Ps. 77.19-20 (the threat of memory)

Your way / went through / the sea
your paths / went through / the great waters,
though your tracks were unknown
You led / your people / like a flock
by the hand / of Moses and Aaron. 

We spent some time commenting on the previous use of God’s ‘way’ in verse 13: “Your way is in holiness…”. There we saw that the ‘holiness’ conceived of as it stands in this psalm is active, combative and delivering. The holiness is, in other words, very dramatic. When it is present, it effects a change. That we have seen in the previous verses is what makes the ‘waters’ and the ‘deep’ respond in such terror  (the ‘waters below’), and, likewise, what harnesses the ‘waters above’ as vehicles of his militaristic mastery. This “coming God” was, in a sense, the ‘way’ of his descent to this people. In the immediately preceding verses we saw that this ‘way’ involved his attack; his harnessing of the forces of the storm, and using it as a vehicle for his presence. His ‘arrow/lighting’ ‘lit up the world’. Now, at this point, we move into the direct ‘way’ that God has come to establish. In this sense we could say that his descent and destruction were prepatory. They were like the clearing of land before the actual road is established. Now, with the world ‘lit up by lightning’ the ‘way’ is ready to be built. This ‘building’ consists, though, in a “going-through”. It is a ‘splitting’. This is a profound point: that when God’s ‘way’ is established it is established by way of a splitting, a “going-through” of the enemies and forces aligned against him. The exodus is, in one of its most fundamental ways, this ‘cutting’ and splitting-apart.  Just as, in creation, the ‘waters below’ and the ‘waters above’ are separated, and split-apart, so too now are the ‘waters below’ now divided so that his people can walk through them on dry land. It is a profound act of deliverance as effected by his creative mastery. It both evokes creation itself and, in that way, calls forth the deepest meaning of deliverance—as a type of re-creation; a mastery of forces aligned against God by way of a ‘splitting’, separating and ‘going-through’. We have said this before but it bears repeating: the exodus reveals the depth of creation itself as much as creation reveals the depth of the exodus. That is the first point to make. The second involves this dynamic of revelation and hiddenness. The psalm has thus far, when God’s “coming” emerges, displayed an interesting reticence about actually portraying God directly. When he first appears the only way he is known is by the effect he has on the water(s); they roil and writhe. Further, in the storm cloud, his ‘voice’ is rather hidden. It never actually refers to God’s voice, but the ‘voice of the thunder’ and ‘your thunder’. Further, the ‘lightning flashes’ are actually not described as God’s. This sense is continued into these verses. The “way” and the “paths” are all that are mentioned. All of this said, it is clear, however, that this is a theophany of God. But a theophany by way of hiddenness. All of this comes out in the concluding line of the verse: “though your tracks were unknown”. It is simultaneously absolutely certain that God has “come” and that he has remained, in that coming, ‘unknown’. Indeed, it may be that he ‘comes’ most profoundly by his remaining ‘unknown’. This capacity for being both manifestly present and hidden does not, at all, call into question his activity for his people. The final line summarizes this nicely. This ‘unknown’ capacity is not to be confused with a type of reticence on God’s part of being wholly for his people. Indeed, like a shepherd he leads his flock, but by the hands of Moses and Aaron. They become the chosen expression of God’s delivering guidance. This concluding sense of protective guidance, in the context of this psalm, is not wholly positive. For, it is clear that the only “hands” that are now employed by God’s people are those that ‘stretch out to him’ in unanswered prayer. (vs. 2). In other words, this is the time of the absence of Moses and Aaron. And, without them, the psalmist cannot perceive the expression of God’s guidance and, importantly, cannot see “his way”. If a ‘way’ is being prepared, without Moses and Aaron, it will “remain unknown” (vs. 19). The psalmist will be left, only, with the central questions ringing. And, if the answer to those questions is that God has in fact abandoned his promises, there will be no answer; only silence. This is the threat of memory. While a man cannot live with God without memory, there is a realm to memory that is cavernous. Like the abandoned Temple, when memory contemplates the absence of God, it becomes but another building, severed from its infused power and vitality. It enters the realm of vanity, grief and torment.