) be seen anew as “G*D with US” and that withness passing the gift of salvation back and forth?

If I were to write a second time on this passage I might take the translators of the New Revised Standard Version to task for leaving the word “song” out of verse 2. Other translations at least acknowledge a vision of G*D as “strength and song” while the NRSV only has it “strength and might”. This is a case where parallelism is helped by contrast rather than repetition.

If I were to write a third time I would wonder about verse 1 and its absence in the Revised Common Lectionary. It is the compassion, the comfort, that has gone before that sets up the rest of the joy. A case could be made for compassion-less joy being no joy at all. Without compassion, joy is only a lovely word covering forced jollity.

If you were to write about this passage, how would you come at it. There seems to be a variety of perspectives available for every Bible passage. This is why a literal reading is a good place to start, but isn’t a good place to end.