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.