Ps. 89.46 (forever and forever)

How long, / O Yhwh / will you hide your face forever?
Will your wrath / burn like fire forever? 

These lines have been uttered in other psalms. However, within the context of this psalm, they take on a very profound depth. The reason is the two concluding words: ‘forever’. We have reflected upon this word already many times in this psalm. It has, up to this point, been one of the defining marks of the Davidic covenant. In the first portion of the psalm, it is the heavenly liturgy of the divine beings, who sing of Yhwh’s faithfulness forever. Then, in and through David, the ‘forever of Yhwh’ is made present on earth. In David, the people of Yhwh, witness his faithfulness as it is enacted in the ‘forever’ of David’s throne. Through Yhwh, David’s offspring “continue forever” and his throne “endures forever”. Heaven is enacted on earth. (‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven…’). That ‘forever’ is the pleasure of Yhwh-father turned toward his son. (vs. 26-28). In these verses, everything is reversed. Now, the ‘forever’ of Yhwh is that of his ‘turned face’ and his ‘burning wrath’. This question, then, does not operate in the same fashion it does in other psalms. This ‘forever’ is a type of ‘negative’ of the forever of the Davidic covenant; a ‘mock’ covenant that embodies a perpetually turned away face. This is not some generic question posed to Yhwh. It is one specifically crafted and molded after the Davidic covenant. And this is deeply significant, in that the Davidic covenant opens up the vision contained in these verses. What I mean is this: we have spoken before of how the ‘fall of David’ is one greater than any other fall because he was lifted up into Yhwh more than any other. This ‘lifting up’ was the ever-greater enactment of Yhwh’s pleasure and face to his people. The higher David rose into Yhwh, the more brightly Yhwh’s face became toward his people. When the light of this face is ‘turned away’, the darkness is more profound than ever. When this pleasure is retracted, the wrath is more profound than ever. Just as Yhwh’s face/pleasure seems to be progressively revealed, so too is his wrath and displeasure perceived as progressively darkening. Up to the point that, when the face is fully revealed, so too is judgment fully revealed (“I did not come to judge the world…but whoever does not believe in me already stands condemned;” there is no anti-christ, until there is the Christ). This reflection thus far leaves out what I think is one of the most important aspects of this verse. The whole force of this question rests on the assumption that Yhwh’s face-turned-toward-his-anointed is his ‘foundational’ stance, that which is his most ‘primal’ stance toward his David. What I mean is that his ‘wrath’ is not understood as ‘equal’ to his pleasure. His ‘wrath’ can only be fully understood in the ‘light of his face’. Yhwh desires to overcome his wrath—that stance of duality—and return to the unity of his pleasure. 

We might say it this way: creation does not begin with Yhwh ‘turning toward’ creation. He does not begin ‘facing nothing’ and then ‘turn’ toward creation. Rather, creation is itself an enactment of Yhwh’s face; it is a ‘moment’ in the light of Yhwh’s face. When Yhwh does ‘turn’, however, it is Yhwh being responsive. And it is his ‘turning away’, which here, as elsewhere, is called a ‘hiding’ and his ‘wrath’. Yhwh is always-already ‘toward’ his creation. It is only when that creation rebels against him that he ‘turns’; that is when Yhwh is now ‘dual’ in the way anger makes a person ‘dual’. This can be formulated in another way: Yhwh is not a ‘loving god’, in the sense that he ‘becomes loving’ in response to his creatures; Yhwh is love. Yhwh is however an ‘angry god’, in the sense that he is not ‘anger itself’. Anger is Yhwh’s response. That is when Yhwh is portrayed as ‘repenting’, ‘turning away’, and ‘hiding’. We have said in other reflections, Yhwh’s anger is always penultimate to his pleasure. It is with this in mind that this verse becomes so aching in its question? Is Yhwh going to be, ‘forever’, that which he isn’t? Will he now abide in a state of perpetual duality? In this we can witness the silent hope of the psalmist as this stance is a contradiction in terms, an impossibility.