Ps 141 (The earth's furrows)

Yhwh / I am calling you / come to me quickly

                Listen to my cry / when I call you

May my prayer / be accepted / as incense before you

                And uplifted hands / as an evening sacrifice.

The psalmist directly addresses Yhwh, “calling him”. He is in urgent need of aid so he implores Yhwh to “listen to my cry.” This calling and crying out is to be regarded “as incense”, and his “uplifted hands, as an evening sacrifice.” Here, the cultic acts of sacrifice are appealed to in order to “attract” Yhwh’s attention—the psalmist’s interior pleading being regarded as acceptable as incense and sacrifice. That the psalmist likens his cry to “incense and sacrifice” speaks well of them—for the psalmist, he knows that Yhwh favorably regards these sacrifices and incense and that they have formed the basis for Yhwh intervening on behalf of a supplicant. Here, he is “offering” his heart like a sacrifice and incense, and his prayer should rise to Yhwh the same way that the smoke of a sacrifice and incense rise to Yhwh. 

Set a guard / Yhwh / on my mouth

                And watch / over the door of my lips

Do not incline my mind / to evil speaking

                To involvement in deeds of wickedness

                With me / who are evildoers

And may I not / eat of their fancy food

                May the righteous strike me / in kindness / and rebuke me

May the finest oil / not adorn my head

                Surely my prayer / is continually directed / against their evil acts.

When they fall into the hands of the Rock / their judge

                They will hear / my words appreciatively

In nearly every other psalm of petition, the psalmist is asking Yhwh to protect him against the wicked and evil—to protect him against their slander or the traps they have hidden; to protect the king against the nations that are pressing in upon him. The threat is almost always external. And yet here, that same request for protection against an external force is internalized. What the psalmist is “calling upon Yhwh” for, like incense and sacrifice, is that Yhwh would take that same protective, divine power and place it within the psalmist himself. That the external guard that would surround a psalmist from his enemies, would now be set up within the psalmist and protect him from himself. That the same, divine protection that would stand at the border of the Land and repel the nations, would now stand at the “door of my lips”. That the same protection that would withstand evil attacks, would now not incline his “mind to evil speaking.” What the psalmist is petitioning for is that he would not become like the evil, external men in the other psalms that the psalmist’s pray for protection against.

The petition that Yhwh “not incline my mind to evil speaking” and “to involvement in deeds of wickedness” deserves some attention. The Our Father contains a similar petition—“lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”. The implication is clear, although perhaps the precise cause is not. The previous verse speaks about Yhwh setting up a guard on the psalmist’s mouth and for Yhwh to “watch over the door of my lips.” There, the psalmist asks Yhwh to guard against the psalmist’s own actions. In other words, for Yhwh to responsive to the psalmist. In the second verse, though, it appears to reverse that direction, now asking that Yhwh not be responsive but that Yhwh not initiate the inclination to evil speaking and “deeds of wickedness.” It is important to note that these verses are somewhat in parallel—the first verse is about speech, and so is the second. So it is likely that they are actually saying the same thing in parallel fashion. In other words, for the psalmist, his own “inclination” is not understood as that distinct from Yhwh “including his mind to evil speaking”. For the psalmist, if his mind is inclined to evil speech, it is not as if that inclination operates outside of Yhwh’s control. So, for him, if his mind is “inclined to evil” it must also mean that Yhwh has either directed it or permitted it to be directed to evil. In the end, I think we need to let the words stand as they are and pray them both, from both angles. To lessen the second verse to “do not permit my mind to be included to evil speaking” loses much. To do the reverse to the first line and make it into the active does the same.

The psalmist then turns to food, and he asks for protection against his eating “their fancy food”. He does not want the “finest oil to adorn my head.” And, importantly, while he has asked for divine guards against his lips, he now asks that “the righteous strike me in kindness and rebuke me.” The righteous here are carrying out the divine guardianship of Yhwh, through a type of disciplinary action of “striking him”, which is, ultimately, a kindness.

As if by one / who ploughs / and makes furrows in the earth

                Our bones / are strewn / at the mouth of Sheol

Truly to you / Yhwh / Lord / are my eyes directed

                In you I seek refuge / do not expose me to death.

The imagery is of bones being compared to clods of earth that are thrown up by a plough making furrows in the earth. There are “furrows in the earth” but the bones are “strewn at the mouth of Sheol.” Earth – and – Sheol. Harvesting – and – death.

What the psalmist seems to getting at is that the wicked are attempting to “plant a harvest” through their destruction of the righteous. Their planting takes place on ‘earth’, but the effect is one that leaves the righteous “at the mouth of Sheol.” The second line also points to the profanation of the righteous—their bones are not buried, as they should be, but “strewn” at the mouth of Sheol. Everything here points to a deep profanation—of their deaths being compared to “harvest”, to their bones being “strew”, to their lives now approaching the most profane of all places—Sheol and death.

This is why the psalmist turns from this place of profanation to Yhwh—he directs his eyes to Yhwh, now pronouncing the divine Name that establishes life. In Yhwh will he seek refuge. Unlike the wicked, Yhwh will not “expose” him “to death.” The reversal is complete in Yhwh—if the wicked intended to push the righteous into the profane realm of death, then Yhwh will put them into the sphere of holiness and life; if the wicked wanted to strew and expose their bones at Sheol, Yhwh will “not expose” him to death.

Guard me / from the jaws of the traps / they have set for me

                And the snares of evildoers

May the wicked fall one and all / into their own nets

                While I myself escape.