Ps. 94.22-23 (time consummated in judgment)

But Yhwh / has become / a fortress / for me
and my God / is my rock of refuge.
He will turn back on them / their iniquity
through their evil / he will destroy them;
Yhwh / our God / will destroy them.   

Within these concluding verses we catch sight of the dynamic of righteous and wicked as they stand before the active judgment of Yhwh. We need to recall that there is something of a drama outlined in this psalm, a ‘history’ so to speak. The wicked, of course, do not perceive it. They do not see any ‘plan’ being worked out in history. For the righteous, though, when they are elevated to the realm of wisdom, they are afforded a vision of history such that the present is but a time of Yhwh’s patience. It is the ‘time of the digging’ and it is a time that will come to a conclusion when the ‘pit is deep enough’. Within this time, there are ‘Lazarus moments’ of redemption, that speak toward the conclusion of the time and when Yhwh will ‘turn back’ on the righteous their reward and fully enact justice. This time, for the righteous, is also portrayed in these concluding verses, as a ‘time of protection’ or ‘a time of refuge’. It is because time is gathering momentum toward the denouement of the wicked that the righteous can be most ‘empowered’ the more they become patient and passive within Yhwh. Yhwh is not absent; he is profoundly and utterly present but under the mode of ‘refuge’ and ‘fortress’. He will become the ‘active God of Vindication’, but not yet. It is this perception of man’s position within the drama that constitutes man’s wisdom.  

 Further, this ‘wisdom’ is a covenantal wisdom, and one that finds its bearings on Yhwh’s faithfulness to that covenant. We see this when the psalmist describes Yhwh as “my God” and then, in the concluding line, as “our God”. This small phrase echoes the creation of the covenant between Yhwh and his people: “You will be my people, and I will be your God.” This fact is important for how it deepens our previous insights on the question of ‘alliances’. There, we saw that it is only through an ‘alliance’ with the divine, that any real earthly authority exists; otherwise, ‘all is vanity’. Here, that ‘alliance’, which is not afforded to the wicked, is seen not simply as an alliance, but a covenant—that act whereby two foreigners to each other become kin and family. This is the deepest of alliances and it contains within itself vows of faithfulness and protection. This covenantal trust in Yhwh is what forms in the ‘inner life’ of Yhwh as ‘refuge’ and ‘fortress’. 

The final verse speaks to when ‘the digging is done’, or, the ‘time is ripe’ for judgment. The previous verse was set in the present; this verse looks to the future. The verse is rich in how it portrays the act of judgment. What we find here is something we have seen in many other psalms when the psalmist describes how Yhwh judges: he judges through the wickedness of the wicked (“…through their evil, he will destroy them...”). When this occurs, the ‘evil’ that now falls on them mimics (or, mocks) the way it was originally performed by the wicked. What I mean is this: the wicked, when they enacted their evil, claimed that Yhwh could neither see nor understand it. For them, their evil was entirely private and hidden in darkness. Here, by contrast, it is fully public and reveled in the light. What we see here is that the evil is, in a sense, ‘truth-ed’ by Yhwh; he ‘makes it what it actually is’ (not what the wicked think it to be). This is when history reaches a type of ‘fulfillment’, when ‘everything is revealed’. Of course, this is anything but a type of mere ‘display’; rather, it is supremely active. That, in fact, is the point—what the wicked thought to reside in a realm only partially active/revealed (only the effect was visible), now becomes utterly and completely ‘fulfilled’. 

There is a deeply significant point to this in how time and judgment interact. In Yhwh, judgment takes all of man’s acts and ‘fulfills’ them, either in reward or in punishment. Time itself, then, is revealed in judgment because time is, at root, a moral reality. Everything that was only ‘potential’ in time, becomes ‘actual’ in judgment. As such, everything is ‘actually’ oriented not to itself, but to covenant communion with Yhwh. This is why images of judgment seem to oscillate between Yhwh actively judging and the righteous/wicked simply receiving what they have already done (but now in truth). Judgment is both because it is ‘history consummated’.

Ps. 94.21 (dry and devastated)

They band together / against the life / of the righteous
and condemn / innocent blood. 

As we saw in the previous reflection, a central issue in these verses is the alliances that are forged. The previous verse asked whether the ‘seats of destruction’ could be “allied with you”. Here, the oppressors ‘band together’. In the following verse Yhwh will become “my fortress” and a “rock of refuge”. This dynamic of alliances reveals an important point for today’s verse. The previous verse denied Yhwh’s alliance with them; the following verse will highlight Yhwh’s alliance with the righteous. Here, standing between Yhwh’s absence and Yhwh’s presence, are the oppressors whose only cohesion (alliance) is with each other. Their power therefore is not rooted in the divine realm, but a purely human assertion. And, as this psalm has emphasized time-and-again, that realm of purely human assertion is patently stupid (vs. 8-9) and vain (vs. 11); it is, also, terribly dangerous (vs. 13). Perhaps more troubling still, it is not simply neutral, a realm of valueless freedom. Instead, it is the realm of chaos, death and wickedness. To dwell and operate in this dark sphere is partake of oppression and the destruction of innocent blood. It seems almost demonic not only in its rebellion but in its active attempt to destroy that which Yhwh prizes (the righteous and innocent). More troubling still is the fact that these wicked have a particular role—they are the judges who sit on the ‘seat of destruction/judgment’. They are the ones who are supposed to enact justice and righteousness through their decisions; instead, rather than listening to the cries of the oppressed, they listen to each other not to condemn injustice but to condemn innocence. The picture here is of a group of judges who should be externally focused on the parties seeking justice but instead are purely internally focused on their own schemes and machinations. Rather than being fountains of justice, they exploit their roles and leave the earth dry and devastated.

Ps. 94.20 (seats of destruction)

Can a seat of destruction / be allied with you?
one who forms misery / by decree? 

This question emerges on the ‘far side’ of suffering and deliverance. We should recall that the original question, during the time of injustice, was full of anxiety and uncertainty. He was unsure of whether someone would come to his aid and, if so, who. Here, by contrast, he speaks in a type of ironic confidence. The question is clearly rhetorical. There is, then, a distance between him and his suffering. There is an important implication to this—that when Yhwh redeemed him, he was not merely delivered from his suffering and put back into the position he was before. Rather, his deliverance elevated him. He now has obtained wisdom. This ‘elevation into wisdom’ is why the deliverance is also designated as “discipline” (vs. 12). It is a deliverance and a shaping. And, importantly, within this realm of wisdom, the nature of the lament-question changes from anxiety to ironic-confidence. 

In order to see deeper implications to this we should recall that the psalmist has asked these ironic questions before when he asked the wicked whether they were so foolish as to think that the one who created their ability to hear did not himself hear, or the one who formed their eye was himself unable to see (vs. 9). Both questions revolve around the question of justice and how Yhwh is one who is the authority over justice. In the first set of questions, Yhwh’s authority is established in a more ‘vertical’ fashion as it establishes him as ‘Creator’ or ‘always-already’ prior to any human act. There, the more deeply Yhwh is understood to stand at the root of creation the more present and sovereign is his power. Here, the same point is made but from a different perspective and in a different ‘sphere’—the sphere of judgment. It is more ‘vertical’ in that Yhwh is now the one who stands as the judge of human actions between themselves. In other words, Yhwh is the judge of history. Here is how that point is made: this ‘seat of destruction’ likely refers to the ‘seats of judgment’ upon which judges sit to decide disputes between people. These are the ‘seats’ on which Israel will sit in the final days to ‘judge the world’. The import of this is that these ‘seats’ are not simply human seats of judgment, but divine ones. The source of their authority resides in their being ‘allied’ with the divine realm. So, when a judge makes a ruling, it is not merely a human judge but (should be) a human agent of the divine (which is why Solomon prays for ‘wisdom’ above all else…; and why Adam’s reaching for it is so problematic). In this way the divine displays its authority over justice and, more importantly, how it establishes justice. Each time a ruling is made justice (should be) propagated (and, chaos thwarted…as in Genesis). 

Hence, the question is utterly absurd: can a ‘seat of destruction’ be allied with you? ‘A seat of destruction’ is a contradiction in terms. Justice is creative, fecund and abounding. This is why this question hits with the same force as those asked in verse 9 regarding the ‘eyes’ and ‘ears’. What the irony of the question reveals is the utter stupidity and vanity of those who now occupy these ‘seats’. They are not ‘allied’ with Yhwh, but with chaos. They are the ‘agents of chaos’. However, if that were all, the question would be one of anxiety, but it is not. The psalmist surveys these ‘seats’ with puzzlement. For him, the ‘chaos’ they channel is vanity. Although it is clearly destructive, and worthy of lament, it does not represent a powerful force. Rather, these ‘seats of destruction’ are digging the pit of their own destruction (vs. 13). Their ‘intentions amount to nothing’ (vs. 9). Yhwh is merely waiting for them to ‘fill up their sin’ so they can be destroyed. It is precisely this ‘wisdom’ that has changed the psalmist original, anxiety filled question into one of irony and detachment. The psalmist, through his suffering and redemption, has been elevated into Yhwh’s time. This ‘elevation’, though, is the ‘fruit of discipline and suffering’. This ‘wisdom’ is gained through a historical journey with Yhwh, in that it requires a redemption from suffering in order for the person to be initiated into this incredibly broad (absolute?) time of Yhwh. 

And now we come to our final point: creation and redemption, in this psalm, both speak to the absolute authority of Yhwh and his ability to establish justice. One, perhaps, is more ‘vertical’ is in its contemplation while the other his more ‘horizontal’, but they mutually inform each other. The more one contemplates Yhwh’s ‘creative authority’ the more one deepens one’s understanding of him as the ‘God of Vindication’. And, the more one contemplates the depth of his authority over the ‘seats of judgment’, the more one plumbs the root of creation. One is not ‘prior’ to the other, for they both flow from Yhwh.

Ps. 94.18-19 (the future-fountain, now present)

Though I said, / “My foot is slipping”
your loyal-love / O Yhwh / sustained me
when my cares / were great within me
your comforts / brought joy / to my soul. 

If we continue the theme that we picked up in the last reflection about this portion of the psalm being the ‘personal’, lament, in contrast to the first sections more abstract and wisdom response to evil, then here we move inward into the experience of being cared for by Yhwh. In the words of the first portion of the psalm, this is the inner experience of Yhwh “giving them assurance because of evil days” (vs. 13). In the first portion, the description is more detached, more broad in scope. Here, when psalmist recounts his own experience, we find “loyal-love”, “comfort” and “joy”. These verses strike me as almost intensely personal, and this ‘intensity’ affords us a greater insight into the ‘intensity’ of the experience of Yhwh when he reaches out to his people. This is significant for what it says about the time when the ‘digging will be done’ and the wicked will be judged—just as we argued before that the personal experience of the psalmist functioned like a type of sacrament of Yhwh’s later act of judgment and redemption, so too can we now see that this ‘joy’ and ‘comfort’ operate in the same way. In other words, when Yhwh enacts his judgment—when the ‘time is ripe’—then this personal joy will flood all of the righteous and will be experienced in much deeper and more profound manner. 

This ‘joy’, then, is a sacramental (an ‘already-but-not-yet’ participation), and points toward the real ‘beginning of the beginning’ of joy that will follow Yhwh’s judgment and when he ‘renders upon the righteous’ what they have earned (vs. 15).  What we might venture to say is that the psalmist, in these ‘evil days’ (vs. 13), experiences within himself both light and darkness (‘cares’ and ‘joy’). That experience is the experience of ‘assurance’ (vs. 13). Yet, when the judgment is rendered and the evil are delivered to the Pit, the psalmist will, along with all the righteous, enter into a state of unadulterated ‘joy’; the ‘time of light’; the ‘Sabbath of sabbaths’, as the day that, internally and externally, begins and begins in light. This is when the anxiety caused by the wicked will be ‘buried’, removed from the earth, and cast into the pit of its own making. This is when the righteous will be “free(d) from all anxiety”. 

In a profound fashion, this psalm can be heard as being sung by Christ in the heavenly liturgy. It encapsulates his life and, as we have argued, it is through his participating in (or, more accurately, enacting) this psalm, that we can also participate in the ‘expansive’ vision of the first part of the psalm, as we pattern ourselves after his life-to-resurrection. In this regard, the first portion of the psalm should be seen as an anticipation of, a participation in, and an enactment, of resurrection-through-suffering. Further, we should see Christ as inhabiting already this state of “Sabbath” joy. For his disciples, that he already lives within this ‘beginning-of-the-beginning’ is the source of greatest joy; if he is the fountainhead, we drink from the realm that he now abides in. He is the future-fountain, now present.