Psalms Archives - Page 15 of 32

The waves of death or the water of life?

Water, vital and mortal

returning to the great ocean not by choice

Water must be one of the most two-edged thing that exists. It can kill you; but you cannot live without it. It is dangerous; it is essential. We take it completely for granted until it is absent. We fear it viscerally (this is why people are so fascinated by the Titanic), but we know how precious it is. We grow and take shape in the waters of the womb, and in many versions of a life-and-death myth, we return as drops into the Great Ocean when we die. This two-sidedness is a crucial element in its use as metaphor or symbol.

An index of God’s power and scope

God creating earth — God presiding over Creation, outside the water and in control

The psalms talk about water (as a real thing) in two diametrically opposed ways. There is bad water (the sea, floods), and good water (rain in the desert, the gentle stream supplying water for sheep and the hunted deer), wild water and tame water, you might almost say deadly water and living water because the contrast is so extreme. God’s power and might are indicated by his control over water in its entirety. His house is above the rains, and some pictures of Creation show him outside and above the circle of waters which the earth floats within, so he is even above the ‘waters above the heavens’ (Ps 148). The waters are God’s tool : he can use them to help or to destroy utterly. Man is frightened of the mightiness of water, but it belongs to God and does his bidding. Even when the waters are not actively hostile, they are mysterious and potentially dangerous. This is a very sensible attitude for any person to have. Water should be taken seriously. This is another fear that begets wisdom, like the fear of the Lord. The very power of water shows how great God must be to rule it (Ps 64/65).

Fishermen, but not ocean-going

The Israelites were not a sea-going nation, despite having a coast. The Red Sea is an idea full of menace, regularly cited as the example of how God can weaponise water (Pss 65/66, 76/77, 77/78, 105/106), but mostly their experience of water is on a smaller scale : lakes, rivers, springs. They go out to fish on lakes, but the ‘men who go to the seas in ships’ are only referred to once in the Psalms, and then in a sort of head-shaking way, as the psalmist prays for their safe return or arrival at a harbour. This is in Psalm 106/107, where these sailors are the third category of people who need God to rescue them, for no one else will be able to do so. And the sea is full of monsters, remember, which God made to play with (Ps 103/104). Leviathan as God’s rubber duck. How mighty are your works, O Lord. What God is great as our God? (Ps 76/77)

drowning people underwater — the perils of the deep

Water, water everywhere

Water’s presence in real life (or, conversely, its absence in time of need) is another reason why it occurs so often in the Bible. Our need for God is similarly elemental, but can be similarly complicated. The Old Testament God can be fierce and terrible. He can be destructive; indeed, the psalmist prays for God to destroy God’s own enemies and the psalmist’s as well (sometimes, the other way around), just to keep things tidy; positive collateral damage. The great flood means death to almost everyone; but Noah and his family are saved by God.

Generous rain (Ps 67/68) : moving towards metaphor

Another aspect of water which makes it a good image for God is its potential to create growth. This comes up repeatedly in the psalms with a variety of adjectives (dry, weary, parched, thirsty, shrivelled, scorched) applied to not just the land, but men’s hearts, even their bodies (Ps 62/63). God provides the water, and everything bursts into growth; You provide for the earth:/ you drench its furrows; /you level it, soften it with showers (Ps 64/65 ). Water is always dynamic in the psalms; it makes things happen, starts life, makes trees grow and flourish. Death is a return to dust (Ps 103/104), the removal of water.

Seascape at night, storm — God is never far away

God +water = life

This is one reason why it is seen as God’s own element. From the beginning of creation in Genesis 1, God plus water equals life. Water is the source and also the means of creation (you can’t mould dry clay; when Jesus needs to make dry earth potent for healing, he spits on it, John 9). In the early days of salvation history, God is often encountered near a water source. Hagar meets him at a well when she is thrown out by Sarah (Gen. 16) and then again when she and Ishmael are cast out definitively (Gen. 21). She and Ishmael have run out of food and water and have lain down to die, when ‘God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water; and she went and filled the skin bottle with water and gave the boy a drink’ (v.19, out of the New World Translation, because it’s the most literal and prosaic version that I have). God, water, salvation, and a woman’s agency : a grouping we will see again.

Real water in the Psalms is a positive thing….

God’s total control over the (real) waters means that they are usually described either in a neutral or positive way. To be negative about the Great River, or the seas, or the waves, would be disrespectful to God as their Creator. Water in this sense can be dark and mysterious, and the scale is huge, but it’s not ever actually hostile itself in the Psalms. God keeps the waves of the sea in a flask (Ps 33), he rules its raging (Ps 88/89). To him belongs the sea, for he made it (Pss 94/95, 145/146), he does wonders in the deep (Ps 106/107), he can turn a rock into a pool, a flint into a spring (Pss 106/107, 113/114), and the sea into dry land (Ps 65/66, 73/74, 76/77, 77/78, 135/136).

Pharoah's horses in the Red Sea — Very easy to get bogged down

..but be careful if it’s figurative

The negative aspect is much stronger with the figurative waters. The underworld of the Old Testament tends to be cold and watery rather than the fiery hot hell of the New Testament.

Sea monster in waves — Darkness, billows and monsters

The psalmist sees obliteration in terms of hostile waters : the waves of death (Ps 17/18), the torrents of destruction (Pss 17/18, 41/42), and a recurring image, like a bad dream, is of being in a muddy pit (or well?) with no way out, nothing to set foot on, and with the waters rising (Ps 68/69, 87/88, 123/124, and 129/130, ‘Out of the depths’). He calls to God to draw him ‘out from the mighty waters’ (Ps 143/144), and then sings him a song of praise when he does so. There are many references to (figurative) sinking, to drying up, to being parched, drinking one’s own tears. There are a couple of particularly arresting images, one where the psalmist describes himself as ‘like a wineskin shrivelled by smoke’ (Ps 118/119), and another where the wicked man is described thus : He put on cursing like his coat;/ let it soak into his body like water (Ps 108/109). I’m not sure whether that second line is a curse upon the man or a description of what he did, but either way it’s like something from a horror film.

Some positive images

Of course there are positive images as well (Your justice is like the deep, Ps 35/36), particularly for rain, which you might expect in a hot country where water can go short. Rain is life-giving and crop-giving, called ‘generous’ (Ps 67/68), and an image of gentle beauty in Ps 71/72, where the king’s son is described as descending ‘like rain on the meadow,/ like raindrops on the earth’, welcome as only rain in a desert country can be. The food provided for the starving escaped Israelites, manna and quails, is described as ‘raining’ down (Ps 77/78). Mostly, the positive images of water tend to be linked to the sheer size of God. The sea can thunder praise, the rivers clap their hands (Pss 95/96, 97/98), or it can flee from God’s actions and the river reverse its course (Ps 113/114), but the point is that these huge natural things, powerful as they are compared to a human, have no power comparable to God’s. Moab is merely his washbowl (Pss 59/60 and 106/107); water is under his control for his own use.

New Testament water slightly different

In the New Testament, water is again one of the most significant images, but I cannot think of a single instance where Jesus uses it negatively (someone will e-mail me, I’m quite sure!). For him, it is living water, the water of life, welling up to eternity.

plenty of peril, but a serene Jesus (Peter Hackett)

He is baptised by immersion in the Jordan; he turns water into wine at the wedding in Cana; he washes his disciples’ feet (and has his own washed with tears earlier). He accompanies the fishing apostles in their boat, he hitches lifts across the Sea of Galilee, he walks on the water. He shows no sign of fear at any point. When he is in the apostles’ boat and a storm blows up, he is fast asleep on a cushion (Mk 4), but when the frightened apostles wake him, he quells the storm with a word. This is what God can do.

Still or sparkling

One of the things I particularly like about the water in the psalms is how carefully the psalmists distinguish between different sorts : seas, lakes, rivers and springs. They all have separate characteristics. When I set the words to a tune, I try to remember which sort of water we are talking about. The past master at this is Handel, and some of his best work here is in the oratorio Israel in Egypt, which gives him wonderful opportunities. He sets music to represent hail as one of the Plagues. The waters of the Red Sea stand upright as an heap; and Pharaoh’s horses and soldiers sink and perish under the torrents of its return. Obviously I can’t do anything like this, but I do like to try and make the water show either in the melody or accompaniment. It’s not just the psalms, either; we are lucky to have the Isaiah 12 Canticle among the Easter music, with its wells of salvation, and I have tried (according to the Response translation) to emphasize either hauling the water from the wells or hearing it ripple up freely from the springs.

Peaceful holy well — St Brannoc’s holy well/spring

Welling up to eternal life

Springs are always special, because they are mysterious but unthreatening. Holy wells are often little springs that have been turned into places of pilgrimage, from Bible times (Abraham’s wanderings are marked by wells and springs), through early history (St Non’s in Pembrokeshire, near St Davids) until quite recently (Lourdes). Springs are places of hope. The water in the spring quenches thirst but is itself unquenchable. This is Jesus’ great image for his message, the Good News he came to give. Instead of the hard work of hauling up the water, a spring just ripples out. As [God’s people] go through the Bitter Valley [or place of weeping], they make it a place of springs. The autumn rain covers it with blessings (Ps. 83/84).

Deja vu

This week’s readings are all about water. (These are the readings we use for the First Scrutiny of those planning to be baptised at Easter, so they can be used even in other years of the liturgical cycle.) The Old Testament reading is from Exodus, and shows the escaped Israelites desperate for water, which Moses supplies when God tells him where to strike the rock. The psalm commemorates this event. St Paul explains how God’s love has been ‘poured’ into our hearts. And the Gospel is Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well, a fascinating encounter that I have written about before, as she is a rare female voice in the Gospels.

Sir, give me some of that water

God arrives at a watering place. He speaks to a woman. She believes him, and her life takes a new direction. We have indeed seen this before. She also spreads the blessing she has received; once a spring starts to well up, it is hard to stop it. This unnamed woman turns out to be one of the most effective evangelists.

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The fear of the Lord (and other sorts too)

Fear, awe (-> wisdom), terror, panic

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9. 10, and Psalm 110/111), but one of the things God says most often to people when he appears (in both Testaments of the Bible) is ‘Do not be afraid’, ‘Fear not’.

Seismic shift (Michelangelo, of course, conversion of St Paul)

We can see immediately that fear is a sensible reaction to something as huge, powerful and mysterious as God. ‘It is a fearful/fearsome/terrible/terrifying/dreadful/awesome [and other; choose your translation] thing, to fall into the hands of the living God’ (Hebrews 10.31), as St Paul tells us, having done precisely that thing. Pascal memorably evokes the same fear, but roots it in scale : ‘Le silence eternel de ces espaces infinis m’effraie’ (Pensees fragment 201).

Be wise, but don’t be afraid

But God doesn’t want us to be afraid. In Paradise garden, Adam is not frightened to encounter God until after he has sinned, when he hides. God calls him out of his hiding place so that he can talk to him. After the Fall, God usually sends messengers (angels) to talk to people, or he entrusts his words to the prophets. When he deals with the Israelites, he is careful not to alarm them, he disguises himself (clouds, pillars of fire, burning bushes, still small voice) and arranges meetings with Moses so that everyone else can stay away at the bottom of the mountain and not feel at risk. We will need to be in our glorified bodies before we can cope with the sight of God face to face.

Fear to keep you safe

God does not want us to be afraid because fear either paralyses human action or leads to bad choices for action. It is why bullied people often turn into bullies themselves. In the New Testament, Jesus and any angels very often begin with ‘Do not be afraid’. This is because they usually want people to do something or listen to something, rather than being totally overtaken by fear. Fear is not useful except to protect us from immediate danger.

So why does the Bible tell us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (repeatedly)? Does it just mean ‘respect’ or ‘awe’? I have heard that argued, but I think it’s too easy an answer. There is real fear in many good people’s attitude to God, especially in the Old Testament. It is one of the things which Jesus came to alter, but I think George Macdonald makes a very good point : ‘Until a man has love, it is well he should have fear. So long as there are wild beasts about, it is better to be afraid than secure’ (quoted in George Macdonald, an Anthology by C.S.Lewis, p 123). Lewis himself describes this function of Fear in the spiritual life as ‘low and primitive, yet often indispensable’ (Preface, ibid., p.20). In the hymn Amazing Grace, John Newton (whose own life is also amazing, if you click on the link) shows the same sequencing :”Twas Grace that taught my heart to fear,/ And Grace my fears relieved’ (second verse).

Feel the fear

Obviously there are different sorts of fear. There is fear of the known and fear of the unknown (and the combination is possibly the worst). There is sensible fear (a burnt child fears the fire), which we try to pass on to our children because it keeps them safer crossing roads etc, – and blind panic, which is not helpful. There’s a wonderful, if long, poem by Francis Thompson called The Hound of Heaven, where the poet chronicles his headlong flight from a pursuing God ‘down the nights and down the days’. There’s real power and menace in the chase, reinforced by a pounding rhythm, and he flees ‘across the margent of the world’, trying every different safe place he can imagine, every possible ally, but nothing works. Eventually he literally runs out of road; God runs him to ground like a cornered fox, and he cannot escape : ‘I am defenceless utterly’. Then of course he discovers that the dreaded pursuer is Love itself. It’s totally over the top and gorgeously excessive, full of classic pre-Raphaelite imagery and I love it dearly. I must have read it at exactly the right age, so now I have it forever. Here’s a link to a recording of Richard Burton reading it.

Justified fear of the wicked, lack of fear for the justified

The fear of the Lord in the Psalms covers most of the different sorts of fear. The wicked man fears God for entirely prudent and sensible reasons : he fears retribution for his evil deeds, he fears God’s righteous anger. But the psalmist himself is rarely afraid of God, because his conscience is clear. He enjoys thinking of how terrifying God is for his enemies, because he is so confident that God is on his side. Of course the psalmist expresses other fears – of his enemies, of sickness, of disaster, of plots to undermine him ( I have not put references because this is such a common thread in the psalms); but nearly always, he knows that he and God are a team, so his fear is contingent not existential.

Job surrounded by fierce animals — things can get tough

Fear a natural part of the human condition

It is strangely comforting that the psalmist does not pretend that there is nothing to be scared of. In many ways, fear has always been people’s natural condition, as there are so many dangers to our fragile selves which we cannot control. There are natural perils everywhere in the psalms, earthquakes, storms, floods, drought, war and pestilence, all of which we still have to deal with today.

The psalmist worries about dangers from wild animals, which at least I don’t usually have to worry about so much, and there are huge possible dangers from other people, which I cannot imagine we will ever not have to worry about. The psalmist’s enemies dig traps for him, they inform against him, they use weapons against him. The fear is real and justified. When Jesus talks about not being afraid, he does it as someone who is going to be betrayed, tortured and killed, and could see it coming towards him; when Paul talks about it, he is talking in a time of terrible persecution (Nero and human torches, martyrs in the Colosseum etc., plus the shipwrecks and the beatings-up). The threats are real, which means that the reaction and the confidence also have to be : ‘yet in all this, we are more than conquerors’ (Romans 8.37).

terrible things can happen to good people

Fear of the Lord when the wicked is myself

The exception to the confident tone of the psalmist is the penitential psalms, where he has to recognise that he has not been on the same side as God. He makes no excuses, he admits his fault and asks for forgiveness. Some of the seven penitential psalms move on to the next stage, where he thanks God and praises him (e.g. Ps 31/32); some keep him in the position of a supplicant for the entirety of the psalm (Pss 37/38, 50/51, 129/130). And the psalmist asserts always that God is the just judge, the Law-giver who cannot be bribed or deceived. This is a fearful position to be in, and the psalmist can only admit his fault and throw himself on God’s mercy, in which he has total faith.

Modern plagues and scourges

I have been thinking a lot about fear recently as the coronavirus spreads across an increasing number of cases and countries. Historically it’s fascinating and really helps us to understand the human reaction to sickness and epidemic in past centuries. No-one nowadays can personally remember the Spanish flu epidemic, and there has been nothing like it in Europe since. With modern vaccines and medical progress, I can now protect my own children even from some of the illnesses which I had as a child (measles, mumps, chicken pox). We forget what it is like to feel helpless and vulnerable, we read Victorian novels and are amazed at how often people used to die from illnesses which we can now shrug off. But for so many people in different parts of the world, that fear and vulnerability is still the norm, and we are all learning to recognise it.

Psalm 90/91 is very comforting in these circumstances, because it names what we are afraid of in terms : You will not fear the terror of the night,/ nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the plague that prowls in the darkness nor the scourge that lays waste at noon. […] Upon you no evil shall fall,/ no plague approach where you dwell (vv5-6, 10). The psalmist is exact in his understanding of fear. It can come from afar off, or creep up on you where you least expect it, in your own dwelling.

Not just a good-time religion

Of course bad things happen all the time, and they happen to good people; but the message of the psalms is that whatever happens, God knows about it and he is on your side, however hard it may feel to believe it. The psalmist explains that we have to do everything that God has asked of us and then trust him for all the rest. Encouragingly, he also recognises that this is not easy, and he harangues God to get a move on and save him from whatever danger he is in, reminding him that unless he hurries to help, the psalmist is doomed, and dead people won’t be able to praise him : ‘Save me[…]for in death no-one remembers you,/from the grave, who can give you praise? ‘(Ps 6), ‘Will you work your wonders for the dead?/ Will the shades stand and praise you?’ (Ps 87/88). God’s punishments are always righteous, but these are the moments when the psalmist clearly feels that he is making a strong point which God must answer.

Comfort and reassurance

There is a lot of reassurance in the Psalms. They celebrate not only joyful moments of victory, but also peace and tranquillity, by the restful waters in Ps 22/23 or like the child on its mother’s lap in Ps 130/131. Confidence and hope are the underlying bass notes which keep recurring. ‘The Lord was my support. […]He saved me because he loved me‘ (Ps 17/18). However much fear we may be feeling, we have something else to hold on to. The psalmist encourages us to keep calling out, and never to despair. Repeatedly he tells the stories of past crises and disasters, because the Lord has always come to the rescue in the end. With him we actively wait for the Lord. Psalm 26/27 is a great one for this. The Lord is my light and my help;/ whom shall I fear? […] Though an army encamp against me/ my heart would not fear. […] I will sing and make music for the Lord. (always a good idea, very good for morale as well, and can remind us about the advice on handwashing) [….] Hope in him, hold firm and take heart. The fear of the Lord may be the beginning of wisdom; but we don’t need to fear anything else.