Ps. 59.9-10 (in the wake of laughter)

O my Strength / I will watch for you;
for you, / O God / are my bulwark
My God / will come / to meet me / with his loyal-love;
God / will cause me / to look in triumph / over my foes. 

From the laughter now comes expectation. We might recall Psalm 2 in this regard. As we noted there the laughter of God was one that silenced the enemy. However, the destruction of the enemy was left to the king, in whose hand God would place a rod of iron. The point is that the laughter was the beginning; its fulfillment in destruction was set in the future. Here, something similar is seen (although without the explicit empowering of the king). The laughter begins and now comes the ‘watch’. Following in the wake of the laughter trails God, “my Strength”. As if emerging from the voice of laughter, God (now, “my bulwark”) will “come to meet me”. And, with him will be his covenantal power: his loyal-love. Notice how personal this whole event appears: “O my Strength…You, O God, are my bulwark…My God will come to meet me; God will cause me to look…”. This will not only save the king (and his people) but it will also be in answer to the king’s plea in verse 5, appealing to God’s own honor and reputation within the world. His enactment of his ‘covenant-love’ will show that he is true to his covenant partner, and this will redound to his own glory/reputation within the world. This, of course, is crucial: God’s deliverance will be both his and his people’s simultaneous vindication in the eyes of the world. In his being entirely “for the king/Israel” he is also entirely “for Himself”. In this moment, all of these strands will come together: God’s ‘seeing’ and ‘acting’ (the haitus between the two) will be unified; the king (and the people) will be delivered; God will be seen to be the God of Hosts and the God of Israel. Crucial, though: all of this begins with God’s laughter. Although the end (deliverance) can be seen as a non-competitive, simultaneous justification of God and the king/Israel to the world, it begins (as with creation itself) with God’s voice (his election, his Word).  

Ps. 59.8 (the laughter of God)

But you / O Yhwh / will laugh at them
You will scoff / at all those nations. 

The verbal utterances of the wicked and God are important to compare. In the previous verses, the wicked “howled” like dogs who haunted (terrorized) a city after dark. Swords came from their lips. And their attacks were encased within a defiant question of “Who will hear?” As creatures of the night and hidden in darkness these dogs believed themselves invisible and invincible. Here, though, their howl is met by God’s scornful laughter. We looked in depth at this ‘laughter of God’ in Psalm 2. It plays much the same role here as it did there. What we saw in Psalm 2 was the congregating of several “people” (kings, nations, …) and their subsequent march to Zion in order to overthrow the king. Their ‘murmuring’ and commotion as they approached the mountain, indicating a type of unified insubordination and confidence was met with the shattering laughter of God. It descended upon them, hurricane-like, and they never said another word for the rest of the psalm. It utterly disarmed them. Here, the laughter functions in much the same manner. In contrast to their ‘howling’ (a type of beacon call to congregate in a pack), the singular laughter of God emerges. Perhaps more devastating is how this laughter contrasts to the immediately preceding question, “Who will hear?” That question evinced a firm conviction that their actions were performed in utter and impenetrable secrecy. They questioned the ability of any god to defend against or even perceive their actions. As in Psalm 2, however, God’s response is completely disarming by the fact that it is utterly dismissive. What I mean is this: their statement was an act of defiance. One would expect that such a question would be met with a countering act of defiance, as in battle, etc… However, by laughing, God reveals that their sense of security is not only wrong but utterly ridiculous. Their darkness is utter light to God. God’s laugher is the laughter of the absurd. And, to those subjected to it, it would be terrifying as, in a moment, one’s whole foundation would have been removed. Again, what they thought was darkness was, in essence, no barrier to their actions being perceived by God. (We might point out that at creation, the darkness seems pregnant with God’s creative power and, in the Temple, God dwells in darkness.) It is profoundly important, then, to point out that God’s ‘war’ against the dogs is not one of equal partners; God’s laughter reveals his total and utter superiority to them. Which leads to a final point: the description of the ‘dogs’ in the previous verse is not, in light of God’s laughter, to be seen as ironic. It is only in God’s laughter that the fear of their ‘howling’ is overcome. Without it, they are incredibly dangerous. In other words, the shaming of the dogs does not originate from some power on man’s part to realize that “in the end, they are only figments” (or, by looking at them ‘from some great height’, or, through a type of resignation/detachment, or, through any other form of philosophical or religious distancing intended to show how ‘really unreal’ they are). Rather, it is only in the saving power of God that they their question, “Who can hear?”, is answered—and it is ‘answered’ by their defeat. Again, the psalmist is not relieved of his terror of these dogs by some abstract answer to them, but by deliverance from them (as verses 1-5 make clear).

Ps. 59.6-7 (dogs of night)

They howl / like dogs / which return at evening
and prowl / around a town
See how / they slaver / at the mouth;
swords come / from their lips
for they think / “Who will hear?” 

Here we come to the central, and arresting, image of the psalm. It is this image which makes this psalm unique (thus far). It is disturbing. We have already noted that the psalm is very much enlivened by the king’s sense of anxiety, his inability to fully comprehend the n nature of the threat against him even though he is certain it present and profound. That anxiety is now turned, imagistically, into a description of his attackers. The first thing to note, in this regard, is that these dogs attack at night. As such, their ‘home’ and habitation is darkness, which, as we saw in the previous psalm, is the time of danger. And, as with the last psalm, the night turns the attackers into beasts (Ps. 58: lions; here: dogs). They have not only ceased to be human but they have become beasts of incredible danger. One wonders here how much the source of terror originates in the fact that the dogs travelled in packs and it was their seeming ‘singlemindedness’ that made of them so frightening. Along these same lines is the fact that, during the day, the apparently sleep outside the realm of human habitation. As such, they may dwell in the places where demons are understood to reside. Their ‘return’ to the town, at night, would then be the returning power of these almost demonic-like dogs, these agents-of-chaos. Second, their presence at night is linked to their claim, “Who will hear?” These dogs own the night. The three auditory motifs are that they “howl”, that “swords come from their lips” (is this imagery of teeth or speech?), and that their victims will not be heard. In other words, their voices are the only ones present and, as such, are the only sources of power. When they attack, the victim will be like a stranded traveler who is mauled by these roving bands of dogs. Their question also, I think, points to something more fundamental: they are claiming that God will not hear. This is a common taunt in the psalms. Here, it picks up on the psalmist’s previous plea that God “come and see” (we might say, ‘hear’).  The dogs believe that the night is so powerful in its ability to conceal them, that no god would be able to penetrate it to deliver one of his devotees. (Interestingly, God, in the Temple, ‘dwells in darkness’ and, in Genesis, created light from it…). To them, the night is atheistic.

Ps. 59.4c-5 (God's reputation)

Rouse yourself / to meet me / and see!
For you / are Yhwh / God of Hosts
O God / of Israel
up now / to punish all the nations
show no mercy / to all evil deceivers! 

The appeal in the opening verses were for “deliverance”, in the second section (vs. 3-4) it was that God would “see”. Here, it is that God would “rouse himself” and “meet me” and “see”. It is, in addition, the call for “punishment”. We already commented yesterday on how this “seeing” is to be understood as nearly simultaneous to God’s “meeting me” and, now, his punishment. The directive to God to “see” is never a directive for God to perform a merely passive “watching” but an active movement of deliverance and judgment. For God to see is for God to act. And for God to see his righteous suffer at the hands of wickedness is for him to “punish”. Here, the opening line touches upon this same desire by telling God to “rouse himself”. It may be that such statements were, in Baal liturgies, actually meant to awaken the god (as when Elijah taunted the priests of Ba’al). It is not likely that the psalmist/king thought God, Yhwh, was actually asleep. That said, it is clear, that he saw his petitions as instigating movement on God’s part. He could ‘prick him’ into action. All of these directives have been aimed at precisely that (“deliver me”, “set me up high…”, “see..”). It is instructive then, with what ‘arrow’ the king now aims at God’s heart: “For you are Yhwh, God of Hosts, O God of Israel, up now…”. The king of Israel is reminding God of whose God he is—Israel’s god. And, how powerful he is—God of Hosts. In combining both of these, it is an attempt to awaken God’s sense of responsibility and the attack on his reputation that these nations are about to make if they succeed. God will be shamed not only if fails to reveal his power but if he fails to come to the protection of his people. The king is pointing out that, in a sense, God has something to lose if he does not move into action. The fact that the king is here appealing to God’s public persona (his reputation) is very important when it comes to the later portions of the psalm—God’s deliverance, when it comes to his people, is not a merely private affair. It is aimed at displaying, to the world (and all the nations), God’s concern and regard for his people. In the same way that Israel is to be a “light to the world” so too will their deliverance be one that is a “light to the world”. In this way, it sits, almost entirely, within this public arena. By aiming the arrow in this manner the king is showing his awareness of this dynamic and the fact that Israel, herself, is the public display of God’s reputation to the world; indeed, Israel is God’s reputation to the world. 

Ps. 59.3-4 (a hidden anxiety)

For see how / they lie in wait / for me!
Mean people / plot against me,
but / for no offense of mine / and no sin of mine / O Yhwh.
There is / no waywardness / on my part
but / they run / and prepare to attack. 

The psalm opened with a plea for deliverance. The king now petitions God to “see”, something he returns to in the following verse. We have argued before that for God to ‘see’ is not merely for him to become aware of a given situation. It is no mere passive observation. Rather, to appeal to God to “see” is to ask for him to act. We have described this in other contexts as the hiatus between seeing and acting—in God, these two should be united but often are not, and it is the goal of the petition to unite these two poles into the present in an act of judgment. This view is very close to the following verse where the king says, “Rouse yourself to meet me and see!” In this phrase we find both aspects brought together: the ‘meeting’ and the ‘seeing’ are here understood as a unified act of judgment, an act that would, by its nature, condemn the oppressors and deliver the righteous (the king). What the king is asking God to see is instructive: he wants God to see their wickedness and, importantly, their hiding (“…see how they lie in wait for me…”). In essence the king is asking God to ‘see how they hide’. For him, God ‘seeing wickedness’ would move him into action as quickly and profoundly as his ‘seeing righteousness’. There is the sense that for God to look upon wickedness is to, in a sense, already condemn it. In reality, these two poles are combined for the king wants God to “see” both their plotting and his innocence (“…no offense of mine…no sin of mine…no waywardness on my part…”). There is also, as will become more clear later, a deep anxiety at the heart of the petition. Unlike a request for deliverance prior to engaging in battle, where the enemy is manifest, this request originates from the sense that what is most dangerous—what is ‘rising against me’ (vs. 1)—is taking place in secret and in hiding. The images of a ‘hunt’, with the king as a prey, will be seen throughout the psalm (the ‘howling dogs’). What the king wants is for God to pierce this darkness that he himself can sense but cannot fully perceive—hence, why he asks God to ‘see it’. It is the king’s inability to fully comprehend the danger that is at the root of this petition, which is why the one thing he can say, with certainty, is that he is not guilty.