Manasseh
O that You would slay the wicked, O God; depart from me, therefore, men of bloodshed. Psalm 139:19 NASB
Would slay– When you woke up this morning, did you think to yourself, “Oh, my, God has been so faithful to draw my life out of the past and return it to me today.” Perhaps you began with:
Modeh ah-nee lifanecha, Me-lech chai v’kayam, she-hechezarta bee nishma-tee b’chemlah rabbah emunatecha.
“I give thanks before you, King living and eternal, for You have returned within me my soul with compassion; abundant is Your faithfulness!”
Since this is the “prayer upon waking” for orthodox Jews today, perhaps it began with thoughts from David. It would be a natural extension of yesterday’s verse.
Now David extends the thought of being alive one more day by God’s grace. What is David’s first reaction upon waking to God’s goodness? “Oh, that the wicked would be gone.” Perhaps, if you think about it, you might feel the same way. When you wake up and realize that you are here only by God’s goodness, wouldn’t you also want all those who oppose Him to be eliminated? Wouldn’t you want a world where only those who are grateful to God inhabit His creation? Wouldn’t you want God to execute justice in the world? If, upon waking, you are overwhelmed by God’s purposeful presence, now and throughout history, isn’t it appropriate to desire His enemies to be slain?
Once again we find a rare Hebrew word. qāṭal, “to slay,” appears only here and in Job 24:14. The derivative, qeṭel, only appears in Obadiah 9. Interestingly, the passage in Job is about unjustified violence toward the poor. Measure for measure: if those who do harm toward God’s protected people are left unpunished, how can we continue to praise God’s purposeful presence? No, they must experience the same action they perpetrated: death. In the Tanakh, capital punishment is never systematically avoided. It is part of God’s purpose. The wicked who take a life should give a life.
Now step back from the details of this verse and examine the general shift in the poem. In some ways this reminds me of a pseudepigraphic work from the first century BCE called “The Prayer of Manasseh”. That prayer is supposed to reflect the confession and repentance of Israel’s most wicked king, Manasseh. The pattern of the prayer is important. It begins with praise for God’s creation and faithfulness toward the patriarchs. It continues by extolling the awesome character of God. Only after all this is there any hint of supplication for the speaker, and only then in relation to the praise that God will receive for forgiving a most wicked man. It ends with a declaration of God’s grace. In other words, it isn’t like any of the typical prayers for forgiveness that we are used to. In fact, the only reason offered for God to forgive is that He will receive glory in the act. But the emphasis is on the deserved punishment of the wicked. The content of the prayer follows this pattern: God, You are great. Everything You do is great. Your actions toward my ancestors were always full of grace. You are glorified by Your graceful response. I don’t deserve anything, but You will be even more honored by forgiving a man who doesn’t deserve it. All honor is Yours. The emotional flow is more like this: God is in charge of everything; I am nothing. But God loves the sinner like me. God deserves all the praise He can get. The wicked like me deserve nothing. But if God forgives, He will be even more honored. Therefore, there is a good reason for Him to forgive me.
David’s poem seems similar. God is in charge of everything. I feel as if I really don’t count. But God loves me anyway and considers me valuable. Therefore, I will praise Him for all He does. The wicked deserve punishment and punishing them will honor God. I want the same justice God wants. I hate His enemies. But, God, please examine me and see if there is anything in me that needs graceful correction.
At this turning point in the poem, David aligns himself with God’s wrath against the wicked. By doing so he overcomes his prior feelings of constraint. His alignment against God’s enemies gives him reason to accept the restrictions he felt about God’s knowing. He and God agree about the need for justice. That’s good enough. Isn’t it?
Topical Index: qāṭal, to slay, prayer upon waking, Manasseh, justice, Psalm 139:19
Excellent timing. Skip I’ve been telling people about the siddur oh, they aren’t too interested in it. But I grew up with it in the faith after knowing Yeshua. It has been revolutionary. They like texts in the Apocrypha and now it’s realize that this is in there also.. this will be groundbreaking why should we be any different he judges the righteous and the wicked. We must stay close to him having him in our deepest thoughts and in our minds. We were once the wicked without him we still would be, are part of a still wants to be, that part is being changed. If we can believe it day-by-day changed. Hallelujah
I don’t think this Psalm would go over well in the new world order of “tolerance” (where righteousness is measured by how perfectly we can ignore the unrighteousness of others), but I think the human-centered idea of “tolerance” assumes that a: connection with others is optional and can be ‘chosen’ (or not) and b: we can determine that connection. However, this ignores the fact that reality already weaves everything and everyone together whether they like it or not: we don’t get to opt in or out, so therefore the choice to ‘tolerate’ (which I think is the world’s substitute for actually reaching out and touching) is no virtue; in fact, it is self-illusory.
Sin is fracture: righteousness is the restoration of fracture; but fracture still transfers reality between the fractured pieces. Just because I choose to walk on the other side of the road from your distress does not mean that your distress does not affect me: in fact my decision to ignore you ties me to you in yet more ways. For example, unforgiveness is where we try to distance ourselves from those who hurt us, but in actuality it is agreeing with their being able to continue to hurt us (as well as causing us to sin, further, too). Most sin that people commit, I am convinced, is because of the sin of others that they have not successfully unhitched themselves from (mostly by means of that forgiveness). I think this is because the poor choices of others do affect us, and so drive our judgment (bitterness); but apparently we don’t get off God’s hook unless and until we let others off our hook. Surely this must be because we are all still connected even when we are fractured. Nothing is neutral.
So, because we are all still connected, this means if we are not actively against (“hating”) the sin in others, we are for it: we are justifying it: which is to say we are still being driven by it to commit more concommitant sin (such as unforgiveness) in our own lives. In other words, we are still tolerating it! This requires us to make a stand because the sin of others will continue to force us to sin, too; at least until we change our relationship to their sin. (News flash: unforgiveness is not hatred of sin: it is hatred of sinners, which is further sin.) “Tolerance”? That’s just where we are still hooked to the problem instead of to the solution.
I think when God hates, He either detaches from someone or something, or He sorts it out into a lower relationship (i.e. when He said “Esau have I hated” it was because he ranked Esau lower than Jacob; not where He decided not to love Esau). So how do we learn this righteous kind of hatred? I think we have to quit agreeing with (tolerating) the sin in others: not by fighting others (that would be witchcraft, or directly engaging with evil), but by putting God back on the throne in our own lives (which is what David does with the rest of the Psalm) Because we are all connected, we have power to change all else: when we change, (because everything around us is affected by us) it forces all else to change, too. Changing myself instead of trying to change (fight) others is really scary, y’all!
I think the best way to hate evil is to love God and obey Him first. That makes Him the Head again on this planet (in us), which forces everything else around us to be the tail (“get thee behind me, Satan”?). And let it begin with me.
Whoa, that’s heavy stuff sister! Once again, it’s not surface stuff that Skip is talking about. It takes time to ponder and contemplate who God is, how he has shown himself to be and how he wants to be in our lives. The actualizing of God. Something is happening within me in regards to others who I have been offended by. Other members of the body of Christ, leadership basically. So what do I naturally do when I am offended, I pull away, whether I realize it or not I cause a fissure into which infection can set in, spiritually speaking and maybe even physically .
Since God is all about healing, he hovers in order to heal. The oil that flowed down Aaron’s beard. What I’m trying to say here and having a difficult time is that as I have fellowship with God and allow him to heal those wounded places with his love, I find amazingly, the forgiveness and letting go of the offense and receiving my brother as he is. Sorry for having to use so many words and still not saying it well. I’m just finding as I interact with God it is impacting my relationships without necessarily having to work on it in the typical fashion. The love of God flows. As I receive his love for me, as I am, this same love goes out to others. Probably what he intended ! Okay Larry, stop talking now….,
One last thing. I looked up self contempt on the web and it came up as “self-hatred “. It’s interesting how we can dress up a feeling with a fancy word and yet it doesn’t change the fact of what it really is. I cannot heal myself but I can be transformed by the renewing of my mind as new information is downloaded in my system. We cannot transform ourselves but we can set ourselves up for this transformation to occur by renewing our minds! Pretty awesome.
Sorry if I got off track there, Skip!
I never viewed unforgiveness as distancing myself from those who have hurt me. So if someone sexually abused your young children you would not keep your distance? I thought unforgiveness was when you wanted them to suffer or you let it destroy your own peace. I have really felt a heaviness since New York’s “celebration” of their pro abortion laws. I came to the same conclusion that the best way to advance the Kingdom of YHVH and impact my world is to love and obey God. Do I commit murder with my tongue? Am I governing my own self wisely and peacefully? Do I make choices that nurture life? Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
Good question, Theresa. I think we can choose to be connected in unrighteousness OR in love. There are unholy bonds that can tie us to the sin in another. Forgiveness breaks those bonds by restoring love (true connection). Now, how do you hug a porcupine – I do mean how do you love a toxic person? If unforgiveness does not keep us ‘safe’ then what does? Love cannot occur without trust, but trust is built upon safety. It took me decades to see that when I approached the sinner in their sin; when I tolerated or excused or allowed their sin to contaminate me, not only was I not ‘safe’; I was opening a vein of sin for them to sin even more against me. The sin in others ‘needs’ sin in me to ‘hide’ behind. When I quit participating (or tolerating), their sin looks like what it is. Their sin looked like what it really was when I quit giving it a place to hide behind mine. Too much light for sin! They quit! Surprise! Apparently it takes two to tango in love OR in sin.
Obedience to God (love) may appear to make us vulnerable to the sin in others, but that obedience allows Him to fight for us when we quit ‘fighting’ (or thinking we have to protect) ourselves. This is faith. I could not see, when I was agreeing with the sin in others, how I was part of the problem. When I decided to forgive (obedience) ONLY THEN could I see a path of true safety, where God could fight for me. (At that point, the other person decided I was no longer ‘of interest’. Interesting!
In my case, I had to accept that His will for me may include physical distance from the toxic person so as to stop them from sinning against me further. People sin against others when they feel unsafe. Moving outside their self-constructed fence around their vulnerable, intimate places re-establishes a point for them where they feel ‘safe’, even if they have to be alone to think that they are safe. I had to grieve that sadness (and take the responsibility for that move, too) because, of course, the sinner is always going to be stuck and can not move at all, (except to sin more). I love this person, still, but that love resides in a quieter place these days, outside their self-chosen isolation/destruction. I have chosen not to share their destruction. It’s sadder (but safer), and also a better place from which to offer a true helping hand should they choose to want it.
My new conclusion about loving toxic people is that I should only get down in ditches with people who actually want help getting out of them.
Thank you. I’m still trying to understand how it all fleshes out in real time. Your last sentence is especially helpful.
Co-dependence is where we love the sin instead of the sinner because they are hiding behind that sin: “love me; love my sin”. That is ‘love’ on sin’s terms: sin in the name of love. Unfortunately, I think we have all been well trained to do it; some of us more than others, perhaps, but I want to say it sure does give love a bad rap!
….Or leave it to someone else, who is not involved, that can help them out of their ditch!
Thank you, Theresa, that helped me to think a little deeper (?) differently (?). I’m certainly not saying because I forgive someone, I place myself in a position where I can be hurt again. Of course it depends also on the offense itself. Forgiveness, sets ME free. Somehow unforgiveness keeps me attached. I have found that forgiveness is not a one time occurrence, but in some cases, especially as God heals the soul I have to reiterate ( to myself) my forgiveness.
Forgive us our debts AS we forgive our debtors . Release.
Just a couple of thoughts for whatever they’re worth!
I have been around a lot of toxic people. I’ve been exposed to heinous sin. I never knew how I could be safe. Trust doesn’t come easy and love is more of a concept at times. I think we are both making progress though! 🙂 The one I have the hardest time forgiving is myself. I didn’t know how to deal with such toxic people. My children paid a high price. I need to forgive myself for my part through codependence. I’ve noticed that people who have had much trauma, like us, are drawn to Laurita’s posts. We are blessed. I’m glad you were helped. He has begun a good work in us; He will be faithful to complete it.
Yes, I totally agree! Yay for us !