Ps.30.15-16 (covenantal dark night of the soul)

“But I – I have trusted / in you / O Yhwh: - I have said: / “You are my God” – In your hands / is my future – deliver me – from the hands / of my enemies / and from my pursuers.” An object that, even to itself, is perceived to be broken, useless and therefore only to be discarded, looks to Yhwh for deliverance. Perhaps we did not emphasize this enough: a pot that has been hardened cannot be returned to its original form of clay; once it has been shaped and heated it has become its purpose; however, if it breaks, it is worth less than the unshaped clay; it is useless; it is trash. Man, once shaped, stands between these two poles: usefulness and uselessness. No longer is he clay. Return is not an option. It is from this shattered existence that the psalmist speaks to Yhwh and expresses, in short order, the fact that he still, even there, looks to Yhwh to fulfill his covenantal role and in-form him with covenantal blessing. We must pause over this for a moment: the Jews were often regarded as atheists. Not only did they refuse worship of other gods but they had no image of their god in their temple (hence, to many, they didn’t actually worship any god—hence, a-theists). This perception points in another direction, something internal to the Jews themselves—their covenantal solidarity with Yhwh (what we have called ‘enacting the first commandment’) opens up within them something similar to the perceived atheism. My thesis is this: this psalm embodies the particularly Jewish faith that can appear to the world as utterly useless, and, even to itself as completely shattered, and yet contain within itself this astonishing act of trust and faith in Yhwh. This is a ‘covenantal dark night of the soul’. Here, the ‘dark night’ is death itself, with all of its concomitant manifestations (sickness, loss of companionship, active destruction). As the psalmist sinks below all of these, and begins to enter the realm of death itself, the first commandment looms larger and larger. To every external eye, this person would be entering a realm of perceived atheism and god abandonment. More than that, this person would be regarded as ‘shattered’. The reason is this: the covenantal obligation to have no other god than Yhwh will lead to a person entering into the furthest possible realms of human existence (death and uselessness), crossing a boundary that is internal to the world itself, and thereby ‘disappearing’ to the world (becoming useless); the trust demanded by this commandment will necessitate this act of openness.  And this ‘disappearing’ will be merely an externally viewed one; it will be internal to the one who suffers—they will disappear to themselves (become useless, shattered) because they will find, within themselves, nothing but ‘wasted bones’ and a shattered vessel. At that point of blindness the person will rest on nothing (nihil) but Yhwh and his lovingkindness. Hence, why the psalmist says, “But I – I trust in Yhwh. I have said, “You are my God”.” “You are my God” is the originating term of covenantal election by Yhwh (“You will be my people, and I will be your God”). Several strands begin to interpenetrate here: Yhwh as Creator, Yhwh as Electing God, Yhwh as demanded sole trust and allegiance. Just as creation sprang, without intermediary and without help, from Yhwh, so too does the covenant spring, without necessity and without compulsion, from Yhwh. Wed to this the demand for utter trust in Yhwh and one sees that when one sinks to this point of uselessness one knows he, still, is not abandoned—for every creative act and even the covenant itself which made this experience possible, did not spring from the individual but from Yhwh. And here we find the most astonishing conclusion: one cannot sink ‘below Yhwh’ because existence and the covenantal blessing itself are, always-already, prior (even prior to the contours of our own perception and existence). Yhwh is before and beneath every shattering. It is this reality that allows a truly shattered vessel to declare trust in Yhwh (and not a trust in life in heaven, but a trust in resurrection/restoration). Hence, “In your hands is my future – deliver me – from the hands of my enemies.”