Ps. 36.5-6 (filling creation)

“O Yhwh / your lovingkindness / is in the heavens; - your faithfulness / reaches to the clouds; - your righteousness / is like / the marvelous mountains; - your judgments / like the mighty deep.” There are three things in particular to notice about these lines: the contrasting tone with the previous verses; the geographical references and how that relates to the wicked; the placement of this hymn to Yhwh in regard to the opening and closing of the psalm.

Tone: if read alone, this hymn to Yhwh stands as a self-contained unit; meaning, it can be read without reference to the wicked. However, when read in its context, this hymn accomplishes a complete dramatic shift and the light thereby cast on the hymn is that much brighter. We ended our reflection on the wicked by remarking on how one feels almost claustrophobic at the end. Everything is focused on a tightly bound man who is utterly encased within himself. Furthermore, even within this cramped interior world of his, darkness is pervasive; he is blind to himself, to his own imbalance, and to the ultimate root of his heart. He is a cave within a cave. Importantly for later—he doesn’t ‘fill himself’ (there are crevices, caves and creatures of darkness that his own spirit is unaware of). All of this changes when we look to Yhwh. The first phrase, “O Yhwh”, opens up a massive breathing space. No longer are we witnessing some corrupt monologue of the wicked man (“he devises wickedness upon his bed”). Here, we are in the realm of prayer and dialogue. Furthermore, although we mentioned the word ‘wisdom’ quite frequently in our reflections, the word is never used (except to say the wicked has “given up being wise”). Rather, the first four verses are full of ‘transgression, wickedness, devises, deceit, iniquity, and flattery’. These are sordid, oppressive and leaden verses. Here, in verse 5, one is confronted immediately with “lovingkindness, faithfulness, righteousness and judgment”. This is the realm of praise and hymn, and as these verses emerge from the darkness of verses 1-4, there is an astonishing sense of liberation, purity and trustworthiness.  The psalmist, at this point, is obviously fully of joy and delight as he turns his gaze now to Yhwh and away from the wicked. Again, that soothing and intimate word “O” in “O Yhwh” is indicative of the entire feel of these verses. 

Geography: as already pointed out, the geography of the first four verses is the cave of the wicked man’s heart. It is solitary, it is dark, and it is ominous. At this point I want to emphasize something hinted at above: a man’s ‘spirit’ should be utterly aware of itself. A ‘wise man’ is light to himself; he is conscious of his actions as well as his intentions. The wicked man’s spirit, on the other hand, “cannot find his iniquity or hate it”. Unlike the wise man, the wicked man has caverns in his spirit, holes that he cannot peer into and is blind to. In verses 5 and 6, this is completely and utterly changed. Yhwh fills creation from top to bottom. The progression is thus: heavenàskyàearthàdeep. Everywhere, there is Yhwh. However, whereas the wicked was ‘full’ of rebellion, Yhwh is full of relational and covenantal love. This creation is now full of care and concern: lovingkindnessàfaithfulnessàrighteousnessàjudgment. The wicked is not at home in himself. Yhwh, by contrast, finds within creation a ‘home’ for his lovingkindness and faithfulness. Furthermore, in describing the wicked no analogies are used. For Yhwh, his righteousness is “like the marvelous mountains”, his judgment like “the deep”. The fact that Yhwh’s concern and governance of creation find an analogy within creation is important in light of verses 1-4. These analogies point to a correspondence between Yhwh’s ‘interior’ state and the ‘external’ world. If the wicked are marked by a transgression of boundaries, Yhwh is revealed by the careful correspondence to those boundaries. Although he ‘fills’ all of creation, creation itself is ordered and observes the categories established by Yhwh.

Positioning the hymn: This observation largely summarizes/confirms the above two thoughts on tone and geography. If one reads verse 1-4, skips the hymn to Yhwh, and reads veres11-12, one sees that it is very likely that the ‘wicked’ portion of the psalm was likely a single unit before the psalmist composed the psalm as we now have it. The reason this seems clear is that verse four leaves off with the wicked travelling ‘down a path’ that is not good while verse 11 begins with “may the foot of the proud not come against me.” What we see here is that the psalmist has inserted this hymn directly into the middle of the wicked, and he has chosen to insert it precisely at the point where the contrast would be most effective. What we see then (assuming this is correct) is that the psalmist wants us to ‘feel’ this contrast, this geographical expansion and concern of Yhwh as contrasted to the self-destructive and degenerate form of transgression displayed by the wicked. And, he is very effective in doing so. Lastly, are we also to see here something similar to Psalm 1, where the meditation on the ‘blessed man’ operated as a single unit that effectively split the wicked men in two? Is it that Yhwh is ‘unified’ in a way the wicked are not and that he severs them in half as well by his presence?