Ps. 73.13 (the collision)

It surely seemed / as nothing / that I kept my heart clean
and washed my hands / in innocence. 

These are important lines because they signal a transition in the psalm away from the wicked and toward the psalmist. It begins to chart the effect the wicked had on the psalmist. We have already noted that he ‘envied’ and ‘coveted’ the wicked. Here, however, what we see is the effect of his resistance to their appeal. And, the first thing we notice is that the specter of ‘nothingness’ has arisen. Just as evident to the psalmist was the blessed state of the wicked, is his current state of absence from the good—“it surely seemed…”. This is plain to him. And, as with the previous reflection, it represents a direct challenge to the opening proverb. We need to note how the language of this verse directly contradicts the language of the opening verse. Here they are side by side: “Truly, God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.” “It surely seemed as nothing that I kept my heart clean, washed my hands in innocence.” Here, the ‘purity of heart’ the psalmist has maintained has led not to ‘goodness’ but to ‘nothingness’. Importantly, it is the psalmist who is trapped in a type of vanity (“nothing”; the failure of his actions to accomplish their goal) while the wicked dwell in unity and blessedness. Further, this nothing has also come to inhabit his priestly role (“washing my hands in innocence”). The focus here is on a maintaining of cleanliness of heart and hands, of moral and cultic purity. Every sphere of his activity has seemingly and apparently led not to a promised life of blessedness but to a life of nothingness, and of mere ‘seeming’. While the wicked are giants, spanning heaven and earth, the psalmist, in his purity, has become a nothing, a mirage-like ‘seeming’ of contradiction.