Ps. 43.2-3 (rejecting and guiding)

“For / you are the God / of my stronghold – why / have you / rejected me? – Why / must I wander about / in darkness – because of an / enemy’s oppression?” Now that the case has begun we find here something like an ‘opening statement’ by the psalmist wherein he first asserts that God is his ‘stronghold’ and therefore his place of protection, and yet God seems to be leaving him vulnerable to the attacks of enemy’s. With God he should walking in the daytime and light; instead, he is ‘wandering in darkness’.  Note the shift in tone from previous verses with substantially similar content—verse 9, which is nearly identical except for the much less abrasive question of “Why have you forgotten me?”. Here, it is “why have you rejected me?”. No longer is there the sense of a lack of attention; rather, the psalmist is now asking God why he has taken an active and intentional stance of rejecting him. It is much more direct. There is one additional divergence between the two: in verse 9 he ‘walks’ in darkness, here he “wanders”. There is the sense that here God has subjected him to aimlessness. In verse 9, the ‘darkness’ seems almost accidental (it comes about merely because he was ‘forgotten’); here, the darkness is, in a way, much more difficult to understand (it seems like God has been the one shrouding him in it). Hence, in these verses the tension and the urgency are increased. Are we to see the reason for this shift because of the fact that now the ‘case’ has started and the psalmist is entering into a real defense/accusation with God, his covenant partner? If so, the directive he issues in the following verse makes sense. It is a claim for justice to be enacted, now.

“Send / your light / and your truth. – They / shall guide me; - they / shall bring me / to your holy mountain – and / to your dwelling place.” Clearly, this “light and truth” are active, powerful agents ‘sent’ by God to enact a type of exodus of the psalmist. We have described this before: ‘truth’ when it refers to God’s truth is his covenantal power to bring about a restoration to the covenantal terms. It is not, as we might be inclined to think, a mere correspondence. In times of injustice, it is deliverance; in times of peace, it is blessing/grace. The appeal to ‘light’ is also crucial to understand in the context of the psalm. The psalmist has been eating his tear(s) “at night” (vs. 3); he has been drowned in God’s breakers and waves (vs. 7); he walks/wanders in darkness (vs. 9; 43.2). Furthermore, with the sending of these twin powers, the ‘taunt’ that has plagued and divided the psalmist will be rectified. Their refrain has been, “Where is your God?” It is a poignant question to ask a person in exile (as it inevitably turns into “Look where you are.”). Here, though, God sends his agents (“light and truth”) into the dessert (vs. 1) of exile. And, further, and crucially, the deliverance will not be of victory in exile—it will an exodus, a drawing forth and a return. They are sent in order “to guide me to your holy mountain, your dwelling place.” If the psalm began with the sense of exile creating a sense of thirst due to the psalmist’s exile from the Temple, now he will be returned to the Temple (“your dwelling place”) in order to drink from “the living (waters) God” (vs. 2). Home and return is the goal, just as the Israelites were not simply made to conquer the Egyptians and become their overlords. Rather, they were taken from them and guided to the place that would become their own. Lastly, this ‘guiding’ becomes the healing to his “wandering” in vs.2. No longer is he directionless. He know ‘walks in light and truth’ and is being guided back to their source (“the holy mountain”, “your home”).