Ps. 53.6 (Zion and the fool)

Let Israel’s salvation / be given / from Zion!
When God / restores the fortunes / of his people,
Jacob / will rejoice / and Israel / will be glad!

The drama of this psalm has taken place in the interaction between the gaze (or, interrogation) of God from heaven and the folly of the atheists. As we argued in our previous reflection, the violence and shame unleashed on the atheist fools mimicked their utter obliviousness to God (which resulted in their ‘devouring my people like bread’). It was anything but arbitrary; rather, it met their deviance point-for-point. Here, we see, in a sense, the drama ‘behind the scenes’. Earlier, the psalm struck an ominous note when God was described as “looking down from heaven”. It seems as if whenever God examines the earth in this manner, all he finds is chaos and he, therefore, unleashes chaos (the Flood, Tower of Babel). Which is exactly what occurs in vs. 5 when God casts fear into the enemy camp and empowers Israel to ‘scatter their bones’. The impression of this form of judgment is of it descending from heaven in the same manner as his glance from heaven. However, in this verse we witness something different. Although God ‘looks down from heaven’, his judgment (his salvation) comes from Zion (or, Jerusalem and the Temple). This is, in a sense, the ‘internal drama’ of Israel and her God as embodied in the city and the Temple. On the one hand Israel is fully cognizant of the fact that God ‘rules from heaven’ (from a vantage point of utter sovereignty). On the other hand, they are also aware that he has a local (he has ‘localized’ himself in Israel and the Temple). Neither of these realities are (or, should) be overwhelmed by the other. Indeed, Zion is the place where heaven and earth non-competitively coincide (and, why it is much more than a ‘metaphor’ and more like a sacrament). It is for this reason that this psalm can embody this twin trajectories (looking down from heaven; salvation from Zion) and see Zion as the source of the astonishing power of God. It is not that salvation is not coming from heaven. Rather, Zion as the meeting place of heaven and earth, is, so to speak, the portal through which God’s justice flows, because heaven resides there, just as Israel is the particular people through which the promises are given. Israel and Zion, in this way, mirror and depend on each other. This being the case, the final lines make a great deal of sense: God’s salvation, as demonstrated against the ‘fools’, will, at some point be demonstrated against all of Israel’s enemies (Israel and Jacob) and accomplish a great act of national deliverance. And, it will come (or, originate) from Zion, that hub and heart of the nation. This battle was, in a way, a foretaste of a great(er) battle that will involve all of God’s people, at which time the ‘fool’ will be revealed as such in a moment of total reversal and shame.