FOR THE DIRECTOR of music. With stringed instruments. A psalm of David.
1Answer me when I call to you,
O my righteous God.
Give me relief from my distress;
be merciful to me and hear my prayer.
2How long, O men, will you turn my glory into shame?
How long will you love delusions and seek false gods?
Selah
3Know that the LORD has set apart the godly for himself;
the LORD will hear when I call to him.
4In your anger do not sin;
when you are on your beds,
search your hearts and be silent.
Selah
5Offer right sacrifices
and trust in the LORD.
6Many are asking, “Who can show us any good?”
Let the light of your face shine upon us, O LORD.
7You have filled my heart with greater joy
than when their grain and new wine abound.
8I will lie down and sleep in peace,
for you alone, O LORD,
make me dwell in safety.
Original Meaning
THIS PSALM IS an individual lament (or perhaps better a plea for deliverance) like Psalm 3. The context of Psalm 4, however, is quite distinct from the personal attack that dominated the previous psalm. Here the motivating circumstance seems to be failure of crops as the result of some natural calamity—perhaps drought. Such distress, as frequently occurred in ancient Israel, raised questions about Yahweh’s ability to provide agriculturally for his people and drove many into the arms of the foreign gods with their claims of prowess in agricultural (and human) fertility. The psalmist rejects the fertility deities as false gods, counsels his people to remain confident in Yahweh, and appeals to Yahweh to demonstrate his good intent to his people by providing for their needs.
The Heading (4:0)
SEVERAL NEW TERMS appear in the heading of Psalm 4. The first word (Heb. lamenaṣṣeaḥ) appears to be a participle that refers to some liturgical officiant, here translated as “For the director of music.”1 The verbal form of this same root is used in Ezra and 1 Chronicles to describe the task given to some to provide supervision over various aspects of building the temple. In 2 Chronicles, the plural participle form menaṣṣeḥim (“supervisors”) occurs in the context of temple building as well. By contrast, the LXX of the psalm headings consistently renders the term “for ever” (eis to telos), apparently taking the word from a related noun form (Heb. neṣaḥ) that emphasizes endurance. However, the appearance of the term in 1 Chronicles 15:21 alongside other phrases related to psalm headings2 and in a context supporting the normal meaning of the term in the Chronicler’s work (“to supervise”) seems sufficient to settle the matter. Just who this director was and precisely what role he had are no longer clear. Suffice it to say it denotes some organized supervision of the musical component of temple worship.
The second new term is the Hebrew binginot (“with stringed instruments”). The general category of musical instruments associated with binginot probably included the more specific nebalim (“lyres”) and kinnorot (“harps”) mentioned elsewhere.
Once again the psalm is considered Davidic, although no attempt is made in the heading to associate this composition with a particular circumstance in his life (as was the case in Ps. 3). The psalm is another more generally realized plea for deliverance that is easily adapted to a variety of concerns and settings. It is divided into three segments by the appearance of selah at the end of the first two sections. The divisions thus produced (vv. 1–2; vv. 3–4; vv. 5–8) correspond (with one exception) to the more thematic division of the text. The thematic division between the second and third sections seems to come at the end of verse 5—after the string of imperatives directed to the psalmist’s opponents (“know . . . do not sin . . . search . . . be silent . . . offer . . . trust”)—rather than with the selah at the end of verse 4. The three thematic sections are: invocation and critique (vv. 1–2), wise counsel (vv. 3–5), and expression of confidence (vv. 6–8).
Invocation and Critique (4:1–2)
ANSWER ME. The opening section of Psalm 4 is divided into a plea directed to Yahweh (v. 1) and a rebuke directed to the psalmist’s own people (v. 2). The initial plea (“Answer me when I call to you”) recalls the similar expression of confidence in 3:4. Here, however, the phrase functions more as a direct plea for divine response than a confident recollection of past deliverance. The psalmist sincerely wants relief from distress.
O my righteous God. This phrase is more literally translated “O God of my righteousness,” and it assumes a legal setting where God is the judge who assesses circumstances and renders a verdict regarding the actions of the parties in relation to what is expected. A verdict of ṣedeq (“righteous”) implies that the party so named has fulfilled appropriately the demands of rightness. Thus, in the psalmist’s case, God is viewed as already having rendered a pronouncement in the psalmist’s favor. Thus, the righteousness in this verse should be connected to the psalmist, not to God. In a sense the psalmist is saying: “O God, who knows and has proclaimed my righteousness, answer me when I call.”
Give me relief from my distress. The psalmist describes his distress as restriction, being closed in, and he understands the desired relief in terms of expansive room. The Hebrew text for the latter (“give room”) is a perfect verbal form in contrast to the imperatives that precede and follow it (“answer me . . . be merciful . . . and hear”). Some translations resolve the conflict by accommodating the perfect to the imperatives—as in the NIV: “Give me relief.” Others retain the perfect and understand the phrase as parenthetical expression of the psalmist’s recollection of past deliverance.3 The latter option has the benefit of remaining faithful to the underlying Hebrew, although the meaning of the psalm is little affected regardless of which translation is chosen. Here it is not so much the surrounding of foes as it is the press of circumstances that causes the psalmist to feel hemmed in and restricted.
Be merciful to me. The Hebrew word translated “be merciful to me” is better rendered “be gracious to me.” This is, perhaps, a subtle distinction, but this word carries the sense of generous provision. In some instances the thing provided is actually stated, as the children Yahweh graciously provided Jacob in Genesis 33:5. The participial form is used to mean “one who gives generously; generous person” (cf. Ps. 37:21, 26). While in a sense the psalmist does desire mercy from Yahweh, the use of that term in this context obscures the fact that what the psalmist seeks involves Yahweh’s generous giving of something he needs—in this case, probably both divine attention to his cry and agricultural relief of the pressing drought.
Hear my prayer. The imperative “Hear!” (šemaʿ ) is regularly used as a call to attention. It means something like my old football coach’s call, “Listen up, men!” It is the opening word of the traditional call to worship of the Jewish faith and provides the title by which it is known—the Shema: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one” (Deut. 6:4). It is more than just a call to hear; it is also a call to respond in obedience. While this expression may seem a little presumptuous to use in addressing God, the psalmist is surely aware that Yahweh is free to act or not to act as he pleases. But in the midst of distress, the psalmist approaches God in no uncertain terms. The niceties of prerogatives and rank are set aside, and the psalmist approaches Yahweh directly, demanding his active response.
My prayer. As might be expected, the word for “prayer” (tepillah) occurs some thirty-two times in the Psalter. It appears in the psalm headings as the defining term of five psalms4 and is often combined, as here, with verbs calling God to listen to or pay close attention to the speaker’s plight.5 In later times, prayer became a more regularized and formalized practice with a daily series of set prayers initiated by the Shema and involving the binding of small packets of Scripture verses called tefillin (from the same Heb. root as tepillah) between the eyes and on the arm in obedience to Deuteronomy 6:8 and 11:18. The prayer in Psalm 4, however, is more likely a special prayer directed specifically to the psalmist’s current distress.
O men. The psalmist’s concern now shifts from invoking the attention and gracious response of God to a critique of the sinful humans to whom the cause of the current distress may be traced. If this psalm is envisioned as presented in temple worship in the midst of a national crisis brought on by failure of crops because of drought, who might the adversaries described be? While the NIV takes the underlying Hebrew (beneʾiš) in its most general sense (“O men”), there is considerable evidence that here the phrase refers to those of elevated social rank and position in contrast to those of more humble station (bene ʾadam; lit., “sons of a human”; cf. Ps. 62:9, where both terms are used in contrast to one another). It is these bene ʾiš—that is, influential members of society—that the psalmist critiques in 4:2, since they are the ones who wield the power to affect the nature of communal life that the bene ʾadam must simply accept or endure.
How long? A number of Hebrew phrases are translated in English as “How long?”6 Most express the plaintive plea of the oppressed to God for deliverance from trouble. As normally used, these phrases express the speaker’s dismay over God’s continued delay in bringing deliverance and have the tone of chiding God and prodding him to action. The use of the phrase “How long?” in Psalm 4:2 runs counter to this normal usage. Outside this verse, when this phrase is used in the Psalms,7 the question is always directed to God, protesting a delay in his action in behalf of the speaker. In the context of the preceding imperatives invoking Yahweh’s aid, the reader/hearer might anticipate a similar movement here. Instead, the psalmist’s word turns to question and condemns those who shame God by seeking “false gods.”
My glory. According to the psalmist, the bene ʾiš are responsible for bringing “shame” on “my glory.” There are two ways commentators have understood “my glory” in this text. Following the understanding outlined in response to the appearance of the term in Psalm 3:3, many have taken the reference here as a similar reference to human dignity or reputation. In this view the bene ʾiš have attacked the psalmist’s dignity and reputation, and it is this attack from which the psalmist seeks deliverance.
Others, however, take “my glory” in 4:2 to refer to the psalmist’s God, Yahweh. If this is the case, then the psalmist is not addressing a personal attack but the shame and reproach brought to the glory of Yahweh. How one understands “my glory,” then, influences how one interprets the psalmist’s critique of the bene ʾiš in the following phrases.
Delusions and . . . false gods. The adversaries are said to bring reproach upon “my glory” when they “love delusions and seek false gods.” Actually, the Hebrew is more ambiguous than NIV would suggest, especially in regards to the second of these two phrases. “Delusions” is a translation of the Hebrew riq, which describes what is “empty” (such as a jar in Jer. 51:34) or done “to no profit.”8 While the term is nowhere outside this verse used to refer to false worship, it is an apt description of “empty, profitless” dependence on false deities who cannot save.
The second Hebrew phrase describing the failure of the bene ʾiš is (lit.) “you seek after a lie.” On the surface, this might be taken to indicate the opponents’ predilection for falsehood, as some translations and commentators do. However, to “seek a lie” seems an awkward way to express “take refuge in slander.”9 Elsewhere in the Old Testament, humans are said to “speak” lies, never to “seek” them. Perhaps, then, this alternate construction deserves an alternate interpretation. To this end, it is important to realize that although the verb bqš (“seek”) is regularly used for the common action of looking for a person or a lost item,10 it can also be used in a more technical, religious sense to mean “seek divine assistance” or “enquire counsel of a deity” (often through prayer).11 Couple this technical use of bqš with the fact that Amos uses kazab (“lie”) as a disparaging reference to false/foreign gods,12 and the NIV translation “seek false gods” presents an attractive possibility.
Such an interpretation suggests that the psalmist’s opponents are condemned not because they have attacked the psalmist’s reputation and honor, but because they have offended the glory of Yahweh when they sought relief from their agricultural problems by appealing for deliverance to false gods. In this case, the “lie” refers to pagan fertility deities who (falsely, in the psalmist’s view) claimed power over the agricultural seasons as well as the productivity of crops, animals, and humans.
This latter translation and understanding have the added benefit of making better sense of the “right sacrifices” mentioned in verse 5 and the reference to “their grain and new wine” in verse 7. I will return to those issues in their proper place. Selah concludes the first major section of this psalm (see comments on 3:2).
Wise Counsel (4:3–5)
HAVING CONDEMNED THE opponents for seeking a solution to their difficulties by worshiping false gods, the psalmist now offers sage counsel for appropriate response in the circumstances. It seems clear that the psalmist assumes the opponents are within the covenant community of Israel when he advises them to “offer right sacrifices and trust in the LORD” (4:5). This makes their defection to the fertility gods even more offensive to the psalmist: In their desperation and fear, they have broken the covenant—sacrificed the very foundational relationship with Yahweh alone that set Israel apart from the pagan nations. The psalmist offers the opponents three pieces of advice—each characterized by imperatives and each composed of two balancing phrases.
1. God responds to the faithful (4:3). The psalmist begins the response in verse 3 by calling the wayward opponents to a new (or renewed) understanding of Yahweh’s special relationship with those who remain faithful to him alone.
Know that the LORD. The psalmist tells the opponents what they should have known all along. The Hebrew word used in this imperative “know” (ydʿ ) is not simply intellectual knowledge about something or someone. It has an experiential edge sharpened through relationship.
Perhaps such knowledge is akin to comparing the knowledge one has of a spouse before the wedding and after thirty years of a marriage relationship. At the time of the writing of this psalm, Israel has been the covenant people of Yahweh for several centuries. That relationship implies growing knowledge through experience. The bene ʾiš, the psalmist says, should have known from their relationship with Yahweh what he expected of them in this circumstance. With this initial imperative, the psalmist challenges the opponents to reflect and acknowledge how their actions have taken them away from their covenant relationship with Yahweh alone.
The LORD has set apart . . . for himself. “Set apart” (plh) has the sense of “make a distinction between, deal differently with.”13 In the covenant, God has taken upon himself a special relationship with Israel. Throughout the Old Testament Israel confesses that Yahweh treats them in ways unlike the “nations”—those other peoples not bound to Yahweh through the covenant relationship. The distinctive nature of this covenant is that Israel experiences the presence of Yahweh among them. In Exodus 33:16, Moses pleads with Yahweh not to remove his presence from him and the people, for without Yahweh’s presence, “What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”
The godly. The NIV of the Hebrew word underlying “godly” obscures somewhat the covenant context of the psalmist’s concern. The term ḥasid does not mean simply “godly,” although it certainly carries those overtones. A ḥasid is one who practices ḥesed, and ḥesed is fulfilling one’s obligation to a relationship established—either formally or informally—by covenant. Family relationships, community responsibilities, covenant with Yahweh—all carried their obligations of loyalty and faithfulness. It is this loyalty and faithfulness to Israel’s covenant with Yahweh that the psalmist has in view here. It is this ḥesed that the bene ʾiš have failed to maintain when they turned for aid to the false gods of fertility.
The LORD will hear when I call. The psalmist goes on to cast his own lot with those who remain true to Yahweh alone. The confidence expressed here grows out of his assurance of the special relationship provided by covenant with God. Because of the distinctive relationship that Yahweh maintains with those who are faithful, the psalmist is certain—as the bene ʾiš cannot be—that Yahweh will respond.
2. Cultivate a proper attitude of humility. Having laid the foundation of covenant loyalty and expectant trust in Yahweh, the psalmist now cautions the opponents to consider how their breach of relationship places them and their community in jeopardy. He calls them to assume an attitude of humility and to take action to restore proper relationship with God.
In your anger do not sin. The more straightforward translation of the imperative of the Hebrew verb rgz is “tremble” (the NIV translates this as a prepositional phrase, “in your anger”). The majority of times this word appears in the Old Testament it means “to shake, tremble,” usually in response to some fearful stimulus. The earth shakes with an earthquake or at the awesome presence of Yahweh. Humans also acknowledge their vulnerability in the presence of almighty God by trembling. The word captures a sense of instability. Only occasionally is this word interpreted as “rage, be angry”—assuming that trembling is a demonstration of tightly controlled rage.14
Commentators who understand the psalmist’s plea to be for relief from the false accusations of the opponents usually interpret rgz as evidence of their malevolent anger and hostility toward the psalmist. The phrase “Be angry, but do not sin” is then understood as a caution for the opponents to curb their rage and leave the psalmist in peace.
If, however, the context is (as I have suggested above) the faithless response of the opponents to pursue false gods, then this caution flows naturally out of the psalmist’s preceding acknowledgment of the special relationship that exists between Yahweh and those who remain faithful to him. The admonishment in this latter case is both a carrot and a stick—a promise and a warning—since Yahweh promises to keep those who trust him but metes out just punishment on covenant-breakers. The psalmist is then calling the opponents to acknowledge how their rebellion has placed them in an untenable position before Yahweh—a position in which they should wisely “tremble” and be careful not to repeat their sinful acts.
A number of interpreters rearrange the words in this verse—primarily to restore poetic balance and parallel structure. The usual approach results in the following rendition: “Speak to your heart and do not sin, tremble on your bed and remain silent.” This creates a twice-repeated presentation of command—prepositional phrase—command. While the symmetry is appealing, there is no textual evidence for this arrangement, and the resultant meaning is little affected. The NIV has wisely chosen to remain with the established text.
Search your hearts. This is an idiomatic translation of the Hebrew (lit., “speak in your heart”). The psalmist tells his opponents to carry on an inward deliberation in light of his admonition. The heart here is not the seat of the emotions, as we most normally consider it. Rather, the heart is the center of reflective thinking and consideration of one’s true desires. It is in the heart that one plans and deliberates. The deliberations of the heart can be either good or evil, wise or foolish.15 The New Testament demonstrates a similar understanding of the heart as the seat of good or evil deliberation when it records Jesus’ saying: “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45).
On your beds. The bed is often pictured as the place where reflection and meditation is done and plots are hatched. In Micah 2:1, the wicked are described as lying awake at night hatching evil plans that they hasten to put into action in the morning. A similar picture is presented in Psalm 36:4, where the wicked plots evil on his bed and “commits himself to a sinful course.” The implication seems to be that even sleep offers no relief from the evil created by the wicked—the wicked are simply using the time to lay plans for tomorrow’s misdeeds.
Here, however, the psalmist counsels these opponents of his to utilize their time to reflect deeply on their actions and their potential consequences in light of the picture of Yahweh as covenant God of the faithful. Rather than new plans for rebellion, such reflection will result rather in trembling and fearful silence.
Offer right sacrifices. The psalmist concludes the admonition of the bene ʾiš with encouragement to set their original wrong right with appropriate religious offerings to Yahweh. In view of the psalmist’s earlier description of Yahweh as “God of my righteousness” (v. 1), the “right [ṣedeq, right/righteous] sacrifices” required of the opponents are to be understood as acknowledgments of “the justice proceeding from Yahweh”16—the reaffirmation of covenant obligations to God. In contrast to their earlier seeking after false gods, the opponents ought instead to acknowledge the rightful claims of the covenant God, Yahweh, by making appropriate sacrifices to him.
Trust in the LORD. It is not enough to make ritual acknowledgment of the rightness of God’s claims against his faithless people or to reaffirm through a sacrifice the covenantal relationship that exists between the people and Yahweh. Here the psalmist calls the faithless bene ʾiš to the sort of stance they should have assumed from the first—the stance the psalmist has taken all along. To put actual flesh on the bones of their sacrifices, the opponents must place their trust and hope for deliverance on Yahweh himself alone. With this admonition the second portion of the psalm comes to an end.
Expression of Confidence (4:6–8)
THE FINAL SEGMENT of the psalm turns from critique and counsel of the opponents to the psalmist’s own affirmation of confident joy in the provision of Yahweh. He introduces this concluding affirmation of trust with the contrasting uncertainty of those who wonder, “Who can show us any good?” This question reveals a rather crass pragmatism that led at the beginning of this psalm to the callous disregard of covenant obligations and the pursuit of false hopes among the fertility deities. The “who” of this sentence clearly refers to the multiple gods and goddesses of the pagan pantheon—here viewed as a sort of competitive services register from which consumers are free to choose the best deal. Personal benefit and profit become the key to religious alliance and practice. “Which deity will provide me with what I need? That is whom I will serve.” In contrast, the psalmist, even in the face of uncertainty, trusts in the steadfast love of Yahweh—a love that never ceases.
The light of your face. To see God’s face is to be in his presence. When he hides his face, he cloaks his presence, and humans experience the terrible limitations of their own meager power in the presence of life’s destructive possibilities. When God’s face shines (using the imagery of the life-giving sun), humans experience the benefit and joy that his presence brings. That is what the psalmist seeks as the antidote to the current darkness: the very realization of the presence of God.17
You have filled my heart with greater joy. Note how the psalmist uses to great effect the repetition of terms throughout this psalm.18 Here the heart of the psalmist is contrasted with the heart of the opponents. Whereas their hearts are filled with fear and rebellious plotting, the psalmist lays claim to a heart filled with joy from Yahweh that far exceeds any hope the opponents may have had for abundant grain and wine.
Their grain and new wine refer to the false hopes for release from drought or famine that have motivated the bene ʾiš to pursue the lies of the fertility deities. Even without the abundance promised by these lying gods, there is a joy in relationship with Yahweh that only the faithful can experience and understand.
I will lie down and sleep in peace. The psalmist’s confidence in Yahweh is demonstrated by the ability to lie down and go to sleep peacefully even in the face of difficulty. There is an emphasis (using yaḥad) on the psalmist’s capacity to lie down and to sleep at the same time. In contrast, the opponents are pictured lying wakefully and are counseled to use their time reflecting on their misdeeds (v. 4). The passage links this psalm back to Psalm 3, where a similar confidence is expressed in quite different circumstances (3:5).
For you alone, O LORD. The cause for the psalmist’s relaxation is clear: Yahweh is the source of his sense of security. The emphatic use of the Hebrew lebadad (“alone”) is intended to recall the opponents’ rebellious failure to acknowledge their special covenant relationship with Yahweh (vv. 2–3). Their pursuit of false gods is a direct rejection of the realization that the psalmist affirms here: Yahweh alone is the true source of safety and shalom. He alone makes the psalmist “dwell in safety.”
Bridging Contexts
MANY ASPECTS OF this psalm enable it to exceed the bounds of its historical and social context and allow it to offer continued guidance to us so many centuries later. I choose to discuss here three emphases that I find particularly striking and central to the psalm’s original meaning, and at the same time open interpretive windows into our own setting and time.
The danger of undue influence. The psalmist speaks in the earlier verses of this psalm of the bene ʾiš—the influential members of his society. It was these residents of the Israelite upper class—often wealthy, often descendants of the royal family, usually members of the ruling establishment—who set the tone and standards of Israelite life. They were the legal authorities responsible for the administration of justice. They were the guardians of culture and values. Through the priests they influenced the religious norms and practices of Israelite temple worship.
We know comparatively little about the popular religious practices of the common people—those who by the time of Jesus were known by the designation “people of the land.” We sometimes attribute the introduction of foreign fertility worship into Israel to the rather untutored confusion of these uneducated masses, who are depicted as worshiping alongside Canaanites at rural open-air shrines and thus failed to distinguish carefully between fertility worship of their neighbors and Yahweh’s demands for the exclusive loyalty of his people.
The psalmist, however, targets the influential members of society, not the common persons. These are people “in the know”; they influence and control society at the highest level. The psalmist accuses them of exercising misleading influence. The books of Samuel and Kings offer much confirmation for the psalmist’s view. It is the kings who were regularly condemned for their adoption of Canaanite religious practices and for leading the people astray. The prophets certainly agreed that Israel’s failure of commitment to her covenant with Yahweh could be traced to the highest levels of the ruling classes: kings, nobility, sages, and even priests.
The psalmist stands almost alone against the influential crowd, calling them to repentance and renewal. Rather than capitulating hopelessly to their overwhelming superiority of power and place, he offers a small but clear voice against the societal tide—a voice of commitment to the foundational covenant relationship with Yahweh. But rather than condemning and rejecting the power elite of the day, the psalmist’s critique of the bene ʾiš recalls them to first principles and values. He does not wish to dismiss or destroy those who have abused their power to lead the people astray but desires to see them restored to their properly focused position of leadership.
The lure of a pragmatic faith. The psalmist points in 4:6, when the many are described as asking “Who can show us any good?” to the seductive lure of a faith founded on pragmatism. The core of the opponents’ problem is that they understand religious worship and relationship with God to be a matter of personal benefit. The focus of faith for those so inclined has a pragmatic edge: What’s in it for me? Show me the personal benefit!
Once faith came to be understood primarily in terms of personal benefit, pragmatics dictated that the Israelites shop around for the best deal. If the Canaanite deities claimed power over fertility and agricultural productivity, give them the sacrifice they require. Very quickly faith and religious practice become the means of manipulating God (or the gods!) to fulfill my needs and desires. The foundational purposes of the covenant—to know Yahweh and to walk in his ways—gets lost in the rush for personal benefit.
It is this core mindset that the psalmist critiques here. The opponents are more concerned with ending the drought and restoring agricultural stability than with maintaining faith with the covenant, so that they ignore the demands of loyalty to Yahweh alone and run to the false gods for relief. Unlike Job, the psalmist’s opponents do not understand that Yahweh is God and worth holding on to even in the midst of trouble and strife. Job held on to Yahweh not because of the benefit he received—he lost everything!—but because Yahweh was God; faced with that reality, Job could do no other.
Knowledge of the presence of God. In verse 3, the psalmist challenges the opponents to acknowledge that Yahweh has established a special relationship with those who remain loyal to their covenant with him. As I mentioned earlier, the key benefit of the covenant for Israel was their continued experience of the gracious presence of Yahweh with them. It is to knowledge of this fact that the psalmist calls the opponents with the demand “Know that the LORD has set apart the godly for himself.” The opponents, in their pragmatic focus on self-benefit, have forgotten or ignored this foundational truth: Yahweh alone is their God, who is present with them even in the midst of trouble.
The Old Testament prophets also condemned the leaders of Israel for their lack of knowledge of God. The kind of knowledge of God that Hosea is after (cf. Hos. 2:20; 4:1, 6) is no intellectual understanding. It is rather a deep experiential knowledge that comes from continued intimate relationship with God. That is why the verb “know” (ydʿ ) is regularly used throughout the Old Testament to describe intimate sexual relations. To develop such intimate knowledge of God requires continued experience of his presence. It is to this hope for intimate knowledge of God in the heart that Jeremiah points when he records God’s declaration, “I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD” (Jer. 24:7; cf. 31:34, “They will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest”). For the psalmist, then, it is this kind of “heart knowledge” of Yahweh gained through continued experience of his presence that gives the lie to the opponents’ pragmatic attempt to manipulate the false gods for relief.
Contemporary Significance
THE PRESENCE OF GOD. This psalm is actually a call to “practicing the presence of God.” When Brother Lawrence wrote his small book with that title over a century ago, it offered the shockingly simple insight: that rather ordinary persons could experience God as present in the midst of the ordinary activities of their lives. The key to experiencing God is not withdrawal from ordinary life into the extraordinary life of prayer, meditation, and fasting offered by the monastery or convent. Rather, Brother Lawrence suggested, the key was to constantly place one’s mind and heart upon God in the midst of the ordinary and so to transform one’s common duties and activities into uncommon moments of prayer and communion with God. Knowing God, then, becomes an abiding conversation with the God who is always present and awaits only our acknowledgment of that presence through heartfelt communication with him.
Like the opponents in this psalm, we are often tempted to equate God’s presence in our lives with experiences of personal benefit—or, in some instances, with the experience of punishment for some personal sin. As a result, when we experience pain and trouble and can discover no sinful reason for the experience, or when life simply runs on with an almost interminable sameness, we sometimes conclude that God is distant, removed, and unknowable—that “he is not working for us.” Consequently we may feel free—sometimes almost driven—to discover what does work! Like the psalmist’s opponents, we may find ourselves seeking a lie. No, not the ancient pagan fertility deities that challenged Israel’s loyalty, but the things we hope will fill the void and end the pain. Money, power, sex, drugs, control, prestige, relationships are all things we turn to in order to provide a barrier against the droughts and famines of our lives.
What works for me. The strong and popular influences of our own society and time, such as the media, commercialism, politics, business, professional athletics, and even some forms of the church, have been caught up in this pragmatic focus on what works for me. We cannot avoid being bombarded through all our senses with the message that we are the center of our universe and that our purpose is to use any method available that promises the security and benefit we deserve. Too infrequently does God play any part in the pragmatic methodologies we use in our quest for personal benefit. When he does, there is often a manipulative edge to our approach. Like the psalmist’s opponents, our sacrifices often seek to bend God to our will. “You have promised,” we say, “therefore, you must.. . .”
By contrast, the ability to make the “right sacrifices” that the psalmist envisions grows from a right and intimate knowledge of the God to whom we offer our gifts. Taking our eyes off ourselves and our own benefit and placing our aim entirely on knowing God as he truly is and deserves to be known completely rewrite the equation of relationship with God so that personal benefit and pragmatism are no longer at the center of it.
Pain does not become pleasure, nor does hunger becomes satiety. God does not twist our world so that wrong becomes right. But with God at the center, there exists a rightness that is not obliterated by want or pain. It is not the kind of faith that rejoices in hurt, but a faith that faces the reality of pain with Job’s steady confidence: “Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him” (Job 13:15).