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.