Ps. 6 (Summary)

The soul is the life of the body. It is what holds all of various faculties into one united ‘person’. When sickness invades the body like some conquering enemy, it begins a process of disintegration, carrying off vital powers. Like an invaded kingdom, a deep sickness begins its attack through acts of deportation, carrying off the kings and princes of the self (the mind and the spirit). And, like a kingdom without its king and ruling parties, a grey cloud begins to descend over us; confusion, paranoia, anxiety creep throughout our streets and are given ample room to hide in the darkness that is now so prevalent. Sleep is banished to some unknown dungeon. And, like a plague of locusts, sickness begins swarming over every other aspect of our being and begins to consume us. If the word of God separates bone from sinew, then so too does sickness. We are never more aware of the fact that unity of person is synonymous with health than when are in the process of a sick dissolution of our faculties and body.  

This is where our sick man dwells—a kingdom that has already suffered the ravages of the conquering illness. The outer walls were breached long ago. Deportation of the elite is accomplished. It is not so much a resilient effort to defy the enemy that emerges from our man’s mouth, as much as a desperate plea for help. There are no internal reserves that can be tapped into. If this person is to be saved it will have to come from outside himself.

Like a horn blown in the midst of battle, this cry then emerges appealing to his only ally: Yhwh. Stretching back deep into the Israelite consciousness our sick man begins to call forth images of the Exodus. In a counter-move to the invading darkness, these images of dramatic salvation in the very midst of certain failure begin to rise to the surface. The nation’s experience will now become his own. What originally applied to the entire people of Yhwh will become funneled down into this single vessel.

Like Israel in the midst of a land so impure that worship could not even be performed there, our sick man is peering into the darkness of Sheol; he can smell its empty fumes and has already lost his balance in the land of the living. Once he crosses that barrier he will be as in Egypt. The name of Yhwh will not be pronounced there; the tongue will be unable to form the sound. And, without the name, no “plea” can be made, and no “prayer” can rise. There will be no burning bush but only a dark flame consuming every memory of Yhwh and his presence. Because Yhwh is the God of the living and not the dead, this is the land of the final dissolution or ‘disturbance’. It is not the haunt of jackals or evil spirits; one is not entering some divine realm of the underworld. It is a vacant room covered in dust and haunted by shadows.

These are the jaws rising up to him from the abyss, like some screaming leviathan. Behind him are his enemies, rushing him into the pit; a stampede from which he cannot escape. Caught between the abyss and this rushing hoard, he cries out for deliverance: let me continue to praise You; let me continue to stand upon the earth. Remove me from this midst of darkness and take me to yourself so that I might offer you sacrifices of praise. In your covenantal love be to me the ally of hope that you were to Israel.

The prayer is heard and a secret, musical, message is delivered: in heaven the jaws of the abyss have been torn apart. The hoard that had been pressing in upon you is, without your presence, suddenly found to be rushing, themselves, into the Pit. They are falling, headlong, into the land of disturbance and dust.  

Within the city the music begins to permeate and recreate every defense. The kings and princes are told to return. And everything begins to resonate to the same pitch as the heavenly message. It shimmers as the sound grows.

To those falling into the Pit, the sound is one of an ever-growing dissonance and tremor. It enters their ears and crawls into the spaces inside. The invaders have become the invaded.