Cultural Context
I was mute and silent, I refrained even from good, and my sorrow grew worse; Psalm 39:2 NASB
Grew worse – Let’s make sure we read this in a Hebraic context. In the Western world, sorrow is usually an internal, personal experience. It would probably be located in the “sad” dimension of the “feelings wheel,” right along with stupid, inferior, lonely, depressed and ashamed.[1]But this is Western psychology, not Semitic Zeitgeist. When we look at the etymology of this word, we discover a different perspective. “ʿākar reflects the social dimension of an individual’s action. A person’s negative action (this word always has a negative concept) has a harmful influence not only on himself, but also upon others.”[2] When David says that his sorrow grew worse, he isn’t speaking about a growing internal intensity. He’s speaking about a growing sense of the social harm inflicted by the wicked—and the demand to do something about it. He experiences a social phenomenon—the destructive force of evil across the whole community.
We could modernize this sentiment. “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”[3] David would say, “The only thing necessary is to say nothing.” But saying something always involves risk, doesn’t it? Does that mean it is easierto remain silent? David’s lyrics tell us, “No!” Silence produces more distress, not just within our own consciousness but also in the public arena. It takes almost no reflection to see that this is entirely true. When good men remain silent, evil in the community triumphs. Perhaps we should connect this with Onkelos’ translation of Genesis 1:27, “man became a speaking being.”[4] Even anthropologically, Man differs from all other animals in his ability to speak (I did not say “communicate”). Perhaps David’s insight is far deeper than the inevitable triumph of evil when the good is silent. Perhaps David is implying that we lose some essential part of our humanity when we withhold speaking the truth. When that happens, internal and external strife is magnified. A community cannot survive silence in the face of evil. All modern ethical concern for tolerance of what the Bible considers antinomian (lawlessness) is mistaken. Tolerance doesn’t not produce equality. It generates contempt, despair, confusion and destruction. There is a very good reason why YHVH instructed His people to cleanse the land before they occupied it. Tolerance is incompatible with the biblical idea of good.
Now David experiences the same distress that Joshua felt when Joshua realized his tiny compromise put the entire nation in jeopardy. The Book of Judges is the story of the inevitable decline into civil war because of tolerance. Now David faces the same issue—and he is the king. What should he do?
What would you do?
Topical Index: grew worse, ʿākar, silence, evil, Psalm 39:2
[1]https://www.simplemost.com/feeling-wheel-will-help-better-describe-emotions/
[2]Schultz, C. (1999). 1621 עָכַר. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament(electronic ed., p. 666). Chicago: Moody Press.
[3]On the origin of this famous quote see https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/12/04/good-men-do/
Well, I think I can see quite well what it would have probably taken for those in community around me to speak up for the disaster in my family. They would have had to ‘own’ a part of not only the problem but also the solution. This is where I believe accusation, in its simple form of merely pointing the moral finger, anyway, falls short of righteousness. Righteousness consists of actually righting the wrongs: of taking responsibility for our portion of that wrong. In community, private choices reverberate in public space: they affect others. This is where public confession is critical to reestablishing communal ties that the sin jeopardized, but it is also where your sin becomes, in some measure, my responsibility, too.
I believe we were created with sovereignty and autonomy (authority). Sin is where we forfeit both: where we choose to limit future choices (freedom). Where does that authority go? Good question. I suspect it follows the responsibility that we chose to duck right on out the door into the community we chose to jeopardize. Now the community has to get involved in restoration, which involves identifying the problem (sin), owning it (confession) and making restitution to the one(s) harmed – including that community.
David can see that wrong choices of others affect him, too. What is the correct response to sin? Get involved! Speak up for the damaged party (which is the naming of the sin). Bring the sinner to a confession point: walk alongside them until they see it, too, and want to reverse the damage, and see HOW TO. Oversee restoration and restitution. When we can see that we have skin in the game of those around us: that their choices affect us – our community: our substrate – then we become motivated to get involved.
I think when our community failed to step forward and identify the problem of my family as theirs – and take responsibility for restoration, too – everybody lost. When are we going to learn how to act like the collective organism we were created to function as? Probably about the time we get tired of dying alone: of silence: of acting like private cancer cells. Life is a collective action. Time to speak up!
O, Laurita, this breaks my heart. For years Abba has impressed on me the need to operate as a body with individual parts each fulfilling their unique role. Messiah is returning for a body not a corporation or business. What a travesty that this is not a one off where you are concerned but an ongoing issue that we as believers struggle with. Praise YHVH for those who are speaking up (thank you Skip and repliers!). It is not easy to swim against the tide of years of false understanding, but as the many membered body, we MUST deal with injured parts and continue to struggle for wholeness. No one body part is exempt from sin or failure and the way the other parts relate to that sin or injury is critical. And we have instruction on how to do it. Unfortunately, too many go by outside sources or doctrinal interpretation and the part that is broken is not bound up and rehabbed but in most cases it is just cut off. This debilitates the rest of the body in some way, just as you say, and leaves a legless or armless body trying to pretend it is whole and a detached arm or leg flailing about trying to sustain life. Father, reveal our sin that we may confess, repent and receive forgiveness to become what you have created and purposed for Your glory and our blessing! I love you my sister, and thank you for the wealth that comes from Abba through you.
Great analogy, Sherri! I love you too, sister. I, too, think we sin out of a love deficit; not a judgment deficit. I believe sin is primarily a trust issue (“whatsoever is not of trust is sin”); not a result of doctrinal error, per se. Therefore, I think ‘punishing’ others for error by cutting them off does not address the lack of faith (which is the cause of sin) they are suffering from in the first place.
William Shakespeare popularized the quote “All that glitters is not gold.” For this conversation allow me to paraphrase it twofold as:
“All that shiver are not cold” and “All that withers is not old.” Bear with me. I don’t mean to play the victim card or the “Poor Me” hand, but rather present, from my perspective, the fatal flaw of modern Christianity, including the Messianic distillations. There are multitudes of souls who, for whatever reasons, are chronically and systematically excluded from the spiritual collectivism of the organism that has been espoused as The Body of Christ. As a result of frequently being disposed, displaced and disgraced many, myself included, have become cynical, even bitter. While I can accept responsibility for my inability to thrive, I do not accept blame for my failure to survive. Mugged isn’t a strong enough word to describe the feeling of being ostracized and murdered may be too strong, but, for me, the charge of “voluntary spiritual manslaughter” fits the crime.
When a person is not lovingly recieved into the local assembly with their flaws, failings and foibles, but rather is shunned, spurred or snubbed then the Body is guilty of “voluntary spiritual manslaughter” and it loses not only its limbs, but it’s purpose, charter and future. In my particular case there is more than enough blame to share, but segregation, seperation and solitude should never define the essence of anyone’s spiritual experience, nor should exclusivity, expediency or exploitation be in the unwritten bylaws of the behaviors of believers. I am not declaring defeat, but a mournful moratorium on my part to further attempt to be involved, included or invested in The Body of Believers. I am just too tired to try, too hurt to cry and too old to lie.
I think you have expressed the feelings of a lot of us. I am not sure it will get better, but I am sure, like all Hebrew stories, that if we could but see beneath the plot, we would find somehow God at work, doing what He knows needs to be done. I am impressed over and over by the fact that almost none of the characters in the Bible knew what their lives were really all about. Just like me. And perhaps just like you.
Yes, Skip, just like you. And while I have been rejected many times and in many places by the so called Body, I have never been mistreated or abandoned by the Head. Nor for that matter, by anyone in this cyber community. Say what you will about the necessity or reality of an online community presence, as for me a link is better than a barb. So Skip, I am profoundly grateful for Him, that, them and you. And I shall continue to cling to Psalm 27:10 (adding Luke 14:26) “Though my father and mother ( wife, children, brothers and sisters) forsake me, YHWH will receive me.”…and perhaps, you too.
What should he do? What would you do?
As suggested, I read the rest of the song and am continuing to do so as these commentaries are posted. It’s interesting that David’s response is to go inside first, realising his own frailty as well as others. It’s not that David doesn’t speak, or doesn’t want to, but first he measures himself. Whose hands are on the reins? Adoni’s or David’s? As you suggested, it’s not the destiny of the ones who are engaging in evil that is at stake, it’s concerning the whole of the assembly. Is it fear or hope we are instilling in our communities? We’re called to address the issue, not the soul, the soul responds when the issue is corrected. (or not) To cut off evil, (not neccesarily, evil ones) so the good can prosper.
It’s interesting to note that prisons aren’t a part of the biblical justice system, perhaps it’s because further binding of one doesn’t release them from the bonds they already have, it only adds to it. I wonder how much of our sense of justice is framed by our current society instead of the admonition of scripture. Isn’t the intent supposed to be deliverance leading to restoration? Any other intention is only transfering a soul from one cage to another. What does it take to be a conduit of the Living God? Isn’t there one who said, “I’ve come to give you life, and that more abundantly”
YHWH bless you and keep you……….
I’m strugeling with this direction. Having been one who does speak up , chalenges the wicked confronts evil; I have also suffered the pushback. ” No good deed goes unpunished” someone’s said to me once when I was whining about the push back. I get that David’s soul is being convicted by his silence and that when he has spoken up the adversaries or perhaps the Rauch HaKodesh tied up his tongue. These are mysteries no doubt. Yet we are faliable and “see through a glass dimly” and ” every mans ways are right in his own eyes yet in the end lead to death”. Personally I am more concerned that”The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil (over the good man) is that good men says or does the wrong thing at the wrong time.”. Considering the warnings of Amos 5:10-13 “They hate him who reproves in the gate and abhor him who speaks with integrity….therefore at such a time the prudent man keeps silent for the times are evil” . Probably not thoughts in line with this T.W. but they are what I am strugeling with regarding it. I do not doubt that most of us would agree these are evil times. What’s a good man (or woman) to do?
To clarify the good man often sayes the right thing at the wrong time…perhaps that’s why his tung gets tied?
I think the very existence of a person focused on staying connected with those who are attempting to break connections could be the biggest reproof of all. In my world, the “pushback” seemed to consist mostly of defensive attack: get the person who is standing in the place to see the disfunction because they are in the place (loving the sinner) to be AFFECTED BY IT before they ever speak up. I got told, after decades of accusation and criticism, that the accuser did it because they “felt judged”, even though I NEVER said anything! Yes, the drowning person is going to attempt to pull you under with them. Expect it. There is no ‘safe’ place on the bank to stand and throw stuff – even ‘good’ stuff like Heloise’s Helpful Hints. The sinner already knows they are messing up. What they are is stuck – not misinformed.
I think the break point of efficacy is to model freedom and extend an umbrella of grace. Alanon taught me the lost art of “attraction rather than promotion”. I thought they were wimpy nuts, but I began to realize that attraction is the only effective force in a universe built on love. Push back against love? Love more. Hard stuff! We have to love them until they can love themselves – pray for our enemies and dump coals of fire on their heads. The verses say nothing about telling them what they are doing wrong (“judging”). I think its because they already can guess; looking at us, who are scrambling to stay connected with them, anyway.
What I think your suggesting dear sister, is maintaining a strength of charecter and courage to stand in and continue in love in the face of the reactions and “push-back” to true and real love. This I am finding relies upon continually having our being within the presence of the Spirit of Truth in Grace. It’s that easy and that hard. When I fall back into myself, my resorces or my understanding, my natural male fix it mentality, I get weary or worse. ..
Me, too, Mark. I believe it boils down to motive, and, believe me, the targets of our concern are going to check! Do we REALLY love them (want to stay in relationship no matter what), or are we paying attention for other reasons? I have decided that the sin in others has an almost infinite capacity to discover the sin in us. I think this is the real reason we look for ways to keep on the other side of the road.
Your post triggered certain lessons I learned and practiced from Titus. Chapter 2 of Titus reminds me to teach/speak things which are in agreement with sound doctrine. This helped me when I was sharing an opinion based in my limited experience in life. It helped me to embrace other perspectives and find that shared value (if one existed). Chapter 3 of Titus spoke of how many times to warn a “divisive” man (twice), not someone who did not agree with my way but one who did not listen to sound doctrine. As I matured from these experiences I concluded there is a time to keep silent. I concluded that the truth is it’s own force and doesn’t need my extra “umphhh.” This lead to me recognizing my own energy in a matter so that what I approached in the spirit of “faith” did not take a dark turn towards “force.” Sometimes truth was not shared in love. It took a while to accept that my ego was involved in a few of those conversations. I had to practice not taking it personally and recognizing the voice and the BIG britches of my ego. I asked myself … Is this about my point or peace? Is this about righteousness or my need to be right? Is this about someone’s disagreement with sound doctrine or their rejection of me? The Word of God is a seed (alive and active); a LIVING word that will accomplish what it is set out to do. As for the soil .. well we know the parable…