Ps. 62.3-4 (the Temple and the tottering wall)

How long / will you assault / a person
all of you attacking
as you would / a leaning wall / or a built parapet?
Yes, / despite being a person / of high status (my glory/weight/authority)
they plan / to push him down
they delight / in lies
they bless / with their mouths
but inwardly / they curse. 

The question, ‘how long?’, as we have seen can be used in different ways. When addressed to God it is one of anguish (“how long until you deliver me?”); when addressed to the wicked, however, it is one of superior, and ironic detachment (“how long will continue to act like a fool?”). The second is what we find here. From his Temple-assurance he now turns to address the wicked and what he finds, after having bathed his soul in Temple-assurance, is a people utterly perplexing to him. They are, to him, an absurdity, as they attempt to conquer that which cannot be destroyed. The city/Temple imagery is furthered in these verses. Whereas the psalmist is ‘Temple-strong’ in God, these men’s attack is likened to a siege. Importantly, however, they are not literal city-attackers, but are waging war against the psalmist. Here is something important: those who wait patiently for God are those who participate within the solidity and forever of the Temple; those who participate thus become, through that participating, a forever-city themselves. This is not a bypassing of the Temple, however. One must participate within it in order to further it. The Temple is the source; the headwater. This will come out clearly later when the psalmist says: “Yes, he is my rock, where I am secure…I am rock-strong and secure in God.” Through God’s temple, the psalmist becomes, in a way, a temple. It is this reason why I think these verses are speaking of the psalmist, and why I included the parenthesis above (“my glory/weight/authority…”, which is attested in some manuscripts). He is the person of ‘high rank’. To the wicked, he appears like he is ready to fall, a “tottering wall” and very vulnerable. And this is the reason why we saw the division in verse 1 (of why the psalmist must address himself): the division consists of the difference in perspective between the wicked and his own (he is a “tottering wall”) and his other voice (in God I am “rock strong”). The psalmist is both of these voices—the note of assurance is that which is telling himself he is not, in fact, tottering, but must be patient for God’s deliverance. What we find, then, is that beneath the assurance is this note of anxiety; this is the reason he must speak to himself to begin with. The wicked, then, are only on one side of the divide; they psalmist is with them there, too. However, unlike the wicked, the psalmist also has the ability (through his Temple-participation) of speaking out, more strongly and from a much higher vantage point, against this perspective. Note: the psalmist’s own anxiety is not given any purchase in the psalm. If it can be detected at all, it is through the wicked. In this way, it might be said that the Temple-voice of the psalmist is also addressing himself (in a type of empowering disdain) when he speaks of the wicked, alienating that weaker, anxiety ridden perspective and placing it in those who are dim-witted and absurd. Indeed, it is placed within the mouths of these agents of chaos: those who, as we have seen with wicked, are disunified (the speak one thing outwardly, but inwardly are the opposite).