Tercera hipótesis específica

The Psalms, of course, do much more than simply provide us with information about how they were intended to be (or were in fact) used. In the process of unveiling the purposes of God through the historical progression of Israelite kingship, one of the chief aims of the Psalter is to teach God’s people about the trials and triumphs of the life of faith, and how to respond appropriately as they journey with the Messiah from suffering to glory, from lament to praise.18 Indeed, because the Psalms cover the

whole gamut of human emotions, while at the same time giving us divinely inspired words with which to praise and pray to God, “the Holy Spirit gives us great encouragement and freedom to express all that we are thinking and feeling, whether those thoughts and feelings are about ourselves, others or even God.”19 For this reason, John Calvin had good reason to write:

I have been accustomed to call this book, I think not inappropriately, “An Anatomy of all the Parts of the Soul;” for there is not an emotion of which any one can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror. Or rather, the Holy Spirit has here drawn to the life all the griefs, sorrows, fears, doubts, hopes, cares, perplexities, in short, all the distracting emotions with which the minds of men are wont to be agitated.20

Calvin’s list of “distracting emotions” clearly indicates that the lament psalms were uppermost in his mind as he penned these oft-quoted words. For the lament psalms reveal the manifold reasons why God’s children can feel agitated or aggrieved or (to use Brueggemann’s evocative terms) become “dislocated” and “disoriented.”21 What’s more, in such a place of dislocation and disorientation, singing

praise can be (or at least feel) either impossible or inappropriate. 2.2 Dislocation: Psalms 42–43

Two psalms illustrate this. The first is Psalms 42–43, which are best treated as a single psalm.22 At

the very heart of the psalmist’s lament is the fact that he cannot, for reasons that become clear as the psalm unfolds, “go to the house of God under the protection of the Mighty One with shouts of joy and

18_{For helpful discussions of the purpose and shape of the Psalter and the structural significance of the king-}

ship theme see A. E. Hill and J. H. Walton, A Survey of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 346– 51; M. D. Futato, Interpreting the Psalms: An Exegetical Handbook (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2007), 57–116; J. Healy Hutchinson, “The Psalter as a Book,” in Stirred by a Noble Theme: The Book of Psalms in the Life of the Church, ed. A.G. Shead (Nottingham: Apollos, 2013, 23–45).

19_{Futato, Interpreting the Psalms, 153.}

20_{J. Calvin, “The Author’s Preface,” in A Commentary on the Book of Psalms, Volume 1, trans. J. Anderson,}

repr. ed. (Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library), http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom08.vi.html.

21W. Brueggemann, Praying the Psalms: Engaging Scripture and the Life of the Spirit (Eugene, OR: Wipf &

Stock, 2007), 1–11.

22_{The main reasons for this are as follows. (1) Psalm 43 has no title, which is uncharacteristic of Book II of}

the Psalter and therefore suggests connection. (2) A number of Hebrew manuscripts present them as a single psalm. (3) The identical question, “Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?,” is found in both 42:9 and 43:2. (4) They also share a common refrain (42:5; 11; 43:5). For an alternative interpretation, however, see deClaissé-Walford, Jacobson, LaNeel Tanner, The Book of Psalms, 404.

praise among the festive throng” (42:4). In short, he is lamenting the fact that he cannot praise. What then is his situation? He is evidently a long way from Jerusalem, for he is recalling the praises of the temple “from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar” (42:6). Furthermore, he appears to be the captive of “an unfaithful nation” (43:1)—oppressed by enemies (42:9), taunted by adversaries (42:10) and surrounded by men who are “deceitful and wicked” (43:1).23

The psalmist’s deepest distress, however, lies in the fact that God appears to have “forgotten” (42:9) or “rejected” him (43:2). This is why he finds his enemies’ question—“Where is your God?” (42:3, 10)— so vexing. So as he beholds “the waterfall at the source of the Jordan near Paneas and the waters that dash headlong down the mountains round about ... he sees nothing but the mirrored image of the many afflictions which threaten to involve him in utter destruction.”24 Hence his cry: “all your waves

and breakers have swept over me” (42:7). Therefore, as much as he yearns to do so, he cannot sing the praises of Zion in such a place or in such a state. His only hope is that God will send forth his “light” and “truth” that they might lead him back to his “holy mountain” (43:3). Confidence that God will, in due course, bring this about is the ground of his threefold self-exhortation: “Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him” (42:5; 11; 43:5).

2.3. Disorientation: Psalm 137

Unlike Psalms 42–43, Psalm 137 has an identifiable Sitz im Leben or, at least, a clear historical point of reference: Israel’s experience of exile in Babylon. But whether it was written in exile or after having returned from exile is a matter of considerable debate. On the basis of the perfect tense verbs and the repeated adverb “there” in vv. 1–3, a number of scholars have argued that the psalm contains “the voice of exiles who have returned to live in the ruins of a Jerusalem not yet rebuilt.”25 If this is correct,

the psalm “reveals the sufferings and sentiments of people who perhaps experienced at first hand the grievous days of the conquest and destruction of Jerusalem in the years 587 BC, who shared the burden of the Babylonian captivity and after their return to their homeland now, at the sight of the city still lying in ruin, give vent with passionate intensity to the feelings lying dormant in their hearts.”26 However,

on the basis of historical-critical and text-critical indicators, Ahn has made a compelling case that the psalm cannot be post- exilic, but “is likely to have been composed after 587, but prior to the arrival of the 582 group.”27

For our purposes, the question does not need to be settled. For regardless of precise provenance and date, Psalm 137 reveals the strong and painful emotions that were felt at the time of the exile itself. As Kidner writes, “Every line of it is alive with pain, whose intensity grows with each strophe to the appalling climax.”28 The cause of this pain is twofold. Firstly, there is the memory of Zion (v. 1)—in 23_{It is for this reason that some have thought the setting of the psalm to be exilic. But it is more likely that this}

is the lament “of one cut off from his homeland while the royal cult still flourished.” P. C. Craigie, Psalms 1–50, WBC 19 (Waco, TX: Word, 1983), 325.

24_{F. Delitzsch, Psalms, Volume 2, trans. J. Martin, repr. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 59–60.}

25_{J. L. Mays, Psalms, Interp (Louisville: John Knox, 1994), 421. See also M. Dahood, Psalms: Introduction,}

Translation, and Notes, vol. 3, Psalms 101–150, AB (New York: Doubleday, 1970), 269; L. C. Allen, Psalms 101– 150, WBC 21 (Waco, TX: Word, 1983), 239.

26_{A. Weiser, The Psalms: A Commentary (London: SCM, 1959), 794.} 27J. Ahn, “Psalm 137: Complex Communal Laments,” JBL 127 (2008), 274. 28_{D. Kidner, Psalms 73–150, TOTC (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1975), 459.}

particular, the horrors of what had been done to it by the Babylonians (egged on by the Edomites) on “the day of Jerusalem” (vv. 7–8). The consequence of this painful memory is that Zion is no longer “a source of strength, as in Psalm 48, but a cause for tears.”29 Secondly, there is the mocking demand of their

captors and tormentors for “songs,” “songs of joy,” “one of the songs of Zion” (v. 3)!30 This immediately

raises the question of v. 4: “How can we sing the song of the Lord while in a foreign land?” That is, given all that has happened both to Jerusalem and us, how can we possibly rejoice? The implied answer is that “we can’t!”31 The reason, suggests Brueggemann, is that “the songs of Zion are pornographic when they

are sung among those who do not hope is Zion.”32 The lyres thus remain hung upon the willows (v. 2).

3. Singing About Not Being Able to Sing