This psalm deals with young David being “captured” by the Philistines in the city of Gath — this according to the psalm’s heading. David had run away from King Saul, who was trying to kill the young rival for his throne; and had taken refuge with these “Cretans” who worshiped other gods.
“In God I have put my trust,” David the refugee says twice, early and late in this psalm. “I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” Well, if what David himself did to his rivals means anything, then the answer to his question is, “A lot,” and much of it was barbaric, even to his own people.
“Vows made to You are binding upon me,” young David prays to YHWH. I guess that changed after he left Gath, returned to Jerusalem, and became king of Israel. I guess “Thou Shalt Nots” don’t apply to kings. After all, they aren’t really vows, as such; they’re rules made to be broken.
I could just scream. It’s like everybody is against me. I’m scared to death, and — like Forrest’s little friend Jenny — I want to be a bird so that I can fly far, far away from here. I’d rather live in the middle of nowhere, and then maybe I can outrun this big dark cloud hanging over my head.
I really do need to get out of town. The people working against me aren’t any ordinary enemies; they’re my so-called friends. For all I care, they can drop dead and go straight to hell. They’re a bunch of smooth-talking phonies who pretend to pat me on the back so they can stab me again.
“Cast your burden on the Lord,” says the psalmist, “[a]nd He shall sustain you.” Yeah, well, how do I do that? Is that just another way of saying, “Don’t worry about it, ol’ buddy. Ain’t nothing you can do, anyway”? They may finally fail, but how many of their poor victims did nothing but pray?
Can an entire demographic — whether alike by age, race, creed, color or orientation — be bad? Can a whole bushel of believers in one thing or another— even believers in nothing — be rotten to the core? Can any group be characterized as “[t]here is none who does good, / No, not one”?
If so, then it’s a hop, skip and jump to ethnic “cleansing,” exterminating “vermin” and annihilating “threat[s] from within.” Other words for what happens when people are considered worthless are pogrom, holocaust and genocide. It has happened before; it could be happening now and again.
“God looks down from heaven upon the children of men,” the psalmist says, “[t]o see if there are any who understand, who seek God.” Does that one man, one woman, one innocent child count if they’re searching for an answer to life’s questions? Or not? Who do we think we are, anyway?
At our little cottage on the hill — Casita Loma, I like to call it — there’s more poison oak and ivy, devil’s walking stick and regular briar, honeysuckle and wisteria vines, mimosa and Judas trees than anywhere I know. But if an old Judas tree and a sash of poison oak can coexist, so can we.
This is the psalm that my pop, the preacher, quoted most often in his sermons; and I heard all of them over the last 18 years of his evangelical ministry — well, once I was old enough not to fall asleep in the pew. “Purge me with hyssop,” Dad would declaim, “and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” He never said what hyssop was or how it was used in a purge.
One learns from any good reference Bible — or from the Rev. Dr. Google — that hyssop was a plant that ancient Israelite priests used in ritual cleansings. According to Leviticus, they’d dip a handful of hyssop sprigs into the blood of a sacrificial animal, then “cleanse” the penitent person with that blood. Also, some sources claim that hyssop had medicinal value, almost like penicillin.
Something else that I don’t remember my old man explaining was that the anguished speaker of this psalm is King David himself, not long after he got caught committing adultery with a bathing beauty named Bathsheba. He also had her husband, a great soldier in David’s own army, killed. YHWH sent an old prophet to scold the king. (Gee, why didn’t YHWH rebuke the king Himself?)
Anyway, a problem I have with this psalm is that it’s called “The Sinner’s Guide” to repentance, according to great old preachers like Charles Spurgeon (who, by the way, was my grandfather’s namesake, which maybe explains why my father liked this psalm so much). “Against You, You only have I sinned,” David prays. But that’s not true — no, not at all — not in this time of MeToo.
David didn’t just sin against his god — in other words, against the conscience of his culture. He also sinned against the powerless woman who had no choice but to have sex with the king. He sinned against her husband, whose death he all but guaranteed. (Why didn’t YHWH intervene?) And he sinned against their lovechild whom YHWH made to grow ill and die to make David cry.
Old King David must have been a real piece of work — a war hero, sure, but also an adulterer, a murderer, an eater of holy bread meant only for priests, and a first-class narcissist to boot. (Cain was cursed for his offering of grain; David was blessed for eating the temple’s shewbread.) Yes, even a self-centered king needs to own up to his evil ways, ask forgiveness, and make amends.
After reading this psalm several times, it hit me: These are the literal words of YHWH, the god of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I mean, his speech is presented in quotation marks, from verse 5 to verse 23 at the very end of the psalm. This isn’t some disembodied voice in a primordial garden; or from a burning bush; or from the midst of a whirlwind. This is a fiery god who has a lot to say.
I wonder how this psalmist decided it was OK to put so many words in the Mighty One’s mouth.
His first topic is the blood sacrifice, specifically burnt offerings — and he’s talking animals here, not humans. Let’s see now. He lists bulls and goats, in particular, but he also says he owns all the animals on earth — all the cattle, birds and wild beasts — and so this kind of offering is not accepted unless the penitent also gives thanks and begs for pardon. Roast beast isn’t enough.
I wonder why burning another being’s flesh and drinking its blood was ever seen as an offering.
YHWH goes on to say he lets wicked people make meaningless sacrifices all the time, and that they are as bad as thieves, adulterers, liars, and slanderers — you know, all the rotten, stinking things that even hypocritical leaders seem to get away with doing. Their followers just hold their noses. “I will rebuke you,” YHWH finally tells them, “and set [things straight] before your eyes.”
I wonder why YHWH had those laws — eat this, drink that — but wasn’t quick to enforce them.
The Old Hebrew (or Paleo-Hebrew) psalmists were the rock stars of their day — the first Jewish singer-songwriters, ancestors of guitar-slingers like Paul Simon, Neil Diamond and Robert Allen Zimmerman. Everybody loved their chart-topping psalms — the beautiful people, working-class heroes, rich country clubbers and plain ol’ poor folks. But these guys didn’t play six- or 12-string Martins and Gibsons. Their axes were kinnors (also called lyres, or harps) and had 3-22 strings.
This psalm is a dark one — more goth, emo or grunge than a song of praise — a mashup of all the Paleo-Hebrew hits, like “The Devil Went Down to Gaza,” “Everybody Wants to Rule Judea,” and that confessional classic, “I’ve Seen Fire and Brimstone.” The oft-repeated refrain reminds us that we all will die, and that we’ll take nothing with us, not even if we’re as funky as King Tut. It’s like blessing the beasts and children with no voices, no choices and darkness all around us.
This psalm is about a shining city on a hill, where the god of the people resides. It’s talking about Jerusalem, of course, but this place could also be Washington, D.C., as was one old president’s view, or maybe Sao Paulo or Timbuktu. Oh, I don’t know. Are there hills in Brazil?
While I’m at it, why do gods always prefer the mountains to the ocean? I mean, there’s Mount Olympus, Mount Sinai, Mount Zion and Mount Rushmore. Also, Carmel, Moriah, Tabor and Horeb. Mount of Transfiguration, Mountain of Light, Machu Picchu and Gang Rinpoche, right?
And why do our gods need temples and palaces? Do we? I’ve lived as a privileged hillbilly in a mountain cabin, and as a beach bum on the dole. I’ve seen a little brown church in a vale and a solitary cross in the dunes. High country, low country, rich, poor — it’s all the same to the iSoul.
