Ps. 71.1 (age and shame)

With you / O Yhwh / I have taken refuge
may I never / be put to shame. 

The note struck by this psalm is unique. It is clearly a psalm of a man in danger asking for deliverance (or, here, ‘refuge’). And there is an urgency to it. Yet, it is of a different order than that contained in other psalms. Perhaps it is due to his age (he is an old(er) man). The psalmist emphasizes throughout the psalm how his life has been one, from the beginning, rooted in God’s protection. Perhaps that lends to this psalm a serene-urgency. It seems fitting to read this through the experience of David or Jeremiah in their old age. With that in mind, these opening lines, although formulaic, take on a depth that otherwise would be lacking. The psalmist’s reference to being “with Yhwh” and having found in him “refuge” directs us to a long life of relational intimacy between Yhwh and himself. This psalm, in other words, is probably the summation of his life; it is one he has repeated, in various form and various places, throughout his life. He is well-practiced at appealing to God and is intimately aware of God’s concern for him. Important as well is the fact that, like nearly every other psalmist, his concern remains the same: deliverance from shame. In his old age his prayer hasn’t changed. He has relied upon Yhwh from birth to protect him from and to beat back the forces of shame. He has not ‘matured’ beyond that desire and petition. The final verse reads: “Then my tongue would tell of your righteousness all day long. How put to shame, how disgraced, will be those who seek my hurt.” Crucially, though, as we have emphasized over-and-over: this request to “not be put to shame” is penultimate to the final goal of his appeal for deliverance—praise and liturgy to God. The guarding from shame is not so that he can be merely made secure in his own well-being. It is so he can “sing to the Holy One of Israel” (vs. 22). This desire is clearly the driving force of his petition as it flows in and out of nearly every section of the psalm. His deliverance is always marked by a transition to praise (beginning in verse. 14 until the end).  That said, it seems important to make this observation: to be “with Yhwh” is to be “without shame”. There is a very deep and firm conviction that to be in sphere of Yhwh’s concern is to be within a realm where the public reality of redemption is clear to all. Indeed, as we saw, the final line transfers ‘shame’ to those who seek the psalmist’s life. Here, ‘shame’ is that realm wherein one exists in opposition to Yhwh and his righteous ones. In other words, it is hell, that perpetual state of Adam and Eve immediately following their disobedience to God—“they were ashamed” (not ‘guilty’; they were publicly exposed and ashamed). Hell is that place wherein one is perpetually exposed to ridicule and shame (because one is in rebellion to he who is not shame: Yhwh). Query: whether it might be more appropriate to describe ‘original sin’ as the ‘shame’ of Adam and Even rather than their ‘guilt’?