3 When my enemies turned back,
they stumbled and perished before you.
4 For you have maintained my just cause;
you have sat on the throne giving righteous judgement.5 You have rebuked the nations, you have destroyed the wicked;
you have blotted out their name for ever and ever.
6 The enemies have vanished in everlasting ruins;
their cities you have rooted out;
the very memory of them has perished.
Tragically, like me, HP is unable to maintain an attitude of gratitude and wonder for long. He quickly falls back into anger, resentment and bitterness.
He looks at the world around him and on every side sees threat, violence, pain and loss. He feels beset by enemies and he rejoices in their downfall. There are no doubt times, when such feelings are entirely justified. But, I am called to find ways to discover light even in the midst of terrible darkness.
It is important to hear HP’s words in the context of Jesus’ enormously high calling to his followers. Jesus said:
Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. (Matthew 5:39-45)
These words sound so unreasonable, almost irresponsible.
But Jesus is not outlining social policy here. Clearly, societies need to create and enforce laws for the orderly operation of the human community. Some degree of order and civility must be maintained, at times using force, although almost certainly not as often as we resort to violence as our primary tool of protection.
But, in my personal spiritual journey, I am not creating social policy for the protection of human communities. I am seeking to live in meaningful life-giving relationship with the individuals I encounter. I aim to be in a way that bears testimony to the presence of Jesus’ loving Spirit at work in my life and in the world.
When I live in tune with the power of Jesus, I have no enemies. Even those who were wielding the whip and nailing him to a cross, were not Jesus’ “enemies.” They were unconscious, damaged human beings living mechanically, driven by the forces of violence and inhumanity that were the prevailing order in their culture and by which they had been conditioned to respond to love with violence.
I have heard the call to live in opposition to these forces of destruction. Therefore, I separate myself here from HP and refuse to look at other people as “enemies” determined to undermine my well-being.
What happens when I stop seeing myself as the victim of enemies and instead view all people as fellow recipients of God’s grace and mercy?
Lord, help me to see all people as Jesus saw them through the eyes of love and grace.
In A Spacious Place 
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June 13, 2021 at 8:39 am
bobmacdonald
I am looking at the recent destruction of Syria and thinking about how I respond, how a refugee responds and how the leaders of Syria respond. What emotions will I attribute to them?
This poem will take more work than I can put into a comment. We are looking for the precision of a razor’s edge applied to poetry and our responses.
June 13, 2021 at 11:13 am
bobmacdonald
My motives:
Am I trying to rescue the psalms? No. I think the psalms rescue me.
Am I angry when I judge? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. When I have a horse in the race, I tend to be more angry and the anger is not without sin since self-protection is involved.
Am I allowed to judge? Yes – I must. I judge continuously. I don’t necessarily judge rightly.
What then is this psalm section about? Is the Hebrew Poet attributing anger or judgment to himself?
I think this psalm is about God judging right. This is a part of the gospel in the Psalms. I don’t have my database so I can’t give an accurate count of righteous and judge in the Psalms, but the count is very high. righteous one and righteous occur over 140 times in the psalms. You can see them here.
Good News is everywhere in the Tanach. One translator, John Goldingay, even asks Do we need the New Testament? That’s another question.
First task is to see what these verses are about.
This is my translation (following the game of the acrostic)
B
But when my enemies turn back,
let them stumble and perish from your presence.
[I here using jussive rather than future. I pray that they will stumble. It is my hope that what is not righteous cannot bear the presence of God.]
For you have made [ci-ywit] my judgment [mwp’ti] and my case [vdini].
You sit enthroned judging right.
[The translations vary of course, but turning the word judge into the word just (=righteous) and making a noun into an adjective is wrong headed translation. I would be very happy if someone wants to question my judgment here. I could accept cause as a gloss, but the poet is not claiming that it is ‘just’. Poet and enemy face the same judgment.]
G
God, you rebuked the nations. You made wickedness perish.
You have erased their name forever and ever.
[D missing. Perhaps D could explain how. Christians have been trying to explain how the death of Jesus works for many years.]
H
Here O enemy, completed are ruins in perpetuity,
and cities you have blotted out.
Perished is their memory of them.
[Notice the pronoun switching. And note how perfectly this statement reflects modern day Syria. There’s no anger here, just description and sorrow for the ones who no longer can remember their homes.]
Finally, the Psalms are what Jesus prayed. [The dialogue between father and son in the Epistle to the Hebrews is almost entirely taken from the Psalms.] This is the righteous person who is celebrated in all the acrostics. He is the righteous one. But let us not run too quickly either to close the book out of disgust or to close it because we ‘know’ the answer. Turning may be easy but the work following turning is unending. May the enemies discover this.
June 13, 2021 at 11:46 am
bobmacdonald
Here is a curiosity: the verse often omitted, the inscription, in this psalm, begins lmnxk, roughly lmnatsah. This is often translated as ‘for the choirmaster’ or ‘for the leader’. The Greek translation has ‘eis to telos’, ‘to the end’ or ‘perpetually’. Notice the resonance in the psalm, nxk (ntsach) is the word for ‘in perpetuity’ in the verse pair for H above. Sometimes, even the inscription takes part in the word repetition in the psalm.
The psalms, like the word of i-h-v-h, are forever, according to the Greeks, (but alas, they don’t always win.)