Ps. 12 (speech and creation)

We have often spoken about the realm of Yhwh and the realm of the wicked and chaos. In this psalm, those realms are primarily described as being creations of speech. Speech is not simply something that happens within each realm. Speech does not merely reflect a reality; it is something that actually creates those realms. Genesis is good example of this, with creation itself flowing from the words of Yhwh. Creation is the (ongoing) speech of Yhwh. Moreover, when the serpent speaks to Eve, her disobedience creates a realm of serpent-duplicity within the Garden that then requires hers and Adam’s expulsion. Those who are within either realm, are, so to speak, what is spoken. Speech is performative in that sense. For Yhwh, it is prodigally life-giving; for the wicked, it allures to self-mastery and power but is, in the end, chaotic and death-dealing. That is why the psalmist is in such dire need of help from Yhwh. He is about to be consumed by the realm created by the speech of the wicked, and he wants Yhwh to speak into that realm in order to protect him and redeem him. That ‘help’ will come in the form of Yhwh’s “shining words”.  

 

For the wicked, their realm is created by vain speech, flattery and duplicity. It is full of “great words”. One can here catch the echo of the serpent, who tempts Eve to disobey Yhwh in order to constitute herself within the Garden, to become like Him. The lie here is not that speech is ineffective, or that speech is not performative. The lie is that speech that severs itself from Yhwh becomes “vanity” and “double” and, inevitably, “devastates the afflicted” and “makes the poor groan”. It becomes, in other words, the vehicle of oppression and death while, at the same time, giving those in power the impression that they are their own masters, that they are the “great words” of the people, and that they do deserve the “flattery” that is the community’s  currency. For those who are abandoned to this realm, the speech imprisons them. It anticipates every objection to its power and persuasively lulls everyone into a status quo. It makes the afflicted and poor either invisible or justifies their position. It becomes the Egypt that oppresses the Israelites in their midst (Egypt is the Serpent-speech in national form). For those who can see beyond the flattery, though, it creates a kingdom ruled simply by the will to power and domination.  

 

Yhwh’s speech is entirely different. Whereas the wicked’s speech is double and, accordingly, “full of dross” (pure metal mixed with impurity), Yhwh’s speech is “silver refined in a furnace, gold purified seven times.” Yhwh’s speech is an act of redemption from the oppressed. It creates a realm within the “kingdom of the wicked” that “guards from this generation” and “sets him in safety”. Moreover, Yhwh’s speech, in contrast to the destruction of the wicked, reverses and upends the realm of the wicked. The realm of the wicked is, as we have seen, a realm of public display that is mere flattery and vanity. This public nature of the wicked is integral to their power because it communally reinforces their own mastery. When Yhwh acts, he also acts publicly, but reverses the wicked’s glory into shame. He shamefully “cuts off their lips and tongue.” This is not simply a muting of the wicked. It is also a humiliation of the wicked. They are now on display. Their reversal will not be in some private dungeon or prison. It will take place in the public square. It will ‘out’ every form of duplicity and unrighteous power. The wicked will be forced to experience the hellish truth of their vanity and deception. This is the ‘effect’ of Yhwh’s speech within the kingdom of the wicked. For a time, it will ‘protect and guard’ but it does not simply protect. It also will eventually judge and set things to right. It purifies because it is purity.

 

Within the time of the Church, one can read this psalm in a two-fold manner. On the one hand, it can be a psalm spoken by Christ to the Father. As he is lifted up on the cross, abandoned by “the Twelve” (remnant tribes of Israel) indeed he could look out over Jerusalem and say, “Help, Yhwh, for the faithful one has come to an end, for the honest persons have disappeared from among the sons of man.” And as he looks out over a Jerusalem effectively ruled by Rome he could say, “They speak vanity, each with his neighbor, with flattering lip and double heart they speak.” He would also anticipate that his death would be the event that would inaugurate his Father’s kingdom, the event that would begin in the Resurrection when the Father would say, “Because of the devastation of the afflicted, because of the groaning of the poor, I will not arise, I will set him in safety. I will shine forth for him.” The Resurrection, then, is understood as the “pure utterance of Yhwh” one that is “silver refined in a furnace, gold purified seven times.”

 

But, like creation, the Resurrection is not simply an event that happened in the past but is one that is ongoing. Each baptized person is baptized into Christ’s death and Resurrection. Accordingly, the ‘second creation’ (the Resurrection) is an ongoing affair. As such, the Church can now pray this psalm in the position of Christ, now with the assurance that the Resurrection obtained by Christ is one that is assuredly granted to all the baptized who are ‘in his body’. Indeed, the Church is, itself, built out of this reality. It is the speech of the Trinity, “silver refined in a furnace, gold purified seven times.”