Ps. 39.1-2 (attempting to contain the flame)

“I said, / “I will / guard my ways – taking care / not to sin / with my tongue. – I will put / a muzzle / in my mouth – as long as / the wicked / are before me.” In many ways, this psalm is unique in our reflections. It’s tenor is dark and, arguably, the psalmist is never provided any real answer to the questions he poses to Yhwh. And while several psalms have embodied a profoundly dark atmosphere, here, there is little (to no) light. In this initial reflection I want to simply highlight a few things. As we have indicated several times before, in many psalms the ‘beginning’ is absolutely crucial. This seems to be most true in laments (such as this psalm). What do we find here? This is an intensely personal psalm. When the psalmist later says his “heart grew hot” (which is an indication of terrible anger), we are not unprepared, as this flame is certainly present from the opening verse. Notice, in just the first three verses how often the psalmist refers to himself: “I said, “I will guard my ways…with my tongue; I will put a muzzle on my mouth…before me; I was dumb…I kept silence…But my agony was aroused…my heart grew hot within me….a fire burned in my mutterings…I spoke with my tongue.” That is no less that fifteen references in three verses. It would not be an overstatement to say that this psalmist’s anger and questioning is volcanic, a barely contained rage at what he perceives to be an astonishing injustice. Furthermore, once the prayer erupts, there is no calming of incendiary focus: “O Yhwh, explain to me, my end…the measure of my days. I would like to know how transitory I am.” That is five references in one verse. Why is this so important to see as the beginning point? It might be said this way: whatever its cause (and I think we will be able to catch some sight of it later on), the injustice in the world is, literally, fuel to the psalmist’s raging heart. When he opens the psalm then saying he will ‘guard his ways” and will “muzzle himself” we catch a glimpse of how terrible this must have been—it is like a tea kettle that is attempting to keep contained the water boiling within itself. And, like a tea kettle, attempting to contain the heat only increases it. The psalmist, therefore, is in a very real dilemma with no easy solution. He knows that his anger is intense and likely to lead him into sin by way of statements made ‘in the heat of anger.’ On the other hand, his very attempt to keep it contained only increases the difficulty. All of this is nicely put when the psalmist says he will keep quiet “as long as the wicked are before me.” The psalmist cannot (and, we have emphasized over and over in other psalms how inappropriate this stance would be) adopt an attitude of indifference or resignation in the face of the wicked. He cannot become ‘detached’. Indeed, precisely the opposite—this flame will continue to burn right up to the end of the psalm, even after he has seen that all of man is ‘mere vapor’. This, I have to think, is part of what we can see in this opening: as intensely personal is this psalmist’s anger is his twin conviction of Yhwh’s intensely personal regard for the world. Although he will not be provided (much) of an answer to his questioning, there is, I think, a hidden but real flame burning ‘behind the scenes’ throughout this psalm. We might say it this way: it is the psalmist’s appropriation of Yhwh’s flame which ignites his own rage and questioning. One final point to make—the first three verses is not a prayer to Yhwh but an internal dialogue the psalmist was having with himself. It is when the flame begins to cross the boundary of his own ability to control that it finds expression in prayer to Yhwh. This is important: the remainder of the psalm will be a prayer to Yhwh, up to the end which (as we will discuss) becomes an attempt on the psalmist’s part to cut Yhwh out of the dialogue. This is very provocative but important, here, in that the psalmist knows himself to be engaged with Yhwh even to the point where he asks of Yhwh to turn away from him.