Ps. 73.24-25 (levitical possession)

With you / what can I lack / in heaven
and with you / I desire nothing else / on earth. 

There are several layers to this verse. The first is to ask the rather odd question of what exactly would the psalmist ‘own in heaven’? In order to address this I think we need to turn to the only other reference in this psalm to ‘heaven’. There, the wicked’s ‘mouths are in the heavens’ while their tongues strut on earth. We saw there that a ‘mouth in heaven’ represents an assertion of incredible power; what they say happens. The mouth ‘speaks on earth’ and the tongue struts on earth. This spanning of heaven to earth, was also seen as the ‘filling of earth’, the sense that the wicked’s power was nearly absolute. So in one sense what we see is the fact that ‘heaven’ is the ‘place of power’, the place where a ‘word’ becomes a ‘reality’ on earth (or, that earth represents the ‘speaking of heaven’). Further, there is the fact that the Temple as the dwelling of God is the meeting place between heaven and earth. When one is in the Temple on is ‘in heaven’. This is probably why we see refrain here of “with you” as it relates to both heaven and earth. When the psalmist is in the Temple he is “with God” in both heaven and earth. The third point is the fact that this ‘lack in heaven’ is paralleled to the lack of desire on earth. “With God” both the desire of heaven and the desire on earth are satisfied. We see here the psalmist recalling his opening ‘fall’ when he “envied” and “coveted” the wicked and their prosperity (vs. 2-3). In the Temple, “with God”, that desire is more-than-met-and-satisfied. Which leads to a fourth point: we noted how it is likely that the psalmist is a levitical priest. We also noted how, unlike other Israelites, he was not given land when the Israelites divided up the promise land; rather, his ‘portion’ was God himself. Here, we see the coinciding of the levitical calling to God’s possession with the psalmist’s satisfaction with that possession. He has, in a way, fully inhabited (and regained) his role/ His previous ‘wandering’ was not merely that of an ‘everyman-righteous-man’, but a sin against his allotted position as priest. Now, his heart and his appointment are married.  It is, therefore, in this particular levitical calling that we see the full import of these verses: more than any other Israelite, his ‘possession’ was God. It is with this final observation that we come to an important insight—that the tension wrought in the first half of the psalm is one that finds its root in the levitical priesthood and its unique calling for God to be the ‘sole possession’. In this way, the Temple, as the ‘possession’ of the levitical priest, likewise takes on an added depth as the ‘answer’ to the wicked. We will flesh this out more in the concluding verses but for now we can say this: the more God is understood to be one’s sole possession the more agonizing does the ‘problem of the wicked’ become when one covets their prosperity. Likewise, however, the more God is one’s sole possession the more one comes to see how his presence utterly reveals and dwarfs the angst caused by this ‘swerving heart’. God’s presence is more precious the more it is possessed.