And
the righteous / will see it / with awe
but / then they will laugh / at him /
saying…
Rather than including the words to the hero I want to focus here on
the dynamic of this public display of shaming enacted by God on the hero. This
is a dramatic verse, in that it charts a progression within the righteous.
First, the judgment enacted by God is an act of shaming; it is public and was
meant to be. This is no private downfall of the hero. This is important as it counteracts
his public display of “bragging”. Just as he moved into the public sphere
through his display (bragging) of evil, so too now will that same form of
display be cast down upon him. A hero is always public and his downfall, in
order to be fully just, must also take place in front of the eyes of the world.
Second, the righteous in witnessing his downfall are at first, in a sense,
horrified; they are “in awe”. They have watched the sudden collapse of a
behemoth and witnessed an almost gratuitous act of violence on God’s part in
taking him down. It is not merely a display, but a frightening display of
authority and power. Once the reality has set in, however, that sense of awe is
replaced with a caustic laughter. This is the joy of vengeance, of seeing an
enemy irretrievably lowered into the dust. This ‘laughter’ is what undergirds
the opening lines of sarcasm. It is incredibly demeaning and adds an insult to
the injury already suffered. And this adds a final important summary: the
public display of judgment is, on the part of God, an offering to the
righteous. The ‘hero’ has been shamed and exposed so as to inspire this sense
of laughter. It is something that runs throughout every apocalyptic book.
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