Ps. 6:8-10 (attunement to heaven)

Ps. 6.9-10

Depart  /  from  me  /  all workers of wickedness

For--

The Lord  /  has heard  /  the sound of my weeping

The Lord  /  has heard  /  my supplication

The Lord  /  will accept  /  my prayer.

All  /  my enemies  /  shall be  /  disappointed  /  and exceedingly  /  disturbed.

They shall  /  turn back.  They shall  /  be disappointed  /  in a moment.

“The Lord has heard…The Lord has heard…The Lord will accept”: In the time sequence of this psalm our sick man stands in between the time of the Lord’s hearing and the time of his acceptance of the prayer. For the Lord “to hear” a person is almost synonymous with his turning to them to deliver them. It is the beginning of his ‘great change’. It was his ‘hearing’ of the Israelite cry that initiated the Exodus and we have seen this ‘hearing’ throughout almost every Psalm encountered so far. However, in the Exodus story the Israelites are not made aware of this ‘hearing’. Rather, Yhwh’s actions toward Israel take place ‘behind the scenes’ so to speak and begin with the saving of Moses from destruction. There is then a long period of time that leads up to the burning bush. It is the author who shows us what the Israelites were not (and could not have been) aware of. It is a shocking thing then when the person becomes aware of Yhwh’s ‘hearing’ of their prayer before the actual event of deliverance occurs.

Regardless of whether this took place in the form of a priest delivering words of ‘acceptance’ of the prayer or not, the fact that a person is placed within this ‘between’ time of knowing that the supplication has been heard and the fulfillment of that ‘hearing’, there is something here that speaks to the sense of assured anticipation. It is as if the person is given a glimpse into the divine counsel itself and realizes that the prayer has, like incense, been pleasing to Yhwh and now, on earth, must simply “look and see” its fulfillment. To put it another way, it is as if the sick man has been placed in the position of the reader of Exodus, and is now told to pay attention to these otherwise hidden movements of Yhwh’s acts of deliverance. Another metaphor: it is as if in heaven a certain musical note is struck (the ‘hearing’ of the supplication), while on earth Yhwh steadily ‘attunes’ his people to that note until they are finally vibrating at the same resonance. But this, generally, occurs over time. One is only moment-by-moment made aware of this until the final resonance is achieved and one is then permitted to look back over time and see the many ways that attunement has been achieved. But here, the sick man is, immediately, made aware of the ‘heavenly’ note that has been struck and will therefore be able to detect the ways in which the earth will be attuned to that note, long before anyone else. This, in a way, is what apocalyptic literature is doing: showing us the note that is presently struck in heaven, to attune us to the ways it is fulfilled (how the earth is attuned to) on earth. Likewise, this is, in its own way, what Isaiah is doing when he says the “way should be made straight” for the Lord and he expresses a profound sense the reality of the future that is pressing in on Israel as deliverance.

His assurance is rooted in the fact that he has heard this “divine note” being struck. And, in his own way, he becomes (at that point) the only ‘attuned’ man on earth, vibrating at a hidden resonance.

The effect of the prayer on the enemies: In this final verse everything is inverted. Whereas before the sick man appealed that Yhwh would ‘return’ to him (i.e. that he would come back from his ‘departure’), now the enemies will “turn back”. Likewise, whereas the sick man’s bones and soul were “exceedingly disturbed”, now the wicked man will be “disappointed and exceedingly disturbed”. This is more than ‘poetic’ justice. It points to a very real theological insight: that a wicked man’s actions become the means by which he experiences his own punishment. We have had occasion to reflect on this before but it bears repeating. Yhwh’s vengeance is often conceived as an active mode of punishment, in the same way that we would send a person to jail. However, what we have seen is that there is far more going on. Punishment for the wicked can often mean simply letting them fall into the pit they have dug for themselves, or letting them feed upon the empty words they utter. It is as if the wicked man’s actions operate in precisely the opposite manner from the righteous man’s prayers: whereas they rise to heaven and are like incense, instigating Yhwh to perform in the manner requested, the wicked man’s actions rise to heaven but are a stench; they are then simply tossed back down to earth upon the wicked man. He receives back what he gave, upon himself. The book of Revelation uses this imagery is very interesting manner by describing the righteous man’s prayers as incense that is then turned, in the hands of angels, to curses leveled at the earth. Yhwh’s judgment is always seen as this dialogue (not a pure monologue). And the judgment is always seen as a type of outworking of the original wickedness.

Another metaphor: it is as if the wicked man’s actions are the seed spoken into the womb of heaven. There, in heaven, they are ‘added to’ in the same way the seed of man is ‘added to’ by the woman. When their judgment is ‘born’ then, it descends upon them as ‘their own child’, and yet one that has also been fashioned in heaven. It is recognizable as theirs in the same way a child is recognizable to the father. And yet, because it has “appeared before Yhwh” and been in his presence it has also been ‘purified’ into judgment that is now “hurled down” upon them.

In this psalm, then, it works this way: the enemies of the sick man were an aspect of this man being ‘exceedingly disturbed’. It was not merely his sickness that was pushing him into Sheol but the communal response to his sickness (either in attacks as to his sinfulness or in their abandonment of him). When Yhwh hears this sick man’s prayers, these attacks are then part and parcel of this ‘hearing’. When the incense of this man’s prayers rose to heaven, they rose with his desire that the wicked men be found guilty. In Yhwh’s presence, the answer to the prayer becomes both the healing and the casting down upon the heads of the wicked precisely the same thing they had caused of the sick man: exceeding disturbance. Just as they were causing this sick mans dissolution, so will they be dissolved.

And, just as the change to the sick man happened “in a moment” so too will they experience this ‘disturbance’ “in a moment”.

Understanding judgment in this way, it seems, entirely reorients our understanding of how Yhwh judges. It is not this ‘random’ expression of punishment but more of a giving back what has already been given, with the added fact that they are now being returned after having been “gazed upon” by Yhwh.