Ps.30.22 (crying from the eclipsed face)

“Blessed be Yhwh – who has revealed / his lovingkindness – in a time / of distress. – But I said / in my alarm: - “I have been / cut off / from the sight you’re your eyes. – But you heard / the sound / of my supplication – when I cried / to you / for help.” This ‘lovingkindness’ could, if we have been correct regarding the ‘covenantal dark night of the soul’, the ground that makes possible such devotion. It is, in short, that which is always prior to, and therefore what can be relied upon beyond, the darkness. While the individual can enter into this night due to his trust in the Creator and Governor, Yhwh, the ‘trust’ that Yhwh extends to him is this lovingkindness. We might say, this ‘monologic’ lovingkindness is what makes possible the ‘dialogue’ of the covenant and, therefore, the soil from which the covenant originates. This is why this most clearly is seen in the ‘darkness’ of distress—as Yhwh’s servant is more and more consumed by the darkness (to the point of ‘shattering’), the more and more he comes to reveal Yhwh’s ever-greater light (‘lovingkindness’). And this is decidedly not “other-worldly”. This is a trust that Yhwh will act, concretely, in time and space, to redeem his covenant partners; as we have already detailed, this is why, to quote this psalm at the point of death, is the greatest manifestation of this trust (and, this ‘lovingkindness’). It doesn’t look ‘beyond the grave’ but sees Yhwh’s power as something that is sure and more absolute than the darkness of death. The individual (here, Jesus) places himself, without remainder, into the hands of Yhwh, descending into this ‘soil’ as the explosive, ever-trusting, seed that pulls the covenantal bond into death itself and, thereby, destroys death. This is the ultimate ‘distress’ from which Yhwh’s lovingkindness springs (in resurrection). But one has to go into the grave affirming, at every boundary, that Yhwh will act. The dialogue never ceases. “But I said / in my alarm: “I have been / cut of / from the sight of your eyes.” These are not the words of a psalmist who has ‘lost faith’; rather, these are the words of trust that are spoken due to the fact that he will not give up on the reality that Yhwh will act for the good, that Yhwh is the Creator of ‘good’. He is not grounded in himself, and, therefore, his ‘distress’ is his entering into a space where Yhwh ‘does not see’. We must stress this again: biblical man is, unlike anyone else, grounded in dialogue with Yhwh. For him, reality is dialogue; this is not the case in the surrounding religions—there, man and the gods stand in relation to creation in much the same way (the governing gods are not the creator gods). When darkness descends, therefore, man must cry out because, in a very real way, the darkness is eclipsing Yhwh’s face (it is almost as if creation itself is imploring man to cry out). He has become subject to that tragic part of creation that is in rebellion to Yhwh; he is sinking into its muck. Cut off from his only source of trust, the faithful psalmist cannot be silent. To do so would be to begin to inhabit Sheol (which is the place where Yhwh’s name is not remembered and, hence, where silence reigns).  This is why these words are not those of faithlessness but the words of Yhwh’s saint as he descends into darkness. Understood this way, the following line looks much different: “But you heard / the sound / of my supplication – when I cried / to you / for help.” It was precisely because the covenantal dialogue spoke this ‘cry’ that Yhwh heard the ‘sound of my supplication’.