Ps. 50.21 (the cup is now full)

“You / have done these things / but I kept silent! – You thought / that I / was surely like you! – I will / reprove you / and accuse you / to your face.” The previous verse indicated that the wicked perform their acts ‘continuously’. Here, God is seen to engage in a similar behavior—he “keeps silent”. The wicked interpret this silence as God’s consent to their actions (‘You thought that I was surely like you’), or that he was limited in some way to stop them. However, the point of these two ‘continuous’ behaviors is precisely the opposite. Whereas the wicked would perform their deeds in perpetuity, God’s silence is about to come to an end. His ‘silence’ has not been consent but patience. We know this precisely because of the fact that the psalm opened with the line, “Our God comes and will not be silent!” This is followed by God’s emergence surrounded in flame and tempest, traditional images of judgment and destruction. There is another level to this as well. As we have seen the overriding concern of God’s as to the wicked is in how they approach speech. As to God’s speech, they display contempt for it: “what right have you to recite my statutes, and to take my covenant upon your lips.” Indeed, they actively despise God’s words: “you have hated instruction” and “cast my words behind you”. As to wicked speech, they surrender themselves to it and perpetuate it (vs. 20). What we see here is that the wicked’s approach to speech is absolutely tainted, and spans the entire spectrum of deviance from hypocrisy and hatred of God’s words to active speaking words of slander. It is, perhaps, because they have conquered all forms of wickedness that their time for judgment is now full and ripe. God has patiently endured their behavior until they filled the cup entirely. That time of patience is now at an end. And whereas the wicked saw God’s patience as mimicking their ‘continuous’ wickedness, they have come to realize differently and the cup they filled is about to be poured out on their heads; and they will have no one to defend them from the deluge. The reproof God does not level against his devotees (vs. 8) is now about to be unleashed upon the wicked. The righteous are taught; the wicked are patiently endured. At this point the holy terror of the opening section is about to be unleashed on the wicked: the God of flame and tempest who calls upon the created order to witness this covenant ceremony is ready to stand forth and hold the wicked to account. “I will reprove you and accuse you to your face.” The judge (vs. 6) is about to pronounce judgment. It will be as direct as he had previously been silent.

Ps. 50.19-20 (Cain and Abel)

“You have surrendered / you mouth / to evil – and your tongue / designed deceitfulness – you continue / to speak / against your brother – you slander / your own mother’s son.” In the previous verse we noted how the mere sight of a thief aroused delight in the wicked. Such a nearly instantaneous response signals the incredible infiltration of wickedness; it needs but the mere sight to be awakened. Here, that understanding is pushed even further. Not only are the wicked ‘primed’ for evil, but they actively surrender their mouths to it. No longer is it a response but, in a sense, a willing sacrifice, a handing over of their mouths into the service of deceitfulness. Whereas the righteous ‘surrender’ their animals in sacrifice, the wicked surrender their mouths to evil. In addition, while this first description highlights the active movement on the part of the wicked, the second emphasizes the creative aspect of this surrender. Once their mouths have been handed over, they are then used to ‘design deceitfulness’. This marks somewhat of a transition—until this point the wicked have ‘seen’ and ‘cast their lot with’ and ‘surrendered’. There has been no explicit mention of their actual commission of a wicked act (although it has been implied). Here, however, that reality is asserted: the wicked actually perpetuate evil, they “design” it. No longer are they merely observers; they are actual performers. From this point on everything will now focus on that performance, and God will be very specific about the type of evil designed: “speak against your brother…slander your mother’s son”. From the communal breakdown of the ‘thief’, to the familial breakdown of the ‘adulterers’, we now descend into the most intimate realm between brothers. The more active the evil becomes the more it strikes at the very roots of human connection. We find here the perpetuation of Cain and Abel, that original fratricide. It is, in addition, the explicit breaking of the command in the Decalogue to not bear false witness.  Lastly, the word “continue” is important; it signals the fact that this is a constant disposition of the wicked person’s being. It is a habitual form of wickedness. This long-standing mode of evil will find its counterbalance in the next verse when God’s apparent silence is suddenly broken.

Ps. 50.18 (hate and love)

“When you saw / a thief, / you were delighted / with him – and your lot / was with adulterers.” While the wicked ‘hate’ God’s instruction, they ‘delight’ in the thief. And while they “cast his words behind them”, they throw “their lot with adulterers.”  We should point out two things: both the ‘thief’ and the ‘adulterers’ are specific transgressors of the Decalogue.  This only intensifies the problematic nature of the wicked. Like Israel worshiping the golden calf, these ‘wicked’ are breaking the covenant precisely at the moment it is being delivered/renewed. Indeed their very being is dually oriented to this rupture: they despise what they should love; and love what they should despise.  As to the nature of the transgression, the first (the thief) points to exploitation; the second (adultery) points to the rupture of the family unit. Both of them are geared toward a type of communal breakdown. Furthermore, by the fact that it only takes a “seeing” of the thief to arouse the wicked’s delight, we see how prone they are to wickedness; by merely seeing their (evil) desires are aroused.

Ps. 50.17 (owning God's words)

“For you / have hated instruction – and have cast / my words / behind you.” The interplay between speech and performance in this and the previous verse is intriguing. The previous verse ended with God, noticeably angry, accusing the wicked, asking them what “right they have to recite my statutes, to take my covenant upon your lips?” There, the covenant was “taken” by the wicked in the act of speech, appropriated to their use. Here, however, they do precisely the opposite with God’s “instruction” and “words”—they are ‘hated’ and ‘cast behind them’. The point is fairly obvious: that one cannot presume to enter into covenant with God with one’s mouth and, at the same time, refuse to perform according to his instruction and words. That said, the central emphasis here falls squarely on God’s ‘speech’, which has been already an overriding concern and dramatic enactment throughout the psalm. Just as the world, and all its animals, are “mine” (God’s), so too here the speech is God’s: “my statutes”, “my covenant”, “[my] instructions”, “my words”.  Here, we may find an important link to the first section’s address to the devotees. There, the nature of sacrifice was being displayed through God’s ‘possession’ of all of man’s animals and all of the wild animals as well. Here, when God turns to the wicked, he emphasizes that the covenant is not ‘theirs’ but his. When it came to the devotees, God’s instruction as to the nature of sacrifice was in order to ‘purify’ them of conceptions that resembled their neighbors (which is why everything is set in the negative). Here, the rebuke of the wicked centers on the disunity they have brought into God’s covenant. Whereas with the righteous, there could be a type of duality (a non-competitive) as to the ownership of the animals, here, there is no question but that the covenant is God’s. We have seen this dynamic before (particularly in Ps. 48 as to Zion) where the ‘face’ God gives to the wicked is very different than what he gives to the righteous. To the wicked, he appears like iron (here: there can be no compromising God’s ownership of the covenant), whereas to the righteous there is an amazing sense of interplay (God and man can both own the animals of sacrifice just as, in Zion (Ps. 48), Zion can both represent God and turn to him).  This understanding is confirmed by the fact that the righteous can “summon God” and he will answer. They can, in a sense, ‘act like God’ and, within that covenantal concern, God will respond. Here, the wicked would never be afforded this arena within which to operate. Indeed, whereas the righteous would be able to “summon” God, the wicked have nothing to look forward to but God’s tearing them apart like a lion (vs. 22). There is one final element to introduce here before attempting a type of summation—the duration of the wicked’s “hatred of God’s word/instruction” is marked by God’s silence (vs. 21). The wicked, however, completely misunderstand the nature of the silence and think that it is like the silence of the exploited (those who cannot defend themselves). The righteous, however, after understanding the nature of sacrifice, would clearly perceive God’s silence as a time of ‘patience’, not weakness. Now, however, God has broken the silence and spoken to the wicked, and when he does he emphasizes to them, in contrast to his stance to the righteous, his total and absolute ownership of the covenant and his words. To the wicked, there is no dynamic as found with the righteous. In a sense, in this time of silence God has taken his words completely to himself (whereas the wicked have regarded his words as type of object of commerce). And this is precisely the connection: the wicked are treating God’s words in precisely the way God has instructed the righteous not to regard the sacrifice; meaning, as an object that is somehow not entirely originating outside of the realm of God’s need and therefore as an object that can be transferred (like any other object). In a very deep sense, the lesson being imparted to the wicked and how they understand God’s words is very similar to the lesson imparted to the righteous.

Ps. 50.16 (fury)

“But God said / to the wicked, - “What right have you / to recite my statutes – and to take / my covenant / upon your lips?”” There has been no preparation for this third party (‘the wicked’). Indeed, when the psalm opened, those to be gathered were God’s ‘devotees’, those who adhered in steadfast love to his covenant. It would appear, however, that within this gathering there were those who could and would ‘speak’ the covenant, who would go through the rite of sacrifice, but would, in fact, be double-minded. They would say one thing but do another. We have had recourse to discuss this dual nature of the wicked and how they exhibit the unholy animals that transgress boundaries (they display two conflicting realities like a shell fish that swims in the water but has feet, or a bird that doesn’t fly) and are not a unified person. When it comes to this covenantal inquisition, God will root out and judge that which is not unified, which does not both speak and act in accordance with his will. The emphasis here, however, falls foremost on their speaking the words fo the covenant and not their actions, per se. The real tragedy lies, most fundamentally, in the fact they would presume to speak covenantal words and not adhere to them. Their exploitation of the week is tragic, of course; but more subversive is the fact that they would enter, concealed, into the ‘gathering’ only ‘with their lips’. God’s stance towards these wicked men (men that he has absolutely no problem identifying) is much more severe than with the devotees. For the devotees, God spoke words of instruction and in patience (he “did not reprove them”). Here, the wicked are subjected to a stinging rebuke; the section will conclude with him “reproving them” (what he specifically withheld doing with his devotees). God is clearly angry in this section. Their act of speaking infuriates him. Along these lines we must remember where his ‘voice’ is emerging from: consuming fire and tempest. The devotees will, like the burning bush, be able to withstand this heat and not be destroyed; the wicked, on the other hand, are potentially going to be thrown into it as in a furnace.