Ps. 12 -- Yhwh's utterances

Psalm 12

Help / Yhwh / for the faithful one / has come to an end

                For the honest persons / have disappeared / from among the sons of man

The theme of this psalm is speech and silence. In this opening line, the psalmist orients us to this fact by paralleling the “faithful one” with the “honest person.” For this psalm, to be ‘faithful’, is to speak truthfully. We will see later what that may mean, but for now, these faithful/honest persons have disappeared. They cannot be found. Honesty itself has disappeared then and the world, as we will see, is full of lies.

For the psalmist, this does not mean that lies have simply taken over. It means that he and those like him are in danger. Only honest men could protect him before, but now that they have disappeared, he is entirely vulnerable. We will see later how power is understood in relation to speech and why that makes the psalmist increasingly more vulnerable. And, we will see how’s Yhwh’s speech in particular makes him the one the psalmist now calls out to for help and protection.

They speak vanity /each man with his neighbor

                With flattering lip / and double heart / they speak

We now begin to see how the false men operate. The direction of their speech is key—it is “with his neighbor”. Later we will see that this—this ‘communion of lies’—is how they believe they establish strength—through their ‘tongues’. This is what substantiates their power and, more importantly, their ability to oppress the poor and the afflicted. They believe that because they have authority over their own speech, then they have no authority over them—because, ultimately, speech is what determines power and reality in this psalm.

What they speak is key—vanity and flattery from a double heart. What is interesting is that their speech, at least here, is not about the oppression of the wicked, but about the false building up of each other. They ‘strengthen’ each other through lies and vanity. And yet, this building up is premised on a ‘double heart’—meaning that what is spoken is not true, but in fact conceals reality. This introduces something perplexing—that the concealment of reality is the basis for power. Because this seems like a contradiction of sorts, it is more understandable that the liars believe that because they ‘possess’ their own lips, they are their own masters. If speech is a form of power, first, and then a form of truth-telling, lying is permissible because the tongue is being used to establish power. In other words, truth is at the service of power and therefore can be sacrificed if it gets in the way of establishing power; it is secondary, at the service, to power. If that is the case, then the liar’s words are, in fact, true (oddly enough). Truth can be spoken, but only in so far as it stands at the service of power.

For the psalmist, this entire line of reasoning is anathema. As we will see, speech is not first a form of power and then a form of truth telling. And that, ultimately, is because speech is not, first and foremost, a human action but a divine one. Yhwh determines the content and purpose of speech—not humans.

Let Yhwh cut off / all flattering lips

                The tongue / that speaks great words

It may seem like a tangent, but it is hugely important that the first recorded spoken words of Scripture are Yhwh’s, not man’s. He is the ‘first speaker’ and his words literally do what they say—in this they are ‘truthful’; when he says something, that thing literally occurs. The Cosmos is “truthful” in that regard, in that it is the abiding, creative ‘word’ of God. His words create, establish and maintain reality. When Adam arrives, his first words are those of ‘naming the animals’. In other words, he enters into this movement of creation-through-speech and participates within Yhwh’s governance, but he does so by moving ‘into the stream’ of Yhwh’s speech. Adam’s words do not function independent of Yhwh’s. If we love because God first loved us, it is equally true that we speak because God first spoke. Our love moves into and along his love, just as our speech moves into and along his speech.

This places an incredible importance on speech. It is not simply a reporting or description of reality. In this regard, the liars have one thing right about it—it is power; speech does something. When man speaks, he becomes a co-creator with Yhwh; or, we should say, when he speaks truthfully he does. Man spreads Yhwh’s governance, His separating of the ‘light form the darkness” and Yhwh’s ability to bring about “good” and “beautiful” forms through that separation and distinction. When man speaks falsely, by contrast, his words bring about de-creation, and become a gateway through the chaos that seeks creation’s destruction passes through. Both are performative in this way—they both ‘do something’, either in furthering the good creative act of Yhwh or participating within a chaos that is entropic and desires creation’s destruction.

The ‘liars’ of this psalm do not understand speech as being grounded, first, in Yhwh’s speech. Instead, they understand speech as “our own”. They have done to speech what Adam did with the fruit—reached out and grabbed it as if they could take sole possession of it. And, in so doing, they have perverted and ruined it, just as Adam perverted and ruined wisdom when he ate the fruit. 

As we argued above, the perversion of speech, then, the claiming it as “our own”, is not simply wrong or a neutral act—again, it is performative. It does something. And what it does is spread the reign of chaos that Adam began; in the terms of the new testament, it cedes more ground to Satan as the king of this world. That is why the psalmist asks Yhwh to “cut off all flattering lips, the tongue that speaks great words”—he is asking Yhwh to excise the cancer that these lips are causing to metastasize within the Cosmos. Yhwh’s judgment is a type of chemotherapy to their cancer, destroying that which destroys, in the name of reasserting health, integrity and goodness.

Those who have said / By our tongues / we will establish strength

                Our lips are our own / who will be our master?

Because of the devastation / of the afflicted / because of the groaning / of the poor

                I will now arise / says Yhwh

                I will set them in safety / I will shine forth for him

The psalmist here describes the effect of the liars words as “the devastation of the afflicted”. This is the entropy and chaos that the liars have permitted to spread throughout the community. Their vanity and their flattering lips—their establishment of power—has all been at the cost of “the poor” who are groaning.

We need to see here the close proximity of the liars who say “our lips are our own, who will be our master” and the sounds made from the mouth of the afflicted—their ‘groaning’. The liars speak vanity and duplicity. The poor, however, speak in groans. The psalmist wants us to know several things from this. First, that the poor’s groans are more truthful than the words of the liars. Second, that liars do have a master, and that master hears the cry of the poor they are afflicting. The poor’s groans are truthful, and for that reason they are heard by Yhwh. The point here is that truthful words are ‘heard’ by Yhwh and when those words are ‘groan of the afflicted’, they move Yhwh into action. More deeply still—and what the psalmist wants us to grasp—is that the groans are actually more powerful than the words of the liars, precisely because they are heard by Yhwh; or, in other words the true ‘master’.

That the afflicted are heard by Yhwh reveals the falsity of the liars claims that mastery of their lips means they have no master. Yes, they are master of their own mouths, but no, that does not mean that they have no master. Human speech freely stands on its own, but it is derivative of Yhwh’s speech. It always-already stands within and under its judgment—judgment either for blessing or destruction. That it stands freely should never be confused with the idea that it stands outside of Yhwh’s judgment. It is always measured against the words of Yhwh.

One important thing to notice is that the groaning of the poor is contained within Yhwh’s own words. The psalm does not say, for example, that the poor groaned, Yhwh heard, and then Yhwh spoke. This is not an insignificant point, nor is it a merely interesting formal observation. Yhwh has taken their groans up into his own—he has possessed them, ‘owned them’—and used them as the basis for his coming redemption. They are part of the promise.

Throughout the scriptures, the groaning of Yhwh’s people calls Yhwh into action—and into dramatic action. The exodus is the most poignant example but there are others (Abel’s blood and during the time of the judges; those under the altar in Revelation ‘cry out’). Each time, the groans ‘jump start’ history by moving Yhwh into action, forcing him to put history back on its tracks after it had been derailed.

If we look at both sides of the groaning we also see how the groaning brings about the revelation of the wicked’s words. The wicked say they are their own master because they are ‘own’ their lips. The groaning of the wicked then causes Yhwh to speak, and what Yhwh says is that “he will arise” and “set them in safety and shine forth for him.” Yhwh’s words reveal that the time of the wicked has only been a time of patience. The wicked falsely interpreted Yhwh’s passivity as his indifference to their claims of mastery and to their oppression. They believed that it was a void, or an absence, that they could fill with their own plans. But they were wrong. At the moment they claim mastery of themselves, Yhwh reveals that he will “arise” in mastery over them. He will reach down and redeem the poor and, importantly, shine forth in kingly glory for them/him. His glory has been hidden, but it will now blaze forth. What Yhwh says directly confronts the words of wicked. They claim they establish their own strength—Yhwh claims he will arise (over them). They believe their oppression of the wicked is their own—Yhwh is going grab the oppressed way from them and “set them in safety”. They believe they are their own master—Yhwh is about to unveil his kingly glory, that will manifest to everyone that he is master.

The utterances of Yhwh / are pure utterances

                Silver refined / in a furnace

                Gold / purified seven times.

The ‘utterances of Yhwh’, in this psalm, are those he just pronounced—the certain promise that is going redeem the oppressed and shine forth for them.

And notably, the psalmist first describes them as ‘pure’. The only other descriptions of language thus far in the psalm have been of ‘vanity’, ‘flattery’, ‘great words’, and words that are essentially idolatrous (we are our masters because we are the masters of our speech). More importantly, the words come from a heart that is ‘double’, and therefore impure, a mixture of things that should be separated. That is not the case with Yhwh—his words are utterly and absolutely pure. They are like metals that have been overly refined to remove the smallest taint of impurity. More to the point—because they are like gold refined ‘seven times’, they are completely perfect and complete.

It is important that in the previous verse Yhwh’s response to the groaning of the oppressed was that he would arise. But here, that ‘rising’ is now a form of pure utterance. That should not be surprising though in the context of this psalm because, again, speech is performative. It does what it says. So, if the liars say they are their own masters, their speech will condemn them and show them to be liars once Yhwh responds. When Yhwh ‘speaks’, by contrast, his speech is pure and therefore will not ‘miss the mark’ as the liars speech has. It will do what it aims to do—and because his speech is absolutely perfect, there will be no gap between what is said and what happens. Its potential will be filled out completely because it contains no impurity to impede its realization. And that may be an important point—that the speech’s realization is directly related to its purity. In other words, speech will become what it says, to the extent that it is pure. For the liars, their speech will itself become vain, empty, and miss the mark precisely because it is impure. Yhwh’s speech, by contrast, will ‘hit its mark’, absolutely, because it is completely pure.

One last thing to note—the psalmist portrays Yhwh’s utterances as perfectly pure silver and gold, metals of extreme value. This emphasis on their value must be seen along with the “groans of the poor”. Yhwh’s statements that “I will now arise; I will set them in safety; I will shine forth for them”—is their wealth. They are poor now, but because of Yhwh’s promises, they will be established. It is a crucial dynamic to see—the false ones believe that the present world order is one of their making and that nothing stands above them, and that therefore the poor will always remain oppressed because there is no one who can thwart their oppression. But they are wrong—Yhwh stands as their true master. Heaven will not tolerate them. Likewise, the present world order is one of the righteous being ground down into poverty, but their “treasure is in heaven”, and they will be raised up and made steadfast and secure. And it is Yhwh’s refined and perfect words which constitute the basis for this hope in a reversed reality.

You / O Yhwh / will watch us

                You will guard us / from this generation for ever

All around / the wicked strut about

                As the vileness / of the sons of man / is exalted.

The psalm concludes with confidence that Yhwh will “watch us” and “guard us” from “this generation”, referring to this generation of liars and deceivers. They are surrounded by them and their vileness. Their speech and their behavior is infecting everything around them, and the psalmist and his community are in danger of being infected by the contagion. That is why Yhwh should ‘watch’ and ‘guard against’. The question is how does Yhwh “watch” and “guard” us from the vileness?

Within this psalm, the answer is through his ‘utterances’. They are the purity that combat and protect against the vanity and vileness of the sons of man. It does not seem, then, that Yhwh’s watching and protecting is simply something passively received. His utterances must be, in a sense, consumed—actively taken in and then incorporated into the ‘body’ of people. It must be the bread they live by.