Mark Hamilton, PhD - Associate Dean, Professor of Old Testament, ACU Graduate School of Theology
This week I spent three days in New York City on business. A few hours of touring amid the work took me and a colleague to Grant’s Tomb and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, each a monument in its own way. One honors a great man and the other seeks to honor God. Both seem fitting and dignified, though for me, the cathedral offers much more to the soul. As my colleague put it when he entered the soaring space, “so this is why they call it a sanctuary.” Open space points ever upward to the great window depicting the Risen Lord. The light streams in through the picture of Christ and saints, reminding us (if we are of an allegorical bent) that light best enters the darkness through those touched by God’s light.
The author of Psalm 27 would have understood this sentiment, I think. This little poem has four parts: verses 1-3 express fearlessness in the face of adversity because of God’s protection; verses 4-6 explain why the poet is unafraid — he or she dwells in the house of God, the Temple, which provides refuge both physical and spiritual; verses 7-12 call upon God to continue that protection and express the expectation that God is faithful even when the most cherished relationships in life fail; and verses 13-14 summarize the spirituality of the psalm from two different perspectives, that of the interior state of the psalmist and that of the spiritual life of all who hear the psalm (hence the community of those who trust God).
Three features of the spirituality of the psalm stand out to me today. One is the emphasis on place, and in particular, the power of the Temple (here, “the tent” or “pavilion”) to protect. Israelites wrestled with the question of whether the building was itself a sort of magic talisman, as texts like 1 Kings 8 and Jeremiah 7 take pains to correct, but the key to the psalm’s idea is that God exercises a special care in that place. It is a place of joyful thanksgiving (Hebrew: teru’ah) and thus a living reminder of the wonderful deeds of God. In other words, it is a sanctuary of the spirit.
A second feature appears near the center of the Psalm, in verses 7-8: “Hear my voice when I call out, O Yhwh, and take delight in me and answer me. My heart said to you ‘seek my face’; I sought/will seek your face O Yhwh.” This is what the Hebrew text literally says. It’s a bit confusing, however, and most scholars offer a slight modification of verse 8a: “my heart says about something related to you,” that is “something you said” etc. In this case, verse 8a becomes a quotation of what God has said (“seek my face”), and verse 8b becomes the response. This reading seems to make the most sense in the context. And it reveals an important insight: the essence of the religious life is the search for God. But it is not a search originating in the oft-frustrated desires of the human heart. It is, instead, a search to which God has invited us. And in that search, and especially in finding its object, we find rest.
A third feature that is striking appears in verse 10: “though my father and my mother abandon me….” The Old Testament, like the religious traditions springing from it, Judaism and Christianity, highly values family and calls parents to be as trustworthy as humanly possible. But the psalmist entertains the possibility, too often realized in everyday life, of the failure of parents to provide stability. The effects of such actions are well-known to all of us. The psalmist offers an alternative to human social protection: the protection of the God who cares for the orphans and the abused.
Curiously, the ancient and medieval commentators on this verse had a different take. Rashi, the great 11th century Jewish commentator, talks in his commentary on the psalms (edited and translated by Mayer Gruber and published in paperback by the Jewish Publication Society in 2007) about the conception of David (who he thought wrote all the psalms). Jesse and Mrs. Jesse had engaged in sex only for their own pleasure, says Rashi, but the God who superintends everything in the world, including even human sperm, created a human being. Now as a rendering of the intentions of the psalm’s author for this metaphor, Rashi’s interpretation is pretty far-fetched. But at the same time, it offers a deepening of the Psalm itself in some ways. God is able to redeem human intentions without overwhelming the human beings involved. This insight is worth preserving and reflecting on.
Thanks for sticking with me in this series on the Psalms. We have a long way to go, but I hope the trip is worthwhile to you all! Let me know what you think.