Ps. 80.17 (the king and son)

Let your hand / be upon / the man of your right hand
upon the son of humanity / you made strong for yourself. 

From Vine to son. This verse represents something of a puzzle. On the one hand it appears to move away from the ‘communal’ image of the Vine-son of the previously verse and, instead, bring to mind a single individual. That individual, of course, would be the king. In fact, it has been argued that the previous verse included an addition to the psalm in order to de-emphasize the kingly tone of this verse. Regardless, as it now stands the psalm seems to me to be focused on a king. There are two things to note about this. The first is the fact that, as we have seen throughout many of our psalms, the king is not a type of isolated individual but is, rather, an embodiment of his people. He is not, in this way, an ‘everyman’. The second point to make is more direct: in the transplanting of the Vine to the Land, its immediate growth and the expanse of that growth would seem to refer, within the history of Israel, to the expansion of Israel under the authority of the Davidic monarchy. This seems important. Israel’s realization of the promise in Deuteronomy that she would expand North to South and from River to Sea begins with such authorial figures as Joshua and the judges, but only finds its fulfillment (and in fact gets its ‘rebirth’) with the (Davidic) kings. Further, when the Vine is destroyed with ‘fire’, the reference would seem to be, at least latently, to the destruction of the Temple and the consequent destruction of the Davidic monarchy. It seems to me that those who find a type of anti-monarchical thrust in this psalm are missing these important points. It is also, for that reason, that I don’t see a tension in this regard. For the psalmist to pray for the restoration of the Vine, and to see in that restoration the communal redemption of Israel, is not at all opposed to the psalmist petition that the “son of your right hand” (the king) be restored as well. The Vine’s realization was the enactment of both realities (as was her destruction). 

The hand. With that in mind, we can now turn to what the psalmist is actually imploring of God. Up to this point redemption has been, almost exclusively, that which comes from God’s ‘shining face’. Here, by contrast, the psalmist turns to ‘the hand.’ The previous verse mentioned God’s “right hand” in that it was that hand (the hand of power) that planted the Vine/son and made it/he strong. Here, that same ‘right hand’ is referred to but now applies to the “hand” being upon “the man of your right hand.” I believe what we see here is something we see, for example, in Psalm 2—the king has been brought into the realm of God’s divine rule. Whereas, at first, God planted the Vine with his ‘right hand’ he now will redeem Israel by way of the ‘son of his right hand’ (the king). 

Son to son. This shift can also be detected by the fact that the previous verse spoke of the son/Vine you made strong for yourself. Here, there is slight change: “the son of humanity you made strong for yourself.” Again, just as the ‘right hand’ was transferred to the king so too has the request for God’s hand become particularized to the ‘son of humanity’. 

A final query. I wonder if in the phrase “made strong for yourself” we find a reference to the covenant and God’s election of a people (Israel) and a man (David) for himself. The covenant would, as we have seen in other psalms, be the arena into which a covenant partner steps whereby they become divinely empowered by God. In doing so they enter into God’s ‘forever’, a realm that is only opened up by way of God’s election and choosing. This is the sphere within which God’s power is transferred (or, infused) to the covenant partner, strengthening them so as to fulfill God’s mission. In sense, to enter into covenant with God is to become ‘sacramentalized’, to be that which one represents, a type of ‘agent of God’ (an ‘angel’ in some sense…). If that is the case, to be ‘strengthened’ in this context would be to move into the ‘sphere of sonship’, to be made a ‘kin’ of God, to become a (the) family of God. It is an astonishing thing to contemplate.