Ps. 89.47-49 (the source of all lament)

Remember how short / my life is!
Have you created humans / for naught?
What human can live / and not see death?
Who can save themselves / from the hand of Sheol? 

These verses at first glance are very odd. In fact, they feel as if they have been inserted into the psalm, such that if you take these verses out, it reads much more coherently (in a thematic fashion). And yet, upon further reflection, we can start to see a coherence to these verses, within the context of the psalm and even perceive a very profound depth to these lines. One of the first things to note is that these verses appear to jar because the psalmist emerges, personally, in these lines. Up to this point, the focus has been entirely on the fall of the Davidic house. It has certainly had deep and profound reverberations for all of Yhwh’s people, but there has not been this “I” within that context. 

Or, so we think. This is a long psalm, and it is easy to forget that the opening lines themselves speak in the personal “I”. The opening lines, in fact, hold a key to these verses. The psalm opens with: “I want to sing forever of Yhwh’s deeds of loyal love, sing them to one generation after another, use my mouth to make known your faithfulness. For I have declared that your loyal-love is built to last forever, that you have fixed your faithfulness in the heavens.” In other words, the psalm itself starts in the entirely personal plea of the psalmist, speaking in the first person, of his desire to enter into a perpetual, and generational, praise of Yhwh. His ‘perpetual praise’ will mirror the ‘perpetual faithfulness’ of Yhwh. In other words, his liturgy will be sourced in Yhwh’s faithfulness. In our verses today, by contrast, when the “I” of the psalmist again emerges, the tenor is completely different. Instead of speaking of his desire to enter into a perpetual liturgy, he is ‘reminding’ Yhwh of how short his life is. And, instead of Yhwh’s faithfulness being the source of praise, everything is now couched in its utter opposite: “naught”, “death” and “Sheol”.  In other words, the psalmist now stands completely outside the realm of liturgy and praise of Yhwh that opened the psalm. He dwells in the sphere of “naught” (or, vanity and purposelessness), death and Sheol. This is the ‘personal’ effect of the Davidic collapse on the psalmist. When David falls (when Yhwh ceases to uphold him in his strength), all of Yhwh’s people enter into this realm. The Davidic ‘implosion’, extends into and covers everyone, severing them from the ‘forever’ liturgy of praise to Yhwh. 

There is another level to this as well. We should observe that the ‘shortness of life’ and inevitability of ‘seeing death’ are not, themselves, effects of the Davidic fall. They are facts that the psalmist is not attempting to get around—he knows his life is short and he will die. This brevity, though, is clearly contrasted with the continuous refrain of ‘forever’ in the psalm. Man’s life is short but Yhwh’s promise to David extends forever. It is because of Yhwh’s faithfulness to David, that the brevity of life does not fall into vanity. Rather, it is ‘taken up’ into the ‘forever promise’ and thereby given meaning and purpose; the Davidic covenant is like a river that sweeps up and redeems the brevity of life. If that river dries up, however, then the brevity of life is left with nothing, with “naught”. Without David mediating Yhwh’s righteousness and power to the earth, his people are devoid of goodness, justice and beauty—they are devoid of that which inspires the liturgy that feeds them and is their (his) greatest desire. What the psalmist is asking for, then, is a very concrete and particular re-ignition of the Davidic covenant. He wants to see it, he wants to live in it, before he dies. His desire is not for the Davidic covenant in the abstract; it is entirely personal.  He wants to be consumed within its flame. This entirely personal desire is the very source of all laments.