Then
/ I will teach your ways / to the rebellious
and to sinners / who then may
return / to you.
This is the only explicit mention of someone other than David
in the entire psalm. Every other verse is centered exclusively on David, his
waywardness and his plea for deliverance and recreation. Admittedly, other
verses imply David reintroduction to communion with other worshippers. However,
the ‘other’ in this verse is not someone that David will merely join, but
someone he will minister to. Furthermore, the terms used to describe these ‘others’
are precisely those that David has used to describe himself (rebellious and sinners);
it would have been easy for him to distance himself in some manner from them.
Rather, just as he moved to ‘own his sin and rebellion’ so to, now that he is
envisioning himself forgiven and empowered, does he come to take a form of
ownership in these people by identifying with them. His concern is for those
who suffer from his same form of weakness and waywardness. And it is because he
has suffered through God’s ‘abundant mercy’ that he is made into this type of
minister to others. One wonders if in this prospective vision David is not, in
a way, tempting God to forgive him given what he will do with that mercy
(prism-like pour it out to others). There is here the sense that David is
embodying that same dynamic inherent with God that seeks to enact God’s mercy,
that seeks to remove waywardness, rebellion and sin; in other words, to ‘seek
out the lost’ like a shepherd.
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