To Yhwh / in my distress
I
called / and he answered me
Yhwh / rescue me
From
lying lips
From
slanderous tongue
What will you get from him
And
what else / will you get
Slanderous
tongue
A warrior’s sharpened arrows
With
brands of broom
How wretched I have been / lodging in Meschech
Living
among Kedar’s tents
I have had enough / of living
Among
those / who hate peace
And for my part though / I speak peaceably
They
for their part / want war
The psalmist called to Yhwh and Yhwh answered him. This
opening verse serves as an introduction to the psalm. From it, the psalmist
will describe what he is seeking deliverance from and how he waits in confident
hope for the fulfillment of Yhwh’s answer.
The psalmist prayed that Yhwh would “rescue him from lying
lips and slanderous tongue”. He then addresses his persecutor. It is not
entirely clear to me who “you” and “him” are. It appears that the psalmist is
asking his persecutor what he can expect to get from Yhwh and that the only
thing he can expect is “a warrior’s sharpened arrows with brands of broom.” In
other words, the persecutor appears to have invoked Yhwh against the psalmist
but now his invocation is being turned back around on him. This theme of a type
of boomerang effect of wickedness is evident throughout many psalms. Those who
dig pits for the righteous often fall in it themselves. The ‘turning of the
boomerang’ is Yhwh’s enacting judgment or ‘truth-ing’ their evil deeds. What I
mean is this—the psalmist’s prayer for deliverance enters Yhwh’s presence and
is heard by Yhwh. When this happens, the Presence ignites that petition; it
makes it fully ‘what it is’; it ‘truths’ it. When it does that it also, in
turn, ignites, or “makes the evil deed fully what it is” or “truths” it as well.
The prayer is now fashioned into a weapon and the evil deed is then turned
around on the head of the wicked. Here, something similar has happened except
that the wicked person appears to have invoked Yhwh directly for a curse on the
psalmist, and now that curse is being hurled back at him because it was issued
by a “slanderous tongue”. When this petition entered into Yhwh’s presence it
ignited but instead of being ‘granted’ the petition itself was hurled back onto
the wicked person. It comes at him now, shot by Yhwh the Divine Archer, as a
sharpened arrow aflame with Yhwh’s anger.
The psalmist then turns to his present condition. He is like
a foreigner, living far away from Israel is Meschech and “Kedar’s tents”. He is
like some alien or prisoner of war. He lives surrounded by those whose beings
are opposed to Yhwh—they hate peace. The psalmist though maintains Yhwh’s
heart; he speaks peaceably even though they want war.
There is a very clear tension in this psalm between the
judgment or cursing and peace. The slanderous tongue’s words are turned into
divine arrows. But the psalmist, even in the midst of ‘tongues of war’, only
“speaks peaceably”. This “peaceful speech” is notable in this psalm in
particular. What has become a divine
flaming arrow was the “slanderous speech” of the wicked. Moreover, the psalmist
is surrounded by “tongues of war”. Speech is the central issue in the psalm. It
is both what the psalmist wants to be delivered from and the engine of judgment
and deliverance. And yet, within the midst of this speech, stands the psalmist
whose words are or “peace”. And yet, we must recognize that the psalmist’s
“peaceful speech” includes the psalm itself and its cry for deliverance. His
peaceful speech does not mean indifference to justice and his suffering.
Likewise, the “tongues of war” have to include the divine imprecations against
the righteous. Perhaps what we can say is that what is a “tongue of war” and
what is a “peaceful tongue” cannot be read simply—to speak peaceably is to cry
during times of injustice for justice/truth because justice is the only way
that peace can be established. That being said, the wicked’ s slanderous words,
on their face, would be understood as attempting the same thing. What the psalm
says, though, is that the surface of the words conceal it’s lie. It is, in
truth, slanderous speech. So, while it speaks the words of peace, because it is
slanderous it is, in reality, ‘tongues of war’. More deeply still, though, is
the sense that the psalmist is “meek” for his part. He describes himself as
surrounded, like a prisoner of war, and yet from that camp he still maintains
his ‘words of peace’. For that reason there must be quality of meekness or
humbleness or “peacefulness” about him, something that “on its face” does
partake of peace. Everything here does not operate beneath the surface. His
‘words of peace’ may, in fact, simply be silence in the face of the accusations
levelled against him.
Christ is this petition that, upon his resurrection, enters
into Yhwh’s presence and is “truthed”. He is seated at Yhwh’s right hand on the
Divine Throne of power and authority. He now is and dwells in the Presence and,
as such, his entire being becomes a flaming petition, a perpetual fire of
intercession in the Heavenly Temple. Those who persecuted him, their
allegations, the accusations, their slander—they all ‘rise with him’ and are
part of his being and intercession. There is an aspect of judgment to this. And
it is one that runs throughout the Scriptures, from Genesis to its culmination
in Revelation. The “slander” that is levelled at Christ’s martyrs becomes the
source of the martyr’s petitions that, in turn, are flaming incense hurled down
to earth—accomplishment a very similar ‘boomerang’ effect that we see here.
And yet, Christ also stands in the heavens as one who
“speaks peaceably”. He desires mercy. Although he takes with him the slanders
that are levelled against him, and the slanders that are levelled against his
body, He does desire peace above all. His words on the Cross, just before his
death, become his abiding intercession—“Forgive them, for they know now what
they do.”
Between these two poles is the Christ of John, where it says
Christ did not come to judge the world, but the world stands already judged by
how it responds to him. Christ became Flesh for the redemption of the Cosmos.
It was for peace. He is this Word (of peace) Incarnate. He is Life, not death.
As the Word, though, Jesus Presence is this “truthing” presence. Like the sun
that hardens clay but melts wax, his presence “truths” the response to him and
that “truth” is the person’s judgment—either to salvation or not. More deeply
still is the fact that Christ, as he moved toward his ‘enthronement’ on the
cross, he does so through silence in the face of the accusations. He becomes
the ‘lamb led to slaughter’. Surrounded by slanderous words of war, he remains,
throughout, the tongue of peace. It cannot be that he does this simply for a
time—simply for the time leading to his crucifixion. Christ remains, in Heaven,
the “slain lamb”. He is, and remains, this tongue of peace and meekness. In
this way, he enacts this psalm, both during his life and death, and in his
ascension and enthronement in Heaven, becoming the abiding proclamation of the
psalm.
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