Ps. 91.7-9 (Pt. 2; movement to seeing)

I want to pause over something mentioned in the previous reflection, and that is how being ‘in Yhwh’ turns one from being a participant into an observer. We noted how, in verses 7-9, the ‘drama’ moves the listener from being ‘close’ to the ‘fall of the horde of the wicked’ to being ‘not close’ to it. In so doing, it also moves from a type of visceral-physical closeness to one of distance-in-watching. The psalmist emphasizes this point in three, very closely aligned ways: “you will only look at it, with your eyes, and watch the punishment of the wicked.” The psalmist wants to draw a very close attention to the fact that the listeners, in so far as they stand in Yhwh, become observers only to the wicked. They are ‘shielded by Yhwh’ (vs. 4), from the wicked and, as such, can safely watch it pass by. Now, this ‘watching’ moves the listeners into a stance of passivity and observation. They are not, in other words, actively engaged in the angst that surrounds them. Here is where I want to make the additional observation—this detached stance of the observer is very close to what we noticed before in how the psalm is delivered as a type of wisdom psalm. What we have noticed is that while the psalm does focus on evil, it is unlike many other laments in that it does not petition Yhwh for its removal. Yhwh is portrayed almost entirely and exclusively as a protector, a defender, and not as a judge or a king who actively re-orients evil in judgment. This purely defensive posture of Yhwh is enacted for the people in their “not fearing” what is occurring around them. They do not become active lament-petitioners, but, in so far as they are in Yhwh, the move into this removed, detached, position of an observer. Under the shade of Yhwh, and beneath his wings, they gaze out into the world and watch the evil. The reason I bring this up is that the psalmist’s emphasis on seeing and observing the evil that occurs, and his emphasis on ‘not fearing’, is a type of enactment of Yhwh-as-protector. 'Not fearing' is an enactment of Yhwh's 'shielding'. Likewise, 'looking on' is the embodied, literal stance, of one who is 'shielded' from what is happening around (or, in front) of them. And this provides us an insight into a particular stance toward evil that, to me, has been understated in the psalms to this point. There is a sense of ‘detachment’ from the fear and evil that swirls around the psalmist and his people.