Ps. 81.11-12 (the letting go)

But my people / did not heed my voice
Israel would not / yield to me
And so / I let them go / after the stubbornness of their hearts
that they might / do what they wanted.  

Interruption. The “but” in the opening signals the tragic shift and interruption Up to this point, there has been no direct mention of a stain. But now, without explanation, the command is rebuffed. In fact, and importantly, everything up to this point has paved the way for faithfulness. This is important. The psalm to this point has been almost Eden-like, providing the space within which Israel would become covenanted to Yhwh. And yet, also Eden-like, their rebellion emerges unawares, without warning and without justification. It is, in other words, the entrance of the absurd (or, the interruption and irruption of the tragic). The foreign and strange gods are not removed and Yhwh is not regarded as the one who delivered them. The opening line is in clear contrast to verse 8 and God’s appeal to Israel to “only hear me.” More importantly still, however, this verse stands in deeper contrast to verse 7, when Israel called “and I answered you.” There, when Israel’s voice reached God, he heeded their cry and delivered them. Here, when God’s voice reaches Israel as command, they refuse to heed him and yield to him. Israel has become the rebellious covenant partner.  

Trenchant. There is the sense in these lines that Israel’s refusal of God’s voice was not something that took place at a single moment in time but rather was constant, almost perpetual refusal. We can see this in the fact that God describes their refusal as ‘stubbornness’. This constancy is set in direct contrast to the immediacy of God’s blessing and ‘being-for’ Israel. Whereas when they cry out he immediately answers and he seems poised to bless them, Israel’s heart is one of steady refusal. There is a tenacity to her rebellion. The source of which lies at the center of her being: her heart.  

The ear and heart. There is in this psalm a direct connection between the ear and the heart. God laments the fact, in the first line, that Israel would not ‘heed my voice’. This ‘heeding’ however is clearly a matter of the heart-positioning. It is as if the ear is that through which pours the voice of God into the heart. When God’s voice is not heeded the heart becomes the source of its own wanderings; it becomes a stubborn thing.  

 The letting go. It is not the case that the heart is merely unresponsive. It is actively stubborn. Once that occurs, then begins the ‘letting go’. That moment when God cuts the tether loose and allows his covenant partner to wander off. This is not the ‘freeing’ of the partner. It is clearly her becoming shackled to her depraved stubbornness and refusal to coordinate herself to the source of all blessing. He is allowing her to pursue her own implosion. A plant that uproots itself from the soil is not freeing itself; it is committing suicide.