Tag: care

June 19th, 2023

Psalm 101
(of David, lyric)

* * *

It’s not quite Arma virumque cano, but Psalm 101 does start by announcing its theme. It isn’t Virgil’s “arms and the man” the psalmist sings, but the ethical pair of chesed and mishpat, the divine relationship between loyal caring and legal rectitude, virtue and propriety brought together. That phrase “Care and what’s right” works both as a balanced pair and as a hendiadys, “right care.” It also squints syntactically with “lyric” in the superscription, “lyric of care and what’s right,” allowing the lyrics themselves to also begin with the more traditional “let me sing” (1; Exod 15:1, Isa 5:1, Ps 13:6). And yet Psalm 89—the psalm that precedes the collection of Psalms 90-100 which precedes this one, the most recent psalm to mention David—begins similarly, “The caring of the Lord | ever I sing (89:1). That verbal similarity suggests a different reading, linking “Care and what’s right” with “of you,” the lekha of the second line. It’s the Lord’s caring and virtue the psalmist sings and plays.

In the bulk of the psalm, at least in verses 3-8, this relational virtue or caring principle— or perhaps principled caring, virtuous relationship?— is demonstrated by a series of character types and the speaker’s relative distance from each:

There cannot sit | within my house

a worker of fraud | a teller of lies

is not sturdy | before my eyes (7).

Here, for example, are two categories of deceiver, plus two building metaphors. The one who plays false is an unwelcome guest; the one who speaks false lacks a foundation. With both, the crucial rhetorical move is not just to name the types, but for the speaker to pronounce her distance from them. The third stanza witnesses “deserters,” whose collective deed (“what the deserters do”) the speaker despises. “It does not hold with me,” the speaker says, adding in progression, “a twisted heart | departs from me / bad | I do not know” (3b-4). One could map this morality, location and vector, as those who cannot come towards me, and those who must go away “from me.” In verse 6, admittedly a curious place, are the good ones, the nearest of all:

My eyes are with | the faithful of the land

sitting with me | who walks

on a perfect path | she attends me

The faithful sit “with me.” The walker along the ideal way, she ministers to me. Motion or stillness, what matters is how close the speaker keeps these various character types.

Similarly, proximity is what’s at stake in the repeated mention of “eyes.” The psalm’s first and last expressions, “before my eyes,” are both negations. With both “I do not set before my eyes | any worthless thing” (3) and “a teller of lies / is not sturdy | before my eyes” (7), the speaker distances and purges. The two middle expressions contrast the boastful, “haughty of eyes / and arch of heart” (5), with the speaker herself, “my eyes are with | the faithful,” literally “my eyes with the faithful” (6).

But whose eyes are these? Who speaks in this psalm? Some assume a Davidic king speaks, given the superscription and the word “house” (2, 7). But nothing in the psalm itself makes the speaker a king. How could a king know “Who slurs in secret | her neighbor” or how, with any justice, declare “her I finish off” (5)? Does a king make nighttime rounds and “By dawn… finish off | every rogue of the land” (8)? Is that the same as “care and what’s right” or being “on a perfect path” (2,6)? After verse 2, the more likely voice is God’s, the Second Temple a more likely house than a royal palace.

The psalm thus means on at least two levels. We hear God—whom the last psalms have made clear IS the king—declaring values and rightness, orienting everyone in relation to God: “I walk with perfect heart | within my house / I do not set before my eyes | any worthless thing” (2c-3a). We also hear the human speaker, lingering past the first verse, justifying her own morality by her distance from others.

At the moment of transition, between the three opening wishes set clearly in the psalmist’s voice (“let me sing… let me play / let me be sage”) and the long list of declarations from “I walk with perfect heart” (2c) to “By dawn I finish off” (8) comes the psalm’s strangest, loveliest line, indeed probably its only lovely line: “ah when will you come | to me” (2b). That the consonants of “to me” (’elai) look like the consonants of “my God” (’eli) only amplifies the line’s curiosity. Who is asking whom? Is the speaker asking God, or God asking the speaker? How does this yearning for closeness relate to the finishing off and cutting off of enemies? Is the rest of the psalm one long attempt of a speaker focused on relationship to justify herself to a God she feels needs something proved?
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My name is Mark Minster. I’m an English and Comparative Literature professor with a background in ministry and in poetry. I teach courses on writing, reading, religion, and nature.
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June 7th, 2023

Psalm 89
(a didactic of Ethan the Ezrahite)

* * *

The problem that Psalm 89 considers in its sort-of-dialogue— namely, how an unconditional promise that supposedly lasts forever could become both conditional and broken— is already present in 2 Samuel 7 and 1 Kings 8-9, the passages on which the psalm is based. David, having just consolidated power by relocating the Ark of the Covenant in Jerusalem, offers to build the Lord a temple. Instead, the Lord, in a nighttime oracle to the prophet Nathan, promises David a lasting kingdom: “Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before you; your throne will be established forever” (2 Sam 7:16). David’s successor, his son Solomon, does indeed build and consecrate the temple. He prays at length, after which the Lord makes oracular promises similar to those made to his father: “if you walk before me faithfully with integrity of heart and uprightness, as David your father did… I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever… But if you all or your descendants turn from me and do not observe the commands and decrees I have given you… then I will cut off Israel from the land I have given them and will reject this temple…” (2 Kgs 9:4-9 passim). Similar promises, and yet different. How could the Lord vow an eternal throne without condition, only to change the terms of the deal a generation later?

There are a variety of ways to try to solve this puzzle. Certainly, the long Solomon narrative is itself an attempt to accommodate the ideal of a Davidic covenant with the historical experience of siege, collapse, and exile. Perhaps there was no promise? Or maybe the promise was always conditional, or terms like “endure” and “forever,” “kingdom” and “throne” were ambiguous or misread? Or perhaps, as one might argue, eternally unfalsifiably, at any given moment from before the razing of Solomon’s temple to whatever year this is now plus one, destruction was all part of the grand plan of restoration.

To Psalm 89’s credit, it eliminates easy solutions. Its long central section (19-37) narrates the Davidic “pact”(28, 34, cf. 3, 39) in God’s first-person voice. Its movement is both temporal and outside of time. It begins with the word “then” and a series of perfective verbs, “I appointed… I lifted… I came upon David… I anointed him” (19-20). There follows a torrent of imperfect verbs that express both a historical present, a past subjunctive that reveals a purpose, as well as a present and a future: “so that my hand with him | might be anchored / and more my arm | might make him strong” (21). To translate these in the future tense is to presuppose a solution the psalm does not decide on. Later in the series of verbs, the present and future senses do dominate:

my care | I do not renege from him

nor play false | with my faithfulness

nor do I violate | my pact

what comes from my lips | I do not alter

one thing I swore | by my hallow

of David | I do not lie (33-35).

There is both an eternal present tense here and a sequence in time: having vowed, I do not and will not break my vow. In the Lord’s eyes, in other words, the covenant with David was never broken, is not broken, and never could be broken.

Strategically and structurally, however, this promise is flanked by sections that see things differently, to put it mildly. With the exception of verses 3-4, which introduce the problem, the psalm’s first movement (1-18) emphasizes neither the Davidic promise nor the power of monarchy, but the Lord’s unique power, the Lord’s “care” and “faithfulness” (paired in 1, 2, “faithfulness” alone in 5, 8; “care” paired with “trust” in 14). Eight times, this section names the Lord (1, 5, 6 x2, 8 x2, 15, 18); six times it calls the Lord the emphatic pronoun “you” (9 x2, 10, 11, 12, 17; cf. “your name” in 12, 16). Repeatedly, this first section anticipates vocabulary that will be used in the psalm’s central section, attributing powers to the Lord alone. “Ever and on | I anchor your line / and build age to age | your seat,” the Lord speaks of the pact with David (4), which was done “so that my hand with him | might be anchored” (21). “I appoint his line | lasting / his seat | like the days of the skies” (29); “his line | ever is / and his seat | as the sun before me / as the moon | it is anchored ever” (37). To these points, the psalm’s first section responds in advance: “for I have ever said | care is built in the skies/ you anchor your faithfulness | in them” (2). As with Psalm 87, the preposition plus pronoun is emphatic: “in them” accents the skies as the seat of power, just as “yours” (lekha 11 x2, 13 ) accents the Lord. About halfway through its first section, in verse 9, Psalm 89 turns to God’s acts of power, extending them throughout history, far earlier than a mere monarchy, and lifted far farther above. Verse 11 begins a pair of stanzas that more pointedly exalt God and sideline David: “Yours the skies | and more yours the earth” becomes

Yours is an arm | with might

your hand is strong | your right hand is uplifted

justice and law | the anchor of your seat

care and trust | precede your face (13-14).

The first section culminates with its most antimonarchic stanzas. Instead of to a king, verses 15-18 turn to the people. It is the people who joy, who “are lifted” (16), and it is the Lord who does it all: “by the light of your face… by your name… by your justice… and by your pleasure” (15-17). “Oh the Lord’s | is our shield / and of Israel’s hallowed | is our king” (18), the section ends, suggesting that the Lord alone is Israel’s king.

The psalm’s third (38-45) and fourth (46-51) sections are not nearly so ambiguous. The third section counters the center section’s imperfect verbs with perfect forms, emphasizing past evidence over present claims. Despite the Lord’s promise to David, the third section says with some ire,

And yet you | scorned and spurned

were beside yourself | with your anointed

and nullified | your servant’s pact

you violated to the ground | his crown (38-39).

Again, language from the psalm’s central section is quoted and undermined. “His seat,” which is “lasting… like the days of the skies” according to 29 and “as the sun before me” according to 36, is pointed to in verse 44: “his seat | you hurled to the ground” (44). In some cases, even claims from the first section are undercut. In verse 42, for example, “you lifted the right hand | of his foes” belies both the promise— “I anointed him / so that my hand with him | might be anchored” (21) and “that I might hammer his foes” (23)— and the praise— “your hand is strong | your right hand is uplifted” (13). There is here no attempt to explain away the puzzle of a broken covenant. In this respect, Psalm 89 is a kind of Job in reverse, a speech from Elihu, a speech from whirlwind, followed not by Job’s relenting, but by his complaint.

The psalm’s final section consists of hard questions, a pair of calls to remember, and a lingering image that can be read in different ways. The questions form a chiasm, two outer questions about God’s absence (46, 49) surrounding an inner, doubled question: “What hero lives | and does not see death / could slip his neck | from the hand of the grave” (48). The question, given the psalms that precede and follow this one, Psalms 88 and 90, and given the facts of existence, seems rhetorical: no one lives and does not see death. For readers inclined to messianic eschatologies, however, the question seems to offer a secret, prophetic solution that can be pulled out of context from this part of the psalm: there must be some son of David who could “slip his neck | from the hand of the grave.” And yet the call to remember that precedes this question weighs against this reading: “remember me how brief | how futile / you created | all mortals” (47). And yet— yet another “and yet”— the psalm ends with an image, a phrase, that works in multiple directions: “the footprints of your anointed” (51). Those eager to find hints of messianism in Psalm 89, or just those taken by the center of the poem will see those footsteps as aimed towards a restorative future. Those more taken by the first or third sections will see the image as a haunting from a lost monarchic past. Our reading depends in part on whether we assume the psalm offers answers or poses questions.

Whatever answers the psalm may offer, what matters more seems to be its final articulation of the crucial question. Instead of asking how a permanent pact might have been violated, the final section of the psalm reframes the problem in a way that’s both simple and profound: “Where is your caring | from before, my lord / you swore to David | by your faithfulness” (49). The desire for a new king or a restored past is understandable, but it’s not what matters most. The underlying issues is fidelity, the continuity of care.
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My name is Mark Minster. I’m an English and Comparative Literature professor with a background in ministry and in poetry. I teach courses on writing, reading, religion, and nature.
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May 12th, 2023

Psalm 63
(of David, lyric, when he was in the wilderness of Judah)

* * *

The value of translating nefesh not by the anachronistic “soul” but by its literal sense of “neck” or “throat” becomes perfectly clear in Psalm 63, where “my throat” is paired with “my body” (1), “my mouth” (5), and “your right hand” (8). The word shows up a fourth time as that part of the speaker that has been hunted by the villains, “those who to waste it | seek my throat” (9). Even God’s name only appears three times.

Pronouns for “me” and for “you,” however, are even more prominent. I count eleven first-person-singular suffixes for nouns: my God, my throat, my body (1); my lips (3); my life, my hands (4); my throat, my mouth (5); my bed (6); my throat (8), my throat (9). I count twelve second-person-singular suffixes for nouns and verbs (“behind you” in verse 8 functions as a preposition and a a noun): I greet the dawn for you (1); I have looked to you, your power, your glow (2); your care, venerate you (3); I kneel to you, your name (4); I have remembered you (6); your wings (7); behind you, your right hand (8). In addition, there are prepositional suffixes: “for me” or li (7) and “held me up” is literally “for me supported your right hand,” started by the word bi (8); the two “for you” clauses (lekha) in the middle of verse 1, and the “of you” ending (bakh) of verse 6. The first verse of the psalm includes the standalone preposition “you” (’attah). That totals thirteen first-person suffixes, “me” or “my,” and sixteen explicit second-person markers, “you” or “your,” all but one of these concentrated in just the first eight verses.

All of this is to say that the first eight verses of the poem are remarkably intimate. They linger in the depths of the speaker’s throat, which thirsts and fills and murmurs and hews to “you.” These verses starts at dawn and wake in the night. They name two bodies the way lovers do, the way a Yehuda Amichai poem does: “my lips,” “my hands,” my mouth,” “your glow,” “your wings,” “your right hand.”

It’s those last verses, verse 9 through 11, though, that change the poem’s experience entirely. They fit the first eight verses by the images of “throat” and “mouth” which bracket them (9a, 11c), but not by much else. There’s no first or second person after “my throat” in 9a. You and I disappear. Instead, the psalm becomes desire for punishment for bad guys we didn’t even know were there, desire for the king’s joy, and a general statement about the importance of telling the truth. The punishments are vivid and memorable, but they pose a problem. So much of the poem is about a relationship of care, which takes place intimately, in and between the speaker’s body and God’s. That’s why the throat matters, our readiest way to open to food and drink and air. And yet the only body parts here at the end are the slammed jaws of liars and the guts of people the speaker fears, poured over the pommel of a sword, devoured by foxes.
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May 8th, 2023

Psalm 59
(director: don’t destroy, in stone, of David at Saul’s sending to watch the house to kill him)

* * *

Psalm 59 starts straightforwardly with a fourfold wish for rescue (“free me…evacuate me… free me… rescue me,” 1-2) and a threefold “not guilty” plea (“no crime is mine | no wrong is mine Lord / no fault is mine,” 3b-4a). By its second half, however, the psalm labors to reconcile its three invocations of God as strength (`oz) with its three invocations of God as care (chesed). “Strength” and “Care” are proximate or paralleled all three times: “Strength | for you I wait / for God | my Fort // my God my Care | goes before me” (9-10a), “I sing | your strength / and ring out at dawn | your care” (16), and “My Strength for you | I want to play / for God my fort | God my care” (17).

In a call for rescue from enemies encircling like packs of wild dogs, the combination of might and caring makes sense. Freeing another person requires motive and means. Love without power spins its wheels; power without love careens. Only together can kindness and strength free.

The sticky question, however, is what strength and care are to do with those enemies once the liberation is complete. And in verses 11-13, the speaker seems wildly incapable of deciding:

don’t slay them  | or my people will forget

strew them | with your force

and take them down | Our Shield my lord

for the fault of their mouth | the words of their lips

may they be caught | in their conceit

and for the curses | and lies they recount

finish them in rage | finish them off entirely

that they may know | God reigns

in Jacob | to the ends of the earth

Having roused “the Lord | God of Forces / God of Israel,” and asking God in battle gear “to deal with | all the others” (5), the speaker asks now for these enemies to be spared, dispersed, and demoted (11). Then, promptly, she asks for them to be wiped out (12-13). Verse 13, as it stands, seems like a contradiction in terms: “finish them off entirely / that they may know | God reigns” (13a-b). If the goal is to teach “them” that God reigns, death would seem to be both definitively instructive but not particularly useful.

Which response does the speaker want from God “my Fort / my God my care” (9-10)? Is it to not “feel for | all the harmful traitors” (5) or to “finish them in rage” (13)? Does the speaker not see these differences, too blood-blinded to tell that scattering enemies and eradicating them are completely different responses? Or is this one long slippery slope, from God’s laughing and scoffing at enemies to making an example of them to finishing them off? Are all these responses equal parts Strength and Care?

The psalm’s two refrains show clearly the questions are not resolved. “My Strength… / God my fort | God my care” (17, cf. 9-10) lead us one way, pairing kindness and power. Those dogs that twice come snarling at dusk (6-7, 14-15), even after the call for their obliteration, they lead down another road entirely.
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My name is Mark Minster. I’m an English and Comparative Literature professor with a background in ministry and in poetry. I teach courses on writing, reading, religion, and nature.
Recent Posts
- Psalm 150
- Psalm 149
- Psalm 148
- Psalm 147
- Psalm 146
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