Ps. 40.8 (the desire of a king)

“I have desired / to do your will / O my God – and your instruction / is in the midst / of my being.” There is an important play, here, that develops a theme we have been tracking, between the ‘desire’ of verse 6 and the ‘desire’ in verse 8. In verse 6 we saw, “You have not desired sacrifice or offering”. There, we saw that this “not desiring” was to highlight the incredible focus on the king’s hearing; these lines were meant to draw attention to precisely what Yhwh “was doing/desiring” (the ‘digging of the king’s ears’). Here, “desire” is specifically framed in the positive: “I have desired to do your will.” So, whereas Yhwh did not desire sacrifice or offering, the king does desire to do Yhwh’s will which, again, was the purpose of Yhwh ‘digging in his ears’. This is very important to grasp as it begins to reveal the nature of kingship in Israel. Whereas Yhwh, Adam-like forges the king for himself, the king must, Adam-like, respond to Yhwh and this not merely in an abstract manner, but in desire. Just as Yhwh shapes him (there must here be a sense of a craftsman and the desire for creation), so must the king, in response, look back upon Yhwh in utter readiness to enact his will. In this way we see how the king, in his ‘desire’, brings to fruition the will of Yhwh; he ‘enacts’ it. In other words (or, in another image), Yhwh plants the seed in the king by providing him both the means to hear his instruction and the instruction itself, but it is up to the king to take that instruction into his womb/soil and return it to Yhwh like fruit. It is, in the king’s active appropriation of Yhwh’s instruction that Yhwh’s governance is brought to fruition/reality and becomes the potent governing force within Israel. The king is not merely a prism refracting Yhwh’s light; he must actively (through desire and readiness) take it in (as a woman takes the seed of a man into her womb) and thereby ‘add’ to this seed his own ‘generation’. This develops the “theological chronology” we saw last time. Although Yhwh chooses, the king must ‘cry out’ (vs. 1) and desire (vs. 8) Yhwh in order for Yhwh to “come close” (vs. 11). We might say that the king, in his patience and readiness, becomes an object of desire and devotion of Yhwh, such that what happens to the king becomes intimately associated with Yhwh to such an extent that, as in Psalm 2, the king becomes seen as Yhwh’s very own son. This has been the hallmark of all of the royal psalms we have studied thus far and they are unique in this regard (the king can arouse Yhwh’s passion like no other). But, again, this particularity of the king is not because of the king as an individual but he king as he embodies and represents to Yhwh all of Israel. Yhwh’s passion for ‘his son’ is his passion for his son “as shepherd”, and the more his son carries Yhwh’s flock in his heart, the more Yhwh’s governing and covenantal power is unleashed within Israel (as in David, the literal ‘shepherd’ who dramatically rids the land of Israel’s enemies). All of this is confirmed by the image of Yhwh’s instruction (Torah) residing “in the midst” of the king’s being. Deuteronomy 17 places this mandate upon the king. Any governance enacted by the king will be the king’s enacting of Yhwh prior act of governance in the Torah. This is why the Torah is ideally suited for the king’s mediation: it is the “rule of law” for Israel, the enactment of Yhwh’s justice. All of this (or, much of it) is now handed over to the king, but not as one who has authority over the Torah but as one who is, like all of Israel, subject to its demands. It will, nonetheless, be placed within the king’s ability to enact it and bring it to fruition, which is why “so much is riding” on the king and why, if the king is unfaithful or if the king is ‘struck’, the flock will suffer. Incidentally, we might see at this point the ‘scandal’ of Christ when, as king, he places himself not under Torah as Deuteronomy demands, but over it (“You have heard it said…but I say…”). Indeed, it was precisely the placing of the king underneath Torah which was to make the Israelite king so unlike the monarchs of the surrounding nations. Christ, however, gives the impression that he may, in fact, be arrogating to himself this power the Torah was meant to curb and, more importantly, was Yhwh’s alone to exercise.