Death is a the hunter of Sheol. It casts its cords around the earth, seeking to drag man down into Sheol, and away from the Presence and Name of Yhwh. Within this psalm there is a type of battle being waged with the victor obtaining the life of the psalmist.
The location of this battle is the land of the living. And the reason for the battle is liturgy—praise of Yhwh. Sheol is where the liturgy ceases, where Yhwh’s name cannot be pronounced; where it cannot be liturgically ‘remembered.’ And Sheol wants Silence. It wants to purge the land of living, to create a type holocaust of liturgy, to spray the earth with a liturgical acid. And it does so by sending forth Death to hunt the land for prisoners.
Yhwh has, however, established a beachhead in this battle, a place where Death cannot come near—the Temple in Jerusalem. Yhwh’s priests cannot be contaminated with Death. They cannot touch a dead thing and serve the Presence. The Temple is the place of Life. But the Temple is not simply this zone of Life. It is, more fundamentally, the place of Liturgy, the place where Heaven and Earth come together and where the abundance, festivity and prodigality that earth is intended to live within, are realized. If Sheol seeks Silence, then the Temple is the place, not of noise, but of Music, of Liturgy. This is Life—man living, abiding, dwelling within the Presence.
In this battle, the value of Yhwh’s servants is immeasurable. For Sheol, because Silence is what it seeks, the servant’s life is actually valueless. It’s ‘value’ is its destruction. To Yhwh, however, the servant’s life is “too costly” to abandon. To Yhwh, his servant’s ability to enter into Liturgy, means that when called upon He will pay the price for his life. Yhwh will “come forth” in order to confront Death and destroy the cords that have ensnared his servant, that are steadily dragging him into Sheol. He will “benefit” him. He will “show affection”. He will be the King of Heaven who will still stoop down to the lowest of his servants in order to ward off Death’s advances.
The battle itself begins with the invocation of Yhwh’s name. What is clear is that the servant’s pronouncement of the Name makes Yhwh’s Presence present. There is something like magic happening here. The psalmist clearly does not have the ability, on his own, to fight off Death. He is being dragged to Sheol. His help can only come from the divine realm—from Yhwh himself. Note, though, that there is no description of a battle. It is as if Yhwh’s Presence itself frees the servant and defeats Death’s advances. Like the story of Creation, there may have been some type of battle story in the background, some type of story known about gods battling with Death over a servant—but here, the battle is completely gone. Death is not a real opponent of Yhwh. He does not put up a real struggle. Instead, Yhwh’s Name-Presence is understood to be its own victory. Where Yhwh is, there is victory. Where Yhwh is, there is Life. Where Yhwh is, Death is not. The psalmist may experience panic at Death’s capturing him. It may cause him to realize that no man can save him. But for Yhwh, there is no indication of hesitation. No sense of Him ‘risking’ anything to save his servant. His Presence accomplishes His will. It “presences” his will for his people.
It is key to see that the way victory is accomplished is largely the same as the result of victory—Yhwh’s Presence. For the servant, to be freed from Death’s cords is to “walk in Yhwh’s Presence through the region of living.” Life here is communion with Yhwh, a being with Yhwh, a being in Yhwh’s sphere of divine Presence. It is being an Adam that “walks with Yhwh”. That the psalm ends in the Temple means that this is to be taken quite literally—that the psalmist is walking with Yhwh in this new creation—this Temple that weds heaven and earth.
Now that Death has been banished, the psalmist can properly enter and dwell in the Temple. He is no longer on the verge of becoming unclean. He has been cleansed, and made ritually able to stand in Yhwh’s Presence.
It is so important to keep this in mind and not to see this ritual need for purity as a relic of the Old Testament. Jesus came to destroy Death, to make us ritually able to stand in the Forevoer Presence. His conquering of Death and his Resurrection is therefore an affirmation of this Old Testament insistence on the Presence being Life. When Christ returns and when we are “clothed in immortality” we will become, perpetually, what this psalmist-servant experiences—the ability to be in Yhwh’s Presence. In Revelation, the earth and heaven stand somewhat apart throughout. In the end, though—what the entire book is moving toward—is the time when Death is destroyed, the earth cleansed, and a new heaven descending shaped like the holy of holies. It is then, when there is no longer any remnant of Death, when Sheol and its Hunter haven been utterly destroyed, that man is able to be bodily in God’s Presence. That is what Christ’s Death and Resurrection accomplish—he purchases for us bodies that will no longer be hunted by Death and therefore able to be in God’s Presence forever.
What we see in this psalm is how the Presence does save from death—but it is not until the battle waged by Christ against Death that it is finalized, or “accomplished”. These are stagings on the way to the final battle. In Christ, God, through Christ, takes the Presence into Death and, further, into Sheol itself. By taking the Presence fully into enemy territory, Christ takes the Presence—that which is Victory and Life—to the final holdout, the seat of the enemy. Christ, in a sense, is the payload, the delivery of the Presence into Sheol. No servant could do that prior to Christ because no servant was the Incarnate Son, taking, in his body, the Presence itself. Prior to Christ, to go to Sheol meant to go somewhere where Yhwh’s name could not be pronounced. Therefore, no servant could ‘deliver’ the payload, they could not “call upon the Name” as the psalmist does here while still alive. But, because Christ is the Incarnate Son, his death is able to cross the boundary because he IS the Presence. In other words, it is Christ’s death that destroys Death.
In a way we can see Lazarus’ death as the next step beyond the almost-death of this psalmist. As in this psalm, Jesus’ presence brings Life to Lazarus. But Lazarus cannot take the Name into Sheol. That boundary he cannot cross. But he is brought back to Life by the one who is Life incarnate. Lazarus thus stands on the threshold between life in the old covenant and life in the new covenant. On the one hand he dies a death that cannot cross the boundary but he is brought back from death by the one who will destroy Death by entering into it. Lazarus is therefore like the water that is turned into wine, transformed from death into Life, but also pointing forward to the Hour when Death will be defeated.
Life After Death
This benefit assumes a response, a type of repayment. And, although the servant’s life has itself been redeemed, and thus the servant cannot offer more than that, the sacrifice of thanksgiving is still regarded by him and Yhwh as a form of repayment, a completion of the transaction.
This thanksgiving sacrifice was the todah sacrifice—a sacrifice of bread and wine—and one that the rabbis understood as the only sacrifice that would continue in the Age. This is the Eucharist—the sacrifice of thanksgiving that, while does not repay God for the sacrifice of the Son, is the appropriate form of response to such a Gift. Thus, when we partake of the Eucharist, we are completing and entering into this psalm. And, more importantly still, we are fulfilling this psalm and Christ’s sacrifice. Recall that the point of Yhwh’s Presence redeeming the servant is so that he can enter the Temple and offer sacrifice—so that he can enter Liturgy. The battle is waged for the Victory. And, here, that Victory is expressed through the thanksgiving sacrifice, a sacrifice that speaks to the Presence redeeming his servants from Death and into Life.
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