Ps. 69.20-21 (reproach and unclean animals)

Reproach -
it has broken my heart
and I am sick / with misery
I expected compassion / but there was none
and comforters / but I found none
instead / they put poison / in my food
and for my thirst / they gave me / vinegar to drink. 

The words ‘reproach, scorn, shame or humiliation’ is employed at least ten times. It is the central (perhaps only) concern of the psalmist and is what he is asking to be redeemed and delivered from. In previous verses we have noted how shame works as between the psalmist, God and the community. What we saw was that the psalmist was the ‘idiot’ because he had zeal for God’s house, but no power to substantiate it; he longed for God’s holiness to be enacted but complained of being abandoned by God while exposed to the taunts of the people. In these verses, by contrast, we come to see how shame works between the psalmist and his community. Here, it is divided into two types: the passive and the active. Passively, the psalmist expects the normal modes of human compassion to come to him in order to build him up in a time of need: he expected “compassion” and “comforters”, but there was simply a void (“there was none”). What is clear is that his failings created the condition that should have necessitated these movements of compassion and comfort. They were not merely voluntary actions; they were rightfully expected. This ‘hospitality’ was an ethical demand that should have occurred. Its absence signals something glaringly wrong. I have called this ‘passive’ in order to highlight the contrast with the following verse, but this does obscure something important—it appears that a withheld ‘compassion’ and ‘comfort’ in this situation is, in reality, an active choice to avoid its application. Those who are refusing him help are not merely dilatory. In refusing him succor they are willing his demise. This terrible state of affairs is then compounded in the following “active” verse. These verses represent the form of treachery that is emblematic of nearly every form of spoken wickedness in the psalms—it displays the dual nature of evil in that the exterior action is clothed in hospitality, but this only hides a malevolent death-dealing motive. In this way, although it is ‘dual’ in nature, it is a single action. In this way it partakes of all of the ‘unclean’ animals—they display ‘category confusion’ in that, for example, a shellfish (a lobster) appears like a land animal but walks under water; or a bird that has wings, but can’t fly. These hypocritical actions of the wicked are ‘single’ actions (feeding, or drink) but they display a category confusion in that they are not fully what they appear. This is just another way of saying—they are lies. This, however, does little justice to what occurs in these verses—his companions are not merely trying to kill him; they are betraying him. They are, in the appearance of hospitality (that which should be life-giving), attempting the precise opposite. In other words, they exploit the natural order of goodness, while utterly subverting it at the same time. Their betrayal is not merely to the psalmist but to this entire ‘order of charity and hospitality’. It is a deeply, deeply evil act. Perhaps the worst form. The depth of this evil is grasped, however, when we come to see that this is not a merely private form of betrayal; it is also deeply humiliating (it is a “reproach”). There is no ‘interior I’ in which he can withdraw. His humiliation is just as profound a death as his poisoning. (It is, of course, very telling that Jesus’ handing over to his enemies was through this medium of betrayal (Judas). And, further, that upon his death, he is given ‘vinegar’ to drink rather than wine/water. Everything is encased in this deeply evil act. And his ‘cross’ is part-and-parcel with this communal and public act of reproach and humiliation.)