Ps. 73.12 (behold the eclipse)

Behold / these are the wicked
always carefree / their prosperity increases. 

We have commented on how the opening verse is probably a proverbial saying and that the psalm itself becomes a type of dramatic enactment as to how that statement is understood when set in contrast to the wicked. Here, that contrast becomes complete. The first verse begins “Truly, God is good to Israel…”. Here, a similar note is struck, but in a near equal antithesis, “Behold, these are the wicked, always carefree, their prosperity increases”. With just as equal force, the wicked are here set against the goodness that God bestows upon Israel and the ‘pure in heart’. Coming at the end of the litany of the wicked, these verses ring a terrible note of finality. What began in confidence in God’s goodness has ended in the wicked partaking of this goodness. They have ‘spanned heaven and earth’ in their wickedness, drawn away from God “his people” (vs. 10), suffer no pains (like the divine), speak arrogance into heaven itself—all without any consequence whatsoever (“always carefree”). They move with impunity, in a freedom that is the signature of the divine and of giants. Soemthing false is something that is divided against itself; something lacks integrity. These wicked, however, are completely unified. They fear nothing. They operate openly, in mid-day. They actually wear their wickedness like clothing, and, without shame or anxiety, put it ‘on display’. They inhabit the realm of unified integrity which is, typically, the realm of the blessed and the glory of the divine. To ‘Behold’ these wicked is to ‘behold’ a reality that is directly contrary to the opening proverb. Where is God’s goodness when these men have expanded to fill every space of that blessedness? These wicked have evicted the righteous from the realm of goodness. They are the ‘princes of this world’. In other words, the ‘beholding’ of the wicked is their eclipsing of the “Truly…” in verse 1. They have eclipsed the goodness of God.