Ps. 73.18 (the Temple is the answer)

Truly / you will put them / on slippery places
making them fall / into deceptive / places of ruin. 

Here we find the beginning of the reversal. And, importantly, the beginning begins with a return to the opening word of the psalm, “Truly…”. The psalmist has, in the sanctuary, been able to begin repeating the proverb of the opening: “Truly, God is good to Israel…”. As we remarked before, outside the sanctuary there was a collision between the opening proverb and the reality of the wicked. The “Truly” of the proverb collided with the “Behold, these are the wicked, always carefree their prosperity increases” (vs. 12). Within the sanctuary, though, a dimension of the wicked is revealed that otherwise would have remained hidden from the psalmist, even though his heart had remained pure and his hands clean (vs. 13). As we remarked yesterday, that dimension is utterly tied to the concrete reality that the sanctuary/Temple not represents but is. The Temple is the dwelling of God and that place that grounds creation. It is the utterly secure. For that reason, in the Temple, one is assured that, when the wicked ascend, they will, eventually be cast down. For the psalmist, this reality cannot be grasped apart from the fact that God’s “goodness to Israel” is the Temple/sanctuary itself. This is why the Temple is the proverb. It is what makes the proverb, proverbially true, by it being the concrete manifestation of God’s covenant with Israel as well as the Eden of creation. This is wisdom as Temple. This is why the psalmist now begins to recapitulate the psalm, except now from a position of assurance rather than of “torment”. The ‘slippery slopes’ refers back to verse 2: “my step had nearly slipped”. The wicked’s “falling into deceptive places of ruin” refers back, as well, to verse 2: “But for me, my feet had almost stumbled”. Further, the ‘deceptive places’ likely refers to the state of confusion that arose in the psalmist when he “envied” and “coveted” the wicked in verse 3—that ‘envy’ and ‘coveting’ is what caused him to nearly stumble. The point is that the psalmist, in the sanctuary, is assured that, because he has kept his heart clean and his hands innocent, God is “good to him” (vs. 1). That ‘goodness’ is here demonstrated by the ‘great reversal’ we have charted in nearly every psalm when the wicked are cast down: they come to suffer the reversal of the righteous. Whereas the righteous had nearly slipped, though, they will be placed on slipper places. Whereas the psalmist “almost stumbled” the wicked “will fall”.  That which was unified—the wicked—will now be divided, and that which had been divided—the righteous—will be unified. And that reconciliation occurs by and through the act of judgment, the ‘making right’ of creation. This ‘making right’ is what exists in the Temple (what is the Temple)—the Eden of God’s presence—and it is, therefore, what will be established within the created realm. Creation will be Temple once more, because the Temple is. This is not so much a mystical insight (nor existential) as the clear consequence of God’s establishment of his Temple within Israel (his “goodness”). Every person in Israel with “a clean heart” (vs. 1) has access to this reality and assurance and “goodness” (vs. 1). (Incidentally, this is why verse 1 should read “Israel”; without it, the psalm largely falls apart thematically.) For a time, the wicked ascend, but their darkness never overtakes the Temple (… “the light of the world”), which is why, upon entering the Temple, the psalmist becomes assured of their eventual (and total) demise.