Ps. 30 (the purpose of 'drawing forth')

You have changed / my wailing / to dancing / for me – You have removed / my sackcloth / and girded me / with rejoicing – so that / my soul / shall sing / your praise / and not weep. – O Yhwh / my God / I will praise you / forever. One cannot tire of pointing out, in this psalm, the contrast between the statement of error (I said in my strength…) and the fact that the rest of the psalm is centered, solely, on Yhwh’s saving action. Here, the image of ‘drawing up’ from Sheol is explored through the image of “dancing”. Yhwh changed the psalmist’s ‘wailing’ into ‘dancing’. I don’t believe we know whether there was ever a form of liturgical dancing in the OT. David danced when the arc was brought to the temple, and there are other images of dancing. It may be enough to say that, upon healing, the psalmist arose ‘with the dawn’ and danced. This furthers our previous reflections regarding Yhwh’s healing: they are in service of restoring the person to his or her proper nature, which is to be an act of praise. The next image is that of ‘clothing’. His former clothes of ‘sackcloth’ (image of penitential sorrow) have been removed by Yhwh and instead he has been ‘girded’ with rejoicing. This part of the psalm is acrostic: removed sackcloth – girded with rejoicing – singing praise – not weeping. This great ‘reversal’ has occurred so that Yhwh will again have a voice he delights in hearing. The concluding line is appropriate on many levels, primarily though because it asserts covenantal relationship again. When Yhwh establishes his covenant with Israel he says, “You will be my people and I will be your god.” Here, when the psalmist says, “O Yhwh, my God” he is drawing upon that relational phrase and showing that, through Yhwh’s mercy, and his penitence, he has been brought back into the realm of covenantal blessing. The images of the psalm have been reversed in favor of the psalmist. This concluding passage allows us to reflect on something that seems important to me: that when Yhwh heals (or, resurrects, ‘draws up’ from Sheol) he does so in order to ignite liturgy once again. When Israel was in Egypt, their purpose of being ‘drawn out’ (like Moses from the Nile) of Egypt was in order to praise Yhwh (notice that, at first, the point of Israel being ‘drawn out’ is not receive the law or even the covenant but to worship Yhwh; once they arrive, we come to see that to ‘worship Yhwh’ is to be brought into covenant with Yhwh and to follow his torah). In Isaiah, the psalms, Daniel, and, especially, Revelation, heaven is liturgical; it is full of praise. Sheol, by contrast (as Psalm 6 makes clear) is marked by silence and the absence of Yhwh’s name. The first point is this: to be ‘drawn up’ from death is not to be placed back into some neutral sphere of ‘wellbeing’. Rather it is to be brought into the realm of covenantal blessing which is infused by the ability to offer praise to Yhwh. The purpose of healing is to (re)enable praise and liturgy, just as Yhwh brought Israel out of Egypt not simply to ‘free’ them but so that they could worship him. Second, this could, in my mind, rather dramatically shape the way Christ’s resurrection is perceived—as Jesus taking the divine name into Sheol where, before, silence reigned due to the name’s absence; in so doing, and in his ascent, he ‘drew up’ all of creation so that it might be (re)oriented to Yhwh in praise which is the nature of creation itself (see Psalm 18). Perhaps most importantly, however, is the fact that as he ‘came down from heaven’ he was the heavenly liturgy itself become flesh; in descending to Sheol he took that liturgy down into the pit, bringing heaven “into hell”. Upon his ascent (his being ‘drawn up’ by the Father) he ascended through every level of creation bringing the heavenly liturgy to every shore of the created order. Therefore, when we are baptized “into Christ’s death” we are baptized into this action on his part that re-ignites the praise-purpose of creation. It is through him that we are brought back into this covenantal sphere of liturgy, much like Israel was ‘drawn up’ out of Egypt, to worship Yhwh. In this light, these verses could be read as the initiates “song” upon being baptized (especially when, in the early church, one was literally dressed again in white clothes). This perspective, I have just realized, is precisely what ‘The Ascension of Isaiah’ portrays as the effect of Christ’s resurrection.