The Teacher
“Lord, make me to know my end and what is the extent of my days; let me know how transient I am.” Psalm 39:4 NASB
Make me know – The Jewish Bible translates this opening phrase as “I would know when I will cease.” The verb is familiar, yādaʿ, used 944 times in the Tanakh for virtually every kind of knowing, from the most intimate experience to distant facts. Here the context demands a feeling of rigorous examination. The tense is Hif’il, causative. David pleads for YHVH to reveal to him what he can’t possibly determine for himself: When will it be over? When will I die and be done with all this?
But this is not what we expected at all! Verse 3 ends with an impassioned sense of judgment. We are ready for the king to take names and kick ass. Instead we hear the most important man in the land proclaiming his insignificance. He’s just a passing wisp of being, a temporary pause in God’s great purposes. He might be the king, but when it comes to death, he’s no different than any other man. Alone and inconsequential. Who among us isn’t precisely in this place? Do we really know anything about the impact of our lives? Do we have any clue about our place in the grand scheme of the universe? Jean Paul Sartre wrote the existential landmark Being and Nothingnessfor the purpose of pointing out the purposelessness of life. In the end, who can say what really matters?
What a shock to the audience! They were ready for royal judgment, but they got divine insignificance. And maybe that’s what they really needed to hear. Members of royalty, by birth or proximity, have a tendency to think of themselves as important, above the common masses due to stature or bloodline. David’s opening salvo removes any pretentions to greatness. If the king is but a will-of-the-wisp in the great divine plan, who are the rest of us? If God’s anointed sees nothing ahead but the grave, cancelling out all assertions of greatness, then the rest of us are pond scum on the roiling sea. Aren’t we?
David’s magnificent emotional confrontation, revealing the heart of a king in distress, emphasizes the commonality of all men and women. We are all bound for the end. We are all incapable of managing our fate. All of our efforts, for good or bad, are swallowed up in eternity. No one has ever solved this riddle of existence. Even the great Greek rationalists stumbled over the fact that time marches on—without us.
“Make me know” uses the verb yādaʿin the causative sense, but the next phrase, “let me know,” uses yādaʿ in the Qal imperfect. Why does David make this change? Why switch from a causative to an unfinished verb tense? David’s request is not simply a one time, fix the date on the calendar appeal. David’s choice of the Qal imperfect suggests that this question presses upon us every day. We never know when, and as a result, the question of life lingers on and on, presenting itself each new day until that time when the question no longer matters. In fact, ḥādēl, the word translated “transient,” is an adjective about the fleeting things of life. Its nuances include forsake, leave and reject. Aren’t these also part of the trauma of the human condition? Stand at the gravesite of a loved one. Isn’t there a sense of being forsaken, of being left behind, of being rejected—even if we are convinced that the dead enjoy the presence of God? Something has been lost, perhaps robbed from us; something we can’t recover no matter how strong our theological justifications.
David wants his audience, those wicked among the privileged, to feel the fruitlessness of living. Why? Because all those schemes, those conspiracies for power, those maneuvers to gain advantage, amount to nothing when She’ol opens wide. If the hope of Man is prediction and control, death holds the trump card—always! When the wicked believe that they will get away with it, they are fools, ethical fools, pretending that the end can be forestalled through their own willpower. Many centuries later the rabbis would caution us, “Repent one day before you die.” The exhortation follows David’s insight. You never know!
Now let’s consider the impact on David’s audience. Expecting David (like Jack Nicholson) to launch a simultaneous discharge of ethical artillery (“You can’t handle the truth”), David shifts the ground. He provides an object lesson in humility, and the object of the lesson is himself. If the king can admit the trauma of transitory existence, how much more must the audience recognize the futility of its own claims of control? David withholds his emotion, and when he lets it go, he doesn’t attack. He follows Moses, the meek. Not Moses the fearful or Moses the cowering. No, this is the Moses who can argue with God on behalf of the people and yet be called the meekest of all men.[1] The man who knew his place and his role. The man who held no pretentions about his greatness but learned humility in serving. Do you suppose that king David is teaching his audience at the same time that the message of ephemeral existence penetrates their thinking?
Life is fleeting. Why do we think we can avoid the consequences of our disobedience?
Topical Index: yādaʿ, know, ḥādēl, transitory, humble, Psalm 39:4
[1]Numbers 12:3 (“Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face of the earth.”) The Hebrew word is ʿānāw, a word pregnant with affliction, humility and poverty.
Topical Index: yādaʿ, know, ḥādēl, transitory, humble, Psalm 39:4
[1]Numbers 12:3 (Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face of the earth.) The Hebrew word is ʿānāw, a word pregnant with affliction, humility and poverty.
I am beginning to suspect that the essence of sin is the mistake of thinking we are the source of our own life or the lives of others: that it is ‘all up to us’. Even science can no longer assert this, however, for we now have the tools to see that life is a collective phenomenon. For example, we can see that the soil itself is alive: that the life that inhabits it acts in concert to keep it so, and that we are no different. We share life as a collective. Life is an index of how plugged in we are to the commonwealth: a truly solitary person is a walking corpse.
What is the ‘meaning’ of life? Well, if life is collective, then that meaning must derive from how well (vs. how poorly) we are connected to – contributing to – the whole. How many have come to the end of their days and said: “I am not afraid to die because I know that I am connected: even my death has meaning because of the love that joins me to the rest of that collective life that is better off – as I have been better off, even in dying – because I am connected to it.”
Dr. Zack Bush puts it this way: a cancer cell goes into a frenzy of self cloning because it is isolated. A normal cell is programmed to commit hari kari and trust its genetics to replicate, but those genetic programs rely upon a common sharing of life with the cells around it: the very identity of a cell is all about the shared substrate, and how well it is being shared. Death is just fine if you know that life will be able to go on without ‘you’. A cancer cell, by contrast – because of silence, or loss of communication with other cells – has lost this assurance of the continuance of the (collective) life it was created to uphold.
I believe sinners suffer, like the cancer cell, from the notion that they are ‘all alone’, too, and that unbearable thought that life ENDS WITH THEM creates the illusion that it begins and continues with them, too; that they are a ‘source’. A cell that is plugged in and getting feedback that everyone else is ok – that life is still collectively going well – understands that (because of shortened telemeres and damage beyond the ability to repair, etc.) it needs to get out of the way of a new version of itself: a mini resurrection, as it were. And so the seed also falls to the ground to be transformed, through a new birth, into the collective ability to continue that shared life in that shared life/Body.
Resurrection hope is not possible for the cancer cell or the sinner, however; the best ‘hope’ they have is mere cloning, which is the attempt to recreate reality in their own ‘image’. Here we find expectations, forced outcomes; manipulation of all sorts by those who believe that it all begins and ends with them; and all this activity runs on the desperation of the hardwired attempt to obey the command to life(!) On this planet, however, life is only possible if the seed, or damaged cell, or sinner’s soul, dies and transforms or resurrects into the ability to continue the collective life we all share. The sinner, like the cancer cell, has lost the hope that that death will continue that life; therefore I think they both scramble to ‘live’, or continue their current state, ‘forever’, for there is no hope beyond that grave for them.
ICor. 15 teaches this. In verse 19 it states that if salvation (“hope in Christ”) is only for the current state of our life (damaged as it is in its ability to contribute correctly in that collective life dance) then “we are of all men most miserable” so, in verse 30 it asks “And why then stand we in jeopardy every hour?” The answer is that “death has lost its sting”.
I think only those who have confidence in a resurrection into a more perfectly joined commonwealth can believe that their death contributes to life – their shared life. David can dare ask to be reminded of that imminent current state only because he has confidence in declaring with Job “in my flesh shall I see God” (Job 19:26) and exclaiming with Balaam “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his” (Num. 23:10). I believe this hope is echoed in Prov. 14:32: “but the righteous has hope in his death”. David has the ability to risk even death in a confrontation with evil because he is not afraid to face the necessity of laying down that life if the common good requires it. Now, that is a death we can, because of salvation (and, with David, should), be able to face every day! Halleluah!
Thanks. This is good. However, it has the following implication: if life is a collective, then I become responsible under God for ALL the collective (as His regent of life in this world) and that means I am intimately connected to, and responsible for, all the massive damage being caused by human actions to the rest of life on this planet. If we keep on this track, all life will die. So, the question is not, “What will I do about it?” but rather, “How much of what I already do is contributing to death?”
If we are not an active part of the solution, then, we ARE the problem. No neutrality, right?
Right. The ocean in the Philippines is not full of trash by accident. Our soil is no longer productive by accident. Children are obese not by accident. Air pollution is not a natural phenomenon. Plastic isn’t found in the stomachs of birds by accident. Poaching isn’t accidental. But neither is consumerism or Christmas. There is no neutrality.
This is not encouraging, If I am responsible for every sin why bother? No way I can help with such a large task. Of course It is the grace and mercy of Yeshua, that makes me able to stand,. Yet sometimes for me taking theses things to their logical conclusion just suckes all the hope and faith right out of the room. What is the purpose of that?
But that is one of the fruits of isolationist thinking: that it is ‘all up to me’, right? Wrong! We cannot even pull our own selves out of our own sin (work our way to heaven), nor are we expected to. Cooperation with heaven is what we are saved back into. All that is required of us is a: keep our own nose clean – do what we have been freed to do – b: let love work through us to deal with what has been placed in front of us ( “way”), and c: repent for OUR END of all fractures that affect us.
It can be discouraging to know that all fracture (sin) affects all, but it can be encouraging at the same time, for that gives us authority to be a part (notice that is a PART) of the solution. It empowers us to pray, love, intercede, ask for solutions and the implementation of those solutions. This is a return to power: the power of stewardship. If one person can change the world simply because they are standing in their own skin dealing with what is in front of their own face, then all of us can do the same. And let it begin with me.
Amen, and right on the money, Laurita! Jesus did it. He took the sins of the whole world upon himself = was responsible for it. No offence to David, – but that’s what real KING is like in my view.
“In order to gain possession of ourselves, we have to have some confidence, some hope of victory. In order to keep that hope alive, we must usually have some taste of victory. We must know what victory is and like to better than defeat.” Thomas Merton I think we haven’t tasted enough victory to know what it is. Our culture’s model of victory is so counter to our Messiah’s model of victory. Skip and you are helping me understand what victory looks like. I hope I can trust enough to taste and see that it is good.
Agreed, I (as a single human being) can only do what is before me individually , my calling, my opportunities, my responsibilities, yet I am part of a grater collective (humanity). This collective is moved by and is part of the larger organic systemn. That systemn inter-related and interdependent. All these elements flow somehow within the sphere of influence of the creator and grater spiritual forces , while each self aware and motivated by independent free will to interact or isolate. And as you have recently shared Laurita, isolation is cancerous. (Cloud9 mirrors this perespective substantively below in her 12:50 post)
Mark, you voiced what I have decided is the default belief system of all of us: if all else fails, we all know right where we buried that belief that we are alone in our backyards. Like Robert Lafoy asks so well; how much of our “rugged individualism” (Theresa T.) is actually attributed to us at the end of our little day? That isolation is costing us the collective victory that shared life IS. I think this is why we cannot be ‘saved’ and still be isolated, for salvation – victory – IS the life that is only found in that collective. This is really basic stuff, and I suspect that everything (creeds, ritual, etc.) that does not result in cohesion of the Body/renewed stewardship cannot be of the Head. Here is the fruit test.
Large tasks are often resolved one small issue at a time
And the exponential power unleashed by even one single connection: not to mention “where two or three are gathered” is probably unlimited. Look at the connection between Yeshua and His Father and how that changed everything else, and realize we have been challenged (called) to “do likewise”. At that point, it becomes rather clear that the only possible reason that we “have not” is because we are, well… not showing up (faith) to this equation? (I am talking to myself, of course.)
No, Laurita, Actually —–it causes most of us to realize, that’s most of our answers–thank Yeshua for the New Covenant. As Paul writes in 2 Co 5:17, Therefore, If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. The old has passed away, behold the new has come. And if we are walking daily with Christ our lives should show it. And be connected to one another.. Shalom
Whoo hoo, Sugar Ray. That’s what a Head is for, after all. He IS our connection (“righteousness”). walking with Him returns us to sharing His interests – both intimate and universal – instead of being lost in what the world calls our ‘own’ (no such thing).
After reading this I had these thoughts (1) while I am an important part of the whole body I am most responsible for carrying out my individual part. (2) when the liver is not functioning properly the kidney will do extra so I am connected to the whole and expected to be a participant in the restoration and health of the whole (3) cutting off a healthy hand not the same as cutting of a grangrenes hand sometimes you have to let a part go for the sake of the whole (4) Ezekiel 18:20 reads “The person who sins [is the one that] will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the sin of the father, nor will the father bear the punishment for the sin of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be on himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be on himself.” (5) Ezekiel 14:13-14 reads “Son of man, if a land sins against Me by committing unfaithfulness, and I stretch out My hand against it and destroy its source of bread and send famine on it and cut off from it both man and animal, even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job were in that land, by their own righteousness (right standing with God) they could only save (deliver) themselves,” says the Lord God. (5) what individuals do affect the whole human ecosystem. There are things I can live without but that’s more the exception and not the rule.
The earliest memories I have of the consequences of disobedience involved not getting good presents from Santa. In the Protestant church, Jesus covered any eternal negative consequences I might have. If sin is lawlessness, and the law is obsolete, what is sin anyways? So, we don’t really know what disobedience is and even if we disobey, Jesus takes it all away. We don’t fear God anymore. Wisdom teaches us to number our days. No fear, no wisdom. I often think of Solomon’s advice after a life long search for wisdom. Fear God and keep his commandments for this applies to every person. David is sending the same message. You answered the question of why we ignore the message a short time ago. We don’t experience the consequences of our sin because the mercy of God gives us time to repent. We continue to grieve and quench the Spirit until we don’t really experience conviction anymore. Our rugged individualism discourages humility.
It’s apparent David wrote this Psalm in a time of distress, yet, even so, the reader can sense his desire to maintain his spiritual purity in spite of the enemies surrounding him. Is he truly feeling inconsequential; a fruitlessness of living; a divine insignificance? Is he hoping to leave a teaching legacy of our ephemeral existence? Does he remember the words he wrote in Psalm 8:4-6?
4 What is man, that you are mindful of him? and the son of man, that you care for him?
5 For you made him a little lower than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put all things under his feet.
9 O LORD, our God, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Remember that we are only partway through this psalm. And this song is only one of the many emotional issues that David explores. So hang on. Let him talk about what he feels. And we will see what happens.
Oops, sorry…premature prognostication?? ?
And at what cost do we “win” when we exert our will over others. I remember the L.A. riots and am watching what’s going on in Paris. The “leaders” exerted their will to win the day and lost it, the people responded in violence to “show” who had the power, the community at large lost on that one also. Kind produces like kind, whether it’s a nation, city, small community, family or one on one. I may not be the one who physically engages in burning and destruction but that doesn’t mean I didn’t provoke the desire. One has to ask that if on that day, when my neighbor is found wanting, how much of their loss will be attributed to me. Be careful little mouth what you say…… but it’s from the heart that the issues of life flow. Back to the guarding part.