Ps. 6--Sheol and the Son's Rising

O Yhwh / do not rebuke me / in your anger

                And do not chastise me / in your wrath

The psalmist is in torture, both physically and spiritually—everything, from the top down and from the outside to the inside, is feeble and disturbed. He is under attack. The psalmist is like a sinful and punished man, a man who is inhabiting the realm of curse and affliction. It is from this realm that he now pleads with Yhwh to “not rebuke me” in his anger or “chastise me” in his wrath. He already appears to be an object of Yhwh’s anger and wrath and so the question is why does he begin the psalm in this fashion.

On the one hand, it may be that he sees his condition as a result of his sinfulness and so he is imploring Yhwh for mercy. The difficulty with this is that the psalmist never says he is sinful; there is no confession of sin. Perhaps the sin is the unknown type, but that seems unlikely given, again, the fact that the psalm does not even mention sin. In other words, it has to be read into the psalm, or understood as being presupposed. Also, he later attributes his condition to his ‘enemies’, not to himself. When Yhwh heals and redeems him, it will be from them. It will not, it seems, be in act of merciful forgiveness.

The other way of reading this is to see in it a Job-like request that Yhwh not be angered by his bringing of his petition. Perhaps his sickness has been permitted by Yhwh and the psalmist does not seek to thwart, or attack, Yhwh’s will. The problem I see with this is, like the word ‘sin’, there is nothing that says this in the psalm.

I think a beginning of an answer is when this verse is read as contrasted with the following verses. The first verse asks Yhwh to not be angry or wrathful. The second verse, in a reverse parallel, asks Yhwh to be gracious and heal him. He then asks Yhwh “How long?”. The question holds some of the answer we are looking for. The psalmist clearly sees his torment as coming from Yhwh and wants to know how much longer it will last. If it continues, it is likely he will end up dead and Sheol where he cannot praise Yhwh any longer.

I think what we see here is that the question of “How long?” is another way of saying the opening verse. The psalmist sees his condition as, at the least, being permitted by Yhwh. His sickness, inner and outer, is a result of Yhwh’s anger and wrath. As we know from other psalms, Yhwh’s ‘wrath’ is often simply his letting be, of his removal of protection. It is not his active willing of a wrong or evil. So, I think the opening verse is understood as being the psalmist’s request that Yhwh not continue in his ‘wrath and anger’ against him. In other words, it is not a request that Yhwh avoid beginning to be angry but that he stop what is already occurring. Whether it is caused by sin or whether he is Job-like simply isn’t stated. All the psalmist wants is for it to stop—for Yhwh to ‘return’ to him, to save him, to deliver him from his condition, because of his lovingkindness.

Be gracious to me / O Yhwh / for I have grown feeble

                Heal me / O Yhwh / for my bones have become disturbed

And my soul / has become exceedingly disturbed

The psalmist begins with the negative request—that Yhwh refrain from doing something (not rebuke him, not chastise him). He now turns to the positive request—that Yhwh do something (be gracious to him, heal him).

The basis for this request is because the psalmist is feeble and his inner and outer man has “become disturbed”. What the psalmist desires is for Yhwh to restore to him integrity—unity—in both body and in his soul/spirit. The strength that is a sign of health is what gives unity to the person, what keeps him stable. With that strength ebbing, he is losing his unity and integrity. He has “become disturbed”. The strength of unity is now the weakness of disbursement. As we will see, this lack of integrity is a ‘symptom’ of Sheol, a beginning of the psalmist’s descend into Sheol. We could even schematize it thus—Heaven is the place of utter integrity and unity, of strength and life while Sheol is the place of disbursement, a lack of solidity and weakness.

For the psalmist, that is what Yhwh can provide—he can “heal him”; he can give him strength and integrity and unity. He can give him vitality. He can bring together the parts of the psalmist that he himself cannot unify.

                But you / O Yhwh / How long?

Return / O Yhwh / Save my soul

                Deliver me / because of your lovingkindness

For in Death / there is no memory of you

                In Sheol / who can praise you?

The psalmist here expresses his sense of Yhwh’s distance from him. It is this—this farness of Yhwh—that is causing, or contributing, to his deterioration. As we saw above, the effect of a curse-like existence is often Yhwh’s not-acting, and not so much of his direct willing. As Paul would later say, the wrath of God is his letting people succumb to their desires and idolatry.

That palpable sense of absence is what leads to the psalmist’s question to Yhwh of “How long”. How long will he remain far from him. He implores Yhwh to “return”; to “save my soul” that is disturbed; and “deliver him”. This absence of Yhwh is the path to Sheol. If Yhwh stays “far off” much longer the psalmist will become a citizen of Sheol. And for Yhwh this is a loss—a loss of praise and of his “memory”. These terms—praise and memory—are very similar. The act of “remembering” Yhwh is not simply an act of mentally recalling Yhwh. In Deuteronomy 8, for example, the act of “remembering” serves as the basis for praise and for obedience. To “forget” Yhwh is to become disobedient, to devolve into idolatry and, ultimately, to be destroyed. To “remember” Yhwh, on the other hand, means to live within Yhwh’s covenant power and blessing—it preserves Yhwh’s people from a pride that they achieved their glory on their own and it preserves them against disobedience. When Yhwh’s people are gathered together in liturgy, moreover, they recount Yhwh’s saving acts, and thereby make them present again. This is the liturgical act of memory—of ‘making present’ Yhwh’s blessing-power. When the psalmist says, therefore, that in Sheol there is no “memory of you” and no “praise of you” he is making a profound point about death and liturgy—that death means the end to liturgy and, accordingly, the end to Yhwh’s presence. If liturgy and memory are the means by which Yhwh is made present to the people, then Sheol and death represent a type of anti-presence, anti-temple and anti-liturgy. It is a place from which Yhwh’s covenant power cannot redeem or heal.

But here is a deeper point to this—a liturgical person is a delight to Yhwh. He is something that Yhwh so delights in that his praise can be used as a reason to move Yhwh into action—to cause him to engage his covenantal lovingkindness and redeem the psalmist. This is deeply significant. We saw before how Yhwh is the one who gives vitality and integrity to the psalmist; he is the one who can bring together what is “disturbed”. This is Yhwh’s character and his blessing. Here, we see that this life, integrity and blessing are given so that the person can, in memory and liturgy, return praise to Yhwh. There is a synergy here—Yhwh’s original blessing is to turn into man’s return of blessing and praise which, in turn, leads to Yhwh’s blessing which leads to additional deposits of “memory” and praise, and so on. This is why Sheol is so devastating—it ends this synergy and cycle of blessing and praise. This object of Yhwh’s delight—this vessel of his blessing and praise—no longer can “remember” him.

This understanding of man as a liturgical person coincides with Genesis and its portrayal of Adam as the messiah and priest of the Garden. And, it also coincides with Genesis and its understanding of the curse(s) that fall on Adam and Eve after their expulsion from the Garden—the cycle of blessing and praise is interrupted; the openness and nakedness of one-to-the-other is now clothed (in both an act of mercy and condemnation).

I have grown weary / with my groaning

Every night / I soak my bed

                I dissolve my couch / with my tears

My eye wastes away / because of grief

                It grows weak / on account / of all my enemies

The psalmist recounts his utter dissolution, his almost literal melting into Sheol, as he pours himself out in misery and groaning. Even his eyes have grown weak as they pour out their tears; they “waste away”. For the psalmist, his weakness and illness is attributed to “my enemies”, the first mention in the psalm that the he is under attack, apparently by human forces. It is notable that he does not say that his dissolution is due to sickness but because of “grief” and his “enemies”. Perhaps we should see in this psalm a Job-like two-pronged attack—from both sickness and from enemies.

It is into this dissolution that the psalmist asks Yhwh to “come close”, to restore to him the integrity of health and to “dissolve” his enemies. As we will see, he asks Yhwh to take the curse that he now labors under and turn it on his enemies—to cause them to lose integrity; to cause them to become ‘disturbed’; to remove their ‘health’ so that their strength is gone and they are unable to continue their attempts to thwart Yhwh’s blessing and the psalmist’s praise. And, if they become the ‘curse’ the psalmist now is, then the psalmist will become the ‘blessing’ that they are. If Yhwh is far from the psalmist, then when Yhwh comes close to him, he will then be far from the “workers of wickedness”. This is the ‘grace’ and ‘healing’ that he prays for—one that is not simply rooted in his reception but also in the enemies destruction.

Depart from me / all workers of wickedness

                For Yhwh has heard / the sound of my weeping

Yhwh has heard / my supplication

                Yhwh will accept / my prayer

All my enemies shall be disappointed / and exceedingly disturbed

                They shall turn back / They shall be disappointed in a moment.

Here we see the lightning strike of Yhwh’s redemption. It comes like a thief in the night, suddenly and unexpectedly. And the reversal that Yhwh accomplishes is total, without remainder. The psalmist is “heard”, his “prayer accepted” and “in a moment”, his enemies are turned back by his sudden return to glory. They now inhabit his realm of curse—they “turn back”; they are “disappointed”; they are “exceedingly disturbed” as his bones and soul had been.

The spiritual geography of the psalm is important to note—the psalm begins with a call that Yhwh not “rebuke him”; he then calls upon Yhwh to “return to him”; he now tells the wicked to “depart from me” and they shall “turn back”. What we see here is that evil is “close” in the time of the psalm while Yhwh is “far”; when Yhwh hears the prayer, however, the reverse will occur—evil will “depart” and Yhwh will “come close”.

Jesus prayed in the garden, to the point of tears-like-blood. These tears, the sound of his weeping, is heard by the Father. And the resurrection is the lightning strike of his response—it is sudden, catches everyone by surprise, utterly reverses the messiah’s condition and his enemies, and is total. Here we find a divine life irrevocably flooding into Jesus. He becomes the locus of eternal life now. He becomes the ‘heard one’ of this psalm, and the enemy that is now banished from him is death. But this banishment is not temporary, but permanent and eternal. His resurrected life is one of enduring, perpetual and astonishing integrity—it will never be ‘disturbed’. And so will his enemies—just as divine life now flows into him, banishing death, so too does it make of him an abiding victory. He is forever established in his victory. His enemies no longer have any purchase over him as they did during his life. They are now forever-perpetually “disappointed and exceedingly disturbed”. They are forever-perpetually “turned back” and “disappointed in a moment”. Just as, during his life, was he a perfect reflection and instrument of the Father, so too Jesus’ resurrected body becomes the forever-perpetually ‘heard one’.

This psalm also offers window into one of the reasons the Father would raise the Son—we saw above how the psalmist’s ability to give praise to Yhwh is the paramount reason why Yhwh should not allow the psalmist to sink into Sheol. There is something Yhwh himself would lose if he lost the psalmist. To take this a step further, if the Cosmos is meant to be a liturgical vessel—something Yhwh pours himself into so that it can, in turn, praise Yhwh—then Yhwh would, in some way, fail if Sheol had the last word. But more deeply still—if Sheol and death are the realms of anti-praise and anti-liturgy; if they are the alien and foreign interruption into the realm of Yhwh’s creation; if Sheol and death rob Yhwh of praise and what he both desires and is due; and if man is “man” in so far as he is living and liturgical; then the incarnate Son could not be abandoned to Sheol and Death. The incarnate Son is this man-made-to-return-liturgy-to-Yhwh as Yhwh’s delight. And more, he does not simply offer to Yhwh what Yhwh desires but he offers to Yhwh what Yhwh is due and thereby ‘saves’ Yhwh from unfaithfulness and disrepute. He saves his honor and reputation (something that Moses used repeatedly to save Israel from destruction). If the Son had been abandoned in Sheol then, in a very real sense everything would have ultimately been abandoned to Sheol—and the Creator-God would have lost his creation to death. Likewise, if the Son is not abandoned in Sheol then everything is redeemed from Sheol and made into the liturgical vessel it was meant to be.