Psalm 7 (Post 10)

Notes

-Last in a series of five laments after the two introductory sins (Pss.1 & 2)

-theme of refuge ties this psalm back to 2:12. “Taking refuge in the Lord or making the Lord one’s refuge is a favorite and frequent metaphor in the psalms for the religious act of trusting one’s life to the care of God in uncertain or threatening situations. . . . The prayer itself is a way of taking shelter in the providence and salvation of God.” (Mays, James Luther. The Lord Reigns: A Theological Handbook to the Psalms. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994, 63)

-God the judge (vv.6, 11) is highlighted here.

-Again, we do not know the specificities of attack here. Gerstenberger writes: “Psalm 7 . . . as well as the other laments, does not report a single incident, for instance, of somebody being accused of theft. Rather, the complaint represents an accumulation of the agonies of generations of supplicants facing unfounded charges of various types.” (Gerstenberger, Erhard S. Psalms: Part 1, with an Introduction to Cultic Poetry. FOTL 14. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988, 64)

-Structure:  Appeal for rescue and vow of innocence (vv. 1-5); Appeal for vindication and justice (vv. 6-9); Confession of trust in God’s righteousness (vv. 10-16); Closing vow to praise (not a full stanza) (v. 17) 

-superscription: “A Shiggaion of David, which he sang to the Lord concerning Cush, a Benjaminite.”

“Most likely, the superscription refers to an incident about David that has been lost… It is clear that the Benjaminites bore ill will to David and his reign. It is also likely from the psalm that the psalmist is crying to the Lord because of false words that have been spoken about the psalmist. It is also worth noting that the psalm was later associated with the Jewish Feast of Purim, a context in which the ill will and witness of an enemy play a key role.” (Nancy DeClaissé-Walford, Rolf A. Jacobson, and Beth Laneel Tanner, The Book of Psalms [Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2014), 188).

Exposition

This theme, familiar to us by now in these laments, nevertheless contains brutal imagery in vv.2 and 5 which is striking and sounds the utter seriousness of the psalmist. The Selah (v.5) asks us to pause and reflect at this point.

Since we are familiar with the theme of God as Judge in these laments we won’t go section by section through this one. Instead I will focus on the distinctive contributions this psalm makes to that theme.

-the theme of “righteousness” or “integrity” (v.8).

-the imagery of God’s martial preparations for engaging David’s enemies (vv.10-13), and

-how evil cannibalizes itself (vv.14-16.

“Righteousness/integrity” (v.8)

Contrary to what many readers may be inclined to think, these terms in this kind of context do not focus on personal rectitude as much as claiming that they belong on God’s side and therefore expect his positive judgment on their righteousness or integrity.

“Again, it must be emphasized that the psalmist is not claiming righteousness in the sense of spiritual perfection or theological self-justification. These verses are not intended to be a litany of self-righteousness before God. The psalms know that there is no autonomous independent righteousness on the basis of which human beings can deal with God (130:3; 143:2). Such prayers were composed for a person who was in the right in comparison with an antagonist.”

Imagery of God’s martial preparations for engaging David’s enemies (vv.10-13)

(1) ”will sharpen his sword” –(7:12) offensive                                                                                                                                                               (2) “will bend and string his bow” -(7:12)  offensive                                (3) “My shield is God Most High” - (7:10). Defensive weapon – a small shield complementing the larger shield’s full-body coverage                                                                                                                (4) “makes ready his flaming arrows” (7:13), arrows dipped in pitch or oil and lit before shooting

David portrays God as fully armed and prepared to take on and defeat the king’s enemies (see C. Hassell Bullock, Psalms 1-72, 159). See comments on use of martial imagery below.

How evil cannibalizes itself

Digging a pit to snare others into which evil-doers themselves fall is the first image David provides for the ultimate irony and futility of sin (v.15).

Mischief and violence returning on the heads of evil schemers is the second image for this (v.16).

This is the ultimate “unintended consequence’ of our (sinful) actions!

Reflection

1.       There is a moral order inscribed by God in his world. This is the “Deep Magic” of C. S. Lewis’ Narnia. This order provides justice. Evil rebounds on the heads of its perpetrators, ultimately at least if not in the present moment and in a tat-for-tat way.

There is also a “Deeper Magic,” a redemptive magic that both satisfies the truth and rightness of the “Deep Magic” while at the same time saving those who have run afoul of it. As Christians we affirm the reign of justice, this “Deep Magic”/moral order, while also announcing and celebrating the “Deeper Magic” of grace transforming justice into God’s redemptive order.

2.       God is fully armored and weaponized to enforce his world’s order. Or to say it differently, God is passionately interested in pursuing the well-being of his creation. God lends his “full armor” to his people to do battle against malignant evil powers on side of the cross and resurrection of Jesus (Eph.6:10-20). Thus we too are fully provisioned for our struggle as those called to extend and implement the fruits of Christ’s victory.

3.       A piece from my blog on the “military” character of our life as God’s biblical people:

"The Church is In Post-Christian Exile – But Should We Really Respond Like It's a War?” is the title of Karina Kreminski's article on Missio Alliance today. She's responding to another piece on the church entering Phase Two of our exile and how we should respond. And her responses are wise and to the point. It's not her responses, though, that I want to say a few words about. It's the imagery in her title, “But Should We Really Respond Like It's a War?”

I want to say a vigorous and unrepentant “Yes” to that image!

First, though, a clarification or two. I do NOT have in mind actual military conflict or the use of weapons in any fashion. I'm a pacifist and I believe the church should be too. Nor do I mean the strident, angry, mean-spirited culture war type of warfare. Both of these types of conflict are antithetical to participation in God's mission in the world.

Yet . . . we are in a war! A war whose decisive and climactic battle has already been won. Our D-Day happened on Calvary around 30 A.D. We live now in aftermath of Christ's cross and resurrection awaiting V-Day when Christ returns to finally and fully establish God's kingdom. Our job is to witness to his victory and authenticate it by our life together as a sign, sacrament, and servant of that coming kingdom.

The powers Christ dealt with are “disarmed” (Col.2:15) and his enemies “defeated” (1 Cor.15:54-57). These enemies are not yet “destroyed” however (1 Cor.15:26), nor the powers fully pacified. That's why, like the Allied forces between D-Day and V-Day, our calling as the church is engage the remaining resistance of our defeated and disarmed foes with declarations an demonstrations of the truth of the gospel which unveils the defeat of “sin, death, and the (d)evil” and shows the powers their reign of distorting the conditions for human life and flourishing is at an end (Eph.3:10).

Our goal is to free humanity from their bondage to the lies and illusions these enemies and powers keep assaulting them with. That's really all they can do – keep luring us to embrace their lies and illusions and continue to live as if Jesus has not won the victory. Karl Barth sets us straight on this.

“The Easter message tells us that our enemies, sin, the curse and death, are beaten. Ultimately they can no longer start mischief. They still behave as though the game were not decided, the battle not fought; we must still reckon with them, but fundamentally we must cease to fear them any more. If you have heard the Easter message, you can no longer run around with a tragic face and lead the humorless existence of a man who has no hope. One thing still holds, and only this one thing is really serious, that Jesus is the Victor.” (Dogmatics in Outline, 123)

In fact, in living free of the lies and illusions God's enemies and the powers use enable us to show others in word and deed that all of us apart from Christ have common suprahuman enemies that keep us locked into the tragic and deadly antagonisms and arrangements that plague our world. Our human oppressor or enemy is not the enemy we must confront. Instead, the church is called find potential friends in strangers and enemies. We treat them thus even if they do us hurt or betrayal. This is how we declare and demonstrate that the power of sin, death, and the (d)evil are in truth defeated and the powers of distortion and disruption of God's good order put on notice that their days are numbered.

In fact, in living free of the enemies and powers that have opposed God in every age and epoch is “the” chief task of God's people. Whether as families, wandering nomads, a nation united, a nation divided, a people in exile, a people living under foreign overlords in their own land, a church spread throughout the earth, in all these forms God's people are supposed to be what I think can best be called God's Subversive, Counter-Revolutionary Movement.

Subversive because we infiltrate and seek change person by person, situation by situation, person to person. We have no grand scheme by which to organize the world for God from the top own. The most highly-exalted One did his redeeming work this way, and so must his people.

Counter-Revolutionary, even though this is usually a negative terms for us Enlightenment liberals, because we set ourselves against the attitudes, actions, patterns, and structures written into the fabric of “the way things are” by the history of sinful humanity (sin being the original revolution away from God). The twist to this way of being counter-revolutionary is that we live from the way the world will be not the way it is or has been.

Israel never quite lived out this calling. But Jesus Christ did. As the one faithful Israelite he gathered and still gathers around him all who follow him empowering them with the Spirit and the gifts necessary for our continuing warfare.

The letter to the Ephesians give us scriptural warrant to think of our service to Christ in military terms. Tim Gombis has shown how Paul uses the Divine Warfare pattern to structure the letter as a call to service in God's ongoing struggle in and with the world. Andrew Lincoln has demonstrated that the rhetoric of the letter points us to the familiar “full armor of God” passage in ch.6 as Paul's climax and “point” in writing. And Thomas Yoder Neufeld has helpfully recovered the insight that the armor we are to take up is not just that of the Roman soldier of Paul's time but rather God's own armor he wore to do battle with his enemies and recalcitrant people in the Old Testament. Together, all these insights make it inescapable that Ephesians gives us a hermeneutically responsible reflection on the use of military imagery for a non-violent church.

The virtues of such a model are the direction, urgency, intentionality, and bodily-ness it gives to our following Christ. It takes these matters and more to be effective soldiers. It takes no less for the church to be God's Subversive Counter-Revolutionary people. A people trained, equipped, and focused on seeking God's shalom as they “Lift High the Cross” and bear it daily into the nitty-gritty of daily life – that would be a church that others may still reject. But they would be rejecting it for the right reasons not the many matters we speculate today cause people to become “Nones” and “Dones” with regard to the church!

That's why we are indeed in a war. And why it matters that we know and participate in God's Subversive Counter-Revolutionary movement. God wants it. In living it out we discover our true humanity. And the world beholds its own destiny.

4.       David pictures evil or sin as a reproductive process in v.14: “conceive,” “pregnant,” “bring forth.” Similarly, James 1:14-15 deals with temptation and sin in reproductive imagery. This vital imagery is one important way to consider sin. Sin, as an alien power that has us in a death-grip is the NT perspective that provides a larger horizon for our reflections. At the same time as we are trapped by sin we also “give birth” to it in ways described by David and James. We cannot free ourselves from this trap by ourselves. This we must bring to our reading of the OT as Christians. But once freed by Christ we can and must resist this devilish “birth cycle” of sin and evil with everything in us.

How do we resist or short circuit this cycle? Geoff Holzclaw suggests four possible strategies:

-FLEE IT: Sometimes we are assaulted by sinful (or at least very unhelpful, unhealthy) messages (from donut shops, Facebook posts, to violence and porn).  These situations require that we flee, run, change direction, and/or avert our eyes. 

-FLIP IT: Sometimes (most of the time) we are filled with thoughts from within ourselves (from our past situations or present desires).  When they are unhelpful or unhealthy—or sinful—we need to flip the script and replace the thought with something else.  Sometimes that just means distracting ourselves with some other task. Sometime it means reaching for God’s word to remember better thoughts. 

-FIGHT IT:  Sometimes our thoughts are not our own (especially the crazy, violent, self-harming, or shockingly sinful).  These thoughts are attacks from the devil.  You can’t flee them or just flip them.  You must fight them with the sword of the Spirit—which is the word of God (Eph. 6:17). 

-FAN IT: Speaking of the word of God, we must fan into flame the words of truth spoken about us and over us.  Primarily these are words of delight and acceptance in Christ, “You are my son/daughter, and in you I am well pleased (http://geoffreyholsclaw.net/4-ways-taking-every-thought-captive/?fbclid=IwAR0nNbJGxxJIxmci6dykqGYBT7UXGFPJyvoq-Qia4Bwj671sq4NBBzxpXaM).