Ps. 60.6-8 (banner, wine and promise)

God / made a holy promise: 
“I will exult / and divide up Shechem
and measure off / the Valley of Sucoth.
Gilead is mine / and Manasseh too
Ephraim / is a helmet / for my head.
Judah / is my staff
Moab / is my wash-pot
I will / throw my shoe / over Edom
Philistia / shout because of me!” 

These verses stand at the center of the psalm. We should, therefore, understand this promise as being, in a sense, the goal of the psalm. And yet, how are we to understand these lines? I interpret them as a promise God made in the past that is now being recalled to mind by the psalmist/king. If that is the case, there is a potentially dark or troubling meaning to them. To wit, is God’s promise merely another false banner, a proffered wine that will only lead to their destruction? Is it the case that they have been operating under the assumption that their battles will be successful precisely because of this promise only to find out that, in fact, God has ‘spurned us’ and ‘torn down our defenses’? This is an incredibly dangerous promise to rely on if it is not honored. In other words, is this as hopeful as it sounds? I would argue that this recounted promise functions in much the same way that the psalmist’s previous attempts to move God into action work—whether through shame or affection.  It is not so much a recounting as an urging. An urging that God would re-garb himself in this ‘holy promise’ and take possession of the land (in and through the king). The first verse speaks to this act of ownership (of ‘dividing up’ (for Israel) and ‘measuring off’ (as Abraham was to ‘measure off’ the land)). The second section refers to these lands as actually being bound to God as closely as a warriors armor and signs of power. They would, thereby, actually be expressions of his person. The final section regarding Moab and Edom seem shameful and hint at the public degradation the Warrior King promised would befall them. It is this utter sense of security (expressed through power, possession and shame) that makes this promise seem so unendurably remote and dangerous in the present moment—the exact opposite is what they are experiencing. Rather than being possessed, they are abandoned; rather than being the proud clothing of Yhwh, their walls have been torn and ‘ripped open’; rather than seeing their enemies shamed, they are ‘reeling’ as if drunk. It would not be hard to imagine the king choking on this promise as he recites it (hoping to see its fulfillment). And yet, really, what else can he do except recite God’s promises in this land of God’s abandonment (‘My God, my god, why have you abandoned me..?’)? I think we must grapple with the fact that the king believes that if his prayer does not penetrate God’s ear, he and his people (and God’s people) will be lost.