Monthly Archives: August 2023

Joel 1 The Locust as God’s Judgment on the People

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Millions of swarming Australian plague locusts on the move By CSIRO, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35486123

Joel 1

1 The word of the LORD that came to Joel son of Pethuel:
2 Hear this, O elders, give ear, all inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing happened in your days, or in the days of your ancestors?
3 Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.
4 What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten.
5 Wake up, you drunkards, and weep; and wail, all you wine-drinkers, over the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth.
6 For a nation has invaded my land, powerful and innumerable; its teeth are lions’ teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness.
7 It has laid waste my vines, and splintered my fig trees; it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down; their branches have turned white.
8 Lament like a virgin dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth.
9 The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off from the house of the LORD. The priests mourn, the ministers of the LORD.
10 The fields are devastated, the ground mourns; for the grain is destroyed, the wine dries up, the oil fails.
11 Be dismayed, you farmers, wail, you vinedressers, over the wheat and the barley; for the crops of the field are ruined.
12 The vine withers, the fig tree droops. Pomegranate, palm, and apple — all the trees of the field are dried up; surely, joy withers away among the people.
13 Put on sackcloth and lament, you priests; wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, pass the night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God! Grain offering and drink offering are withheld from the house of your God.
14 Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD.
15 Alas for the day! For the day of the LORD is near, and as destruction from the Almighty it comes.
16 Is not the food cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God?
17 The seed shrivels under the clods, the storehouses are desolate; the granaries are ruined because the grain has failed.
18 How the animals groan! The herds of cattle wander about because there is no pasture for them; even the flocks of sheep are dazed.
19 To you, O LORD, I cry. For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and flames have burned all the trees of the field.
20 Even the wild animals cry to you because the watercourses are dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

The prophet Joel looks at the environmental disaster that threatens the people, the animals, and the land itself through the word that he receives from the LORD the God of Israel. The destruction of the locusts and the drought have brought life in Israel to a critical point and Joel calls upon the priests to lead the people in the actions that demonstrate to the LORD the people’s desire to repent and restore the relationship with God. Even though Joel never indicates what actions the people need to repent from he sounds a clarion call to awake from their slumber and realize that the only hope that the people has is to remember their covenant with God, to show that they intend to be obedient, and pray for God to restore their fortunes. Joel’s shrill cry to the people points the way to a future beyond the judgment of God.

The book of Joel begins with the declaration that the word of the LORD came to Joel. This is a formula that is common in the prophets, but unlike many of the major and minor prophets there are no details in this introduction to locate the prophet in the time of a king or a major event. The only information we have on Joel is the name of his father (a name not used elsewhere in scriptures). The name Joel is common in genealogies, and it means ‘YHWH is God.’ It is the same components of Elijah’s name in reverse order. Scholars best guess to the context for Joel is the mid to late Persian empire before 343 BCE, but as mentioned in Transitioning to the Prophet Joel this educated guess is based upon clues throughout the short book.

The first recorded word of the prophet Joel is “hear” (Hebrew shemah) which immediately calls the attentive ear to Deuteronomy where the people of Israel are called to “hear.” The central commandment for the Jewish way of life comes from Deuteronomy 6: 4-5:

Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.

Deuteronomy articulates a way of life centered around obedience to the commandments of God. It concludes with blessings if the people live wisely in accordance with the commandments of God and curses if they foolishly abandon the way of their God. As James D. Nogalski points out, many of the same elements in these curses articulated in Deuteronomy 28:15-68 are being experienced in this initial chapter of Joel: heat and drought (22-24), attack by locusts (28, 38, 42), devastated vineyards and olive groves (39-40) and the loss of both the harvest of trees and the fields (42). (Nogalski, 2023, p. 86) Joel is a writer who has access to the scriptures, which becomes apparent by his use of imagery found throughout scripture, and it is not surprising that his insight is framed in the language of Deuteronomy. Yet, Joel’s hope is also framed in the language of Deuteronomy:

When all these things have happened to you, the blessings and the curses that I have set before you, if you call them to mind among all the nations where the LORD your God has driven you, and return to the LORD your God, and you and your children obey him with all your heart and with all your soul, just as I am commanding you today, then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you…and the LORD your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all your undertakings, in the fruit of your body, in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of your soil. For the LORD your God will again take delight in prospering you, just as he delighted in prospering your ancestors. (Deuteronomy 30: 1-3, 9)

In calling the inhabitants of the land to hear, Joel wants them to understand that the environmental catastrophe they are enduring is a work of God to call them back to obedience. Joel is reminding the people how to interpret their lives theologically and calling them to repentance so that this judgment of God may be reversed, and they may experience prosperity again.

Viewing an infestation of locusts, drought, and wildfire through the lens of a punishment of God may seem like an alien concept to most who live in the modern world of weather forecasts, insecticides, and scientific explanations. People who proclaim natural disasters like hurricanes, tornados, droughts, or wildfires as a judgment of God are often viewed in our world as people disconnected from modern society. They are crazy or delusional or they are pushing a judgmental view of God to maintain power over their followers. Joel may have been looked on as a voice out of tune with the rest of society even two millennia in the past. Prophets have rarely been welcomed in their time, and it would be easy to dismiss Joel’s correlation between these disasters and God, but the reality of this short book being included in our scriptures encourages us to slow down and reconsider our world in a different framework than we are used to employing.

Joel asks the elders among his hearers to look to their experience and the experience of their ancestors and see if they can find something comparable in their memory or the stories of their parents and grandparents. The word elders may refer to the leaders of the people, but it may be simply asking the elderly among the people to look back upon the longer span of their lives and look back into the past as far as their memories and stories will allow. Joel wants them to examine and discover that what is happening to their land in the present is not normal, it is like the onslaught of locusts Egypt experienced in the Exodus (Exodus 10: 1-20). This event is to be remembered by them and the future generations so they may return to the ways of God, and their descendants may not encounter these life-threatening conditions.

Most of the people reading this reflection are probably not connected to the land and the annual cycle of preparing, planting, growing, and harvesting that life depends upon. In a drought the prices may increase at the grocery store and municipalities may limit the amount of water to be utilized on landscaping, but life continues without interruption. Some have looked at Joel and thought the situation of the people of Joel’s time was not worth comparing to the military invasions that other prophets dealt with, but that would misunderstand the threat to life. Four different words[1] are used for locusts, and Joel 2:25 indicates that this invasion of locusts may have continued for years. If it was a single lost harvest people may rely on reserves of seed and food from previous years. There is no hardware store or nursery where the people can go to purchase new seeds, they rely on the previous year’s harvest for what will be planted. Not only is one harvest ruined. This crisis places the cycle of production itself at risk. Often the invasion of armies has used the metaphor of locust who eat everything to denote their destructiveness, now in Joel the metaphor is reversed: the invading army is the locusts.

Joel calls the people to wake from their stupor and realize the perilous situation they are in and the hope that their rituals can offer. Not only the wheat and barley have suffered from this invasion of locusts, but the vines and trees are also dying. The wine of the vineyard has been cut off and the vines are laid waste. Even more catastrophic than the devastation of the vineyards is the locusts eating the bark off the trees.  Trees without bark will die, it may be a slow death, but even if the bark of a tree is removed in a ring (a process called girdling) the tree cannot endure. The white branches on the trees are probably mildew or signs of disease.

For Joel the proper response is lament and grief. Public grief for a broken relationship like a virgin mourning the loss of a husband that was promised. Not only the people involved in the activity of planting and harvesting are to mourn but the priests are to mourn as well. No food among the people means no sacrifices to bring to the altar and the priests are suffering along with the people. Without the offerings the priests have no way to feed themselves and their families. Unlike Amos or Isaiah[2] who are critical of the actions of sacrificing and piety, Joel is calling the priests to lead the people in these actions which demonstrate their repentance. Wearing sackcloth both during the day and at night, fasting, lamenting, wailing, calling a solemn assembly, and crying out to God are all appropriate actions in the face of this disaster.

Their broken relationship with God is a problem for the people, but also for the creation. The animals also cry out to God, both the wild animals and the domestic, in the absence of food and water. The pastures of the wilderness, the grazing land for cattle, have been destroyed by wildfire caused by the drought. Even the sheep, which are able to subsist in rockier terrain and are able to eat a more varied diet, are struggling in the decimated land. The animals know who to cry out to, but the people of the land need to prophet to awaken them and help them realize how to respond.

[1] Four is a common pattern in judgments, possible referencing the four corners of the earth or the four winds. See for example Jeremiah 15:3, Ezekiel 14: 21, Daniel 7 and 8, Zechariah 1: 18 and 6:1 and of course the four horsemen of Revelation 6: 1-8.

[2] Amos 5:21, Isaiah 1:13

The Connection between Humanity and the Earth in Scripture

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And Elohim Created Adam by William Blake – The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=147900

The fields are devastated, the ground mourns; Joel 1:10a

One of the concepts that I’ve felt drawn to in Hebrew thought is the way the earth is personified and often bears the consequences of human activity. Humanity is connected with the earth in a way that is often missed in English and this connection starts at the very beginning of the Bible. The man (adam)[1] is formed from dust the soil (adamah) and when the man eats the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil God’s declaration has the earth bear the curse but also reiterates the linkage between the man and the ground:

And to the man (adam) he said,
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground (adamah) because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground (adamah), for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Genesis 3: 17-19

This theme continues in Cain and Abel as the personified ground cries out in protest against Cain’s murder of his brother:

And the LORD said, “What have you done? Listen; your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground (adamah)! And now you are cursed from the ground (adamah), which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it will no longer yield to you its strength; you will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” Genesis 4: 10-12

The consequence of the wickedness of humanity leads a grieving God to blot out human beings from creation along with all the other animals (Genesis 6:6-7) and in the aftermath of the flood God tells Noah:

The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. Genesis 9:2

This recapitulates the call of humanity to rule over creation in Genesis 1: 28-30. How humanity exercises this rule will be important for both humanity and the entire creation.

This imagery in Genesis is picked up by the prophets and highlights the connection between the disobedience of the people of God and the earth’s plight. For example, Isaiah states:

The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers; the heavens languish together with the earth. The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants; for they have transgressed laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse devours the earth and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt; therefore the inhabitants of the earth dwindled, and few people are left. Isaiah 24: 4-6

Or in Jeremiah:

How long will the land mourn, and the grass of every field wither? For the wickedness of those who live in it the animals and the birds are swept away, and because people said, “He is blind to our ways.” Jeremiah 12: 4

For the prophet Joel the disobedience of the people is the cause of the environmental disaster that they are encountering where the crops, vines, trees, cattle, sheep, and wild animals are all suffering because of humanity. The land becomes the first victim of the curse on behalf of humanity and although humanity will eventually suffer the earth is the first bearer of these curses so that humanity has a chance to understand and repent. As in the signs and wonders (plagues) in Egypt (Exodus 7-11) the environmental disasters all refrain from the loss of human life until the final sign. The blessings and curses in Deuteronomy 27-30 also share this pattern where the land’s prosperity is linked to the obedience of the people and there is always an opportunity for the people to repent and receive the blessing of the LORD. As we will see in the prophet Joel, the expected repentance will lead to not only a reversal of the current curse on the land but to a time of the LORD’s prosperity.

In the New Testament this way of thinking emerges in Paul’s Letter to the Romans as Paul leans into his vision of hope. Paul articulates a bold hope for all of creation when he proclaims:

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. Romans 8: 19-23

Humanity’s disobedience to God’s will impacts the creation. Although Joel never articulates what actions lead to God’s judgment on the earth through locusts and drought, as we look at natural disasters perhaps this is an opportunity to consider our impact on the world. I write this from North Texas which has had the second hottest and second driest August ever recorded, with temperatures frequently above 105 degrees (and heat index frequently above 115) I wonder what are the things that this community needs to repent of. I do believe that the way we utilize our environment impacts the climate from the fossil fuels we burn to power our lifestyles to the concrete, asphalt, and steel that lay as a hot blanket on the soil. The worldview of Genesis, Deuteronomy, the prophets (and the bible in general) would be critical of the societal drive for acquisition and the lack of care for the world we inhabit. I also have been questioning the disconnect that most urban and suburban people have from the soil. We may be insulated from the consequences of our actions but the impacts for the earth may only grow more dire.

[1] Adam can be a proper name, but it is also the generic term for ‘the man’.

Review of Loving by Henry Green

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Time Magazine Top 100 Novels

Book 55: Loving by Henry Green (1945)

This is a series of reflections reading through Time Magazine’s top 100 novels as selected by Lev Grossman and Richard Lacayo published since 1923 (when Time magazine was founded). For me this is an attempt to broaden my exposure to authors I may not encounter otherwise, especially as a person who was not a liberal arts major in college. Time’s list is alphabetical, so I decided to read through in a random order, and I plan to write a short reflection on each novel.

Loving is set in an aristocratic household of the Tennants in Ireland early in World War II, but in an unusual manner the main characters are the servants in the household and not Mrs. Tennant who is the matriarch of the household. Mr. Raunce assumes the role of butler at the beginning of the book when the previous butler dies and now, he is responsible for the management of the household. Throughout the story he is balancing his new responsibilities in the household with his budding relationship with Edith, one of the other servants in the household. There are several small and large scandals that are a part of the life of the household: from a peacock killed by a visiting cousin to the affair between Mrs. Jack (the daughter-in-law of Mrs. Tennant) and Captain Davenport (the next-door neighbor) while her husband is at the front, to a missing sapphire ring. The conversations between the servants of the household can be humorous and enlightening but this little world is disconnected from the big events occurring in the world around them.

The plot of Loving proceeds at an unbothered pace as it slowly reveals the scandals underneath the stolid surface of this world which is nearing its end. I can see why many people enjoy the dialogue and the gossip among the household but this world caught in its own little troubles only tangentially aware of the struggle for survival going on in the battle for Brittain. The war and the Irish Republican Army both make occasional appearances, but that is far removed from this world of old ways and old money. Ultimately Henry Green’s gift for dialogue was not able to keep me engaged in the meandering plot of mundane events. Like Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time, this one was not for me but others have found this work incredible powerful so please make your own judgments, these brief reflections are merely my consolidation of my thoughts on each work.

 

Transitioning to the Prophet Joel

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The Prophet Joel painted by Michelangelo and his assistants for the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican between 1508 to 1512

The prophet Joel is one of several books in the bible that often are overlooked by Christians. We may hear the shrill words of Joel 2: 1-2, 12-17 as one of the options to call congregations to repentance on Ash Wednesday to begin the Lenten journey or hear Peter’s reference to Joel 2: 28-29 on the day of Pentecost, but this short text is otherwise a mystery to most people of faith. A very attentive reader may remember the plague of locusts which begins the book, but it is far more likely that this book that resides between Hosea and Amos will be forgotten. One of my goals in these reflections is to dive into the parts of scripture that I am less familiar with, and the prophet Joel certainly matches that description.

The prophet Joel is one of the ‘twelve prophets’ or ‘minor prophets’ in the Hebrew Scriptures. The term the ‘twelve prophets’ comes from when the books were written on scrolls. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel are each long enough that they require their own scroll while Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi[1] were written together on a single scroll. Knowing the context that the prophet is speaking to can be very beneficial for the reader but in the case of Joel this is difficult to pinpoint since Joel doesn’t mention any specific historical events. Scholars use the following clues to make a best guess of Joel’s rough time period:

    1. Joel is well versed in the scriptures referencing Exodus, Deuteronomy, Obadiah, Isaiah (or Micah), and Amos. (Nogalski, 2023) So, these references would presume a date after these books. Many argue that with the exception of Daniel, Joel is one of the last books added to the Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament.
    2. Joel frequently mentions Jerusalem, Zion, and the temple and the priesthood as a functioning organization but never mentions a king. This probably indicates that Joel is a post-exilic prophet within the time period of the middle to late Persian empire.
    3. The “political constellation presumed in Joel 3: 4-8 (4: 4-8),[2] with its assumptions of cooperative efforts between Tyre, Sidon, and the Philistines, best fits the late Persian period prior to Sidon’s destruction by Artxerxes III in 343 BCE.”(Nogalski, 2023, p. 31)

Most scholars now view Joel as a 4th Century prophet before 343 BCE which means that Jerusalem has been resettled after the Babylonian exile, the temple has been rebuilt, and Israel (now referring to the remnant of Judah centered around Jerusalem, is a province of the Persian Empire (based out of modern-day Iran). There would be no king of the Hebrew people, instead this time period reflects the reality after Ezra and Nehemiah where Judah is a vassal state of Persia yet is still troubled by marauding nations and is unable to adequately defend itself.

As with my previous reflections I utilize the work of several authors who have spent a long time studying this portion of scripture. Below are the people whose reflections I am studying alongside my own writing and reflections.:

Elizabeth Achtemeier, “The Book of Joel” in The New Interpreter’s Bible. Volume VII. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996.

Bruce C. Birch, Hosea, Joel, and Amos. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997.

John J. Collins. Joel, Obadiah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. Collegeville, MC: Liturgical Press,2007.

James D. Nogalski. The Books of Joel, Obadiah, and Jonah. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdman’s Publishing Company, 2023

The book of Joel is a short book, but I am excited to begin walking intentionally through these three chapters.

[1] In the Christian organization of the Bible Daniel is included among the prophets but in the Jewish organization of scripture Daniel is included among the writings. The Jewish organization also includes Joshua, Judges, 1&2 Samuel, and 1&2 Kings in the prophets.

[2] The numbering of the book of Joel in English and Hebrew is different. Hebrew treats Joel 2: 28-32 as a separate chapter (Joel 3: 1-5) and the third chapter of Joel in English translations is the fourth chapter in Hebrew.

Psalm 90 Remembering the Character of God in Crisis

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Grigory Mekheev, Exodus (2000) artist shared work under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

 Psalm 90

<A Prayer of Moses, the man of God.>
1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.
2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
3 You turn us back to dust, and say, “Turn back, you mortals.”
4 For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night.
5 You sweep them away; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning;
6 in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.
7 For we are consumed by your anger; by your wrath we are overwhelmed.
8 You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your countenance.
9 For all our days pass away under your wrath; our years come to an end like a sigh.
10 The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong; even then their span is only toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.
11 Who considers the power of your anger? Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you.
12 So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.
13 Turn, O LORD! How long? Have compassion on your servants!
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us, and as many years as we have seen evil.
16 Let your work be manifest to your servants, and your glorious power to their children.
17 Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and prosper for us the work of our hands — O prosper the work of our hands!

We can only guess at the reason the editor of Psalms assembled the collections of songs and prayers in the order they did, but the ending of book three with the darkest two psalms of the collection which enter the dark night of the individual soul and the community lament over the loss of the Davidic king, the land, the temple, and Zion is suggestively answered by a psalm attributed to Moses. A community that has lost its land now learns again that God is their dwelling place. A community wondering about how they will survive in a foreign land remembers the person that God used to lead them out of the land of Egypt. In a time when God’s judgment seems like it will never end the people of Israel are taken back to when their lives were threatened by God’s anger and Moses stood between God and the people asking God to change God’s mind about the judgment God intended.

The beginning of this psalm is often used in funeral services and many people may stop at the comforting tone of verse one. Beth Tanner notes that the translation of the Hebrew by many translations as “our dwelling place” misses the emphasis of the Hebrew which translated literally is “Lord, a dwelling place YOU have been to us.” (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 691) God has provided a place for the people as a place of refuge and safety, rather than the people being entitled to God being that dwelling place. The psalm rests in the space of insecurity where the people are reliant upon God’s steadfast love and compassion for their continued existence, and they do not take this for granted. They know that their lives hang in the balance between their experience of God’s wrath and the promise of God’s compassion.

This psalm attributed to Moses also mirrors the language of Exodus 32-34 where Moses stands in the space between God and the people. Moses led the people to Mount Sinai where Moses received the commandments and the instructions for the Tabernacle, but while Moses was on the mountain the people constructed the golden calf. God’s anger burns hot against the people and poses a lethal threat to the people of Israel. Moses confronts both the people of Israel and the God of Israel and boldly asks God to repent of God’s anger and spare God’s people. In Exodus 34 God’s declaration makes it clear that God is choosing to be a God who is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” (Exodus 34: 6-7) God’s anger had threatened to consume the people, but now God’s presence will continue to abide among the people in their wilderness journey and in their new residence in the promised land. God chooses to continue to be a dwelling place for a people who have failed to keep God’s covenant.

The psalm oscillates between the permanence and steadfast nature of God and the frailty and transience of human life. In the Hebrew God is the eternal and mighty great birth mother[1] of the world while humans are pulverized dust.[2] The seventy or eighty years of a mortal life is comparatively a couple hours of lost sleep to God (a watch in the night). Reminding God of the fragility of human life the psalmist asks for God’s compassion upon these frail beings unable to live in the presence of God’s wrath without being consumed. The psalmist asks God for the ability to count the days of God’s anger so they will understand that there is an end.

I am writing this post near the end of August in Texas in 2023 which has been a brutally hot summer in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex where I live. Through July and the first twenty days of August there have been over forty days above 100 degrees, no rain, and temperatures rarely drop below 80 degrees at night. Looking at the forecast through the end of August, there is no change in sight and although I know that the temperature has to change at some point as we enter into the fall, the oppressive temperatures and the worsening drought makes every day harder. As the plants die and the soil is blown about by the hot winds it can seem like the present experience will never change. Yet, I know that September is on the horizon, and that eventually the cooler temperatures will come. It may seem trivial compared to the struggles of the people of Israel during the Exodus or during the exile in Babylon, but without a hope that things will change in the future the blast furnace of the present would be hard to endure. And just as I have no control over the weather, the people of Israel could not control how long they would be in exile. They rely upon their God’s compassion to change their situation.

For the people of Israel their problem is that God is angry with them, and that God has been angry for a long time. In the midst of God’s anger, they are like grass dying under unrelenting temperatures and persistent drought. They are waiting for the return of God’s compassion to nourish their life and God’s steadfast love to cause them to grow again. They hope, pray, and long for the end of this time of tribulation and hope to know and even longer time of gladness, joy, and growth. In their sojourn in a land that is not their own they can only rely upon God to be a place of shelter in their homelessness.

 

[1] The NRSV follows the Greek Septuagint reading “to mold or to form” but the Hebrew indicates that God gives birth to the earth and the world. Parallel language to Deuteronomy 32:18 “You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you; you forgot the God who gave you birth.” (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 692)

[2] It is possible that there is an echo of Genesis 3:19, but a different word for dust is used here. The word in Psalms is only used here and is likely derived from the word for being crushed or pulverized. (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 692)

Psalm 89 Shattered Worlds and Broken Symbols

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The Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem by Romans Under the Command of Titus, A.D. 70 by David Roberts 1850

Psalm 89

<A Maskil of Ethan the Ezrahite.>
1 I will sing of your steadfast love, O LORD, forever; with my mouth I will proclaim your faithfulness to all generations.
2 I declare that your steadfast love is established forever; your faithfulness is as firm as the heavens.
3 You said, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to my servant David:
4 ‘I will establish your descendants forever, and build your throne for all generations.'” Selah
5 Let the heavens praise your wonders, O LORD, your faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones.
6 For who in the skies can be compared to the LORD? Who among the heavenly beings is like the LORD,
7 a God feared in the council of the holy ones, great and awesome above all that are around him?
8 O LORD God of hosts, who is as mighty as you, O LORD? Your faithfulness surrounds you.
9 You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them.
10 You crushed Rahab like a carcass; you scattered your enemies with your mighty arm.
11 The heavens are yours, the earth also is yours; the world and all that is in it — you have founded them.
12 The north and the south — you created them; Tabor and Hermon joyously praise your name.
13 You have a mighty arm; strong is your hand, high your right hand.
14 Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; steadfast love and faithfulness go before you.
15 Happy are the people who know the festal shout, who walk, O LORD, in the light of your countenance;
16 they exult in your name all day long, and extol your righteousness.
17 For you are the glory of their strength; by your favor our horn is exalted.
18 For our shield belongs to the LORD, our king to the Holy One of Israel.
19 Then you spoke in a vision to your faithful one, and said: “I have set the crown on one who is mighty, I have exalted one chosen from the people.
20 I have found my servant David; with my holy oil I have anointed him;
21 my hand shall always remain with him; my arm also shall strengthen him.
22 The enemy shall not outwit him, the wicked shall not humble him.
23 I will crush his foes before him and strike down those who hate him.
24 My faithfulness and steadfast love shall be with him; and in my name his horn shall be exalted.
25 I will set his hand on the sea and his right hand on the rivers.
26 He shall cry to me, ‘You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation!’
27 I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.
28 Forever I will keep my steadfast love for him, and my covenant with him will stand firm.
29 I will establish his line forever, and his throne as long as the heavens endure.
30 If his children forsake my law and do not walk according to my ordinances,
31 if they violate my statutes and do not keep my commandments,
32 then I will punish their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with scourges;
33 but I will not remove from him my steadfast love, or be false to my faithfulness.
34 I will not violate my covenant, or alter the word that went forth from my lips.
35 Once and for all I have sworn by my holiness; I will not lie to David.
36 His line shall continue forever, and his throne endure before me like the sun.
37 It shall be established forever like the moon, an enduring witness in the skies.” Selah
38 But now you have spurned and rejected him; you are full of wrath against your anointed.
39 You have renounced the covenant with your servant; you have defiled his crown in the dust.
40 You have broken through all his walls; you have laid his strongholds in ruins.
41 All who pass by plunder him; he has become the scorn of his neighbors.
42 You have exalted the right hand of his foes; you have made all his enemies rejoice.
43 Moreover, you have turned back the edge of his sword, and you have not supported him in battle.
44 You have removed the scepter from his hand, and hurled his throne to the ground.
45 You have cut short the days of his youth; you have covered him with shame. Selah
46 How long, O LORD? Will you hide yourself forever? How long will your wrath burn like fire?
47 Remember how short my time is —  for what vanity you have created all mortals!
48 Who can live and never see death? Who can escape the power of Sheol? Selah
49 Lord, where is your steadfast love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore to David?
50 Remember, O Lord, how your servant is taunted; how I bear in my bosom the insults of the peoples,
51 with which your enemies taunt, O LORD, with which they taunted the footsteps of your anointed.
52 Blessed be the LORD forever. Amen and Amen.

The approach to Psalm 89 will be different than my approach to most of the other psalms because it evokes for me an important question that continues to be wrestled with in communities of faith. This psalm likely originates in the collapse of the Davidic line of kings in the aftermath of Babylon’s destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE and wrestles with the contrast between the psalmist’s understanding of God’s promises and their present experience. It is plausible that Psalm 89 may be a combination of one (or more) psalms which expressed the royal theology of the Davidic kings with the tough questions of verse thirty-eight onward. Like Psalm 88 it takes us into the darkness of the psalmist’s experience where no light appears on the horizon, but unlike the previous psalm this is the experience of the community of the faithful questioning how the God’s faithfulness proved unfaithful. The psalm is still processing the anger, grief, and the disillusionment over the loss of institutions they thought would continue perpetually.

The language of Psalm 89 weaves together the kingdom of God and the monarchy of David into a common tapestry. Psalm 89 is built upon the words through the prophet Nathan to David in 2 Samuel 7: 8-17, but the rough edges of this prophecy where the ‘seeds of arrogance’ (Nancy de Claisse-Walford, 2014, p. 681) seen in David are smoothed out. Like Psalm 2 the strength of the Davidic kings is directly linked to the strength of the LORD. Their victories are the LORD’s victories, their enemies are the LORD’s enemies, their unfaithfulness is punished but they are never separated from God’s steadfast love and faithfulness (unlike King Saul or the Kings of Northern Israel). The first seventy percent of the psalm weaves God’s reign which is founded on steadfast love and faithfulness into experience of life under David’s descendants. The royal theology is expressed through the temple, and the temple, Jerusalem, and the Davidic kings all become important symbols of God’s reign on earth. The covenant language of Psalm 89 leaves no space for God to change God’s mind despite the unfaithfulness of many of the kings in Jerusalem. Yet, when the seam holding God’s reign and the Davidic king’s reign unravels in verse thirty-eight, the psalmist now takes God to task for renouncing the covenant. The situation of humiliation that the people experience now moves the psalmist to the dangerous and perhaps blasphemous conclusion that God whose reign is built on steadfast love and faithfulness has now proven unfaithful. God who was once Father and Rock who exalted David’s horn and strengthened his arm now strengthens the arms of the foes of the people, has rejected God’s children, and has renounced the covenant.

Moving beyond the psalm for the moment, the close alliance of God’s kingdom with any individual or government always presents the danger of idolatry. King David occupies an almost mythical role in the story of Israel as the ‘once and future king’ who was a man after God’s own heart. The narrative of David in First and Second Samuel, and the experience of the Davidic kings in First and Second Kings is often disconnected from the interwoven theology which connects the stability of the kings in Jerusalem with a larger vision of God’s cosmic reign over the forces of creation and the nations of the world. When the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon occurs and the Davidic line of kings seems to be a stump which is cutdown and never to rise again the Jewish people would have to reckon with their relationship with God in a new way and to discover their new identity as a people of God in exile without king, temple, or land. They would have to reimagine the role of David within their life of faith and to reexamine how the hopes of 2 Samuel 7 and Psalm 89: 1-36 ended in the desolation of 2 Kings 25 and Psalm 89: 37-51.

Although the United States there is the concept of the ‘separation of the church and the state’ there is also a semi-religious understanding of manifest destiny and exceptionalism which exists within the political language of the country. Recently there has been a strong movement among both individuals and churches towards a Christian nationalism which weaves these ideas of manifest destiny and exceptionalism into a religious retelling of the story of the United States which ignores many aspects of the country’s past and present. This Christian nationalism has coalesced around the Republican Party in the United States and is still wielded by former President Trump to link his presidency with the faith of many of his followers. The almost messianic fervor that some have placed upon him and the sharp polarization between adherents and opponents highlights the danger of this interweaving of God’s reign and any individual or political group.

As an heir of the Lutheran reformation, I am a part of what is sometimes referred to as the magisterial reformation. The magisterial reformation includes the Lutheran, Reformed, and Anglican reform movements that still believed that secular authority should be followed (in contrast to the radical reformers who rejected any secular authority). Yet, the Lutheran (as well as Reformed and Catholic churches) in Germany had to struggle with the demands for loyalty from the National Socialist party as they assumed power in the 1930s. Many prominent Lutheran scholars, like Paul Althaus,[1] welcomed the rise of the National Socialist and Althaus viewed the government of the state as an order of God’s creation which was given by God. If the government of the state was an order of creation it was not subject to critique by the church, but there were others in the church who would criticize the National Socialist. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is the most well known of these resisters to the demands of loyalty. For Bonhoeffer he viewed the government as a vessel God uses to preserve life and when the government fails in its responsibility the church has a responsibility to speak. Many in Germany in the 1930s were able to combine their practice of Christianity with the demands of the state. Looking back upon this time it is easy to wonder how many people of faith were able to participate in or tolerate actions which seem antithetical to the scriptures, yet it is amazing how malleable peoples’ interpretation of scripture can be to fit their political dispositions.

Within Psalm 89 the kingdom of God and the reign of the Davidic kings is woven together until the tapestry is ripped apart by the experience of the present. There were Christians during the Third Reich who viewed Adolf Hitler as God’s gift to Christianity[2] and I fear there are many Christians in the United States making a similar mistake today. Unfortunately for many in Germany and in the United States participation in these movements has drowned out critical voices that questioned this interweaving of God and nationalism. For Judaism the crisis of exile in Babylon led to a reexamination of their faith in light of their new situation. I fear that for many Christians the eventual collapse of Christian nationalism will lead to an abandonment of their faith.

For me the conclusion of this psalm in verse fifty-two is also a moment of hope. It closes the third book of the psalter and brings this open question into the continued act of praise. Even when there are no easy answers for shattered symbols, broken communities, and even a broken nation there is a community that sits in the discomfort and still brings these questions into the blessing of their God. It closes with a double ‘amen’ which acknowledges the still unanswered questions of the prayers while allowing them to be lifted up to the God who may be Father, may be opponent but still remains connected to the community of the faithful. Elie Wiesel in his memoirs All Rivers Run to the Sea captures the relationship of these faithful crying out to God when he says of his own experience of the Holocaust:

I have never renounced my faith in God. I have risen against His justice, protested His silence and sometimes His absence, but my anger rises up within faith, not outside of it. (Wiesel, 1994, p. 84)

[1] Paul Althaus was not an isolated example, but he was in the 1930s viewed as the leading scholar on Luther’s theology. When I was studying in seminary in the early 2000s his works The Theology of Martin Luther and The Ethics of Martin Luther were still used.

[2] Paul Althaus in 1933 stated, “Our Protestant churches have greeted the turning point of 1933 as a gift and miracle of God” (Ericksen, 2012, p. 37)

Psalm 88 Only Darkness Knows Me

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Marc Chagall, Solitude (1933)

Psalm 88

<A Song. A Psalm of the Korahites. To the leader: according to Mahalath Leannoth. A Maskil of Heman the Ezrahite.>
1 O LORD, God of my salvation, when, at night, I cry out in your presence,
2 let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry.
3 For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol.
4 I am counted among those who go down to the Pit; I am like those who have no help,
5 like those forsaken among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, like those whom you remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand.
6 You have put me in the depths of the Pit, in the regions dark and deep.
7 Your wrath lies heavy upon me, and you overwhelm me with all your waves. Selah
8 You have caused my companions to shun me; you have made me a thing of horror to them. I am shut in so that I cannot escape;
9 my eye grows dim through sorrow. Every day I call on you, O LORD; I spread out my hands to you.
10 Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the shades rise up to praise you? Selah
11 Is your steadfast love declared in the grave, or your faithfulness in Abaddon?
12 Are your wonders known in the darkness, or your saving help in the land of forgetfulness?
13 But I, O LORD, cry out to you; in the morning my prayer comes before you.
14 O LORD, why do you cast me off? Why do you hide your face from me?
15 Wretched and close to death from my youth up, I suffer your terrors; I am desperate.
16 Your wrath has swept over me; your dread assaults destroy me.
17 They surround me like a flood all day long; from all sides they close in on me.
18 You have caused friend and neighbor to shun me; my companions are in darkness.

Psalms 88 and 89 stand together at the end of book three of the book of Psalms and take us into the darkest despair of the entire book. (Nancy de Claisse-Walford, 2014, p. 668) Both prayers are appeals for help that have no resolution within the psalm and while Psalm 89 is a prayer grieving the destruction of Judah and the loss of the promises to the line of David, Psalm 88 is the prayer of an individual who is either metaphorically or physically at the point where, “Death is so near and so real that it becomes the subject of the lament.” (Mays, 1994, p. 282) This is not the type of prayer that was taught in Sunday school, nor is this psalm used in the worship of most churches. Its vision of the world is darker than many churches are comfortable with but it also speaks honestly to the experience of deep darkness that many both inside and outside the church experience. The daring language of the psalm, which is willing to declare that God is responsible for their dire circumstance, turns on the head the vision of Psalm 56:4 or Romans 8:31 as it wonders, “if God is against me, who can be for me?” The psalmist’s words break forth from the dark night of the soul where their abandonment by God and their companions leaves only darkness to know them.

The psalm is attributed to Heman the Ezrahite. It is possible that the intent is to attribute the psalm to Heman who is listed as one of the wise men who Solomon surpasses in 1 Kings 4:31 or Heman the singer, one of the Kohathites appointed by David in 1 Chronicles 6:33. It is also possible that it is the same individual referred to in both 1 Kings and 1 Chronicles (singers/psalmists would be considered wise in Hebrew society) but it is also likely that the Heman referred to in the psalm is a different person unmentioned elsewhere in scripture. Regardless of the authorship of the psalm, it speaks in the brutally honest language of the Hebrew Scriptures that many contemporary Christians have little exposure to.

The psalm begins in a pious cry out to God, crying out to God for God’s attention to the prayers of the one dependent on God’s salvation. The prayer uses three different words for ‘crying out’ to God in verse 1, 9b and 13 (NIB IV: 1027) exhausting the language of prayer as they desperately seek an answer from the God who is both their only hope of salvation and the source of their troubles. The psalm begins with language that would is the traditional language of prayer learned in worship. Yet, once the prayer begins the dam holding back the psalmist’s words breaks and their desperation and abandonment cannot be contained. The pain of the psalmist rushes forth from the shattered walls of convention and flows into an irresistibly honest prayer that emerges from the space of death, darkness, and despair.

The stakes of this prayer are incredibly high for the psalmist. The very center of their life[1] is threatened. The psalmist deploys an incredible number of words for death: Sheol, the Pit, like the dead, slain, grave, those you remember no more, cut off from your hands, in the regions dark and deep, shades (Hebrew Rephaim), Abaddon, darkness, the land of forgetfulness. Almost every line has the presence of death within this prayer. This deployment is especially striking when compared to the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures which rarely talk about death and the afterlife. In verses three to five the mentions of death indicate the serious nature of the psalmist’s petitions but the jarring realization comes in verse six when the psalmist turns their invective to God and declares that God is the one responsible for the psalmist’s situation. God may be the psalmist’s salvation but God is also, in this psalm, the psalmist’s oppressor.

The psalmist girds up their loins and stands before God in accusation declaring that God has put them at death’s door, that God’s wrath is actively overwhelming the psalmist in waves, and God has caused the alienation of the psalmist from their companions. Many Christians are not familiar with this type of accusatory language directed at God and are surprised at the directness of this psalm or Jeremiah’s accusations of God.[2] As mentioned in my comments on Psalm 86 there is a relationship between the servant and their Lord, and here the servant boldly claims that their Lord has violated their relationship. Where the servant needed protection, their Lord has overwhelmed them with wrath. Where the servant looks for a compassionate answer, the answer[3] they receive is unbearable. The actions of God have alienated the servant from both God and their companions making them, like Job, one despised and one cursed by God.

The psalmist’s eyes growing dim is not a statement of eyesight, but indicates that their vitality is failing. Physically and mentally, they are dying and yet they continue to cry out to God. They cry out from a place of “abandonment and lostness…so great that it saturates the soul so there is room for nothing else.” (Nancy de Claisse-Walford, 2014, p. 671) But it is heartbreaking that for the psalmist it is God who has cast them into this space of darkness and death and then turns away from their cries. In a series of six rhetorical questions: Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the shades rise up to praise you? Are your wonders known in the darkness, or your saving help in the land of forgetfulness? Is your steadfast love declared in the grave, or your faithfulness in Abaddon? The answer to each of these rhetorical questions in the vision of the psalmist is no! As mentioned above the Hebrew scriptures rarely talk about death and the afterlife and there is no conception of heaven and hell as destinations for the people of God in the psalms. Psalm 88 deploys this shocking set of questions to the God of life to get their either unresponsive or oppressive God to relent and deliver their servant from death or the relationship will be broken and God will be the unfaithful one who broke it. In the Psalms when the concept of death, Sheol, the Pit, or Abaddon are mentioned it is assumed that there is no longer any communication between the deceased and God.[4] The only freedom this psalm offers the psalmist is the freedom of the dead where God either does not remember or has actively cut off God’s servant. (Nancy de Claisse-Walford, 2014, p. 671) Yet the psalmist cries out to their Lord as a servant desiring to continue to serve their God in the land of the living.

The psalmist cries out one final time in verse thirteen. Their prayers come before God and even boldly confront[5] God asking God to relent. God’s anger has left the psalmist in the space of darkness and death. There is no escape for the servant from the anxiety filled and deathly state of the servant’s life. There is no answer as the psalm reaches its final gasp, there is only the cry of the servant thrown “against a dark and terrifying void” (Nancy de Claisse-Walford, 2014, p. 669) The final word of the psalm is darkness.[6] The sad final phrase is obscured by the NRSV’s translation. The NIV’s “darkness is my closest friend” or Beth Tanner’s “only darkness knows me” (Nancy de Claisse-Walford, 2014, p. 670) better captures the isolation and abandonment that the psalm closes with. We may rebel against a psalm where death and darkness have the final word, but the book of Psalms reminds us that there are times where the faithful ones of God may find themselves in the God forsaken place where God seems silent, absent, or angry; where relationships prove themselves unfaithful, and where the agonizing prayer breaks forth to God from the death’s door where no light seems to be able to penetrate the darkness of the faithful one’s world.

Nobody would choose to walk into the place of depression and suffering where death and darkness seem to be their only companion, but even people of faith may find themselves in these spaces that appear devoid of God’s steadfast love and compassion. Depression can make the world feel like a place where darkness is the sufferer’s only companion and death may cry out to them. Even faithful people can suffer from bouts of depression so deep that suicide and death seem closer than God. God does not condemn these words of the psalmist as faithless, instead they are placed within the scriptures of God’s people. From a Christian perspective we may answer the rhetorical questions of Psalm 68 differently than the psalmist: from a Christian perspective, to quote Paul, “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” (Romans 14:8) Yet, this psalm invites us to walk into the swampland of the soul, pitch a tent, and get to know the lay of the land. It invites us to dwell in the God forsaken place of the crucifixion without immediately jumping forward to the surprise of the resurrection. Sometimes resurrection takes time, sometimes prayers end in darkness as they await a response from God, and sometimes faithful ones walk through the valley of the shadow of death. This uncomfortable psalm invites us into an honest relationship with God that demonstrates a confrontational or defiant calling upon God to act in compassion and love rather than abandonment or wrath.  We may not like that darkness has the last word and we may want a happy ending to occur within eighteen verses, but sometimes we dwell in darkness and hope for a light which we cannot see but our faith longs for.

[1] The NRSV’s ‘soul’ in verse 3 is the Hebrew nephesh which occurs frequently in the psalms but the modern idea of ‘soul’ comes from Greek thought instead of Hebrew thought. The Hebrew nephesh is closer to ‘life itself’ or ‘the essence of life.’

[2] For example: Jeremiah 15: 17-18, 20: 7-10. Particularly in Jeremiah 20 our English translations often soften the shocking language or Jeremiah.

[3] The Hebrew word translated ‘waves’ also can means ‘answer.’

[4] See for example Psalm 6:5, Psalm 30:9. The contrary point will be argued by Psalm 139:8 where even if the psalmist makes their bed in Sheol, God is present there.

[5] The Hebrew verb qdm can mean either come before or confront.

[6] The final word of the psalm is the Hebrew hoshek (darkness).

Psalm 87 Mother Jerusalem

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James Tissot, Reconstruction of Jerusalem and the Temple of Herod, painted between 1886 and 1894

Psalm 87

<Of the Korahites. A Psalm. A Song.>
1 On the holy mount stands the city he founded;
2 the LORD loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.
3 Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God. Selah
4 Among those who know me I mention Rahab and Babylon; Philistia too, and Tyre, with Ethiopia — “This one was born there,” they say.
5 And of Zion it shall be said, “This one and that one were born in it”; for the Most High himself will establish it.
6 The LORD records, as he registers the peoples, “This one was born there.” Selah
7 Singers and dancers alike say, “All my springs are in you.”

This short psalm is more confusing in Hebrew than the polished English translations make it appear, but there are two primary directions that interpreters follow. The first direction that translators tend to follow is what appears in most English translations like the NRSV (above) where the song lifts up the exceptionalism of Jerusalem, and the psalmist, as a native of Jerusalem feels they are worthy of special status throughout the world. As a person born in San Antonio, Texas it reflects a similar love for their hometown that Bob Willis and the Texas Playboys do for my hometown in their classic song ‘Home in San Antone’

Haven’t got a worry, haven’t got a care
I haven’t got a thing to call my own
Though I’m out of money, I’m a millionaire
I still have my home in San Antone.

There is another tradition which Thijis Booji suggests by comparing the psalm with ancient Near Eastern parallels using the Hebrew text which suggests that the psalm may be indicating that Zion is not only a favorite of the LORD, but that Zion is the birthplace of the other nations listed in the text. (Nancy de Claisse-Walford, 2014) If you follow this translation the song would be closer to the old song:

Father Abraham had many sons, and many sons had Father Abraham
And I am one of them, and so are you, so lets all praise the Lord.

Either translation views Jerusalem as a special place and its residents as a special people. Both translations offer two interesting possibilities of viewing the world through a Jerusalem-centric lens.

If the psalm is viewing the world through the lens of Jerusalem being exceptional but not making the connection that the nations are ‘birthed’ from Zion, it is a bold statement, like the Bob Willis song, that may be without any power or prestige of the individual or the nation. Jerusalem is lifted up as more loved than all the dwellings of Jacob, and if this is written (as seems likely based upon the other nations listed) in a time after the division between Judah and Israel it would set Jerusalem above the northern tribes. It would also place Jerusalem as a place known by the superpowers (Rahab-Egypt and Babylon), regional opponents (Philistia and Tyre) and the ends of the earth at the time (Ethiopia). Assuming the speaker in verse four is God’s voice then Egypt and Babylon and the other nations “know God.” Exodus uses the language that Egypt will, “know that I am the LORD.” (Exodus 14:4)[1] The psalmist shares in the reputation of Zion as the special place protected by the Most High and rejoices in both the city and its place in God’s heart.

If the second translation is correct the psalm celebrates the familial bonds of all the earth that originate in God’s people and God’s city. In Abraham all the nations were to be blessed (Genesis 12:3) including Egypt and Babylon and to the ends of the earth.  Zion is the mother who gave birth to the psalmist, but if Zion also gave birth to the nations, then the many sons and daughters of Zion share a common bond throughout the earth. When translated in this way the psalm resonates with vision of the New Jerusalem which is a common home for all the people of God in Revelation 21:9-27. Either song celebrates the centrality of the psalmist’s home in their vision of the world and is worthy of celebration by the singers and dancers among the people. Both are visions that appear at different points in the life of the people of God and both are songs worth singing.

[1] See also Exodus 10:2, Psalm 46: 10 and 59:13 also use the powerful works of God as ways in which Egypt or the nations come to know the LORD through demonstrations of the LORD’s power.

Psalm 86 A Servant’s Plea For Their Lord’s Deliverance

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Love is Not a Victory March by Marie -Esther@deviantart.com

Psalm 86

<A Prayer of David.>
1 Incline your ear, O LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy.
2 Preserve my life, for I am devoted to you; save your servant who trusts in you. You are my God;
3 be gracious to me, O Lord, for to you do I cry all day long.
4 Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
5 For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call on you.
6 Give ear, O LORD, to my prayer; listen to my cry of supplication.
7 In the day of my trouble I call on you, for you will answer me.
8 There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like yours.
9 All the nations you have made shall come and bow down before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name.
10 For you are great and do wondrous things; you alone are God.
11 Teach me your way, O LORD, that I may walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart to revere your name.
12 I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever.
13 For great is your steadfast love toward me; you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.
14 O God, the insolent rise up against me; a band of ruffians seeks my life, and they do not set you before them.
15 But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.
16 Turn to me and be gracious to me; give your strength to your servant; save the child of your serving girl.
17 Show me a sign of your favor, so that those who hate me may see it and be put to shame, because you, LORD, have helped me and comforted me.
 
Psalm 72 (and Book II of the Psalter) ends with the note that “The prayers of David son of Jesse are ended.” The notation at the beginning of Psalm 86 has led many writers to assume this is a psalm which comes from a later time which does use several themes that are a part of the psalms of David. Whether David or a later author composed this prayer asking for God’s help in their crisis, it does use well known words and themes to articulate their dependence and trust in God. This prayer uses the language of faith learned in the worshipping community to provide the words needed to speak to God and appeal for God’s intervention.

The prayer comes from a poor and needy servant of God who needs their Lord to hear their words and preserve their life.[1] Throughout the psalm the speaker is ‘your servant’ (Hebrew ‘ebed) and God is frequently referred to as Lord (Hebrew ‘adon).[2] Servant and lord are paired roles in the culture of Israel. As James Mays explains:

An ‘ebed was a person who belonged to an ‘adon, who lived and worked in the sphere of the purposes and decisions of the ‘adon and who had the right to the support and protection of the ‘adon. (Mays, 1994, p. 279)

The servant and lord dynamic in the psalm is inherited where the psalmist is the ‘child of your serving girl. ´ The dependance on their God as a faithful Lord is something that the psalmist learned from his family and has been a part of their life from the very beginning.

The characteristics of God are the characteristics of God that Israel has always relied upon. The LORD is a God of forgiveness and steadfast love (hesed), is merciful and gracious, and slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love (hesed) which alludes back to the thirteen attributes of God which originates in Exodus 34: 6-7.  God is also incomparable with any other gods and the psalmist trusts that in time the nations will also see and prostrate themselves before the LORD. The psalmist trusts that the God of Israel can and will help God’s faithful servant in their time of need.

The servant is ‘devoted’[3] to their Lord, while those who oppose them are insolent and a band of ruffians. The language of the servant’s plea indicates that they are facing an existential threat with enemies who threaten their life. Their deep need is matched by their deep trust in their faithful Lord who will protect and deliver them. Their life depends upon God’s steadfast love for the servant of the Lord. The sign the psalmist desires is to see their deliverance from their present danger and to see their enemies put to shame. Yet, the psalmist also asks for their Lord to grant them “an undivided heart to revere your name “. The servant desires to be shaped to be more faithful to their Lord.

The language learned in the congregation shapes the language of our prayers that we speak in the time of need. The faithful speaker does not need to find novel phrases to communicate their needs to their Lord. The language of prayer is the familiar language articulated in scripture and shared in the community of the faithful. The speaker leans into the familiar characteristics of God and into the experience they learned in both their family and the household of faith to speak to God in their moments of crisis. The experience of the faithful one and the memory of the community of the faithful give them the confidence that their Lord will incline the ear to hear the cry of the faithful servant and will deliver them in their time of need.

[1] The word used for ‘life’ in verse 2 and ‘soul’ in verse 4 is the Hebrew nephesh. The Hebrew idea of ‘nephesh’ is not the Greek idea of soul, but ‘self’ or ‘life.’

[2] When LORD is in all capital letters in the Hebrew Scriptures it refers to the Divine Name (YHWH-which the reader is given indications in the Hebrew text to say as Adonai (translated Lord). This psalm uses both LORD and Lord (‘adon or Adonai) to highlight the servant/master (lord) relationship.

[3] Hebrew hasid which is related to hesed. The speaker is living in faithfulness to the covenant God made with God’s people and in dependence on God upholding God’s hesed (steadfast love) towards the servant.

Review of the Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

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Five Star Book Review

Erin Morgenstern, The Starless Sea

For me a five-star book is something that either I want to read again or something that is so profound it makes an immediate impact. There are lots of ways that books can be compelling: a unique idea, an interesting set of characters, a complex plot, an artistic use of the English language and more. Reading is also a subjective experience, so what appeals to me as a reader may be very different for you. I read a lot for both pleasure and work but these short reviews are a way for me to show my appreciation for the work and the craft of the author of the reviewed work.

Erin Morgenstern is the author for two of my top ten all time books: The Night Circus and The Starless Sea. I read the Starless Sea when it came out in 2019, and this was my second journey through this incredible world. She writes in a way that is as beautiful as the magical worlds she describes in her two novels. The Starless Sea is not a book that everyone will love because it is like a nesting doll: stories within stories and worlds within worlds. If you can hold these multiple stories which all allude to the central storyline within your imagination and you want a journey to a fragile but magical world then this is the story to take you into a world where acolytes record the stories they hear buzzing in the air around them, keepers maintain and care for the world of stories on the harbor of the starless sea, and guardians attempt to guard the world. It is a world where fate falls in love with time, where the moon arrives in a great storm and interrupts the world of a lonely innkeeper, where a pirate in prison tells stories of sweet sorrows to a young woman who brings his food. The parliament of owls, bees, key collectors, swords of prophecy, a story sculptor, two lovers lost in time, and more surround the story of Zachery Ezra Rollins, the son of the fortune teller, and Dorian the former member of the Collectors Club as they are brought by doors painted by fate to the magical world of stories.

“To seeking” is the greeting of this world and the proper response is, “to finding.” This sentiment is appropriate for a book that invites you deeper and deeper into this magical world as you are invited into the experience of Zachery as he discovers the mysteries of the world at the end of its life and the dangers of those that attempt to defend it at all cost. It is a multi-tiered world of harbors along the sea full of stories and myths where lovers are torn apart and reunited. Is the book occasionally confusing as the characters attempt to muddle through the broken magic all around them, yes, but I also found myself content to linger as the strings of the plot from the various stories converge into the ending of a world and the beginning of a new possibility.

As one of the stories in the book tells us, this is a book, “For those who feel homesick for a place they’ve never been to. Those who seek even if they do not know what (or where) it is that they are seeking. Those who seek will find. Their doors have been waiting for them.” There is something spiritual in the Zachery’s quest into this world, and it is a world I want to continue to explore. Reactions to the Starless Sea seem to be polarized-some find it confusing and hard to finish and it is very different than most fantasy. It is a love story to stories and imagination and it is not your traditional linear story, but as a lover of stories and magic it was a beautiful journey into a place that I didn’t know I was homesick for. The harbor on the starless sea could be at times troubling, at times incredibly comfortable, but always with an edge of the unexplained and magic. The book is a door that opens into a magical world and if you choose to open it may what you are seeking find you.