64 Interpretation JANUARY 2007
R O L F A. JACOBSON
Psalm 36:5-11 Luther Seminary
Saint Pauk Minnesota
THIS LECTIONARY SEGMENT OF PS 36 consists offiveverses that express a confident trust in
the Lord's steadfast love and two verses of a concluding prayer. If this passage were set aside
and considered as a separate psalm, it would be categorized as a hymn of praise. In language
that is as bold as it is poetic, the psalm draws a three-way intersection between God's charac-
ter, God's creation, and God's covenantal salvation and protection. A clumsy interpreter might
be tempted to separate the verses of trustfromthe verses of petition, but such a separation
swims upstream against the witness of the psalm. The rhetorical impact is precisely that an
indivisible unity exists between God's character and actions.
As a whole, Ps 36 reads very much like an individual psalm of lament. Three elements
that are often found in individual laments are a complaint about foes, an expression of trust
in God, and a petition for help. Complaint is replaced in w. 1-4 by dispassionate description
of "the wicked" that represents the incarnation of wickedness and temptation. (NRSV uses
the plural "they" for the "wicked one.") The expression of trust is replaced by praise of God
in w. 5-9. The petition in w. 10-12 is typical of petitions in individual lament. Throughout
the psalm, the language used is similar to that of wisdom literature (cf. Prov 6:12-15).
The psalm's first two sections contrast the "wicked" (w. 1-4) with "the Lord" (w. 5-9).
The most important thing to note about the wicked is that rather than fearing the Lord,
they are completely self-governed: "There is no fear of God in their eyes. For they flatter
themselves in their own eyes" (w. lb-2a). The danger that this wickedness poses to the
psalmist and the community is not an urgent threat to the body, which is typical in the
individual lament. Rather, the danger portrayed here is a subtler and more lethal tempta-
tion. The wicked one is the incarnation of the temptation to live life by setting up the self as
the autonomous standard, to live life according to "what seems good to me." Thus, the
wicked individual is set up as a perfect forerunner to the modern American rugged individ-
ual, whose autonomous self generates the standards by which Ufe is lived. William Earnest
Henley's poem Invictus is the wretched anthem of such autonomous individualism: "I am
the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul."
Rather than contrasting this description of the wicked with a description of the right-
eous, the psalmist actually embodies this contrast by speaking words of praise and trust to
the Lord. As has already been noted, an element typical of a psalm of lament is the confes-
sion of trust. The very need for a "confession of trust," of course, makes sense only when a
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS Interpretation 65
prayer of lament is prayed urgently from the depths of some crisis; the confession of trust
then serves to counterbalance the expression of danger. Psalm 36 seems not to be prayed
out of such a pressing circumstance. Instead, it seems to strike a more measured and dis-
passionate tone. Therefore, rather than expressing trust in the midst of danger, this psalm
offers a hymn of praise. This hymn of praise serves to counterbalance the earlier descrip-
tion of the wicked one.
The short hymn of praise begins by lauding God's character. The hymn can be divided
into two parts: w. 5-6 and w. 7-9. Thefirstsection is bracketed by the vocative use of
God's name: "O Lord!" (NRSV does not capture the word order). This signals the radical
shift in the psalm's focus from the wicked to the Lord. The psalm exuberantly pairs key
words about God's character—"steadfast love" (hesed), "faithfulness," "righteousness," and
"judgments"—with poetic metaphors drawn from the domain of creation: "heavens,"
"clouds," "mighty mountains," and "great deep." The theological words carry a great deal of
significance in Israel's faith tradition. While the words are not "attributes of God" in the
proper modern sense, they function rhetorically in a similar way in that they signal a con-
sistency between God's internal character and God's external actions. The poetic images
from creation paint a cosmic portrait of the boundary-less nature of God'sfidelity.God's
steadfast love is as high as the heavens, as high-flying as the clouds, as deep as the oceans, as
solid as the mountains. William Brown has argued persuasively (Seeing the Psalms, 2002)
that metaphors do not just dress up ideas; rather, metaphors and ideas shape each other.
The interpreter should not diminish the import of the creation metaphors in Ps 36. These
metaphors say not only that God's steadfast love is as vast and wide-reaching as creation,
but they evoke the notion that the vastness and beauty of creation are witnesses to and man-
ifestations of God's steadfast love.
Thefirsthalf of the hymn of praise culminates with the exclamation: "You save
humans and animals alike, O Lord!" The verb "save" indicates this-worldly deliverance in
the Hebrew Bible. It is testimony to God's intervening covenant salvation. That God is said
to save "humans and animals" both draws on the creation language already used and indi-
cates that God'sfidelityapplies not just to human beings, but also to all creation.
The second half of the praise section begins, as did thefirst,by praising God's steadfast
love (hesed): "How precious is your steadfast love, O God!" Likewise, the second section of
praise continues to draw on metaphors from creation in order to plot the height and depth
of God's steadfast love: "All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast
from ("on" is a mistranslation in the NRSV) the abundance of your house, and you give
them drink from the river of your delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light
we see light" (w. 8-9). The word "house" is a reference to the Jerusalem temple. The image
of the "river" likewise was associated with the temple, the metaphor consisting of a river of
blessingflowingfromthe throne of God (see Ps 46:4; Rev 22:1). The image of "wings" has
been associated by scholars with the wings of the cherubim (see 1 Kgs 6:27) and the "light"
may be a reference to the lamp that burned constantly (see Lev 24:1-4).
66 Interpretation JANUARY 2007
The main thrust of this section is that the temple is ground zero for God's blessing; the
locale where God's internal character and God's external actions intersect is the temple. God's
eternal steadfast love and far-flung faithfulness intersect with human need in the temple. The
closing line of the hymn of praisefitsthe church's season of light—Epiphany—particularly
well. A preacher might draw a legitimate connection between the psalm and Jesus, God's light
in whom the world sees light, as the living water from whom the world drinks deliverance.
The hymn of praise, which twice praised God's steadfast love, leads the psalmist to
close with a petition that such steadfast love might persist: Ό continue your steadfast love
to those who know you, and your salvation to the upright of heart!" The word "know"
indicates more than merely intellectual knowledge. In the Hebrew Bible, there is no division
between cognition and action (see Hos 4:1-3). To know is to act and to act is to know. The
psalm thus ends with a plea that the grace of God that has delivered the psalmist and the
psalmist's community in the past might continue to preserve, protect, and defend them in
the future. Drawing on the poetic images of the psalm, the closing prayer is a fervent yet
confident request that the steadfast love that comes down to earth and meets people in the
sanctuary might also accompany them wherever they go. It is a plea that the spring of God's
delight that wells up in the temple might spread forth to water the earth, where it might
continue to "save humans and animals alike."
^ s
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