{"id":2625,"date":"2023-11-11T03:13:04","date_gmt":"2023-11-11T03:13:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=2625"},"modified":"2023-11-11T03:13:14","modified_gmt":"2023-11-11T03:13:14","slug":"evensong-51","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=2625","title":{"rendered":"EVENSONG 51"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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 \u2014 well, once I was old enough not to fall asleep in the pew. \u201cPurge me with hyssop,\u201d Dad would declaim, \u201cand I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.\u201d He never said what hyssop was or how it was used in a purge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One learns from any good reference Bible \u2014 or from the Rev. Dr. Google \u2014 that hyssop was a plant that ancient Israelite priests used in ritual cleansings. According to Leviticus, they\u2019d dip a handful of hyssop sprigs into the blood of a sacrificial animal, then \u201ccleanse\u201d the penitent person with that blood. Also, some sources claim that hyssop had medicinal value, almost like penicillin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Something else that I don\u2019t 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\u2019s own army, killed. YHWH sent an old prophet to scold the king. (Gee, why didn\u2019t YHWH rebuke the king Himself?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, a problem I have with this psalm is that it\u2019s called \u201cThe Sinner\u2019s Guide\u201d to repentance, according to great old preachers like Charles Spurgeon (who, by the way, was my grandfather\u2019s namesake, which maybe explains why my father liked this psalm so much). \u201cAgainst You, You only have I sinned,\u201d David prays. But that\u2019s not true \u2014 no, not at all \u2014 not in this time of MeToo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David didn\u2019t just sin against his god \u2014 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\u2019t YHWH intervene?) And he sinned against their lovechild whom YHWH made to grow ill and die to make David cry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Old King David must have been a real piece of work \u2014 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\u2019s shewbread.) Yes, even a self-centered king needs to own up to his evil ways, ask forgiveness, and make amends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 \u2014 well, once I was old enough not to fall asleep in the pew. \u201cPurge me with hyssop,\u201d Dad would declaim, \u201cand I shall be … Continue reading EVENSONG 51<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2625"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2626,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2625\/revisions\/2626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}