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the hermeneutic of hell: Matthew 4

January 4, 2011 by David Baer

When Jesus is baptized in the Jordan River, a heavenly voice identifies him as the Father’s beloved son. Paradoxically, he is then led (or, as the gospel of Mark has it, driven or banished) into the desert to be tested by the devil.

While it may still be an open question whether the devil wears Prada, it is an established fact in the gospels’ presentation that the accuser quotes Scripture. His hermeneutic, that is to say his interpretive tactic, is sophisticated but very bad.

Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, “He will command his angels concerning you,” and “On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”‘ Jesus said to him, ‘Again it is written, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”‘ (Matthew 4:5–7 NRSV)

The devil cites the ninety-first psalm. The poem ranks high among the favorites of Bible readers and lies open, almost as a protective amulet, by the bedsides of many sleepers around the world. They treasure its promise that YHWH’s hidden forces, his uncounted angels, are more than sufficient protection for his hard-pressed child who finds himself exposed to lethal invisibilities over which he holds no control.

For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence; he will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler. You will not fear the terror of the night, or the arrow that flies by day, or the pestilence that stalks in darkness, or the destruction that wastes at noonday. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. You will only look with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked. Because you have made the LORD your refuge, the Most High your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, no scourge come near your tent. (Psalm 91:3–10 NRSV)

The satanic way with Scripture is to quote text without context. This simple maneuver ably converts the word of God into the voice of hell.

The devil comes quickly—as contextless citation allows one efficiently to do—to his point. He engages Jesus in a conversation that leaves the best film directors flailing just a bit. The psalm from which he quotes reads in this place as follows:

For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone. You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent you will trample under foot. (Psalm 91:11–13 NRSV)

It seems a note custom-made for the hungry abandonment of the beloved son in a desert not of his choosing.

Yet Jesus supplies a context that is latent in the ninety-first psalm itself, but visible and explicit in the Torah text that he quotes:

Do not put the LORD your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah. (Deuteronomy 6:16 NRSV)

Jesus is, after all, the beloved son. The devil’s favorite psalm begins and ends with words directed to the faithful and besieged sufferer, who has nowhere to place his trust but in YHWH himself. Their plight is the same one. The devil conveniently overlooks this contextual bedrock, as it suits his purpose to do.

You who live in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty, will say to the LORD, ‘My refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust.’ (Psalm 91:1–2 NRSV)

Those who love me, I will deliver; I will protect those who know my name. When they call to me, I will answer them; I will be with them in trouble, I will rescue them and honor them. With long life I will satisfy them, and show them my salvation. (Psalm 91:14–16 NRSV)

On the devil’s lips, Scripture thus becomes the voice of hell. The threatened believer is turned by demand against his divine Protector. Trust becomes insolent challenge. Scripture is ostensibly honored but in reality debased.

We who are quick with a Bible, craving simplicity, learn too well hell’s pragmatic and horrible hermeneutic.

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the guardings: Genesis 2-4

January 3, 2011 by David Baer

The Bible’s primeval history, as this is found in the early chapters of the book of Genesis, is arguably the most supple and satisfactory explanation of human experience ever written.

One aspect of this paradigmatic story involves the matter of guarding (Hebrew שׁמר).

The second panel of the two-paneled creation story sees ‘YHWH Elohim’ (commonly in English, ‘the Lord God’) planting a garden in the east and installing the man there. Although the text speaks here only of the man, the joint commissioning of man and woman in chapter one and the organic and relational union of the man and the woman subsequently in the second panel provide a more inclusive context. Significantly ha-adam (האדאם, commonly in English ‘Adam’ or ‘the man’) suggests ‘humanity’ and is linked in the text to ha-adamah (האדמה), meaning the soil.

When YHWH Elohim places the man in the garden, the latter is assigned to that place with a double purpose: to serve it and to guard it. Some readers, not unreasonably, discern priestly resonances in this assignment and relate garden and temple as almost interchangeable features of YHWH’s living space on earth. More straight-forward—if not exactly prosaic—translations choose words like till and keep.

And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the LORD God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. (Genesis 2:8–15 NRSV)

Famously, the first couple fails at this task. The appearance of an astute serpent invades the garden’s equanimity with deceptive guile, so fracturing the relational web that might have developed it as a paradise. It is plausible to assume that the couple possessed both the authority and the means to guard the garden from the usurping presence. Sadly, they did not do so.

In consequence the man and the woman find themselves exiled not only from each other but also from the garden itself. Like their eventual Israelite successors, the community divides and the people are expelled to a place of wandering that lies to the east of the soil that had been promised to them.

Then the LORD God said, See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever’— therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life. (Genesis 3:22–24 NRSV)

Humanity, in the persons of its progenitors, finds itself the object rather than the subject of guarding. Insofar as access to and care of YHWH’s living space is concerned, they are no longer the guards but now the intruders. In addition, the guarding role no longer appears in their relationship to the place. They now simply serve or till it. They have become, in a sense, the enemy, albeit one clothed and watched over by YHWH in an arrangement that has become decidedly distant.

Yet even east of Eden, the dignity of humankind’s commission has not become entirely lost. After one of the couple’s sons (Cain, lance) murders another (Abel, a vapor) in a jealous rage related to the now mediated access to their Maker, YHWH questions the fratricide.

Cain said to his brother Abel, ‘Let us go out to the field.’ And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him. Then the LORD said to Cain, ‘Where is your brother Abel?’ He said, ‘I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?’ (Genesis 4:8–9 NRSV)

With tragic pathos, the son of a couple doomed by their illicit acquisition of knowledge professes ignorance about the community’s most basic fact: the whereabouts of one of its own. What is more, he rejects the very purpose of his race. Virtually de-humanizing himself in the act, Cain spits damning words in the face of his Creator: ‘I will not be my brother’s guard!’.

Cain chooses bitter solitude. His shadow falls heavy upon us.

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wise men: Matthew 2

January 2, 2011 by David Baer

The particulars of the Iranian cosmologists who arrive in Bethlehem to pay homage to Mary’s child are surprising. Yet the fact that such characters should appear near the center of events when the biblical God has bared his arm should not surprise. It has ever been so.

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.’ When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. (Matthew 2:1–4 NRSV

King Herod, tricked up in privilege, self-interest, and a host of counselors enriched with custody of YHWH’s holy scrolls, still manages to stumble about wondering how he might abort redemptive events or, failing this, to profit from them. This, too, has ever been so.

Privilege and legacy are not to be scoffed at. They represent distilled blessing and are capable of making people both wise and strong. Yet proximity to redemptive precedent bears with it the soul-killing dangers of presumption and apathy.

YHWH has always at hand his astrologers, pagan kings, lepers, and tax-gatherers.

He summons them when his chosen ones have faltered with that divine mixture of grief and glee that clings to breakthroughs like skies filled with angels and a child in a feeding trough, squirming, pooping, and hinting at salvation.

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mixed prospects: Zechariah 14

January 2, 2011 by David Baer

The medium-sized prophetic book of Zechariah seems long among the twelve ‘minor prophets’. It ends with an idiosyncratic take on a sturdy prophetic theme: the destiny of the nations in YHWH’s plan.

As with the other prophetic books that touch upon this theme, the nations’ prospects appear to the modern reader’s eyes and tastes to be decidedly mixed.

Then all who survive of the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the festival of booths. If any of the families of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, there will be no rain upon them. And if the family of Egypt do not go up and present themselves, then on them shall come the plague that the LORD inflicts on the nations that do not go up to keep the festival of booths. Such shall be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not go up to keep the festival of booths. (Zechariah 14:16–19 NRSV)

First, the stock of those nations that comes here under consideration is a remnant of those peoples that have lately made war against YHWH and his city.

Yet these are offered a stunning fate: they are to make annual pilgrimage to that Zion which they had intended to obliterate, there to participate as though they were YHWH’s own Jewish people in the ‘festival of booths’.

The festival of booths is known alternatively as Sukkoth or tabernacles. A harvest festival, booths becomes in the biblical transformation of the agricultural cycle into a rhythm that celebrates YHWH’s great redemptive feats a commemoration of the forty years of Israelite wanderings in the desert prior to their ‘inheritance’ of the land that had YHWH had promised to them. Though the people experienced the frailty and predicament of nomadic aliens, YHWH’s provision got them through.

Against this backdrop, Zechariah’s vision of a YHWH-day when old distinctions will be broken down and forgotten, is quite astonishing. YHWH’s, Israel’s, and Zion’s worst enemies are, in a matter of speaking, invited into the family as kin and invited to cut the Thanksgiving turkey.

If there is a most unanticipated carrot for this privileged residue of the world’s great and arrogant powers, there is also a stick. YHWH will withhold the earth’s blessing to those who do not make annual pilgrimage, those who survive the YHWH-storm but for reasons of rebellion, ingratitude, or neglect choose not to belong.

We modern and post-modern readers may stumble here over our axiomatic conviction that matters of faith and religion are above all else matters private, voluntary, and of the heart. The Bible rarely entertains such a conceit and so is unlikely to soothe our bruised aesthetics on this count.

In Zechariah’s prophetic vision, several of the otherwise indelible fractures of human experience are broken down as YHWH has his way, unimpeded, with his world.

The old, normal, and troubling distinction between secular and sacred goes the way of all flesh. Zechariah trusts his readers to rejoice at this.

A wounded Egyptian, helped along towards Jerusalem by daughters and sons who never fully understood the depth of his former rage, shuffles bright-faced to Zion. Together—within earshot of cousins bantering the way holiday-makers do, in Hebrew—they build a booth.

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a delighted Maker: Psalm 149

January 1, 2011 by David Baer

Full of summons to praise YHWH, the biblical psalms always provide a reason for doing so. In English translation, the word ‘for’ or ‘because’—commonly rendering Hebrew כי—habitually serves at the hinge between the command to praise YHWH and a motive clause that grounds such a response in YHWH’s deeds or his character.

Empty praise, that is to say praise for the sake of praise, is virtually unknown in the Psalter. When Christian worshipers hear it from worship platforms and worship leaders, they can be sure that liturgy has become detached from the biblical logic and rhythm of praise.

The psalter’s next-to-last exemplar piles up words in order to articulate the joyful nature of the people’s praise. No mere contemplative bliss, the vigor of their worship is to be expressed via dance and instrumental music.

The reason for such animated worship is, via a kind of logical rhyme, YHWH’s own delight in his people.

Praise the LORD!
Sing to the LORD a new song,
his praise in the assembly of the faithful.
Let Israel be glad in its Maker;
let the children of Zion rejoice in their King.
Let them praise his name with dancing,
making melody to him with tambourine and lyre.
For the LORD takes pleasure in his people;
he adorns the humble with victory. (Psalm 149:1–4 NRSV)

Delight, or taking pleasure, is a notion that occurs frequently in the biblical prophets, as in the Bible’s wisdom literature. One delights in YHWH and in that expression of his heart that is known as Torah or Instruction.

With winsome gratitude, notwithstanding his imperatival mode of expression, the psalmist places on display the reciprocal nature of such delight. We see YHWH smiling broadly as he contemplates his own daughters and sons. What is more, he beautifies—the New Revised Standard Version‘s ‘adorns’ is a nice flourish—his humble ones with victory.

The once tattered stroll about in designer threads, a reflected smile lighting their lifted faces.

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agreement: Revelation 22

December 31, 2010 by David Baer

The end of the image-filled, enigmatic, apocalyptic biblical book of Revelation is replete with urgency.

The text interconnects two matters in order to create this impression. On the one hand, Jesus promises to ‘come’ soon. On the other, by invitation and by direct speech the imagined beneficiaries of his promised arrival agree that his schedule is the appropriate one.

At some length the passage reads as follows:

‘See, I am coming soon! Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.’

I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me; but he said to me, ‘You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your comrades the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God!’

And he said to me, ‘Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near. Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy.’

‘See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone’s work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.’

Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and fornicators and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

‘It is I, Jesus, who sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.’ The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’ And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.

I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this book; if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away that person’s share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

The one who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming soon.’

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! (Revelation 22:7–20 NRSV)

Christian readers have for centuries been required to wrestle with the twin realities of Jesus’ promises to come soon and the evident sense of delay as twenty centuries have come and gone. Such hermeneutical and indeed existential challenge ought not to be glibly evaded.

Yet what strikes one in this passage today is not that difficult conundrum but rather the mutuality of the coming that is addressed. Jesus promises to come to those who live in the distressed earth whose fate has been addressed in the chapters of this book. Yet John’s visionary text also invites ‘those who are thirsty’ to come to the waters of life that have been introduced early in the chapter.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations …

The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’
And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’
And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.

The encounter that comes into view is not so much a unilateral arrival as a meeting in Jerusalem Descended.

And then, more obviously, the text has its protagonists virtually cry out in invitation to the one who has promised to come quickly that he should indeed come quickly, as promised!

If the bride is by already developed imagery the bride of this coming one, it is perhaps more surprising that the Spirit—in the Johannine literature necessarily the Spirit of Jesus and of God himself—should also audibly agree with Jesus’ promise.

With such details, the text almost viscerally anticipates Jesus’ presence on the scene. More, it longs for him to appear, to participate, to do his comforting work and to receive a grateful people’s praise.

Unfortunate eschatologies that imagine a whisking away of God’s chosen to another place so that this world might burn have lost their way with the text, opting instead for supra-biblical systems with their own coherence but little organic connection with the book from which they claim to derive.

Instead, Revelation has—with ample biblical precedent—all things becoming new, Jerusalem Descending, a world become what it must be but has heretofore failed ingloriously to become.

Those who have suffered most the deep rift between purpose and promise, on the one hand, and fractured, pained reality on the other, are best poised to lean with anticipation into this imagined future and whisper or shout ‘Come!’ with hoarse throats burned dry by the heat of unholy fire. It is they who lap thirstily the waters of life, finding the relief in its coolness to form the words ‘Come, Lord Jesus!’ on refreshed lips before dipping their faces to gulp again.

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not for kings: Proverbs 31

December 28, 2010 by David Baer

Whether the intended audience of the biblical Proverbs is comprised of the sons and daughters of the court or whether these collected dicta are for the instruction of sons and daughters in the home, the sayings of the wise display a certain concern with the dignity of leaders. Royalty, for the sages, is no laughing matter. The nation’s fate depends to some considerable degree upon justice and mercy working their way into the conscience and conduct of those who hold the levers of power in their hand.

A democratic age squirms at the thought. The wise contemplate the matter with serene realism.

The mother of a certain Lemuel reflects this concern. No tea-totaler, it would seem, she is nevertheless clear-eyed about the damaging effects of strong drink as well as sanguine about its pain-killing qualities.

It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, or for rulers to desire strong drink; or else they will drink and forget what has been decreed, and will pervert the rights of all the afflicted. Give strong drink to one who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress; let them drink and forget their poverty, and remember their misery no more. (Proverbs 31:4–7 NRSV)

Lemuel’s mother knows that behavior located within the gray zones of the ethical map can be tolerated when the hapless engage in it. But when the influential meddle in such stuff, bad things happen. If no man is an island, women and men born to influence cannot imagine themselves to be even a peninsula.

Too much is at stake.

The prudent mother of Lemuel cannot bear to imagine that the relatively modest pleasure of strong drink should end up perverting the rights of the oppressed because the addled brain of an inebriated prince can no longer recall what he’s been taught about justice and its carcinogenic alternatives.

No Bible-thumping here, no jeremiads, no screaming in the street. Just the real-world discernment that those who lead give up certain prerogatives for a quite simple reason: too much is at stake.

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note: Isaac B. Gottlieb, ‘Mashal le-Melekh: the search for Solomon’ (Hebrew Studies, LIi

December 27, 2010 by David Baer

The abstract of this article reads as follows:

Many references to Solomon in the Bible seem to be the outcome of inner-biblical exegesis applied to earlier texts. This study highlights the particular forms of exegesis that were used and their proximity to later midrashic explanation. But submitting earlier narratives to midrashic techniques, the books of Writings reveal their relatively late date. However, the use of these techniques does not automatically discredit the historical kernel of a particular reference; rather, it lends an interpretive ‘spin’, enlarging the character of Solomon to legendary proportions.

Building upon the work of Fishbane and Zakovitch on inner-biblical exegesis, the author focuses upon ‘how various types of inner-biblical interpretation were marshaled to develop the character of a single biblical figure, King Solomon’. Throughout his study, Gottlieb keeps an eyes on how inner-biblical exegesis can be employed to date the material in which they manifest themselves.

The ease with which Chronicles can be compared and contrasted with Kings as an exercise in rewritten history serves as motivation for Gottlieb’s choice of Chronicles as his first reviewed text. He finds numerous plays on the name שׁלמה in work from the Persian period that serve to develop the reputation of the king and his projects as peaceful and pertinent to ‘a king without blemish’.

The author next considers additional texts exemplary of the ‘late’ anthology of the Writings. Psalm 72 for example, identified by Gunkel as a ‘royal psalm’, yields further word-plays on שׁלמה and a Solomonic allusion via שׁבא. It is alleged that מלך and בן־מלך are not strict parallels but rather references to David and Solomon, respectively, in the manner of later Midrashic treatment of Hebrew parallelism in the Bible. Presumably, Gottlieb intends the psalm’s title, לשׁלמה, to be a late addition based upon these identifications of Solomonic allusion in the psalms when he refers to ‘reading Solomon back’ into the psalm.

Psalm 127, also headed as לשׁלמה, receives similar treatment as an exercise in modulating the poem’s ‘general proverbs and universal truths’ in the direction of ascription to Solomonic particularities.

The Proverbs’ identification with the king is seen as an additional example of late midrashic rewriting. More extensively, the Song of Songs in Gottlieb’s view places Solomon as a foil for the poems’ young, rustic lover in a way that criticizes the king: ‘From a paragon of a king, he has become a parody’.

Likewise, Ezra-Nehemiah lists among its returnees a group of בני עבדי שׁלֹמה, individuals unknown in the book of Kings, and a number of other allusions to Solomon. Gottlieb evidently understands such references—not in his view absent historical basis—as presented in a way that reflects the by this time elevated status of Solomon.

In sum, such examples of inner-biblical exegesis are ‘proto-midrashic’ in form and function. Gottlieb is undecided regarding whether such exegesis—which in some cases may merely represent ‘literary flourishes’—have anything to say about the historicity of the material itself. ‘(I)nner-biblical interpretation found within the Writings and based on proto-midrashic techniques might point to a continuum between biblical Wisdom and subsequent rabbinic midrash literature’.

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one hour: Revelation 18

December 27, 2010 by David Baer

The Bible’s ‘apocalyptic literature’ is no easy read.

Composed in periods of deepest affliction, ‘apocalyptic’ gives vent to the assurance that the Lord has not lost control of history and will finally vindicate those suffering human beings who have maintained their loyalty to him at great cost. It is black-and-white in its moral clarity, a dualism that manifests itself in clear definitions of who is on the Lord’s side and who is not.

Our age has little taste for apocalyptic, although a patient and self-critical evaluation of our besetting myopias ought to caution us against dismissing it on the grounds of aesthetic trend-lines and personal preference.

The book of Revelation is perhaps the most well-known example of this strain of biblical expression. Sadly, its character has been much warped in the public eye by popular treatments that border on the paranoid.

Babylon figures as a kind of great world system that in its arrogance defies the Creator and claims the blood of his servants. The reader who identifies with faithful, afflicted suffers is assured that Babylon’s downfall will come suddenly:

When the kings of the earth who committed adultery with her and shared her luxury see the smoke of her burning, they will weep and mourn over her. Terrified at her torment, they will stand far off and cry: ‘Woe! Woe, O great city, O Babylon, city of power!

In one hour your doom has come!’ (Revelation 18:9–10 NIV)

With dark, smokey imagery the book of Revelation describes the collapse of Empire Babylon and the grief and wonder that fall upon those who have been complicit in her rapacious economy. When Babylon falls, the whole world staggers under the weight of her loss.

When they see the smoke of her burning, they will exclaim, ‘Was there ever a city like this great city?’ They will throw dust on their heads, and with weeping and mourning cry out:

‘Woe! Woe, O great city, where all who had ships on the sea became rich through her wealth!

In one hour she has been brought to ruin!’ (Revelation 18:18–19 NIV)

Yet Babylon’s downfall is, within the conceptual frame of apocalyptic literature, good news for those little ones who have been tormented by her.

Rejoice over her, O heaven! Rejoice, saints and apostles and prophets! God has judged her for the way she treated you.

Then a mighty angel picked up a boulder the size of a large millstone and threw it into the sea, and said: ‘With such violence the great city of Babylon will be thrown down, never to be found again. The music of harpists and musicians, flute players and trumpeters, will never be heard in you again. No workman of any trade will ever be found in you again. The sound of a millstone will never be heard in you again. The light of a lamp will never shine in you again.

The voice of bridegroom and bride will never be heard in you again. Your merchants were the world’s great men. By your magic spell all the nations were led astray.’

In her was found the blood of prophets and of the saints, and of all who have been killed on the earth. (Revelation 18:20–24 NIV)

Ease and privilege with almost predictable effectiveness dull our ears to biblical apocalyptic.

We find it impossible to believe in a World Empire that enriches those who control its levers at the cost of those who will not pledge the allegiance it demands. We consider ourselves too sophisticated for such simplistic, conspiratorial reductions of complex reality.

We do not find the blood of prophets and saints to be worth so much fuss.

We hold tight to our membership cards, with their precise, regularly updated data. Without remembering exactly when we did so, we have chosen sides. We rather like our Babylon.

We belong.

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sufficient praise: Psalm 145

December 26, 2010 by David Baer

The biblical psalms speak candidly about the fact that we praise out of partial knowledge.

One cannot know YHWH exhaustively, we are taught. Paradoxically, praise seems most dynamically forthcoming precisely when the psalmist comes to the limits of his own capacity to know YHWH. It is not that praise inhabits the unfathomable vacuum of mystery. One does not hurl oneself into the great void, there to praise. Rather, one knows YHWH truly by means of observing his ways in creation, redemption, and instruction, then in time becomes aware that YHWH’s virtues surpass both knowing and articulation.

One starts with what one knows of YHWH and praises in that space.

Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise;
his greatness no one can fathom.
One generation will commend your works to another;
they will tell of your mighty acts. (Psalm 145:3–4 NIV)

The one-hundred-forty-fifth psalm—as many others—juxtaposes YHWH’s inscrutability, on the one hand, and the straight-forward declaration that the normal passing of legacy from one generation to another will include the summons to know YHWH’s acts, on the other.

There is no mindless contradiction in this. On the contrary, YHWH engages the minds of individuals, communities, and generations. Yet those who know YHWH best remind themselves how little of him they know.

Praise is sufficient comportment for those who know YHWH. Yet is it never exhaustive.

‘True religion’, to borrow a phrase from the New Testament while speaking of the Old, does not suppose that the High and Holy is not know-able. That way lies mindless spirituality capable of enervating, boring, and entrancing in about equal parts.

Nor does it suppose that it knows him exhaustively. There lies protean idolatry.

The psalms urge us toward praise that is sufficient to what we can know of a self-disclosing God. It praises his works and expectantly hopes for more.

Yet it raises open hands towards his heaven rather than crafting images of him with controlling, grasping fingers.

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