Ps. 94.14-15 (turning back)

For Yhwh / will not desert / his people
and his heritage / he will not forsake
Justice / will turn back / on the righteous
and likewise / to all the upright. 

The psalmist acknowledges that the present is ‘evil days’. It is a time when the evildoers ‘crush your people, and ‘oppress your heritage’; it is a time of ‘killing’ and ‘murder’. But this is only ‘a time’. It will not conclude in desertion or forsakenness. Rather, as the previous verse makes clear, for the wicked it will conclude in their destruction and falling into a pit they have dug for themselves. For the righteous, on the other hand, it will conclude in a time of ‘turning back’, of ‘justice’, of ‘rendering to them’ what they have earned. It is here where we need to note that when ‘the time is full’, when Yhwh ‘rises’, the entire scope of humanity will be judged. The psalmist shows this through the phrase “turn(ing) back”. In verse 2 and 23, Yhwh will ‘turn back’ on the wicked, their own wickedness. They will be judged, as it were, ‘through themselves’, receiving what they ‘paid’. Here, that same ‘turning back’ refers to the righteous, and how Yhwh will ‘turn back’ justice for them. By deploying the same phrase to describe the rendering to the righteous and the wicked, the psalmist reveals a profound point: that judgment, vindication, and ‘the rendering’ will flow from Yhwh. As such, he is not simply the ‘boundary’ of all power in regard to containing the wicked; he is also the boundary and source of all blessing and justice. This is important, thematically. We have already noted how his authority is grounded in his ‘always-already’ prior authority over the realm of the individual (as creator), of nations (as judge) and of knowledge and wisdom. Here, though, we see that he stands as the ‘omega point’ as well. He is the one who will decide when the ‘evil days’ come to an end and when justice ‘turns back’ upon the righteous and the unrighteous alike.