Ps. 55.17 (a righteous vigilance)

As for me / I call to God
and Yhwh / will save me.
Evening / morning / and noon
I complaint / and moan
and he will hear / my voice!

One thing we noted in discussing the nature of the city and the evil that inhabited it was the fact that it was both temporal and geographic. “Day and night they make rounds on its walls; evil and trouble are within it…oppression and deceit never leave its public square.” Its oppressive nature resulted from these twin realities of constancy over time and constancy in presence. There was nowhere to escape and no reprieve. The evil of the city was utterly vigilant in its presence. Here, however, emerges the ‘call to God’, and the beginning of the reversal. As in many other psalms, the psalm formally begins to ‘push back’ at the evil that had been identified. Specifically, the “day and night” and “never leaving” presence of the evil is now specifically addressed by a prayer to God that occurs “morning, noon and night”. This temporal ‘push back’ is important as the psalmist cannot push back in any other manner (he can’t push back on the geographic presence; rather, he must rely on God to perform that aspect). The only means of vigilance that is open to him is one of constant complaint and moaning. His interior space will be utterly occupied (with “complaint and moaning”) with the petition to God as the city is utterly occupied by evil. A righteous vigilance will counter and ‘push back’ at the wicked vigilance. And, while the evil is one that does not seem to ‘call forth’ any other power than its own, this vigilant complaint (“…and he will hear my voice!”) is one that is designed to awaken Yhwh, the Warrior King (“God will hear me and he will answer them, God enthroned from of old…”; vs. 19).