Psalm 16 - my goodness!

Protestants are always on about the non-relevance of our good before God. Is that what the bet verse is about? טוֹבָתִי בַּל עָלֶיךָ, tovati bal aleika, or in the vulgate: quoniam bonorum meorum non eges, translated as 'you don't need my goods'.

What good is this that is ours? It is, whatever we might think as pious and correct folks, nevertheless important to us. When my good is impacted, I respond, even with violence, whether of desire or of defense. It is good to me! It is not my righteousness - it might even be my unrighteousness, the old man, my second heart - as the sages say, the reason for the dagesh forte in heart. But this whole person is what God loves, so loves. And so do I. So tovati bal aleika is not a doctrinal statement of Lutheran protest against works-righteousness!

I passed over this phrase too quickly in my last post. My good - which is very important to me, is nonetheless, beside the good that God gives to me, not important - because God has given to me a good that is greater than my good, but he has made it truly mine - and that alone is trouble since I must in due course submit that gift also to God!

So how to put this across in three words (or 6) in English!

I suppose it is just as pious to declare God's good for me better than my idea of my good.

My good pales beside you.

This is I think, an answer to theodicy, with or without a doctrine of the age to come. We really have choice and we really must discover the chosen.

The tone of the Psalm is not then so much about a deliverance from a past or present crisis (Craigie) as about the deliverance in hope from the crisis of life in the flesh (Weiser sort of agrees with this in his long paragraphs). The rest of the poem must reflect this - let's wait and see if it does.

Blumenthal on theodicy

I am just rereading an essay I came across many years ago: David Blumenthal on theodicy.

One prays the liturgy of rage and protest vigorously and honestly. Then one tacks to a liturgy of joy and blessing. One turns yet again to a theology of courageous challenge. And then one tacks again to a theology of belonging and empowerment.

Answering the theodical question from the psalms - liturgical acts with such tacking implied - now seems possible. So off to school to the library to recover from three weeks without books on my desk. First job - make Psalm 16 stand up and speak.

That groanings blogger has commented on this discussion :) - this is a test of tracking.

God's Delight

Here is a list of psalms which mention delight - some of them I have not yet translated. I was curious to see if one could approach the issue of theodicy that Rachel Barenblat and Chris Heard both raised for me yesterday by a side-door - what is it which delights or does not delight God? The word is חָפֵץ or XPTS.

(sorry about the Hebrew numbering - and the verse numbers are not guaranteed correct since I set them by a late addition to my algorithm for creating my lexicon, but there is still a challenge for me to learn the recognition and order of letters - so I let them stand in my query results.)

The first query looked for nodes surrounding ones that contained the letters XPTS in the right order (no unicode in our database yet). I kept results where God is the one to whom the delight is attributed.

Psalm --5 ה not a God who takes pleasure חָפֵץ in wickedness - of what God does not delight in
Psalm -16 ד all my delight חֶפְצִי in them - (? - who) delights in the holy of the earth
Psalm -18 כ for he delighted in me - the LORD's delight in David
Psalm -22 ט for he delights in him - scoffers on the LORD's delight
Psalm -35 כז my delight, my righteousness, ...
and the LORD delights in the peace of his servant
Psalm -37 כג and in his way, he [the LORD] delighted יֶחְפָּץ
Psalm -51 ח So truth you take pleasure חָפַצְתָּ in the inward parts
Psalm -51 יח for you will not delight לֹא-תַחְפֹּץ in sacrifice and I would do it
Psalm -51 כא Then you will delight תַּחְפֹּץ in a sacrifice of the righteous
Psalm 115 ג but our God in the heavens, all that he delighted in he did
Psalm 135 ו whatever he pleased, he did (=115)
Psalm 147 י He does not take delight in the strength of a horse

Perhaps I should add ratzon (will, pleasure, favour, etc) also: - it has taken me time to check my Hebrew search strategies, for the word occurs with parts of the root missing and other words fit my strategies. It is hard to know if I have hit them all and I had a few false positives like variations on to run יְרֻצוּן which has the same letters plus or minus a mater or a suffix.

The second query looked for nodes surrounding ones that contained the letters RTSN or RTSH in the right order. I kept the results where God is the implied subject or judge.

Psalm -30 ו life, his favour
Psalm -30 ח LORD, in your favour, stands my mountain strong
Psalm -40 ט I come to do your will
Psalm -40 יד be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me
Psalm -44 ד for you favoured them
Psalm -51 כ Do good in your acceptance of Zion
Psalm -68 יז which God desired to dwell in - different word חָמַד אֱלֹהִים
Psalm -69 יד O LORD in an acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of your mercy
Psalm -85 ב You have been favorable, O LORD
Psalm -89 יח and in your acceptance will be lifted up
Psalm 106 ד Remember me, O LORD, when you favour your people
Psalm 119-K-S קח The offerings of my mouth, accept, O LORD
Psalm 143 י Teach me to do your will
Psalm 145 טז Perfect (for the acrostic), you open your hand, satisfing all that is, acceptance
Psalm 147 יא The LORD takes pleasure in those that fear him
Psalm 149 ד The LORD takes pleasure in his people

The subject of 'who God is in God's self' compared with 'the way that the Poets of the Psalms wrote or recited about God' is a difficult starting point but I have to take it as given that we work from the ancient record of experience and see where it leads.

So, here are the two (twin?) issues

1. of faith ( 'engagement' as a deliberate act of will)
2. or of evil (how is it that God who is good allows the evil we see?)

Will it help to approach them from the point of view of the attributions of delight and will (favour, acceptance) as listed above?

That's enough of a stimulus to thought for the moment and enough for a single blog post. I realize that there are lots of questions begged - not the least of which is the scandal of particularity, but let the stars burst where the original inconsistency of expansion manifests itself.

The Psalms and Theodicy

Rachel Barenblat and Chris Heard both posted today issues related to theodicy and random acts of violence, and the problems inherent in faith and trust as if they were measurable.

Chris asks why a “sovereign” God does not always get what God wants. And he suggests the solution of kenosis (Philippians 2)- self-emptying as if God hides part of self from self. My comment was not well-enough formed to get through the ether, so I will try and reconstruct the thought here. Moses in the later chapters of Deuteronomy (29:28/9) writes of Hidden things: These belong to God but the revealed things belong to us and our children for ever - come hell and high water. (He didn't say that last bit). Is this hidden aspect the other side of God's voluntary kenosis? Science notes that some things are not measurable concurrently - you can have momentum and position but you cannot be sure of both concurrently. We always disturb what we measure. As with science, so theology must recognize some of its inherent limitations. We think we could understand but our fullness is not even available to ourselves. (Cleanse me from my secret faults) (Psalm 19). And as for flat tires as acts of God - Psalm 148 allows for a certain fixity to reality and its rules without which we would have nothing rather than the hidden and the revealed.

Rachel quotes the Gemara: what does thought help to happen, and when does thought actually project an energy that prevents something from happening? Chazal say, that's a function of yirat shamayim [fear/awe of heaven/God]

The Sages do not mean, if I can dare to say such a thing, that your fear or faith or trust was somehow insufficient to enable the desired outcome. They refer, I expect, to that continuous voluntary engagement with the Most High which oscillates among presence, forgetfulness, joy, error, and hope. Why would it not be so? It is 'prayer without ceasing', to use the terms of the Jewish apostle to the Gentiles, Paul of Tarsus. You do not get your own way or what you deserved or what you wanted, but as with the Levites, you get God as your land. Who else do I have in heaven or on earth? (Psalm 73) What other hope is feasible for the twin problems of theodicy and faith?

There is much more - but it is beyond me to write about it at the moment. Thanks to the others for the stimulus.

Psalm 107 completed

This psalm has a complex structure:
invocation, theme, chorus 1, theme, chorus 2, conclusion
verse 1 chorus 1 answer to verse 1 chorus 2 answer 2 to verse 1
verse 2 chorus 1 answer to verse 2 chorus 2 answer 2 to verse 2
verse 3 chorus 1 answer to verse 3 chorus 2 answer 2 to verse 3
coda, theme achieved, recapitulation, conclusion

The wise who keep these things are promised a resolution to theodicy in the loving kindness of the LORD. The weather patterns over the past few years might make one wonder about the green possibilities in the city.