Ps. 78.20 (domesticating wonder)

True / he struck a rock
and water gushed out / and streams flowed
But / can he also / provide bread
Can he supply meat / for his people? 

These lines are saturated with innuendo. In this, I think, there resides an important point to make: we have read in many, many psalms how the psalmist is attempting to ‘prick God’s heart’ in order to move him into action. The psalmist can often do this through a type of shaming, of implying that God is not living up to his covenantal obligations. The question is what is the difference between what those psalmists are doing—which is not portrayed negatively—and what these Israelites are doing—which clearly is abhorrent behavior. The problem can’t simply be manipulation. That is too broad of a term and could capture what both of the above parties are doing; it could be argued that through shame or guilt the psalmists in the complaint psalms are attempting to manipulate God into action. The problem must be more precise. I think the answer lies in the position of the psalmist. When the psalmist, in complaint psalms, attempts to get God to move, he is pleading with him from a clear position of injustice. He is suffering—and should not be—whether from sickness or from enemies. He has been ‘brought low’ and is asking God to ‘raise him up’. It is a matter of justice. Here, by contrast, the Israelites have already been raised up; what they want is to be ‘raised higher’. To state it a different way, the psalmist in the complaint is attempting to move from the realm of curse to blessing. Here, the Israelites are attempting to move from ‘blessing to more blessing’. One thing we have never encountered in other psalms is the request, in a type of ‘prodding fashion’, for wealth or provision as such; there is always an underlying problem—that the wealth is in the hands of those it should not be. Prodding is always the prodding of justice. It is from the already-stance of blessing that this ‘manipulation’ becomes abhorrent. But there is clearly a second element to this: the Israelites are mocking and taunting God (as we saw in the previous reflection). They are standing to him as an enemy stands to the righteous. In the words of the psalm they are standing “against” him. It seems that it is the combination of both of these elements that makes the request so infuriating to God. To seek ‘blessing amidst blessing’ is part of the problem; to ask for it in the stance of an enemy, taunt-like is the other part. We might summarize the principle thus: the attempt to move God into action, by way of challenge, is a grave sin if the attempt made is not to rectify an injustice (sickness, oppression, etc…).  Turning to the content of the (mock) petition, we come to see this ‘prodigality’ we spoke of in the previous reflections. Just as God moved toward Israel in a manner far beyond what was necessary, but rather in a type of festive or prodigal abandon, so now is Israel moving (mocking) toward God with the same abandon, but in reverse. Not satisfied with the ‘gushing water’ they ask for ‘bread’ and ‘meat’. By emphasizing the double-request (bread and meat) the psalmist points to the truly remarkable hubris of the Israelites. The first—bread—is instructive in that the Israelites are in a dessert. They clearly expect a divine wonder to befall them (bread, like ‘water from a rock’, cannot be had in a dessert). This fact points to something overlooked above—the fact that the Israelites are now, for their own desire (‘craving’; vs. 18), asking for a ‘wonder’ from God. God’s ‘wonders’—these utterly profound and unpredictable displays of authority and devotion—are not to be anticipated. They are to be received. Here, the Israelites demand of God that he work a further wonder on their behalf. Notice then what is happening—the Israelites have appropriated the ‘wonder of water’ and used it as a foundation for another wonder. Rather than receiving the ‘wonder of water’ and giving thanks in utter joyous disbelief of God’s prodigality, they instead reduce the wonder to a mere prelude to further wonders. They have, in other words, domesticated the wonders of God because of their depraved desire for more, their ‘cravings’ (vs. 18). For this, it could be said, there is no remedy. To overtake the wonders of God is to enter the realm of futility; it is to become a black hole that, literally, nothing could fill; is to become merely a consumer of God’s blessings, rather than an astonished recipient. It is to become Adam.