Ps. 56.7-8 (the drama of wrath)

“For their evil
Will there be / liberation for them?
Bring these people down / in your wrath / O God.
You / must have kept a record / of my misery
put my tears / in your bottle
Is that / in your reckoning?”

We have gestured in the direction of what it means to be ‘man’ in this psalm but have not brought out the point with much centrality. Here, we need to emphasize one aspect that plays an important role in these verses: man/flesh is transient. It participates within the vanity of the world when it is not infused with or blessed by God. It’s glory ‘shoots up with the morning, but withers by the afternoon’. In other words, it, and everything with it, passes away and does not remain. And, along these same lines, its power is only momentary. Nothing of flesh persists. This is why this original question is so important—‘For their evil, will there be liberation from them?’ Essentially the psalmist is asking whether their evil has been blessed by heaven such that it will persist beyond what flesh would normally provide. In other words, will their sedition and attempt to overthrow the psalmist (probably, the king) succeed? The psalmist, of course, does not believe that God would countenance this, but the question lingers precisely because the present seems so uncertain (it is important, however, that he does not ask, “Will you liberate them?”). Which is why he follows up this question with the immediate calling for the reverse: rather than blessing he asks that they be “brought down in your wrath”. Here, we see how ‘wraths’ relationship to ‘flesh’/man. Whereas blessing allows man to persist beyond what his nature would normally permit, wrath cuts man short. It is an eruption (and, an interruption), a surprise. The psalmist is calling for God’s wrath to cut short these men’s plans (their schemes and attempted coup) and to bring the present into alignment with God’s justice. (Query: is God’s wrath and his curse the same? Or is the curse a particular covenantal term intended to bring the person/people back into covenant communion whereas wrath is a truly an act of pure judgment?)  And, at this point, where wrath is called down from heaven, we find one of the most unique passages in all of the psalms (and, of Scripture)—the image of God storing the psalmist’s tears in a bottle. It is fascinating on several fronts, none more so than the purely literary craft of the image. It is an incredibly tender and touching vision of God’s concern for the psalmist/king. Thematically, it is highly instructive: although man/flesh passes away in the face of God’s everlasting, here we find God ‘storing’ the psalmist’s tears. In other words, the misery of God’s people is something that persists within his realm and by his own action, and, not merely ‘persists’, but is tenderly cared for. This is much more than a written record that persists (something we see in other passages)—it is a storing up of the physical expression of misery (tears) (God is here extending the same concern that one would for other liquids that need to be maintained over time: wine, oil, milk…etc.). And, most importantly, it is this tear-bottle to which the psalmist appeals for God’s wrath on the wicked. IT is as if the psalmist is asking that not their evil, but his misery, to be what ‘persists’ and becomes a source of God’s action; “Don’t let their evil work for liberation, but let my misery work for wrath.” All of this certainly of God’s ‘water-collection’, however, is then called into question. Note how the psalmist first says, “You must have kept a record…” but then ends with “Is that in your reckoning?” And, again the word-play is instructive: “kept a record…in your reckoning?” What are we to make of this? It seems as if this is the question of the present time: it is one that exists within the hiatus between God’s seeing of injustice and God’s acting upon it. In other words, it is the time of petition, prayer and complaint. And, within that moment, the only thing that one can aim at God’s heart would be this mixture of certainty and uncertainty. The psalmist knows, by the covenantal structure, that God expresses concern for those he is to protect. As the first verse makes clear: he provides “mercy”. Such concern takes on form here as tear-bottles that are stored up by God in his heavenly realm. In this way they become, in God’s presence, more potent than they could ever become otherwise. However, the psalmist is also aware that God’s judgments are his own and that the present is marked by a limitation on his part to discern exactly if, when, how or why God will act. All of this is the essence of dialogue and petition—the psalmist is fully embodying a faith that he can not only be heard by God but that he can impel God to act. It is this dramatic understanding of petition that makes complete sense (or, logic) of this interplay of certainly and uncertainty. It is a fully historical perspective on how God works. I do not think it makes sense otherwise (or, would be flattened if this dramatic contour was downplayed (for whatever reason)).