Ps. 71.7-8 (I have been a mystery)

I have been / a mystery for many
though you / have been my strong refuge.
And my mouth / has been filled / with your praise
with your renown / all day long. 

The first verse is difficult to understand. It appears to contrast the two statements—I have been a mystery – you have been my refuge—indicating that the ‘mystery’ the psalmist is to others is not entirely positive. This, in fact, is one of the common usages for the term ‘mystery’ as used here; it is something like a trouble-sign, a curse, etc… It is something that evokes a type of dreaded awe. Conversely, though, at times it has positive connotations and can be associated with God’s delivering hand, as in the exodus. We have seen, along these more ‘positive’ lines, a sense in the psalmist of an ever-present trust in Yhwh that has been clear since his birth. Perhaps the verse means something to this effect: that Yhwh’s care and concern for the psalmist has evoked a response of challenge throughout his life, much as it is now. In this sense he has been a ‘mystery’ to many in that he has been a scandal and object of hate. However, throughout his life, he has been marked by the delivering hand of God, much as in the Exodus God’s acts of deliverance were ‘mysteries’. What this points to is important when understanding the ‘aging with God’ the psalmist describes—it has been one of a continuous oscillation between communal rejection and God’s deliverance. His sign as a ‘mystery’ is both this negative and positive aspect. However, that said, he has not, in some sense, grown acquainted with the negative. He is still, as always, asking to be redeemed and for his enemies to be shamed by their aggression toward him. It is something profound to realize that one’s nature is this ‘mystery’, to see in one’s relationship with God the creating of this almost ambivalent existence. It is, however, from within that complexity that what emerges is so much more revealing: the mysterious nature of his existence has not quenched his continuous praise of God. Indeed, his mouth has been “filled” with praise and his renown “all day long”. Even though his being is one of dark and light, the darkness has not succeeded in diminishing the psalmist’s praise. He is adamant that it has not slackened as the images are clearly meant to convey the sense of completion. This is not, though, simply an interior state of strength: his praise has not slackened because God has always remained close to him and delivered him. It is God’s being his ‘refuge’ and his ‘renown’ (a type authorial, or regal, power) that ‘fills his praise’—these are images of deliverance and care. The ‘ever’ sense of his praise is relational, covenantal—not individual and withdrawn from history and the world. It is the ‘ever’ sense of relational ‘hope’.