Psalm 4 (Post 7)

Notes

-though an individual’s experience, it is for the music director to set it to music for worship (see superscription). Thus it becomes a part of the communal memory of God’s saving work on their behalf.

-this psalm is best understood as a commentary on 2:12: “Happy are all who take refuge in him” (Grogan, Geoffrey W.. Psalms (The Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary (THOTC)) . Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition: 1154).

-the point of the psalm is in vv.7-8. The “wake up” of 3:5 and the “lie down and sleep” of 4:8, along with numerous verbal connections between the two psalms, make them a pair, a morning psalm (Ps.3) and an evening psalm (Ps.4).

-the NIV is probably right in reading “Give me relief from my distress” ( a plea) rather than the NRSV’s taking the phrase as reference to a past act of God.

Exposition

4:1: Prayer for Grace

With no delay or pleasantries the psalmist cries out in a demanding tone “Answer me when I call.” Some such chutzpah is ingredient to biblical faith. Though seldom noticed today, this sort of passion is part of a real relationship and this people are in a real relationship (covenant) with God. Despite the asymmetry in this relationship (God is God, the people but creatures), God has made himself available as a reliable covenant partner and willing to be called to account for his part in it.

The people are in distress (unspecified) and need a fresh touch of divine grace (see note above the right reading of this verse). The need is unspecified but the experience of such need comes to all of us at various times. Perhaps this lack of specificity is what makes this psalm suitable for Israel’s worship.

4:2-5: The Turn to Idols

As often happens, distress brings on idolatry. In the fear and anxiety provoked by distress and difficulty, especially when it appears God is failing to keep his promises, seeking other sources to cover our needs and assuage our fear and anxiety. Many other voices claim to be able to do just that, in ancient Israel as today in our world.

Idolatry can well be described in terms used by Martin Luther:

“A ‘god’ is the term for that to which we are to look for all good and in which we are to find refuge in all need. Therefore, to have a god is nothing else than to trust and believe in that one with your whole heart. As I have often said, it is the trust and faith of the heart alone that make both God and an idol. If your faith and trust are right, then your God is the true one. Conversely, where your trust is false and wrong, there you do not have the true God. For these two belong together, faith and God. Anything on which your heart relies and depends, I say, that is really your God” (Martin Luther, Large Catechism, “[The First Part: The Ten Commandments],” The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church [ed. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert; trans. Charles Arand, et al.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000], 386).

While Israel was tempted to turn tp deities from other cultures/religions, we today in our supposedly advanced culture that has progressed well beyond worship of such ancient deities trust things like technology, the invisible hand of the market, self-improvement therapies, our military to solve our problems, salve our hearts, and give us confidence to face the future. These are deities we worship in the terms described by Luther. And our deities will fail us as much as the deities Israel was tempted to worship did them.

Idolatry among the people of faith, however, is not simply a problem for them. It creates a tremendous credibility problem for God! “How long . . . shall my honor suffer shame” (v.2). God’s reputation matters to him. Not in the same way it matters to us, though. We are concerned about how we are perceived and thought of by others for ourselves and our interests. In short, a good reputation furthers our efforts to achieve significance and security in our lives (Gen.11:1-3).

God, however, is not interested in achieving significance and security – he is significance and security in himself. God is, however, passionately interested in our salvation, the world’s salvation. He’s made himself know to the world as it’s Creator and Redeemer. In choosing Israel, God placed the blessing of his world on them as their vocation and destiny. Israel’s career then is a referendum on God’s credibility.

At too many moments, Israel’s faithlessness, to wit, its idolatries, tip the scales in favor of finding God faithless to his promise. God showed his faithfulness to his plan to bless and save the world through his incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension in, with, through, and as Jesus Christ. His followers today bear the mandate to spread and expand the fruit of his victory throughout the world.

We too, often put God’s reputation in doubt as the One who has achieved the world’s salvation with our idolatries. Not many of us worship totems or rocks and hills, or statues. Our idolatries are more often ideas or causes to which we commit our lives and direct our paths. Ghandi nailed seven of them in his well-known list:

-Politics without Principle
-Wealth without Work
-Commerce without Morality
-Pleasure without Conscience
-Education without Character
-Science without Humanity
-Worship without Sacrifice

Ghandi calls these “social sins” but they are idolatries that infect America as a people. And as a people, church included, we smear God’s reputation by living our lived according to them.

Contrary to his enemy’s taunt that his God is no help to him (3:2) David knows otherwise. He calls God the “God of my right.” That “my” means David knows this God and trusts the relationship he has with him (the people set apart by God (v.3). He hears when David cries out to him.

This confidence, supposedly shared by David and his “enemies,” who are as in Ps.3 his fellow Israelites allows David to build on it in urging them to repent and enter again into this shared confidence as God’s people. He encourages them.

-to affirm and accept their “disturbance” or “anger” (see NRSV footnote) with God, talk to him about in the intimacy of this relationship, and wait in silence for God to respond (v.4), and

-return to worship with the rest of Israel and in humble confidence offer suitable worship to God (.v.5).

To those who doubt and struggle and even defect from God, they need to see some sign of the reality of God’s presence and power. David cries for God to let it be so for them in familiar Old Testament language: “Let the light of your face shine shine on us, O Lord” (v.6; see Num.6:24f.). God’s favorable response creates in David a satisfaction deeper even than a renewed prosperity - the satisfaction that God has acted to restore his reputation (v.2).

Such satisfaction allowed David to rest and sleep content. He knew that God was with him and would keep him. Even if his enemies had not yet given up their discontent and been reconciled to God yet (v.8). May it please God that such be true for us this day and forever.