Mystery Parallelism
Clouds and thick darkness surround Him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne. Psalm 97:2 NASB
Righteousness and justice – Do you know the mystery of righteousness and justice? Oh, we’re familiar with the Hebrew words, no doubt. ṣĕdāqâ (righteousness) and mišpāṭ (justice—but a lot more than our idea) are words we have studied often.[1] But we’ve never talked about the connection between these two crucially important words and mystery. The Psalmist notices this connection. When he writes the lyrics to Psalm 97, he tells us something very important, something buried in parallelism.
“What is parallelism? It is a structure of thought (rather than external form like meter or rhyme) in which the writer balances a series of words so that patterns of deliberate contrast or intentional repetition appear.”[2]
The parallelism in this verse marries righteousness with clouds and justice with thick darkness. Think about this. How is ṣĕdāqâ (righteousness) like ʿānān (clouds) or mišpāṭ like ʿărāpel (thick darkness)? We might start answering this question by noticing where these two words also appear in the Tanakh. Immediately we find that they are descriptions of the Sinai event: cloud (ʿānān), and thick gloom (waʿărāpel) (Deut 4:11). They also appear in 2 Samuel 22:10, Job 22:13, 1 Kings 8:9-10 and Psalm 18:9. All of these verses are about the majesty of God, cloaked in non-human ways, experienced as terrifying mystery. And now we recognize the parallel. How is righteousness like clouds? Righteousness is often wrapped in a kind of moral and spiritual fog. It’s hard to see what’s really there. Just like clouds, the landscape below is shrouded, only partially visible. In addition, clouds are constantly moving, changing, being reshaped by the circumstances of wind, sun, and topography. They are critically important to life. They bring the blessing of rain and shade, but they also enclose terrifying lightning and raging storms. Righteousness is also crucial for life, but perhaps unpredictable, shifting, hard to see clearly.
And ărāpel? Ah, yes, isn’t God’s governance (which is the enlarged meaning of mišpāṭ) like thick darkness? We know that God governs—everything, but trying to see how that happens is like trying to pierce the thick darkness of Sinai. Better to send the prophet into the darkness than attempt personal exploration. God’s interactions in this world are truly hidden from us. Only once in awhile do we see His hand clearly. Most of the time it actually appears that He is absent, but He’s not. He’s only concealed from us by the thick darkness of mišpāṭ.
What’s the lesson? As Heschel points out,[3] God dwells in the clouds and thick darkness. If you want to find Him, that’s where you need to go. The path will be shrouded in mystery. The way will not always be clear. What He is doing might seem obscure. But there is majesty there, and awe—and compassion. You will survive even if the journey seems like walking in the dark.
Topical Index: clouds and thick darkness, ʿānān, ʿărāpel, ṣĕdāqâ, righteousness, mišpāṭ, Psalm 97:2
[1] for a brief selection see: https://skipmoen.com/tag/mishpat/ and https://skipmoen.com/tag/tsedaqah/
[2] for a full explanation, see https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/diagram_Hebrew_Poetry.html
[3] Abraham Heschel, Between God and Man, (Free Press Paperbacks, 1959), p. 49.
