l Metaphors: V1: sheep of your pasture
(Psalm 23, reminds us of shepherd, king, deities. Taps into an existing
relationship and how that relationship will work. Sheep of your pasture and not
your slaughterhouse). V19: dove (powerlessness, helplessness prey, metaphor for
the people of God), wild beasts (the nations). V22: rise up oh God (on your
feet, you’re been sitting with your hands in your pockets, anthropomorphic
metaphor).
l Imageries: V1: anger smoke. V4: Foes
roared. V5: those who swing axes. V11: garment: fold of cloth, like hands in
his pocket. There’s a job to be done and God’s not working on it. V13-14: water
of chaos, cosmic battle imagery, splitting open, crushing, defeating. Why this
language? Because they have just been crushed. Taps into history as well as the
experience they are responding to. V16-17: Creation
imageries.
l Parallelism: V2: Congregation, Mt
Zion. Contrasting V3: Everlasting vs ruins. Advancing V2: nation vs purchase vs
inheritance vs Zion. V4. V7: lots of burning stuff happening. Pillar of smoke
from God’s anger.
l Repetitions: V2: Remember.
l Time is a problem here. In what
relation to those events is this poem? This is a sharp memory, sharp reality,
but a distant event.
l Progression: v4-7a there’s a dominant image, treating a beautiful
wooden building as a firewood. Lots of tree imagery in the temple. Treating
these previous wood as wood in the forest which you hack off to create fire.
l Different uses of words: V1, 10, 11, what are these words doing? They’re
questioning. Rhetorical questions in one sense (doesn’t require an answer), but
not really because they require protection, an action, not an explanation.
Asking a question of God in order to elicit a response from God.
l 2nd person verb forms: all asking God to do something. 1st
half: describing what the enemies have done. 2nd person finite:
describing something God has done.
l At the end: Direct, unapologetic, forceful petition. 13-17: perfect
verbs. Then 18-23 a series of imperatives (either positive or negative).
l Ideas:
n Absence/inaction.
n Destruction of people and place.
n Covenant, election, salvation.
n Victory. Kings conquer enemies in order to establish a safe and
stable environment for their people.
n Creation: God’s power and sovereignty. V12 especially. Demonstration
of Yahweh’s sovereign rule. V13-15. V14 leviathan: God’s rule over cosmic
order. Starts ambiguous between creation and redemption. Ends with creation. All
turns to dust, but creation still stands.
l Where it starts, where it finishes: Lamenting at what we have lost. It
starts with the people and ends with God’s own name/God’s reputation, for a
rhetorical purpose. People getting together for the inaction of God. Concern
about how the enemies have mocked God.
l Setting after 587BC, but before the temple’s rebuilt (or else there
wouldn’t be the “everlasting ruins”). Could be written in the land after the
return from exile. Could be people gathering where they used to gather for
worship and seeing the rubbles of what used to be glorious. Immediacy of memory
rather than physical presence.
l The “War Stand” of Ur: Memorial of victory. Demonstrates the
powerful redeeming work of God.
l The “Perpetual ruins” (2nd temple) are a living
experience for the Jews today.
l For what should we lament as a Christian community? What does the
church lament for these days?
l One way poems can work is in liturgy.
