Ps. 36.5 (heaven and the heart)

“O Yhwh / your lovingkindness / is in the heavens; - your faithfulness / reaches to the clouds.” A category of analysis I forgot to include in the previous reflection involved the theme of ownership and how they are contrasted between the wicked and Yhwh. Verse 1 states that “transgression belongs to the wicked person/ it is in the midst of his heart.” We also saw in verse 2 how he has iniquity. Here, in verse 5, we see a different mode of possession: ‘lovingkindness and faithfulness’. The contrast couldn’t be sharper. For the wicked, what he owns is something that is inherently destructive and self-serving. Furthermore, it is blinding (it causes a “too much flattery” to smoke his eyes and prohibit him from “finding his iniquity and hating it). Most important, however, is that it is “in the midst of his heart”. As we saw in our reflection on verse 1, the heart is the seat of human power and seeing. It is what motivates and compels man forward. What is in man’s heart is what man is. For Yhwh, by contrast, what he “owns” is covenantal assurance and faithfulness. Yhwh’s ‘possession’ is something that is, inherently, overflowing towards the other and for the other. In other words, Yhwh is self-giving. Likewise, his lovingkindness (in contrast to ‘transgression’) is “in the heavens”. This is a crucial contrast to the ‘heart’. “Heaven” is the source, or seat, of all divine power. In this way it functions much like the ‘heart of man’. It is the originator of all movement (and good things). What we see, then, is the fact that while the wicked is entirely, and utterly, turned in toward himself in a type of cannibalistic self-destruction, Yhwh is and moves outward towards his creatures. The seat of Yhwh’s power is an overflowing being-for those with whom he has entered into covenant (which, incidentally, is all of creation).