Ps. 102.4b-7 (dessert owl)

Because of my loud groans
my bones / stick to my skin
I have become / like a dessert owl
I am like the owl / that lives in ruins
I lie awake / and am
like a solitary bird / on a housetop. 

The psalmist previously referred to his ‘bones’ as being the fuel to the fire that consumes his life. Here, it as if he were ‘groaning’ out his life such that his ‘bones stick to my skin’. What we see here, as we saw previously and will see again in the following verses, is a life that is as if ‘poured out’. It takes nothing in but instead is dissipating, losing itself and its integrity. It ‘goes up in flames’ and, here, is spent in groaning. The psalmist then shifts images and turns to the ‘owl’ and ‘bird’. It is not entirely clear to me what this image is meant to convey. On the one hand, it seems to evoke the psalmist as ‘living in darkness and night’. Like the owl his ‘time’ is now the night. Later he describes his life as a ‘lengthening shadow’ (the fall of day). He ‘lies awake’. Along with this image of a night-dweller is the fact that his surroundings are ‘ruin’. His time and his place are times of destruction. He is dwelling (either his body or his social place) is decay. 

In addition, what I think we are to see here is an intense loneliness. The image of the owl and bird on a housetop conveys the sense of social isolation. He has been ‘cast out’ into the realm of ‘ruins’.  The ‘ruins’ are a place of abandoned habitation. They are where people have ceased living, for whatever reason. That place is now his place. His surroundings, in other words, mirrors his social reality. He is a ‘thing abandoned’ and he lives in abandonment.  

Moreover, this is the place he has been 'thrown' by Yhwh. (vs. 10). The fact that he describes himself as a 'dessert' owl may indicate that he now dwells in the 'dessert', which is typically a place of demons and the forces of chaos.

As we have indicated throughout, the psalmist and Zion are intimately related. The question then becomes whether or not this imagery of the psalmist somehow coincides with that of Zion. I think it does. Zion is described as existing “in rubble” in verse 14. And it is clear that Zion’s redemption will be its ‘rebuilding’. It is, in other words, a ‘thing abandoned’ and ‘in ruins’. Its place as a habitation---of Yhwh!—is no longer. Like the ruins the owl/psalmist dwells in, Zion has been abandoned by its ‘inhabitant’. Accordingly, when Zion is rebuilt it is not simply that it is reconstructed. Rather, it will be indwelt. It’s ‘inhabitant’ (Yhwh) will return. Only then will Zion be Zion, just as the psalmist will only be truly the psalmist when Yhwh’s “Face” turns toward him. 

Ps. 102.3-4a (consumed in flame)

For my life / is vanishing in smoke
my bones / burn like embers
my heart / has been seared like grass / and is shriveled up. 

As the psalmist turns to describing his trouble he appeals to images of smoke, fire and a scorching sun. He moves from ‘life’ (smoke) to ‘bones’ (flame) to ‘heart’ (scorching sun). All of these are subjected to a deadly heat. In a grotesque description, he alludes to his bones being the flame that causes the ‘smoke’ that consumes and vanishes his life. He is, in other words, burning from the inside out; his own body is the fuel to the flame that is consuming him. This sense of complete self-consumption will continue in the following verses where he says he ‘drinks his own tears’. What we see here is that his destruction is very intimate to him; it not so much something imposed from outside of him, or ‘attacking’ him, but it is beneath his own skin. As such, he is utterly incapable of escape. The image of his ‘seared heart’ is also a troubling description. There are other psalms that mention the effect of Yhwh’s wrath as similar to a withering sun, and of life as being ‘like grass’. Here, those two images are combined. He is, quite literally, burning. And his heart, that source and seat of his reason and his ‘self’, is shriveling up. It is either an incredibly delicate thing or the heat is so massive and intense that it dwarfs him (or, both). 

The psalmist will later return to this image when he says: “my life is like a lengthening shadow, I am shriveled up like grass”. Interestingly, the psalmist previously described his life as “vanishing in smoke” whereas now it is beginning to enter into a “night” (lengthening shadow). Furthermore, as this night approaches, it (not a scorching sun) causes him to ‘shrivel like grass’. What we see here is a very powerful mixing of images: in the first part his life is subjected to an unbearable light and heat; in the second, it is a profound darkness that ‘consumes’ him. He is emanating (and dwelling within) both light and darkness and both are clearly in the form of destruction. What is happening to him is entirely unstable, or, unable to be adequately formulated without resort to these conflicting images and experiences. For the psalmist, this is not merely a ‘worldly experience’. It is suffused with a divine reality: this is Yhwh’s “hidden face”, his “anger and wrath” and his picking him up and throwing him away (vs. 10). What is clear, though, is that this reality is not something easily grasped nor easily described, which is very typical of a psalmist’s experience of Yhwh’s wrath. It is only in the light of Yhwh’s face that the psalmist emerges into an unadulterated light, a light without confusion and ‘without turning’, a light of pure blessing and grace, a light that ‘consumes but does not destroy’. We have emphasized this throughout—that Yhwh’s wrath is always penultimate to his blessing. As such, it does not partake of the clarity of his Face and his blessing. It is, by its very nature, an unresolved, and unresolvable, reality. If one ‘resolves’ Yhwh’s wrath one has, in a sense, misapprehended it. 

It is perhaps here that we can suggest a second level to the psalmist’s sickness. As we saw in the previous reflection the psalmist and Zion/Temple are intimately associated. What happens to the psalmist is mirrored in Zion. Perhaps it is no coincidence then that when the Temple was destroyed it was burned to the ground. It, like the psalmist, was ‘consumed in flame’. 

This, of course, may be a stretch. But, regardless, there is a clear parallel in the psalm between the psalmist and Zion. More to the point, it is not, I think, a ‘stretch’ when it is placed within the context of revelation. What I mean is this—when this psalm is spoken by the Church, as the Body of Christ, and his Temple, then the ‘distance’ between the psalmist and Temple (or, Zion) is clearly lessened. In Christ, the ‘body’ of the psalmist is the ‘body’ of the (new) Temple. When Christ enters his suffering, the (true) Temple is entering into its collapse as well; it is being ‘torn down’ (in order to be ‘raised up’). This is the ‘third level’ of the psalm.

Ps. 102.2-3 (the Face)

Do not hide / your face / from me
now that I am / in trouble
Turn your ear / toward me
answer me quickly / now that I call. 

There are depths to the ‘face of Yhwh’ in this psalm that are, perhaps, too difficult to fully explore. On a primary level we should not that the Face is not merely a metaphor for Yhwh’s presence; it is not something that can be anticipated. Rather, it refers to a free ‘turning’ on Yhwh’s part, a choice, to ‘face’ his people. In other words, the ‘face of Yhwh’ is the radiance of Yhwh’s personal turning toward his people. One would/could/can, I wager, sense this (not just ‘spiritually or interiorly’; but through one’s total being), in a similar fashion that one would experience the ‘face of king’ who now turns to look at his subject. One is in the presence of an “I”. We can see this by the simple fact that the psalmist is imploring Yhwh to not ‘hide your face’ and ‘turn your ear’ and ‘answer me quickly’. One might suppose that, for the psalmist, this simply means ‘health’ and that when he is made healthy again that ‘health’ is the ‘living in the face of Yhwh’. This is certainly true but not enough. This is because, as we will see, Yhwh is ‘more than life’. Heaven and earth are like a garment to him that wears out, while he remains perpetually. He dwells in the ‘forever’ of himself. In other words, equating the ‘face’ with ‘life’ and/or ‘health’ is wholly inadequate. To be ‘looked upon by Yhwh’s face’ is to be standing in the radiance of a light that is at once the source of all life and that which infinitely exceeds it. ‘All of life’, even in its most joyous and profound sense, does not equal ‘the face of Yhwh’; all of that is ‘mere garments’ compared to him. 

This, then, places in a different context what it means to experience Yhwh’s face when it is ‘turned away’. One is not, at that point, merely ‘sick’, or even dying. Rather, one experiences Yhwh’s ‘turning away’, of being ‘picked up and thrown away’ (vs. 10), and of one’s life entering into a night more profound than that experienced at the end of day (vs. 11). The ‘darkness of Yhwh’s turned face’ is not simply death, although death results from it. It is, rather, more like ‘hell’—the perpetual experience of living in the face of Yhwh’s rejection. Similar to the turned-toward-face, the darkness of every worldly darkness does not equal the turned-away-face. All of creation (heaven and earth) could not ‘make up for’ this. 

All of this is key to understand when we move to a second level of meaning—that the ‘face of Yhwh’ often refers to the Presence of Yhwh in the Temple. It refers to something specific rather than general. As we have seen in many other psalms, the presence of Yhwh in the Temple is the ‘sacrament of the Old Testament’. It is both the source and sustaining power of Creation. It is, therefore, crucially important that the psalmist, in part 2 of the psalms, contemplates the rebuilding of Zion—the place of Yhwh’s face. Of course, the Temple is not equated with Yhwh; if the Temple is destroyed, Yhwh is not destroyed. However, as a ‘sacrament’ it is the place whereby Yhwh and the world meet. Without it, Israel (and the world) threaten to fall into chaos. Here is the point—what the psalmist contemplates in a personal fashion in part 1, is contemplated for all of Zion (and, hence, all the nations) in part 2. His life, in a sense, mimics, anticipates, and mirrors the ‘life of Zion’ and the world. However Yhwh redeems him (resurrects him) will be in a way analogous to the way he redeems (resurrects) Zion. Furthermore, what we see, then, is that the ‘face’ will then be personal, to the psalmist, but also something that will shine on all of Israel and, then, the world through Zion’s rebuilding. Everything will enter into this ‘transcending’ Face-of-Yhwh, and it all will then be leavened by that which enable the ‘garments of heaven and earth’ to enter into the perpetuity of Yhwh; this is life entering into Life (the New Testament and Christian tradition will call this the process of ‘theosis’, of coming to dwell in the uncreated light of Genesis and, then, of Christ’s Transfiguration). 

Finally, what we see in this is that Yhwh’s ‘Face’ is not something purely personal—the psalmist, in the way he has constructed the psalm, envisions his redemption as intimately associated with the redemption of all of Israel and the nations. One is tempted, at this point, to see the psalmist as the king given the intimately association of the ‘health of the psalmist’ with the ‘health of Zion’ and the nations. That may be the case. Regardless, it has been recited by kings, messiahs and the King and Messiah. As we will explore in further reflections, the depth of the psalm in this context is truly too far reaching: the ‘Face’, the King, the Temple, the Body, the Cross, the Tearing-of-the-Veil, the Resurrection, Pentecost, the theosis of all creation in Revelation (at the minimum).

Ps. 102.1 (the realm of Yhwh)

Yhwh / listen to my prayer
let my cry for help / reach you. 

It is important that the first word of the psalm is ‘Yhwh’. This psalm is a complaint, a plea for help and healing. As we will see the gravitational center of the psalm is the absolute centrality of Yhwh’s permanence. Everything in this psalm strives toward making this reality present. Indeed the concluding line of the psalm is: “The sons of your servants will go on living here, their posterity secure in your presence.” As we will see, these ‘sons of your servants’ have entered into the ‘permanence of Yhwh’; they have obtained (or, better, are living within) the goal of the psalm. My point in bringing this up is that this is the ‘realm’ that the psalmist is hoping his prayer will ‘enter’—the ‘realm of Yhwh’. There is a clear sense in this and the following two verses of his prayer ‘entering’ this realm, of it ‘going somewhere’. Of it being regarded like a petitioner before a king. Notice how, in verse 1, the psalmist asks Yhwh to “listen to my cry” while in verse 2, it is “do not turn your face from me”. And, then, “turn your ear toward me”. The prayer itself and the psalmist are merged. Prayer is, in fact, key later in the psalm in regard to the re-building of Zion. There, Yhwh will rebuild Zion “having regard for the prayer of the destitute, instead of despising their prayer.” (vs. 17). These prayers, regarded by Yhwh, are what ‘activate’ the ‘realm of Yhwh’ and bring deliverance. As we will see, they are what initiate the ‘rebuilding’ of both the psalmist and Zion. They initiate their ‘resurrection’. In other words, prayer is the portal through which the realm of Yhwh comes to earth.