Ps. 71.2-4 (power of righteousness)

In your righteousness / rescue me / and set me free
turn your ear / toward me / and deliver me.
Be for me / a rock of refuge
for going to continually -/ decreed for my deliverance.
Yes, / you are my rock / and my stronghold.
O my God / set me free / from the hand of the wicked
from the grasp / of the unjust and ruthless. 

As we indicated yesterday, this psalm emerges from within the context of a long life lived “with Yhwh”. Perhaps here it behooves us to point out that the opening verse speaks of God as a place where the psalmist has ‘taken refuge’. Here, images of God as a ‘rock of refuge’ emerge where he “goes to continually”. Further, God is here portrayed as a military “stronghold”. When these images are combined we see God as a place, a refuge, a rock and a building. It is not difficult to suggest then that this psalmist is making his prayer to Yhwh from within Yhwh’s Temple. The Temple was founded on a ‘rock’, it is a ‘place of refuge’ and it is understood as a ‘stronghold’. The fact that this older man describes God as a rock of refuge that he has gone to “continuously” adds to our original insight in this manner: he is intimately familiar with God’s home, his Temple. Just as God has been for him, throughout his life, a ‘place of refuge’, so should we understand here that that intimate sense of God has been fed by his continuous return to the Temple and his continuous offering of praise and liturgy to God from within Yhwh’s own home. In this way, he has been “continuously” a ‘guest’ in God’s home, with God as his host. In this light, it is important to note how he here appeals to God’s ‘righteousness’—his covenantal power of assurance and protection. Just as he is “with Yhwh” so is he now appeal to God to move toward him “in your righteousness”. He asks him to unleash that power that re-orients everything around God’s purposes; it rectifies, delivers, redeems and justifies. Here, this power “sets free” and “delivers”. Specifically, it rips (delivers) the psalmist out of the ‘hands’ and ‘grip’ of his enemies. This is a power the psalmist knows, has experienced and has returned to from his birth until now. He has ‘walked’ in this power. Here, as it seems to lag toward the end of his life, he asks that God re-initiate it on his behalf, to place him, once again, within the sphere of God’s abundance. In summary, God’s righteousness is that power which confronts those forces that attempt to disrupt the joyful communion of praise and liturgy between himself and his righteous ones. And, here, it flows ‘from the Temple’, that place where heaven and earth intersect forming a ‘house of God’, a ‘temple of God’, and an Eden.