Ps. 94.9 (Yhwh is the boundary; not in the boundary)

Does the one / who shapes the ear / not hear?
Or the one / who forms the eye / does he not see? 

This verse is significant are several levels. First, it directly addresses the claims and actions of the wicked. The first half of the verse focuses on the act of hearing. The wicked were portrayed in the opening section as “celebrating”, “spewing out arrogance” and “vaunting themselves”. Further, they vocally taunted Yhwh when they sarcastically said, “Yah will not see!...”. And, perhaps most importantly, we have already reflected on the fact that these wicked men enact their wickedness through a type of ‘vocal-exploitation’ of the vulnerable in the form of unjust rulings that can probably be described as subtle machinations. It is their rulings that “crush”, “oppress”, “kill” and “murder” Yhwh’s special group of people. This question then directly relates to these vocal forms of wickedness. That is a type of ‘first level’ observation. A second level involves the ‘superiority’ or ‘always-already’ nature of Yhwh’s sovereign perception of man. This verse couches the question in the form of creation. This move is significant. The emphasis would be different if the verse read, “Do you not know that Yhwh hears everything?” Instead, the psalmist sources Yhwh’s ability to be the judge of all ‘oral statements’ in the fact that he is the one who ‘fashioned’ the ear to begin with. In other words, ‘hearing’ begins in Yhwh. The ear, and its very ability to register sound, is his design, and, as such, everything said is ‘always-already’ heard by Yhwh. Man’s hearing bears an analogy to Yhwh’s, but Yhwh’s hearing is profoundly greater than man’s as man’s very ability to hear comes from Yhwh; it in a sense, is ‘encased’ within Yhwh’s ‘always-already’ and prior hearing. We will return to this more after contemplating the eyes. 

The same analysis largely applies to ‘eye’. The wicked mocked Yhwh saying, “Yah does not see!”. On the one hand, we want to say that this is not Yhwh’s inability to register light but his inability to comprehend/understand their machinations. Like the ear, however, Yhwh’s ability to perceive, to ‘see’, is always-already prior because he is creator. What the psalmist is pointing toward is this: that Yhwh’s perceptive powers are, as to the eye, “lidless” and “sleepless”. He is always-already perceiving; he never blinks; he doesn’t sleep; he is always-already comprehending. The power that stands behind the human eye (and its ability to comprehend) is grounded in Yhwh. 

And, now we can come to the final level: the wicked perceived of Yhwh as a type of local deity, who was powerful, but ultimately limited. Yhwh may have ‘eyes’ and he may ‘have ears’ but they display the same limitations that man possesses. There were realms his authority could not invade. The psalmist does not merely deny this in a forceful manner. To him, it is utterly ridiculous and obviously not the case. Yhwh, rather, occupies an entirely different realm of authority. ‘Hearing’ and ‘seeing’ are not merely things he does, as if here were a ‘god among other gods’ and subject to that necessary limitation. Rather, Yhwh himself is origin of ‘seeing’ and ‘hearing’. As such, his authority over these realms coincides with the fact that they stem from him. In other words, the ‘boundary’ to seeing and hearing exists in Yhwh, and, as such, one could never ‘overtake’ him. He is both always-already before and after ‘seeing’ and ‘hearing’. This means that Yhwh is not just ‘really strong’ (like other gods); he is strength; he is the boundary; he is not ‘in’ the boundary like other gods.