Ps. 60.5 (owning God's affection)

So that those dear to you / may be rescued
save us / by your right hand / and answer us. 

In light of yesterday’s reflection on God’s betrayal it is important to bring this verse into conversation with what we concluded. Here, we see that however strong the psalmist/king acknowledges God’s acts of betrayal, he does not believe that those in covenant with Him have somehow ceased being ‘dear to you’. In other words, (and contrary it seems to certain strands of theology) God acts like a covenant partner and the psalmist does not find this, in itself, to be problematic. It is simply that he must, as with any king or over-lord one is in covenant with, implore him to ‘return’ to covenantal solidarity (vs. 1). God is not a principle, or a ‘constant’. He is a partner. The entire psalm, as with nearly every lament psalm, presupposes this understanding and shapes its rhetoric accordingly. All of the displays (we might say exaggerations, but that would be to miss the point) of rhetorical angst is aimed at one goal: moving God to return to and help the king and his people in their time of danger. The psalms are like letters to a great king, imploring him to send his help. Here, that reality takes center stage in the form of appealing, once again, to “those dear to you”. We saw this yesterday in the betrayal verses, where the king/psalmist referred to God betraying “your people” and “those who fear you” (vs. 3-4). There, it was by attacking God’s sense of honor, here, it is by appealing to God’s love and affection—but, in all of it, these are “his people”. This is the bond of covenant—that which makes one nearly family to the other. It seems a significant point that this is an arrow used to pierce God’s heart and move him into action in just as profound a way as the shaming of the betrayal verses—this psalmist takes ownership of God’s affection toward his people, in such a way that he can mirror it back to God (he does the same with God’s sense of honor in the betrayal verses).