Don’t Hold Your Breath

How long will you attack a man to batter him, like a leaning wall, a tottering fence?  Psalm 62:3  ESV

How long – Three thousand years and counting.  That’s how long.  Does that seem possible?  Does it seem reasonable?  David asks the perrenial human question.  How long do we have to wait, Lord?  Lifetime after lifetime – and still we are battered and beaten.  We are exhausted with waiting, God.  We are bone tired and soul sick, and still we wait.

If there is any consolation, perhaps it is to be found in the hints about the Hebrew word ad-ana’.  The whole expression is a bit strange to our ears.  It is literally “until where.”  There are some other translation possibilities.  “During where,” “up to where,” or “as far as where” might be possible.  But any of these seem strange.  It makes sense when we encounter the word in the expression, “Where is your God?” (Pslam 79:10), but it doesn’t seem to make any sense as an expression of temporal duration.  Unless, perhaps, we change our view of temporality.

We often make the mistake of thinking of time like we think of space.  We imagine time as a line with temporal positioning.  So the present is where we are on the line, the past is what has gone by us and the future is what lies ahead of us.  The problem with this view is that time isn’t space.  Time is an expression of the relativity of a relationship frame.  Therefore, temporality is not determined by fixed “events” but rather by contingent relationships.  (That was a mouthful, wasn’t it?).  What this means is that David’s question is not so strange in Hebrew thought.  You can think of it in terms of the two expressions for “where” in Hebrew.  The first, ‘eyfoh or ‘ephoh, expresses geographical location.  The second, ‘ayyeh or in this verse ad, is an expression of surprise that the expected has not materialized.  This second expression was the subject of our inquiry some years ago. 

If we apply this distinction, we discover that David may not be lamenting God’s temporal delay as much as he is decrying the unexpected behavior of God.  In other words, it is not about how much time has elapsed.  It is about the absence of the anticipated and expected relationship.  It is the surprise that God still acts as He does.  Our Greek mentality converts this word into a point on the timeline, but Hebrew doesn’t think like that.  For David it is not about a point on some imaginary river of time.  It is the sheer audacity that God’s compassion and mercy seem to be missing.  How long they have been missing is irrelevant.  What matters to David is that this God, the rock God of absolute faithfulness, is manifested in ways that he cannot reconcile.  It is the absence of grace in relationship that causes David’s disintegration.

How do you count God’s involvement?  Do you count months, years, centuries like Greek time thinkers, or do you voice your surprise and dismay that this God of ‘emunah does not show Himself as you expected?

Topical Index:  ad-ana’, how long, time, Psalm 62:3