Ps. 61.1-2 (a king in exile)

Hear my cry / O God
pay attention / to my prayer.
From the end of the earth / I call to you
when my heart / is faint – lead me / to a rock / higher than I. 

We have noted in other psalms the importance of theological geography—that is, for the psalmist, the literal place from which they pray is not merely symbolic but sacramental. This reality comes out very clearly in this psalm and particularly in these opening lines. I am assuming the speaker of this psalm is the king, and I am going to refer to him as David. This is a prayer that emerges, both geographically and existentially, in exile from the Temple. David prays “from the ends of the earth”. Although it is not entirely clear what (or, where) this refers to, it is often a designation for places uninhabitable by man and close the edge of (or, border to) chaos and/or Sheol (it is often the haunt of demons). The impact this place has on David is it makes his heart “faint”, which has connotations of being near death. The point is clear—David is praying from that existential place that, often, the sick man or the man hounded by enemies prays from. And yet, it is a literal place—he asks to be led “to a rock higher than I”. The next few verses make clear that this ‘rock’ is the founding rock of the Temple, God’s dwelling. The fact that it is ‘high’ is important for several reasons, but here it can be noted that the Temple Rock is often seen as a rock that cannot be submerged by the flood of chaos around it (representing the ‘raging nations’). For David—for the ‘son of God’ (Ps. 2)—geography matters, because God has, through him, a house. And, if we think in concentric circles, to pray “from the ends of the earth” is to pray from the furthest point from that center, that source of life and protection. And, if Psalm 2 can be any guide, the ‘rock’ is also the place and source of the king’s power; it is there that he is given his ‘rod of iron’. To be exiled from that rock, for the king, is to be an impotent and potentially powerless king. It is, out there, that David would be gravely susceptible to enemies (as with all of the ill and beleaguered psalmists we have seen). As the psalm progresses we must track these twin themes: a king in exile; and a king whose life is in danger. As we will see, it is in the Temple that these two dilemmas are resolved (or, better, overcome).