Ps 4:1

Ps. 4.1

Diag.

When I call  /  answer me  /  O God of my righteousness

When in distress  /  give me room

Be gracious  /  to me  /  and hear my prayer.

After reading Psalms 1-3 one is immediately aware of something different in this psalm. I only want to briefly mention here vs. 2, because it serves to highlight what is so unique about this opening. It is in vs. 2 that we see the refrain that has been occurring at the beginning verse of every other psalm. Here, vs. 2 asks the thrice repeated “How long…; How long…; How long…” Summarizing the previous psalms in this regard is as follows:

1)       Psalm 1: the blessed man was three times distinguished by the company he did not keep

2)       Psalm 2: those who were arraying themselves and preparing for war against the Lord and the anointed are three times described

3)       Psalm 3: David repeats his awful, “How many…; How many…; How many…”

Likewise we saw, in each Psalm, how this repetition creates a different atmosphere in each psalm, as follows:

1)       Psalm 1: the repeated emphasis perhaps pointed to the varied source of wisdom in contrast to the one source of Torah

2)       Psalm 2: the repetition alienated the reader from the arrogant nations in an act of superiority

3)       Psalm 3: the “how many…” felt like ever-tightening coils around David as he searched for an escape he couldn’t locate.

Also important to note is that, unlike Psalm 3, there is no historical placement.

We have here a very different beginning. The psalmist begins, so to speak, at a sprint. There is no orientation, there is no introduction, prologue and repetition that would allow the reader to, in some sense, gain his bearings. Rather, the prayer has been moved to the first verse and one feels then the frantic sense of urgency. David was in danger in Psalm 3, and, likewise, this person is in danger but it feels different. This is not the prayer of a king at war (just because it was written by David doesn’t mean it is about David; there are no royal images contained here). We will find out later that his life is not endangered but his reputation is. This is the prayer of a man who feels as if justice is not ‘working’, that somehow men are getting away with character assassination.

So what does this first verse convey? These are all directives issued at God. “Answer me...give me room…be gracious.” These directives then are ones of imploring God to ‘wake up’ or ‘take notice’. Time has, in a sense, slipped, or fallen off its tracks. When God is not operating like he should, these directives operate like an ignition. For this reason, the Psalmist does not feel a need to provide a back-story, or a sense of orientation. The most pressing concern is not the reader, but God and his apparent passivity in the face of injustice.

Even without reading vs. 2, we can have some idea of what aspect of God this Psalmist is attempting to arouse:

1)       God of my righteousness: this phrase “of my righteousness” could, seemingly, have been left out. However, we find here an indication of where in God’s heart this arrow is aimed. This character feels as if, in a court of law, he is not being given a fair trial. The judge and the attorneys are not mediating true justice/righteousness and the defendant, the character of the Psalm, is losing his case. “Righteousness” in this context is juridical. It represents the ‘declared state’ (guilty or innocent) handed out by the judge; it is not a quality of the judge himself but his judgment “innocent”. This Psalmist is imploring the Lord to prosecute his case because he knows he is innocent but is in danger of being regarded as guilty.

a.       Because he knows of his innocence he can, with confidence, make this command to God. This deserves some reflection. If, in fact, God awaits the ‘pricking of his heart’ and for a directive to be issued to Him, then there is a sense that time’s “falling off the tracks” is the result, in part at least, of man’s failure to implore God for judgment. The book of Judges is an excellent example of this. Throughout the book a downward spiral is established. One element of that spiral is Israel’s subjection to a foreign nation and Israel’s consequent “crying out to the Lord”. Once they do that God “raises up a judge” who delivers them. It is at the end of the book that the people no longer cry out, and it at the end of the book that the final judge is a stupid, profoundly impure ox-of-a-man (Sampson). This motif, of course, is what also ‘ignites’ the book of Exodus after the over 400 year silence of God. Likewise, Jeremiah can be fruitfully read as attempting to show what it means to truly “cry out to the Lord” so that a proper order can be re-established between Israel and her God. Many of these cries are the cries of forgiveness but there are also cries that emerge from the righteous man who is beset by evils and calls for God’s judgment to emerge (or fall) upon the world.

b.       What we can gather from this is any theology that does not have at its heart this sense that time actually moves forward through crying out to the Lord, will arrest God’s justice/judgment/salvation; it will leave us in the same position as the end of the book of judges, with pitiful leaders and “everyone doing what he thinks is right in his own mind” (see, for example, the 30,000 different denominations now in America). For example, a theology that “attributes everything to God” can often create servants that bury their talents and refuse to voice any directive for fear of either robbing God of his glory or due to an abiding sense of the worthlessness or impotence of man’s initiative.  This character, though, has no qualms with making such a claim. His humility carries nothing with it of passivity or a deference that refuses to speak. He is not someone who can only sing praises to God without also calling down God’s judgment. In fact, it could be said that the truly humble man realizes when God requires of his people to issue directives at Him. In other words, humility does not ‘sit along a spectrum’ of activity and passivity (and, generally, decidedly on the side of passivity). It is an ability to see correctly and voice the appropriate words the situation demands. This is one of the greatest dangers of reading the bible as teaching eternal ‘truths’ rather than teaching us how to appropriately respond, as in a drama, to a given situation.