Ps 32 (hidden from sin)

“You / are a hiding place / for me – you will / protect me / from trouble, - you will / surround me / with shouts of deliverance.” One thing we have failed to mention, although it has been implied, is that sin is described as a “lion” almost immediately after Adam and Eve leave the garden. It prowls, searching for food to devour. It is, in this way, an active force and something from which they are in need of protection. The psalmist has already given expression to this fact when the effect of sin was to dry is mouth out and make his tongue wither. He was acutely aware of the fact that when he sinned, he became sin’s puppet. It is for this reason that now imagery generally used to describe Yhwh as a protector from human enemies is now used to describe him as a protector from sin itself. Yhwh ‘hides’ his own from sin—in this way, the ‘lion of sin’ that is prowling around cannot actually find these ‘righteous ones’. And he does not merely hide them in a cave; he hides them ‘in himself’. The righteous are hidden from sin by dwelling ‘in Yhwh’. It is a fascinating concept: that sin is actually blinded and thwarted in his search for prey when those who are righteous are taken into Yhwh’s presence (one recalls the imagery of Revelation when the sons of Mary are taken from the dragon on eagles wings and hidden from his wrath). Sin cannot perceive Yhwh; to sin, he is invisible (or, at least those ‘in him’ are).